I am Igor Dias Ramos, born in 1986, in a German colony in southern Brazil. My parents raised me with Roman Catholic principles until I was 18 years old, when some friends invited me to join a Pentecostal church. My dream since childhood was to be a soccer player, and this was my passion until 2008, when I was hit by a truck and this accident was God's way of taking me out of a world of vanities to lead me to an eternal life. It was from this moment that I understood that God's calling for my life was to lead people not just to celebrate a game for a moment, but to rejoice in the eternal salvation that has been given to us in Jesus Christ.

In 2007 I married my beautiful wife Eliane Kochhann de Miranda, and we have been married for 17 years. For over 12 years of marriage the doctors had told us that we would not be able to have children, but our prayer to the Lord was to give us wisdom to rest in His will. Until 2020, in the midst of the Covid pandemic where many people died, the Lord granted our heart's request, we have been graced by Him with a son through IVF treatment and in this month of July 2024, our son Christopher will be three years old with great health, lots of love and desire to know God and our King Jesus Christ. Glory to God for his tremendous generosity and goodness to us.

After some years of theological training in seminaries and participation in Reformed churches, the Lord is sending us back to Spain to help strengthen the local church in this country. But in March 2022, on a mission trip to Paris, I met two Christian women, as in the book of Acts 16:9; "At night a vision was shown to Paul in which a man from Macedonia was standing praying to him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" These two women told me that they had been praying for a Bible church in their city, Lleida, for more than 15 years. They begged me to help them get to know God in a way that the churches around them had not been doing for many years. So from that moment on, my wife and I began to pray and ask advice from our pastors about the possibility of starting a work in the city of Lleida.

Lleida is the capital of the region of Segrià, with 211.7 km², it is one of the largest municipalities in Catalonia. Founded in the 6th century BC, it is the largest city in the Principality outside the province of Barcelona, a modern and cosmopolitan capital, an AgroBiotech reference in southern Europe, with an important communications network, a pillar of its geostrategic position.

In September 2022 we moved to Lleida and started meeting in our house until we had no more space and moved to new premises in November 2022. I am pastoring this small group of brothers, which sometimes has grown due to the curiosity of the people. Curiosity to know a reformed church, but they do not want the commitment that God demands of them with Himself, with His Word and with the people of God, so very few stay to be part of the people that the Lord has called, justified, is sanctifying and one day will glorify Him. 

Today we are a group of 8 members, five candidates for baptism and eight candidates for membership. On Sundays we gather about 25 people to read the Scriptures, sing the Scriptures, pray the Word of God, listen to the Word of God and see the living Word in the fellowship of the breaking of bread and wine in the Lord's Supper and in loving one another. 

We have spent over a year studying the book of 1 Timothy in Sunday services. This summer we will study the marks of a Biblical church and in September we will begin the study of a book of the Old Testament. On Thursdays we study the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. And once a month, on Sunday afternoons we have our prayer meeting, in which we meditate briefly on the Word of the Lord (this meeting is an opportunity for new preachers), listen to two or three short testimonies and spend a lot of time praying for our church and for the churches around us and around the world, and also spend time seeking the Lord together as a church.

October 2024 Update:

Hello beloved family in Christ and friends who join us in our pilgrimage to the heavenly city. We hope that each of you find yourselves growing in your knowledge of God's power and love, and that your faith and trust in Him increases each day more and more in what the Lord is doing in you. 

In our report this month we have much good news to share, and also much to thank the Lord for His grace and love for our lives, family and ministry here in Lleida. 

Dias Family

Beloved family in Christ and dear friends who pray for our family and church in Lleida, we would like to thank you for your love for us, for your attention and intentionality in supporting us in some way to continue growing in faith and trust in God's work in our lives and in the society we are living, and helping to serve in the Kingdom of our mighty God, until He comes back to get us. 

This month of October we have been learning so many things that it is difficult to explain in a few words all the things that happened this month. 

First of all, we have been very happy to receive the precious brothers from the First Baptist Church of Lake Butler: Pastor Jason, his wife Nancy, Brother Jay, and his wife Jenna, Brother Tyler, his wife Randa, and the boys! They came to celebrate with us the 2 year anniversary of our church here in Lleida. Tyler's family spent the whole month of October in Catalunya to get to know the Spanish culture, and to get to know our context as a family and church in a more real way than just a few days. This family dedicated their month of vacation to immerse themselves in the Spanish culture, live with the people in the community they were staying in, and impact the town of Guimerá, 45 minutes from Lleida, where they rented a house to spend the month. 

We have learned with Tyler's family, that getting out of our comfort zone is not something we usually want, but we decide to work to get more of these things, but getting out of this comfort zone to serve other brethren and advance the kingdom of God is more rewarding than spending a month in front of the beach, relaxing and enjoying life for ourselves. We know that all things have their time, and their values, but how nice it would be if sometimes we would strip ourselves of our idol called comfort and comfort to serve others, that would help our society to know what our Savior did to rescue us from our sins. 

