Latest Reports | Xingu Mission

Wilson – March 2024 Update

A summary of new developments in the Palmas church plant.

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Thank You! 

We want to start by saying thank you for all your prayers, moral support, and financial support.

We are so very thankful for you and how God has continually used you to strengthen and encourage us in many ways. We couldn’t do what we do without your support!

The Process

As we reflect on where we are with this new church plant in Palmas, we also reflect on our experiences from the last 19 years. Connecting and identifying with a new group of people in a new context is always challenging. It takes time, demands great intentionality, and it stretches our natural personalities.

Though our current context seems harder to break into than others, we are thankful for some key relationships that God has blessed us with and which continue to develop. We feel like we are entering a season of ripening. Having been here two years and working hard to develop visible routines, we feel some new relationships will develop over the next six months. We also sense we are in a season of retooling as God further molds us to work in this new context.

Please pray that God will continue working in us and that some of these loose connections will mature into more personal ones. Pray that God will give us discernment and great favor.

Exciting Developments

As a group, we are excited to move our meetings from Wednesdays to Sundays starting in April.

For now, we will maintain our informal small-group format. However, this change to Sunday has some significant implications for a loosely connected group with some non-churchgoers. We’ve been praying about it for some time now, and we were very excited when the group started expressing interest in the change.

We will also gain another member for our church planting team in mid-May.  Abilene (photo above) is a Brazilian woman who was part of a church plant in Altamira back in the days when we arrived in Brazil. She has been part of the national church family for many years and is very talented, balanced, and wise. She will be joining us for an undetermined amount of time, perhaps a few years, and will be significant to the next phases of this small group.

Finally, another family we know has been planning a move to Palmas for over a year. They are from here, know many people, are outgoing, and love the church. Finally, everything has lined up for them to move, and they just secured a house here, with a move planned for later this month.

We sense these changes will significantly impact the group’s development over the next several months. We pray that the church can move out of our house by year-end into a more commercial space!

Prayer

Please continue praying that God will connect us with key people and give us direction as we seek to guide this group and form a community of Christ followers.

Blessings in Christ,

Keith and Marsha Wilson

13
Mar

Brazil Update!!!

Hello

 

As promised last month, we have great news to share with you below.  Thanks again so much for your prayers!  If we can pray for anything for you, please let us know.

 

We are so blessed to be able to celebrate the church opening in Belem and finally have our first church service outside of our home.  We have been working for over a year through our home church to build up a body of believers to start a church.  Now, that has become a reality. 

 

We had many brothers and sisters from other Vineyard churches come and celebrate with us.  They came as far as Altamira, Santarem, and Portel to support the new church plant opening.  In addition, Milton, our National leader of the Vineyard church association, shared God’s Word. 

 

The Xingu Mission is about planting churches and training leaders to expand the Kingdom of God.  Many great scholars have affirmed this as a best practice.  Peter Wagner asserts, “Church planting is the most effective form of Evangelism known under heaven.”  Tim Keller also claims, “A vigorous and continuous approach to church planting is the only way to guarantee an increase in the number of believers and is one of the best ways to renew the whole body of Christ.”

 

We continue to meet at the reception hall below every Sunday, and it has been doing well, but it has its limitations.  We have not had the same amount of people as our first service in the subsequent weeks, but we are hopeful and utterly dependent on God to do what He does.  Obviously, we would love to have a church building, but that will take a miracle.  Thankfully, we believe in Jesus, who loves to do miracles. 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to share a remarkable story that I got to experience at the end of one of our church services.  Elba and I went to pray for a family.  The husband, Anselmo, was crying and looked so broken and hurt.  I felt like I got a word from God about forgiveness.  I thought maybe the couple had deeply hurt each other, and forgiveness was needed.  I shared that word with Elba, and she got the impression that Anselmo did not receive Christ as His savior and needed His forgiveness.  I thought he had already done this because Anselmo had been coming to our group for months.  Elba asked Anselmo, and he shook his head “No.”  Elba asked if he would like to do that now.  He accepted, and we prayed for him.  After I opened my eyes after the prayer, Anselmo’s face completely changed from agony to the happiest person on earth.  It was amazing!  It was like looking at a different person.  I have seen many people accept Christ, but his whole countenance changed, and to this day, Anselmo has changed.  WOW!  We were so happy for him, and he is elated!  (The picture below is from our inauguration.  He accepted Christ the following week).

