Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings in the Wonderful Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We have safely returned from our trip to Madrid, Spain and it is with great joy that we give the following report of our trip. Five of us stayed for one week and I stayed for a second week. During the first week, we had eleven services in five different prisons in six days. We divided into two teams and each service included testimonies, the showing of the Jesus film, a presentation of the Gospel, and an invitation to receive Christ as Savior. The Lord even provided a full-time missionary to be with us for the entire two weeks.

We had the services in the prisons in: Meco, Real de Soto, Aranjuez, Segovia and Navalcarnero. We ministered to a total of 478 men and women including Mores, Gypsies, Spaniards, South Americans, Basque Separatists and Muslims. Of these, 316 prayed and asked Jesus to be the Lord of their lives.

The prisons were the most beautiful and clean that I have ever seen with flowers, carefully trimmed lawns, fountains, modern movie theaters, gymnasiums, and swimming pools. Despite the great expense to build, maintain and secure each prison, they were missing something essential – Bibles. In one prison with 2700 inmates, there was only one Bible before we arrived. We purchased 300 Bibles and distributed them in Spanish, English, Portuguese, Hungarian, Bulgarian, German, French, Bosnian and Arabic. We also gave out New Testaments, Gospels of John, tracts and Bible Studies. The Lord was with us, we know, especially in Soto when I had to step in between two pairs of women who were about to start a fight just before the service was to begin. If the fight would have started, they would have canceled the service before it began and maybe future services. Within 20 minutes of one of them almost kicking in the door because she was so enraged with anger, she and her paired inmate were outside asking the Lord to fill their lives with peace, love and joy. What a remarkable change. Instead of wanting to beat each other up, they wanted to help us with water and drinks.

There was a riot in Meco when 4 Muslim inmates raised their hands at the invitation to receive Christ as Savior. The other 40 Muslims sitting around them pulled their hands down but they put them back up again. After the service, all four came forward for prayer and to receive a Bible. When they left, they were immediately jumped upon by the 40 and a full scale riot developed. Two of the men were seriously injured and hospitalized. We had difficulty being admitted for services the next night but we prevailed. For one service, one team member was held in the interlock for 45 minutes and had his passport taken because the numbers on his passport did not match the numbers on the access list (a clerical error). This same man became very sick and had the worst headache of his life just before going into one service but he persevered and was immediately well as soon as he left the prison. Despite these outbreaks, because of the Grace of God, we conducted and completed every service planned for us.

In addition to the prison services, we also participated in 4 church services, did live television and radio programs, spent each morning in prayer and each evening in devotions.

Then there was the second week.

I conducted three evening sessions of the Jail and Prison Training Seminar with 63 enthusiastic and eager participants. There is not a single Evangelical Chaplain in Spain at this time but one leader who began the current Evangelical work in the prisons years ago is now considering becoming the first non-Catholic Chaplain in the prisons and is considering doing so under the umbrella of Chaplains for Christ, Inc. He and I spoke for two hours one day about the possibility of this happening and I advised him the best that I could about how to proceed.

I had been invited 9 years ago to come to Spain by the founder of Remar, a teen challenge kind of program in Spain, and now he wants to start a program in Chicago to work with the Cook County Jail inmates when they are released and we will try to help him get started with this.

What a fantastic, exciting trip this was and I was able to even take a side-trip to Paris. Besides visiting the Prado and Louvre Museums, I also had opportunities to share the Gospel. I rode a sleeper car from Madrid and arrived at 9am in Paris. In my car was a German, a Japanese, a Peruvian and me. In Paris, I gave out Gospels of John in French and witnessed on the subway and on the street. In the sleeper car on the way back to Madrid, I was with two Frenchmen one of which spoke perfect English and the other spoke no English. However, the Frenchman who spoke no English spoke very good Spanish so I was able to share the Gospel with him for one hour. He had never heard the Good News before but I could see that his heart was open to the message. He gladly took the Gospel of John that I had in French and was anxious to read it. He had recently begun to read the Bible for the first time and had started in Genesis. I could see that he wanted to understand It’s message and was glad for the direction and explanation that I was able to give him.

Once again, we want to thank everyone who prayed and supported us on this trip and we are now looking forward to the next opportunity which will be to go to Romania from Aug. 9-24 to share in prisons and give the seminar. We will also be visiting and staying in an orphanage. Please pray for us because we know that prayer makes a difference and there are many strongholds in Romania.

Staff Chaplain Rob Brown