July 20, 2006
Dear praying friends,

It hardly seems possible that we just celebrated the first anniversary
of our arrival in Spain! We look back over our first year here as a year filled
with great blessings, but not without difficulties as well. On June 11, the church in Almerìa had the inauguration of their new building. To celebrate that day, Bill put together a Power Point presentation that shows the people and the work done over the last year. We have copies of that presentation available for anyone who would like it. Please email us at rosestospain@yahoo.com if you would like to receive a copy. The service on inauguration day went well, and the Gospel was clearly presented. Almost every church member had at least one visitor come, with the attendance being 75 (a church record). We still have some returning visitors from that day. While no public decisions were made in the service, we believe the seed was planted in many who heard. All who attended received a packet of evangelistic materials to take home as well. On July 2nd two converts were baptized in the Mediterranean Sea. July 25, 26, & 27 have been set aside for a mini-Vacation Bible School. The flyers are being passed out (Jordan has invited his whole baseball team!), the preparations are being made, and we look forward to seeing what God will do through this event, the first ever VBS for the church.

Things are moving along with the African church as well. A date has been set to officially organize the church on September 10. Please pray for Bro Dave McDonald as he strives to complete the paperwork with the government. The McDonalds will be returning to the US for a six-month furlough in September, and Bill will be responsible to continue training candidates for future church leadership. The new location is working out well, although there is still some work to be done. It has been a blessing to have a separate room for the children, and our girls have enjoyed being able to do some puppet presentations for the little ones.

Although we have passed a milestone in fulfilling our first year in Spain, we are still unsettled in many areas. Bill’s paperwork is due for renewal, for which he has an appointment on August 7. We also need prayer about our Spanish driver’s license tests. We are enrolled in driving school and recently found out that if we can not complete the process by August 4, we have to wait until September to even try again; the employees are on vacation in August. Our van insurance expires on August 9th and the agent has told us that the company will not rewrite our policy until we have Spanish driver’s licenses, even though we hold both United States and International licenses. Please pray for us as we take both a written and a driving test. Please pray also that we will have wisdom to make educational decisions for our children. We are weighing the decision between home-schooling and Spanish education, and at this moment are unsure what God would have us to do. To those of you who so faithfully support us and pray for us we can not thank you enough. God has sustained us over the last year through you. Our prayer is that God will use us for His service and be glorified through all we do.

Striving together,

Bill & Dena Rose with Brianna, Kelsey, Jordan, Joshua, & Josiah