April Amazon Update - Steve and Elba

We pray that this you well and that you had a wonderful and blessed Easter.  He has Risen, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.  

We had our traditional Easter early morning church service and celebrated the Lord’s resurrection and then served breakfast.  It takes a lot of work to pull this off and it is essentially a whole church effort.  Each of the home groups were responsible to bring an item that would be enough to feed 300 people.  Everyone chipped in and made it a great and inviting time for all guests.

The church went down to the local corner grocery store and pitched a tent and asked people if they wanted prayer for healing.  We prayed for over 80 people and people claimed to be healed.  It was really encouraging and a great blessing for the ones who received prayer.  We prayed for a man who walked by on crutches.  He was obviously touched by the Lord in such a great way that he went away carrying his crutches.  YAHOO!  Praise the Lord indeed.  Lord, continue and soak us more with your presence and power to heal the sick, the blind, the lame and the deaf. 

We also had the pleasure of baptizing 4 people into the Lord.  I got the privilege to be able to experience this moment with them.  We celebrated the baptism while the church was worshipping the Lord and celebrating these new births in Christ as they were washed from their old self and into their new identity in Christ.  Please pray for these new converts. 

Praise the Lord the girls continue to do well.  They both participated in dance presentations for our Easter service.  They both did a great job.  We also found this snake in our yard and we killed it.  They said that it was poisonous and we did not ask any more questions.  J The girls were brave and held it after we killed it.  Camilly will be turning 10 years old on April 18^th.  She is so excited and is in total party mode. 

Thank you so much for all your prayers for Elba.  Praise the Lord she is feeling much better and is running at 100%.  We feel so privileged to have you in our lives praying and supporting us.  Thank you so much.  Please continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.  Thanks again. 

Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa

 

Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:

The Xingu Mission

P.O Box 340785

Columbus, Ohio  43234

Or On-line donations at:

https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/dolan-ministries/

March Amazon Update - Steve and Elba

The church is continuing to do well and by the grace of God we are still seeing people come to know Christ.  However, the last few weeks we have seen attendance down.  Pray that we continue to be relevant to the unreached around us.  Elba preached at one of our churches in Brasil Novo.  The Brasil Novo church is still in its infancy but Pastor Ademir has been doing a great job pastoring this church, gathering people and teaching the Word of God.  Sorry that the picture is real fuzzy.  Please continue to keep the church and its members in your prayers, as well as all the other churches. 

CDR, our community center has been reaching out to the community to help the underprivileged with affordable education in English and computers.  This semester alone, we have around 400 students participating in our programs which is considerable more students than we had last year.  We are also providing the community with free internet access and free computer classes to the local schools.  Below are some pictures of an English class playing a game to figure out what word was on their forehead.  It is nice when you can make learning fun.  Continue to pray for more favor upon CDR, and that it will be a greater influence in the surrounding community to help people come to know Jesus as their Savior.      

Here is a picture of Camilly and Alyssa playing a dance game at our new mall in Altamira and the girls got dressed up for the occasion.  Yes, you read this correctly, we have a mall in Altamira.  Granted, it probably only takes 5 minutes to walk through its entirety, but hey, we had a good time. J  I took the next picture on international women’s day.  It is a picture of Elba’s Mom and sisters, as well as her niece Apolana, and our girls.  Elba was quite sick but struggled through (read below).  We prepared a nice breakfast on the lawn with all kinds of goodies and Apolana sang them a song.  It was really special for them. 

Please pray for Elba.  She had dengue fever, which is a mosquito born disease that has no treatment, only symptom relievers.  They call dengue “breakbone fever” because of the severe joint and muscle pain that is causes.  She is still not feeling well and now has a severe ear ache.  Please pray the Lord will heal her. 

Please continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us.  We need it. 

Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa

 

Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:

The Xingu Mission

P.O Box 340785

Columbus, Ohio  43234

Or On-line donations at:

https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/dolan-ministries/

February Amazon Update - Steve and Elba

We were pretty much gone the whole month of January traveling to Brasilia which is about 1,200 miles because Elba needed to get some dental work done for future implants, and our truck needed to get its engine overhauled.  We had to stop approximately every 90 – 120 miles to put more oil in the engine, and fill the radiator with water.  The mechanics said it was a miracle that we even made it there.  The engine work cost a lot of money but we had no alternative but to fix.  OUCH!  The truck is now running better.  On a brighter note, the dental surgery went really well and now Elba just needs to wait six months for the implants to set in. 

During our trip to and from Brasilia we got the opportunity to spend time with our sister churches in Marabá, Pacajá, and Palmas.  All of these guy are doing a great job and are at different areas of growth.  It was really nice to step away and get to see the broader picture of our Christian brothers and sister plowing the Kingdom of God into the lives of their community.  Lives are being changed because of the work that God has called them to do.  Praise God for them and all of our church plants because in the absences of their presence we would be looking at a totally different landscape. 

