Spain in all sorts of trouble
A missionary reports that Spaniards are growing weary of the increasing stress brought on by spiraling economic challenges and constant weather and climatic disasters. The missionary states that apart from the present political and economical situation, there have been non-stop natural disasters. Spain has had for the first time ever tornados, add that to the constant flooding, earthquakes, rain as never before and wind storms that reach well over 100 miles per hour.
The long-term missionary to Spain adds:
The country is in a very delicate situation, very similar to that which caused the civil war to start back in 1936. The political parties are giving a false impression of wanting to collaborate with the socialist government. The truth is that in the same statements of stating they want to help they are undermining the already unstable government by their words.
The truth is that the reigning political party has shown itself to be very inefficient in its ability to govern and has taken the country to the brink of bankruptcy. All this in just six years, Six years ago the country was in the positive economically and now it has one of the worst debts of any nation. Couple this with the immigration issues and excessive unemployment levels (close to 40% in our area) and we have a very volatile problem.
The Muslim situation is getting out of hand also, so many have come into the country illegally and this government did not take measures to control it and in fact in many ways encouraged it. Now they are demanding rights that really go against the constitution of the country.
The elections do not take place for another year, but I am not sure the country can survive that long. Just recently almost all the higher level cabinet positions were replaced. Already they have raised taxes to unbearable levels and are talking about raising them again. Just recently they reduced the Police salary by 150 Euros a month, because they weren’t writing enough tickets. All government employees had their salaries reduced (Politicians aren’t government employees) and retirees had their retirement frozen so there is no cost of living raise. For us personally between higher taxes and cost of living we have the added factor of a weak dollar and things are costing us as much as forty percent more than just a few months ago.
We have had several strikes and in fact a nationwide strike a few months ago. Since then the country is constantly suffering from strikes of different sectors, such as transportation, trash collection, hospital personnel etc.
We need prayer for the country and the people. The good I see in this is that often when there are extreme situations and hardships, people are more likely to seek answers where they would not before. We pray that will be a turning to God and not just religion. The people of Spain, for the most part, have a strong feeling that religion has failed them, and is still failing them.
Corruption is the order of the day and almost daily more and more government officials are being brought before the courts for this reason. Many famous people including movie stars, are involved in these matters.
Recently it has come to light the amount of pressure the present United States government has been putting on Spain to do things such as the freezing of retirees pay etc. This isn’t making [the USA] very popular at this time. I think that for the time being Americans are still not thought of negatively on an individual basis. I did get notified by a very reliable source in our government that preparations are being made to possibly withdraw our embassy and consulate personnel. I was advised that I should be prepared to take some action should this happen. I have decided that if the embassy and consulate personnel pull out we will stay. Our government didn’t send us here, my God sent us and He will take care of us. I think the reason for this action is the possible terrorist threats. The British have already warned their citizens of the potential threats.
Please pray for Spain, pray for the country and the people. Also we ask your prayers for us, we need wisdom on how to reach these people. We also need more and more opportunities. This Christmas we are planning several different venues to be able to present the real reason of the season. Pray with us for success in these occasions.