 

 

 

Here is Camilly in her lab jacket.  She is enjoying college and studying biomedicine.  Alyssa is doing well as she starts her Junior year in high school.  She pretty much plays volleyball and studies every day.  They are both acclimating well to their new changes. 

 

 

 

We appreciate your continued prayers:

Please pray that we will identify the new senior pastor of the Belém church plant.

Please pray that the Lord will continue to reveal His plans to the church and us.

Please pray for our church, leadership, and congregation to help people draw close to God.  

Please pray for our family, especially our girls, in this phase of our lives.  

Please pray for our spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial health.  

Please pray for the rejection of this virus from your loved ones and its eradication.

 

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

 

Please click the donate button to make a secure online tax-deductible donation:

 

 

Or you can send a check to Xingu Mission at the below address:

 

 

If you want to unsubscribe from this email, please reply with “Unsubscribe,” and I will remove you.  Thanks.

 

 

 


Xingu Mission Field Report March 2024

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Church Planting

The Xingu Mission is about planting churches and training leaders as a way to expand the Kingdom of God.  Many great scholars have affirmed this as a best practice.  Bert Wagner asserts, “Church planting is the most effective form of Evangelism known under heaven.”  Tim Keller also claims, “A vigorous and continuous approach to church planting is the only way to guarantee an increase in the number of believers and is one of the best ways to renew the whole body of Christ.”

We are so blessed to be able to celebrate the church opening in Belem.  The Belem team has been working for over a year through their home church to build up a body of believers to start a church outside their home.  A month ago, that became a reality.  In their first church service, they were blessed to have many brothers and sisters from other Vineyard churches come and celebrate with them.  They came as far as Altamira, Santarem, and Portel to support the new church plant opening.  In addition, the National leader of the Vineyard church association shared God’s Word.  The church continues to meet and they are seeing salvations and the Kingdom of God in their midst.

It was an extraordinary moment bringing excitement throughout the movement.  We pray that more moments like this continue to occur more and more in our church planting efforts. 

Please continue to pray for this new Belem church plant, the other church plants in progress, and more workers to take up the cause to plant churches.
 

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Xingu Mission
Contact us:

Derek.Blaylock@xingu.org
Steve.Dolan@xingu.org
Patty.Fultz@xingu.org
Bob.Lesher@xingu.org
Christopher.Meyer@xingu.org 
Keith.Wilson@xingu.org
Marsha.Wilson@xingu.org

Our mailing address is:
Xingu Mission
PO Box 340785 
Columbus, Ohio 43234

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13
Feb

Amazon Update!

Hello

 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!!!  We are so grateful for all your prayers.  Bless you!  We have great news to share with you below.  Thanks again so much for your prayers!  If we can pray for anything for you, please let us know.

 

We have great news to share as a follow-up to last month’s update.  First, thank you for all your prayers for the new church plant in Belém (Translation: Bethlehem).  I want to share a quick back story.  Before returning to Brazil this last August, we had the opportunity to attend the National Vineyard conference in the USA.  During that conference, we received a prophetic prayer: “I know that you do not have anyone to come and join your team in Belém, but the Lord is going to bring your team together all at once.”  We heard the prayer and felt very encouraged, but we were unsure how it would get accomplished.  Fast forward six months, and the Lord has brought three strong leadership couples to come and plant a church in Belém with us.  The feelings of despair we felt in August have turned to overwhelming joy. 

 

Within one month, two couples moved to Belém, and another couple committed.  Clenildo and Angelita, and Niltinho and Mayara, and Ramon and Rayassa. 

 

 

I will summarize them because their accreditation would take up a lot of space. 

 

Clenildo and Angelita have two sons and have been part of the Vineyard Church in Brazil from the beginning.  They planted the first Vineyard church in the North of Brazil along with Elba over 25 years ago.  They are national and regional leaders. 

 

Niltinho and Mayara are from the Colina Vineyard church.  They both are very gifted in worship and training.  Niltinho oversees the North region in Brazil for worship.  They have the potential to be Senior pastors of this church or another. 

 

Ramon and Rayassa are from Portel and are recently married.  Ramon has been leading our water filter project for many years.  He is also very gifted in music and training.  Rayassa is passionate about the children’s ministry.  Ramon and Rayassa will be moving to Belém soon to help with the church and continue operations of the water filter project.    They have the potential to be Senior pastors of this church or another. 

 

Now that we are starting to have a consistent number of people come to our home weekly, and we have a team in place.  We will be having our first church service on February 18th.  We rented a room for our first church service.  We rented a room because we have very few resources to rent or buy a building to hold church services.  We are excited that after so much time, we can hold our first church service outside of our own home.  Please keep us in your prayers, and I will share an update next month. 

