nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

FOREIGN MISSION BOARD 251
Last September we had the joy to inaugurate [dedicate] the church building
which our brethren in Villafranca had been raising quietly in a closed ground
• all during the trial years. The construction has been performed with no other
financial help but a very small loan of the Spanish Baptist Convention covering
just one-tenth of the whole cost.
In November, our brethren in Albacete received word from the authorities
that all their furniture—seats, harmonium and other properties—which had
been transferred to Catholic churches were restituted [restored] to them. The
Lord granted to the pastor of this church, Rev. Francisco Pais, to see the
promise realized, but not to enjoy it long, for he was called to heaven just
a month after the reopening. The work is being carried on courageously by
the nearest Baptist pastors, Brethren Fernandez from Madrid, Beltran from
Alicante, and Frances from Valencia. Although each one of them must travel
about 200 miles to attend services there, it pays for them to do so, because in
a few weeks of this visiting ministry seventeen souls have been led to Christ.
With the encouraging precedent in Albacete, we are now hopeful about
regaining the church furniture in other places as Alicante and Barcelona.
The church in Barcelona has passed through a hard time. They have seen
how all the other evangelical churches who lost their freedom of worship during
the past years of trial were able once again to meet in their spiritual homes.
But all the members proved loyal to the church and to Baptist principles, no
one deserting to more privileged churches, but all preferring to continue to
meet in private homes, for several months if necessary.
Lately Christian fellowship has been fairly brought forth by the invitation
of other churches to use their chapels. Although this obliges our members to
worship at a very inconvenient time, late in the night, when other services are
finished, they do so with a cheerful heart.
In the meantime a friend is erecting a new building with the purpose of
renting it to the church. We hope to be able to inaugurate it by next April
(1946). Baptists of all churches throughout Catalonia are preparing representations
and choirs to be sent to Barcelona for the great occasion.
We also hope to be able to inaugurate our new chapel building in Alicante,
on the ground purchased there two years ago. Several Baptist friends are
bringing their small savings as loans to help on it. I am ready for a journey
all through Spain in behalf of the Spanish Baptist Convention.
We are anxiously waiting for the visit of Dr. Sadler* to reorganize the
work, becauseSpain is one of the fields of which can be said, with the-greatest
propriety, the Master's words: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers
are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth
laborers into his harvest." Indeed from fourteen native pastors and two
missionary couples who worked in Spain in 1930, we have now been reduced
to six pastors and one lady missionary. Yet the membership has increased,
and the average attendance of non-converts at religious services is three times
larger than at that time. In no way can the widespread opportunities for
work be met by the present workers and means.
We have not had a full report since 1935. At that time the number of
Spanish Baptists slightly surpassed one thousand. Hard losses were experienced
during the Spanish war. For example, our church in Madrid lost half of its
membership, chiefly young men killed at the fronts of war. But we have not
only recovered our old position, but the whole number of our members surpasses
nearly in a fourth part the highest number we reached before the war.
It is a great motive of thanking God to see that in five years of difficulties, of
which you cannot have a full idea, more than 500 souls have been won for
Christ in our country. You see that the number of those baptized in 1944 and
the early months of 1945 is double to those recorded in the previous years.
Another cause of encouragement is to observe that the average number of
people attending the main Sunday services greatly surpasses the membership
of the churches. This gives us an expectation of new conversions m the future.
Education of pastors. We find ourselves in difficulty for lack of well
trained pastors, to succeed the deceased workers. We must solve the problem
of how to tr