While in Brasilia Elba had the opportunity to preach at the church.  It is small church that has a great vision of planting more churches.  It already has around 5 churches that it oversees, 2 of which came from the work happening here.  One of the big challenges that they have in their church is the availability of people wanting to go to another area and start a church.  Most of the members have stable jobs and receive a good income and it is a challenge to just uproot and go to someplace that is uncertain.  Trust me, we missionaries know this first hand, and without doubt most missionaries will say that it has been one of the hardest challenges in their lives, but also one of the most fulfilling.   Please keep them in your prayers.  Have you ever considered becoming a long term missionary?  Do you have any questions?  If so, write me back and let’s talk. 

During our time in Brasilia we got to visit and look around at the Nation’s Capital.  We went and saw a lot of the government buildings, and the Alvorado Palace where President Dilma lives.  We also went and visited the local zoo, and at another place Camilly got to ride a pony, and Alyssa rode a bull.  Camilly was a bit nervous riding the bull so she chose the pony.  To tell you the truth, I was not so comfortable being on that massive thing either. 

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

Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa

 

Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:

The Xingu Mission

P.O Box 340785

Columbus, Ohio  43234

Or On-line donations at:

https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/dolan-ministries/

January Amazon Update! Steve and Elba

We had a huge turnout for our Christmas service.  I believe that we had around 500 people in attendance.  We encouraged the members of the church to bring a friend or neighbor and they responded.  We were donated 2 cows and we served dinner after the service.  The congregation helped by bringing rice, beans, and salad.  It was a really nice turnout and some new people came and received Christ. 

The following week we had a New Year’s Eve party at our house and about 60 people came.  We served dinner, played cards, bingo, and danced until midnight.  It is good to note that me and my two left feet watched from a distance.

The church went out to the streets to pray for people and to read the bible out loud.  We pitched a tent across from the local corner supermarket and posted people there to ask if anyone would like to receive prayer.  Then we read the bible starting in the Gospels.  Below is Elba’s twin sister Nira reading the Bible.  I think there were about 60 people in all that received prayer.  We had two ladies that prayed for people all day and their knees were bruised from kneeling so long.  Such dedication.    

Camilly and Alyssa were part of the Christmas presentations for Christmas.  Camilly played the lead role for the story of Jesus’ birth.  Alyssa played the guiding star for the 3 wise man.  They also did a dance with the other kids.  They both did an excellent job and we were very happy parents.    

Presently we are in Brasilia because Elba had dental surgery and the procedure is going to take 10 days.  We are also getting our truck engine overhauled.  The truck was burning a lot of oil and when they opened it up they said that it was a miracle that we made it here.  Praise the Lord that our God is in the miracle business.  Please keep Elba in your prayers, as well as our truck and our trip back to Altamira which is 1,800km away.  Also, please continue to pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional health for us. 

Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa

 

Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:

The Xingu Mission

P.O Box 340785

Columbus, Ohio  43234

Or On-line donations at:

https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/dolan-ministries/

In our travel to Brasilia, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa got to experience their first fun house.  Alyssa got so scared that she cried and I had to go in and bring her out.  She then regained her courage and walked through it all.  They really loved it, especially the compressed air that shot up from the ground. 

December Amazon Update! Steve and Elba Dolan

Praise the Lord the church continues to see new converts and disciples of Jesus Christ.  Below are pictures of baptisms that we held during our worship services over the last weeks.  One of the baptisms was not scheduled.  The man in the last picture received Christ and in his excitement wanted to be baptized.  We still had water in the baptismal from the week before and so we had a spontaneous baptism.  Many people stayed around to celebrate his new birth in Christ as he was washed from his old self into his new identity in Christ.  Please pray for these new converts. 

This month we had Beth Wood from Canada come to Altamira.   After working in inner city contexts in Canada for a number of years, Beth spent 7 years in Brazil mentoring and training in local-church based community development ministries. With her colleague Maurício J.S. Cunha she co-authored the book “The Kingdom Among Us” which was published in Portuguese in Brazil in 2003.  Beth came to share a biblical and Brazilian perspective on the transformation which can occur when local churches actively pursue the fullness of the Kingdom of God in their poor communities.  We were very pleased to have her because we are already working in this capacity through the church and CDR.  We invited many of the church leaders throughout the community in the hopes of them catching onto to that same vision. The time that they spent together was very productive and we hope more fruit will be produced as the church continues to be good news to the community, and bridge the gap of the lost so that Jesus can reach more into their hearts.

I just wanted to let everyone know that all is safe and sound with our new power rangers in the house.  You do not want to be caught on the opposite end of their powerful swords, unless you go to the local amusement park and ride the Viking boat that swings you up and down.  Now that was scary!

Again, we pray that you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  God bless you! 

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

Love and blessings, Steve, Elba, Camilly and Alyssa

 

Tax deductible donations can be written and sent to:

The Xingu Mission

P.O Box 340785

Columbus, Ohio  43234

Or On-line donations at:

https://xingu.org/opportunities/giving/dolan-ministries/

Terry Price found this boa constrictor outside the mission.  We got the opportunity to pet it.