 

  

 

The girls are starting back to school.  The school year in Brazil starts in January.  Alyssa is starting her Junior year of high school, and Camilly will start college.  Alyssa really likes school, or at least the socialization part of school.  She has many friends and likes to play Volleyball.  Camilly will be studying Biomedicine with an emphasis on esthetics.  She likes the beauty industry.  Here is a picture of us with Michael and Helen Hansen.  We got to go 4-wheeling, which was a blast!

 

 

We appreciate your continued prayers:

·         Please pray that we will identify the new senior pastor of the Belém church plant.

·         Please pray that the Lord will continue to reveal His plans to the church and us.

·         Please pray for our church, leadership, and congregation to help people draw close to God. 

·         Please pray for our family, especially our girls, in this phase of our lives.  

·         Please pray for our spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial health.  

·         Please pray for the rejection of this virus from your loved ones and its eradication.

 

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

 

Please click the donate button to make a secure online tax-deductible donation:

 

 

Or you can send a check to Xingu Mission at the below address:

 

 

If you want to unsubscribe from this email, please reply with “Unsubscribe,” and I will remove you.  Thanks.

 

 

 


Xingu Mission Field Report February 2024

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Xingu Website

Hello from Brazil!  

We just held our missionary care retreat.  This retreat was led by Michael and Helen Hansen.  Michael provided a great perspective for us to discuss and ponder.  In our short time together we witnessed God working in and through us.  We were reminded how even our little interactions with others is a time to minister and can impact a person. 

Our time is limited, our talents are limited, and God is pleased when we embrace those limitations and remain faithful to his plans for us.  Our faithfulness and love for God is a Kingdom success.

We at the Xingu Mission have a clear sense of our call to plant churches and train leaders.  We do what we do out of love for God and a desire for others to know God’s love for them.  Your support in us fulfilling this role in God’s Kingdom is greatly appreciated. 

We want to encourage you to embrace your time and talents and remain faithful to the place God has called you to serve.

Have a blessed month!

Click here to Donate – Missionaries and Bases

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Xingu Mission
Contact us:

Derek.Blaylock@xingu.org
Steve.Dolan@xingu.org
Patty.Fultz@xingu.org
Bob.Lesher@xingu.org
Christopher.Meyer@xingu.org 
Keith.Wilson@xingu.org
Marsha.Wilson@xingu.org

Our mailing address is:
Xingu Mission
PO Box 340785 
Columbus, Ohio 43234

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Blaylock Missions Jan 2024 Newsletter

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Happy New Years!

Happy New Years!

We had a wonderful holiday season here in Brasil. This was our second Christmas here, and this year it felt much more like home. That is not to say that we did not miss you all, but the Lord has blessed us with an amazing community here, and a prevading sense of beloning and peacefulness. We are glad to get to serve with these wondefully commited, passionate, and sincere people here in Macapa. 

January is a big month for birthdays for the Blaylock family. Adalee turned 6 years old on Jan 16! Amaris turned 10 on Jan 25th! We are so proud of our amazing girls. They re growing up in so many ways: in adjusting to thier new home, in learning the language, in making friends, in serving the church, and especially in thier relationship with Jesus. 

This month we are traveling. We leave next week to travel to Belem and then on to another city in order to meet with the rest of the Missāo  Xingu team from all over Brazil. This will be a time for reflection, prayer, and planning. 

We are coming back to the United States this year! Late this coming summer we will be traveling back to the USA for a few months for our stateside assignment. This will be a time for us to visit with you all, share what God has been doing, and our ministry plans for the next season. I will be starting to reach out to you all in the near future. 

Thank you for all that you do and for who you are!

Love, 

Derek, Amanda, Selah, Amaris, Josiah, and Adalee

Prayer Request:

1.  Language Learning 

2. Travel Mercy and Safety

3. Our Replacement Leaders As We Transition

4. Clarity For Our Future Team Members

Ministry Support

Thank you all for your feverent prayers and faithful support. 

Prayer Support: We hope to increase our prayer support network and this will be a major focus for us this year. If you know anyone who may be interested please share this link with them: Newsletter Signup!

Ministry Funds: After we return to Brazil from our stateside assignment we will be moving to a new city to start new churches. To facilitate our move we will need some one-time assistance to help us and some core team members to relocate.

