Steve and Elba Dolan in the Amazon: November Amazon Update and Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! As you will see below, we will be coming back to Ohio around December 15th and staying in the Ohio area until February 5th. We would love to see you. If this works for you, please send me some dates so we can mark something on the calendar. OK? Thanks and we look forward to seeing you soon. Pray you are blessed with the below email.

I started a small group bible study and we just completed our 26^th week. This bible study is unlike the bible studies that I am used to as we adopted the Discipleship Making model. It is a really simple model and one that is very easy to facilitate. The model has been adopted in many areas throughout the world and has really caught on fire. I cannot do the model justice in this brief email https://idisciple.cityteam.org/ but essentially we ask the same simple questions week after week like:

What are you thankful for this week? (Prayer/Worship)
What has stressed you out this week?
What do you need for things to be better? (Intercession)
What are the needs of the people in your community? (Ministry)
Let’s see what the Bible teaches us this week. Read this week’s passage. (Scripture)
What does this passage teach us about God? (Discovery/Scripture/Priesthood of Believers)

Our group consists of friends that do not attend church on a regular basis. I am not sure of the reasons why they do not go to church, however, week after week they continue to invite us back to have home church at their house to talk about their lives, God, and the Bible.

I like these questions because even if you know it or not, we are honoring and giving praise to God. Plus, we get the opportunity to open up the scriptures to our friends that normally would not read the bible.

Elba returned from London, England and we are glad to have her back. Elba went to London because she serves on the international board for Vineyard Institute. Vineyard Institute is an educational provider for the Vineyard movement, formed to develop leaders at all levels of church life through high quality theological training http://vineyardinstitute.org/ . While she was there for her meeting she had the opportunity to go and speak at the Trent Vineyard. She preached on “God’s People – A Missionary People”. While she was gone we celebrated our 13^th year wedding anniversary. Thankfully, I was able to send her some flowers for the occasion.

The girls continue to do well and excel at school. Obviously, we are very proud parents and are grateful to their dedication to school. They won 2 gold medals for their school performance. Camilly, with the help of Clenildo (one of her Brazilian Grandpas), made this replication of a river and Indian community. They made it out of Styrofoam, paper, and wire. They did an amazing job. Alyssa is also becoming an artist. She painted this on Styrofoam tray. Again, proud parents!

As we mentioned last month, Elba was invited to come and speak at the Vineyard Columbus woman’s conference to be held in February 2017. Elba is excited about this opportunity and since it is coming up to our time to visit the States, we accepted with great enthusiasm. We will be coming back to the States on December 10^th and staying in the Columbus area until February 5^th. We look forward to seeing and spending time with our family during Christmas. We also look forward to seeing you. Would you like to get together? If so, write me back and let’s get something on the calendar.

Please also continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa