Two Beauties!

I've got my Dutch Driver's License. It was a painful process, but I finally got it! Just few days before our trip (by car) to Spain!

An example of a revigorized Urban Church!

Vida Nueva - Christianity Today Magazine: "diversify leadership have paid off with a new diversity in attendance. The building is the same, same orange padded pews. But the white and gray church members have kaleidoscoped into a wider array of browns, yellows, and blacks. The congregation clearly reflects the surrounding area that is 60 percent Latino, 32 percent white, 4.5 percent Asian, 1.5 percent African American, and 2 percent other " (...)
"We really believe in what we're doing," he says. "If you put the kingdom of God first, everything else falls into place. That's what we're trying to do."

JOSE: Lost, but Found!

"For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost" Mt 18:11

Few months ago a friend approached us and asked us to consider helping a man.After having prayed about it, we decided to visit him and try to help. The man was a Peruvian with a 10 years old son, and just divorced to his Dutch wife.

His story started at the slums of Lima, being abandoned by his father, and left behind with her mother as the youngest of five children. Things went even worst after his mother decided to start a new relationship whith another man, with whom she had four more kids. José experienced very deep wounds and was caught into the world of the drugs an illicit relations. A Dutch lady had come to his country and felt in love with him. After few years they had son. Because of the instability of Peru, they decided to move to the Netherlands, where his failure to learn the language, isolation, and his loneliness pushed him even deeper, into dependence on alcohol and drugs. When we first met him, he explained to us he didn't have anything to live for, except for his son. Even in such a situation, we felt God was up to something with them.

We introduced him to Jesus, as the Spirit of the Lord descended on that house. For the first time in his life he felt the peace of the Spirit of God falling upon him.

God opened doors for him to get into a rehab-program in Spain, and he is now back in the Netherlands, after three months of hard work to recover there.

Last week he came to Church were he showed real fruits of a believer, and announced his desire to be baptized.

As you may know, the way to rehabilitation could be hard and long, so we ask for your prayers on his behalf, since his housing situation is unstable, and his family does not show much respect to him and doesn't understand yet what has happened to him.

Would you please pray with us for:

• Wisdom to lead him as a disciple
• Strengthening of his Christian character to resist temptations (some drugs are legal in Holland)
• A house for him, so he could get established again
• His son and ex wife, so they also will be touched by the God of Jose
• For his legal status, which is not very clear because he is now divorced, and maybe the authorities could decide to send him back to Peru
• His desire to become a Missionary, so he can help others like him.

Thanks;

The Sarmiento's

Few days ago we started praying for Samuel Alejandro, the son of a loved friend of us. He had a problem with his heart and needed to be operated. We just heard he is out of the hospital and - as yo usee - doing very well. Thanks God for his answer to our prayers (and many other's prayers too)!

" Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above,

and cometh down from the Father of lights,

with whom is no variableness,

neither shadow of turning". Jas. 1:17

Article on Europe's Angry Muslims

CFR Publications: Europe's Angry Muslims

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan? Who? Me???

I scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. According to the test, I am an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. I believe that God's grace enables me to choose to believe in him, even though I myself am totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives me assurance of my salvation, and he also enables me to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. The veredict: I am influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists ( am I?) Emergent/Postmodern 68% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 68% Classical Liberal 54% Charismatic/Pentecostal 54% Neo orthodox 46% Reformed Evangelical 36% Fundamentalist 36% Roman Catholic 32% Modern Liberal 29% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

A prayer for London

Bono (U2 singer), who has helped to challenge and encourage
the G8 this week, sang in London recently:

"Take this city - A city should be shining on a hill.
Take this city, If it be your will.
What no man can own, no man can take.
Take this heart - London's heart –
Take this city, and keep it safe".
Amen.

"They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble(...)"

The Bible -Jeremiah 31:9

If you ask most Christians, what is the gospel or good news?...

Tod Bolsinger (PCUSA)

has written a dynamite post on

what the gospel is not!

Most Christians, Tod says, don't really understand the fullness of the gospel: . . If you ask most Christians, what is the gospel or good news, they will probably tell you that it is that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh who died on the cross for our sins. But, they'd be wrong-technically. And that technicality makes all the difference when we consider what it takes to make our churches glimpses of heaven here and now. You see, according to the Bible, the gospel, the good news, is NOT Jesus loves you so much that he died on the cross for your sins.
It is NOT God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.
It is NOT trust in Jesus and you will be saved. (In fact, that is not news at all, but good advice.) And while these are all absolutely true and (and the first two) incredibly great news, it is not the good news that Jesus was preaching throughout Galilee. Just think about it: He couldn't have been preaching that he died on the cross for the sins of the world, because he was still alive preaching!

Want to read it all? Click here: (HT: SmartChristian blog)

The Pentecostal Gold standard - Christianity Today Magazine

"I have a passion to move every Christian to the free exercise of tongues," Hayford says, "not as a proof of spirituality but as a privilege for worship and intercession."
The Pentecostal Gold standard - Christianity Today Magazine

They enjoy being on "Stage" !

Click to View
Hannah and Jessica Playing a drama

This is my first video-blog!

Having Fun With the Church!

Church in Europe!

Cool 4 Christ!

YES to the Christ, but NO to the Church

Cartoon appeared in the Easter Sunday edition of the "Daily Nation", the major newspaper in Kenya, Africa. It contrasts the movie the "Passion" and the "Church". Young people feel estranged in the Church, but they still are attracted to Jesus Christ!