October 10, 2007

       Greetings from Southern Spain!  Here’s the continuing story . . . two of the boys from the kids’ school and baseball team went to camp with Kelsey and the McDonalds.  Both boys received Christ as Savior that week, but the story gets even better.  The Sunday after camp when they shared their testimony in the service, their mother came forward for salvation.  We are excited to see God working in their lives.  This week we have the family of one of Jordan’s friends coming over Friday to share in our “homemade pizza night.”  Their three children came to Vacation Bible School as well, and we pray that God will work in the life of this family also.  We’re excited about the new contacts we get every week from both the baseball program and the children’s schools.   

       The people of the African church felt they would have better opportunities to bring visitors in the morning, and desired to change the service time.  We have worked out a schedule where our family goes out two Sundays a month, Bro McDonald goes once, and Bill and Bro McDonald are working with the African men to preach and teach on the fourth Sunday.  Praise the Lord; in the first two Sundays, we’ve had three new visitors.  Please pray for the men of the church, as three of them have lost their jobs.  This is affecting not only their families but also the finances of the church.  The nursery continues to grow in numbers, but not in space!  Dena and the girls had 10 children in a small space last week, and there are other new babies that haven’t even come yet.  We desire to teach these little ones the truth of God’s word so that they will accept Christ as their Savior in due time. 

       Bill has been working with Jonathan, the deacon who preached in the Spanish church while Bro McDonald was on furlough, to teach him how to use “Power Point.” He wants to be able to put scriptures on the screen when he has the opportunity to preach, and is learning to run the slide show and project the lyrics when we sing hymns and choruses.  We are using a laptop given to us by one of our supporting churches to do this, since the church here has grown and we no longer have enough hymnals!  Jonathan was excited to be able to run the Power Point for the music all by himself last week.  When we came to Spain, we brought an electric piano with us that has the capabilities to record.  Using that, Dena has been recording the hymns on Saturday.  Juan Antonio also plays the guitar for the service.  With our co-workers, we are preparing for the Christmas play as well.

       In regards to the boys’ residence application we had a home visit from a government official last Friday to make sure that we have adequate living conditions for our children.  The lady was very amiable, and assured us that we should be receiving the papers to complete the last step of the process, the fingerprinting, soon.  We do pray that this will all be taken care of before we leave for our six-month furlough on December 24, 2007.  We praise the Lord that He has done a miracle for us in allowing us to pay off our plane tickets.  Being blessed with a calling plan that includes some international minutes in our base rate, Bill has set aside a few hours every week for calling, and has contacted almost all of the churches that we visited when we began in 2003.  Some of the churches have allowed us to “fill their spot” with new appointments in an attempt to raise some new support.  We’re finding that six-months is really not very long, and if we cannot come to your church, we do plan to send a copy of our video presentation to all of our supporters.    We would like to ask you to pray with us for the right vehicle to travel in between January and June of 2008.  Glory to God, He always supplies for our needs!

Bill and Dena Rose, with Brianna, Kelsey, Jordan, Joshua, Josiah, and JohnPaul
Sent by: Temple Baptist Church; 55437 Wilbur Rd; Three Rivers, MI 49093
Sent through: World Baptist Fellowship; PO Box 13459; Arlington, TX 76094

*Beginning with our next newsletter, we would like to offer the option of receiving our letters by email instead of “snail”mail.  This will not only enable us to save money on postage, but will also have the added benefit of allowing those interested in our family to receive our updates in a more timely fashion.  We thank the Lord for Fran Howard, a member of our home church who is our new prayer-letter coordinator and will be helping to organize this transition.  If you would like to receive our letters by email, please notify Fran by sending your email address to her at:  fran.howard@gmail.com