May Amazon Update! - Steve and Elba

This month we had our annual pastor’s retreat.  We were fortunate to be able to bring in Jerry Reddix and Penny Meyer to help minister to the pastors.  The objective of this retreat was to get the pastors to stop and get re-centered back to the Lord.  The pastors lives are mostly give, give, and give some more. It is easy to neglect their own needs and their soul.  Jerry and Penny helped bring some more tools for these pastors so that they can go forward working in a more balanced way and not get burned out.  We are so fortunate to be working with and serving these pastors.  They have such great relationships with the Lord, and they are very faithful and dedicated to His call. 

The church also had the opportunity to go to one of the local schools and share about Jesus.  Such an amazing privilege to be able to go to a public school for the express purpose of sharing the love of Christ.  Elba used a visual display to help the students understand Christ and sin in this world.  She had three containers, one represented Jesus, the other sin, and the other us.  The sin container contained dark colored liquid and she poured it into the “us” container and we became sinful.  Then Christ enters our life.  She then took the Christ container and pour it into the “us” container and then we became clean again.  Here is a youtube video of the demonstration.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZN0DzWLthU. The children were in awe and loved their time.  Camilly and their dance group also danced for the kids.

Camilly turned 10 years old on April 10^th.  She is now in the double digits.  Time goes by so quickly.  We had a birthday party with some of her friends.  The girls also got the opportunity to go horseback riding at a local farm.  They really had a lot of fun.  The only problem now is that they want us to buy them a horse. 

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

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/

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.