We are grateful for the love shown by the brethren of First Baptist church of Lake Butler, by sending these precious families. 

We too are learning a lot with our son Christopher's school. The challenges of school are challenges that will help him for a lifetime in many environments that our son will face. First and foremost we have learned the importance of the academic and school environment to our son's and our own maturity. The school environment differs from the home environment, from the house where it should be the refuge, the protection for the family, the place to look for strength and hope to carry this fallen and hopeless world. The school, also shows us that having a uniform, is also a new mentality and discipline, different from the daily clothes worn at home, is to prepare for a day of learning, which at home would not be demanded. The challenges with other children from different contexts, different families, different perspectives, all this leads to a growth of the whole family, not just the child, because as parents we are challenged to show our child that we are not better than anyone else, but we have our confidence and knowledge received from a great and powerful God. 

Thanks to the Lord, Christopher is maturing a lot as a person and as a citizen in this world, knowing that he does not belong to this world, that our values are different and that is why he has to forgive and love the other children, but at the same time, we live in the world and we must be light in it. 

Thanks to the Lord, Eliane is receiving some job opportunities to help us with the family expenses. But we need wisdom to choose the job that will not prevent her from continuing to take care of the house, our son and the discipleship with the sisters of the Church. 

My back pains are still up and down, sometimes higher than usual, and we are praying to somehow be able to pay with the Lord's grace for my private surgery, as what we see will take a long time waiting for the public hospital to call me. 

IGELSIA IBL

Glory to God for the two years of our church here in Lleida. They are two years of hard work, challenges, sadness, but we are sure that the Lord is helping us up to here. May his grace and mercy be renewed upon us every morning. And we have been able to share a beautiful time with the brothers from Florida, the brothers from Sabadell, and with new visitors who celebrated with us the anniversary of the church. 

Pastor Jason challenged us in his three preachings on the glory of God in conversion; the glory of God in the Church; and the glory of God in crises. 

We also had a beautiful Q&A time with the participation of Pastor Javier Perez. The sisters had a very edifying and instructive time with Nancy and Jenna, who shared their testimonies and challenges in marriage and ministry. The men had a time of prayer and confession of sins after the sharing of Brother Jay's testimony, it was a very precious time of recognizing hidden sins and confessing them publicly to receive forgiveness and comfort from the Lord. 

Also Brother Jay, gave us a precious class on walking in the Spirit in Galatians 5. What a blessing to have these brothers with us here in Lleida. We would not like this team to leave, but we know they will come back and we will spend eternity together enjoying our great Lord and Savior Jesus. 

Glory to God for the churches that are intentionally supporting our church and ministry, such as: First Baptist Church of Lake Butler; Sabadell Evangelical Church; Grace Life Church of the Shoals; Thomas Road Church; Barstlesville First Baptist Church; Batista da Graça Church, Sao Jose dos Campos; for AIT and for all of you who make this ministry possible. 

Brother Tyler, ministered to us in the Thursday meetings and in the Sunday morning Bible institute with 6 lessons on Christian stewardship. We studied with him the topics of the theology of stewardship; the practice of stewardship; the motivation to take care of what the Lord has lent us; the understanding that everything we have comes from the Lord and therefore is not ours, God lends it to us so that we can administer it with wisdom for His glory; one day we will have to give an account of what the Lord has lent us; and the administration of God's call through the gospel. 

We also had the privilege of receiving our dear brother Thiago Yokoyama from Switzerland, he came especially to be with us on the anniversary of the Church. 

We had the opportunity to celebrated the first birthday of little Jetson, son of brother and sister Tyler and Randa, who told us their testimonies and what they have learned on this trip to Spain last Sunday, October 27th in their farewell to our church. We will miss them very much and we ask the Lord to continue blessing this family with much courage and strength. 

PRAYER REQUESTS 

We would like to thank you for your tireless prayers for us as a family, our ministry and for the Lleida Bible church. Here are our reasons for prayer: 

Pray for a job for my wife Eliane, and wisdom in choosing the job that will help us as a family not to lose sight of our purpose here in Lleida. 

Pray that we will be intentional in our relationships with Christopher's school parents. 

We pray that our son will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a personal and transforming way, and that he will continue to grow in knowledge and love for Christ and his neighbor. May he be light and salt in the school and not conform to what the children think and do.

May the Lord provide the resources and opportunity to be operated on as soon as possible. 

We pray to be able to change for a more affordable apartment for our family. 

We pray for the fruits of the ministry that Pastor Jason and the team of the First Baptist Church of Lake Butler left us this month. May the tears shed, and confessions of sins be genuine and lead to a deeper relationship with Christ. 

We pray that our church in Lleida will continue to faithfully proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. May the members of our church grow in love and unity for one another and for the lost. 

We pray for the salvation of the family members and people who visited us this month. 

We pray for what we have learned with Brother Tyler this month, to be better and faithful stewards of all the resources that the Lord has placed in our hands. May our lives honor God and bring glory to His Name.