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.

JUNE 2026 UPDATES FROM OUR FAMILY AND MINISTRY

Dear brothers and sisters and friends who walk with our family in this calling from the Lord for our lives. We give thanks to the Lord for each one of you, just as the Apostle Paul did to the Colossians 1:3-6 and 9-14.

^"3 Whenever we pray for you, we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints, ⁵ because of the hope that is reserved for you in heaven. You have already heard of this hope through the true word of the gospel, ⁶ which has come to you, just as it has to the whole world, and is bearing fruit and growing in you as well, from the day you heard and truly came to know God’s grace... 9 We pray for each of you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. ¹⁰ So that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God. ¹¹ Strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, you will have strength and patience, ¹² and with joy you will give thanks to the Father who has made us fit to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.¹³ He has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." 

We want to share with you the blessings the Lord is bestowing on our lives, as well as the challenges we face both in our family and in our ministry.

DIAS KOCHHANN FAMILY

We thank the Lord for His provision in our lives and for calling us to serve as a family here in Lleida. Thanks to the Lord, Eliane has completed her internship at Christopher’s school, and it has been a time of great blessing not only for her but also for her coworkers, who, as they bid her farewell from her internship, were moved by the impact Eliane has had on their lives—through her professionalism and her kindness toward her colleagues and the children. The other teachers didn’t know that the school had hired Eliane to be the English teacher for the children aged 1 to 6. When they announced it, not only were the teachers happy, but the children and parents were also delighted by the news. 

That is why we want to thank you for your prayers for Eliane in this calling to show Christ not only in the family, society, and church, but also in her profession. Eliane has shown that everything she has been doing has come from the heart, as if for the Lord. And we are very happy about this opportunity to be close to our son Christopher, and also to bear witness to our Lord to other families.

Our son Christopher is nearing the end of this school year, and the month of May brought many religious challenges from school. Not only do many of his classmates not believe in God, but the school itself—even though it is Christian—teaches the ethical and moral values of Christianity very well, yet at the same time, it teaches religious traditions that contradict the Scriptures. 

And so, we ask you to help us in prayer to show Christ to our son, and that he may understand that we worship an invisible God who has become visible in Christ Jesus. That we walk by faith and not by sight. 

That is why our hope is that during his vacation, Christopher can connect with other Christian children and develop lifelong friendships. Since there are no children his age at our church, he needs friends who are also facing the challenges of his age.

My pain remains the same, and I don’t think I’ll be moving on to the next stage of the surgery I started two months ago. My doctor will order some new tests next month and determine what kind of treatment I should undergo.

IGC IGLESIA GRACIA EN CRISTO OF LLEIDA - CHURCH GRACE LIFE UPDATE

Our church remains deeply concerned about young woman in sin and her family. We are giving her time and space to reflect on her life and, perhaps, to emerge from the emotional and mental turmoil she is currently experiencing...

Her family members are very sad and distressed by the way she is responding to God and her family. They feel helpless and see no other way out than to ask her to leave home and continue her life without God and independently elsewhere. This decision is very difficult, but necessary so that she may awaken from her sin and see God’s goodness toward her and her family throughout all these years... In her case, we need a considerable measure of wisdom as a church to address this topic of ecclesiastical discipline.

But while she continues in this process of rebellion, the Lord is blessing our congregation with new young people and new visitors who have come to see us this past May. We are very grateful for the lives of two women who continue to grow in the faith even though they have very important decisions to make in their lives. Also this past May, a young man joined this group; he is a friend of another young man in the church. This young man in the church always invites his friend from college to come to church, and his friend began attending the meetings simply out of friendship. However, now he has taken a Bible home and, whenever he can, comes to the Sunday meetings. He is very interested in the Christian faith, and he has asked for our prayers so that he may come to know God as we do. 

I would like to share some good news with you, as well as a prayer request. Two years ago, we had to discipline a group of members for insubordination and division. That group was influenced by two young men who incited some sisters to rebel against me and against the church. Thank God, yesterday a young woman from that group wrote to me asking to meet today to ask for my forgiveness for what she had done. She has acknowledged her sin and for having allowed herself to be influenced by the sin of others. 

She came to the church office this morning with great humility and a desire to be reconciled with me and with the church. She has gone through many very difficult things in her life; she even took pills in an attempt to commit suicide, but the Lord did not allow it. In the midst of her anguish, she remembered me and the Word of God. I am very glad that she at least came to see me and opened her heart to me. We hope she will return to the Sunday morning services. She is still recovering from the traumas of her childhood and from not having continued with us all this time. She told me that she misses the church very much—the Word of God prayed, preached, taught, and sung—that for two years she has been unable to pray or read the Bible, and that the tears and the pain in her chest do not allow her to draw near to God. We are very happy that she was able to acknowledge her sin and now wants to return to the ways of the Lord.

PRAYER REQUESTS

1) Eliane would like to thank you for your prayers for her and for God’s great answer in giving her the job at Christopher’s school. She has already been hired and is very happy to be able to serve as a school staff member. 

2) Eliane asks for: Strength, rest, and wisdom to balance all her activities at school, church, and her responsibilities at home. 

3) Please pray for my health, that the doctor may find the right treatment for my chronic pain. Especially since the surgery has not yielded the expected results.

4) Please pray for the family of the young woman who has fallen into sin and who seems to be giving up on life, living in a dark room without joy or spirit. 

5) For the new people coming to church. May the Word of the Lord produce new hearts willing to take up their crosses and follow Jesus.

6) We pray for the conversion of the lost friends and family of our church members.

7) We pray for an evangelistic spirit in our church. May there not only be a willingness to share the good news, but also the courage and boldness to seek out lost sinners who do not have Christ.

8) We pray for the hearts of the two women who have expressed repentance, that their repentance may be genuine, humble, and that they will be willing to seek the Lord and serve the church.

9) May the Word of God preached each week not return empty to the hearts of God’s people, but rather produce maturity, strength, faith, encouragement, comfort, and an intimate relationship with Jesus.

10) That we may be careful during this vacation period. May the Lord keep us from falling into temptation and laziness.

11) Please pray for our new Bible study series titled: “SUFFERING.” We will be studying this topic at the Bible Institute on Sundays from 9 to 10 a.m. May we understand biblically how to face the bad days, and the times of trial and difficulty that everyone faces. May the Lord show His grace and goodness to those who are suffering and strengthen the hearts of those who need to be prepared for the trials and sufferings of life.

12) We pray for more workers in the Lord’s harvest. We lack missionaries to help sow the Word of God and strengthen God’s people in Europe.

We feel your love through your prayers. Thank you for partnering with us to expand God’s Kingdom in Spain. We love and appreciate you more than words can say.

In Christ,

Pastor Igor Dias Ramos