From the January-April 2012 Issue
WITNESS IN CHURRIANA
Juan and Marianne Bascuñana
Last November when the Baptist and Presbyterian Reformed Churches celebrated Reformation Day in Málaga, Churriana district, the organization of the events was the responsibility of our congregation. We met as churches from Málaga and Almuñecar, and there were three events. In the morning our sister Krisztina, Manuel López’s wife, was in charge of the conference entitled “Here I am, I cannot do otherwise” – the phrase Martin Luther declared at the end of his defence before the Emperor Charles of Spain and Germany.
The second event was a meal together at a restaurant in Churriana. This was a very pleasant time for all involved and we enjoyed good fellowship.
The third event was held in the evening after a walk through Churriana, and was the vibrant and deep preaching of Pastor Manuel López Franco (EMF), which was filled with evangelical content.
It was a great opportunity for our church in Churriana to organize this event and most important was the Christian fellowship between the churches at a difficult time for the evangelical work in general in this part of Andalusia. The meetings were attended by approximately 30–40 persons.
SMALL BEGINNINGS Marianne has started the new session of Bible School for the children after the long summer in Málaga. This school has four children: Isaac and Jonathan on the first level; Esther and Abraham in level two. It may seem very few children, but we consider them a blessing. We live in a very difficult time in Spain with the secularization of the schools and the secularism in society generally.
We are a small church of 19 members. At the beginning of our ministry in Málaga we began prayer meetings on Thursdays, but now we are virtually alone. There are several reasons: firstly, the characteristics of work in this area, and secondly, the lack of tradition or custom, as well as the spiritual level of the members. In the past, they did have prayer meetings, but then the number of members was much higher. However, we believe communal prayer is very important and continue as best we can. We believe that we must persevere, because united prayer is essential to receive blessings for our church and our families. We hope that the Lord will touch hearts and that more believers will attend the prayer meetings.
We also note that some of the members could not come in the morning or afternoon, as the main work in this city is in tourist industries and some have to work on Sundays or in the morning or afternoon. We started on Sunday morning and now have 7 or 8 persons. Oscar Gil is doing Bible studies about essential doctrines and devotional preaching for which we are thankful.
USING THE INTERNET Two years ago we started to record our preaching and Bible studies, and upload them to the Internet. The sermonaudio.com/churriana had over 25,000 downloads in the last two years; the video on vimeo.com/ churriana had an annual average of 1,300 downloads per month and some months ago there were video clips on youtube.com/Pastorjbascu. Downloads come more frequently from the United States of America, Spain and Latin America, other downloads from some Arab countries, China and Europe. We thank the Lord for them all.