Additionally, as the scope of our ministry expands so will the funding needs. This year we will begin raising increased monthly ministry support. If you would like to assist with this please use the button below

Donate

What Do You Want?

For the last six or seven months I have been thinking a lot about the nature of desire. More generally, I have been asking myself and the Holy Spirit how we harness desire when it comes to making and being disicples.  And to do this in a way that asnwers the questions that Millenials and Gen Z are asking. (In Brazil, these two generations are remarkabley similar to their American counterparts in outlook, internal narratives, and the questions they ask.)

We (rightly) tend to start where Jesus said we should: “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”” – Matthew 16:24

In teaching this, however, I think that it is easy to make two fundamental errors:

1. Focusing on the intellectual content of the command.

2. Disicpling people to move against desires in a way that draws us away from the Lord rather than to Him. (I’ll disucss this one in the next newsletter). 

Regarding the first. Mot of our attempts to convey this teaching tend to come in the form of presentation of content, a thorough exegesis, or an apologetic. That is – our methodology can tend to be principly an attempt to present the right information. That is of course where we have to start, but the information along  with an admonishment of “now that you know this just do it” is simply not enough. It’s a mistake to think that solid exegisis, a thorough theological articulation, and an appeal to reason will produce meaningful change. The presentation is not aimed at the right apsect of our human experince. The Bible presents us not as principly rational beings, but as affective, desiring beings. For us, intent is nearly always prior to content. 

It is nearly always the case, and esepcailly in something as profund as our sexuality or politics, that our desires pre-shape our intellect and the rational reception of information. 

If you don’t believe me, this election season I invite you try to present the most rational, well reasoned case for your chosen political candidate to someone of the opposit political party in an attempt to have them intellectualy acknowledge the veracity of your claims and switch political affiliations. Good luck. 

We contend not only with the stark, intellectual facts of our argument. We also must address deeply held ideas and images of the heart that shape how people interpret facts and information.  And we must do this in a posture of humility and with the dispositions that come from the fruits of the Spirit rather than from a combative posuture, and the fruits that come from a mentality that we are under seige. 

In his book Rennovation of the Heart the theologian Dallas Willard says that ideas are “very general models of or assumptions about reality. They are patterns of interpretation, historically developed and socially shared…Our idea system is a cultural artifact, growing up with us from our earliest childhood and out of the teachings, expectations, and observable behaviors of family and community” (pg 96-97). 

Regarding images he says “Images are always concrete or specific, as opposed to the abstractness of ideas, and are heavily laden with feeling…they frequently present themselves with the force of perception and have a powerful emotional and sensuous linkage to governing idea systems.’ (pg 99). 

 These ideas and images, tightly bound up to our desires for the good life, are the primary stronghold of human evil in society and serve as the locus of our personal and social contentions. 

I don’t think that the word order of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, or the word order of the Great Commandment in Matthew 22 is accidental. It start first with this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart..” and then it goes on to speak of loving with all your soul, strength, and mind. The heart, that is the affective, desiring aspect of our being, holds a place of primacy in our lives when it comes to both proclaming the Good News, and in being disicpled in the Way of Jesus. 

So when it comes to faithfully addressing questions of political action, of human sexuality, of worship styles, or of disicpleship methodologies, we often must address the question beyond the initial question. We often have to dig deeper to find out the why behind the questions of poltics, or sexuality, or worship styles.  To do that, we must pull on the threads of desire which will lead us to the deeply held ideas and images, and beyond that – ultimatley to the desire for God Himself that is the most fundamental truth of our being.

This is admittadly hard work. It’s much easier to gather a crowd to hear an amazing exegesis of the Bible, than it is to cultivate the sort the life-on-life know-how and facilitate the sort of intimate gatherings that allow for exmainination and exegsesis of the heart. 

Despite the difficulty, it is worth the effort. And cultivating an ecclesiology that facilitates the examination of desire will be a major focus of this next season of ministry for us. 

In undertaking this endeavor, Jesus’ question to Blind Bartimaues in Mark 10 might be the most pertinent starting question: “What do you want me to do for you?”


Xingu Missions

PO Box 340785
Columbus, Ohio 43234

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11
Jan

Amazon Update!

Hello

 

Thank you so much for your prayers.  We pray that you had a great Christmas and Happy New Year.  Pray you enjoy our latest newsletter.  Bless you!

 

We have our documentary called “The Other Side of the River”.  Creative Impact Ministries created it.  It got several nominations and was one of the finalists of the Christian Worldview Film Festival.  In addition, Redeem TV picked it to be shown on their network.  If you haven’t seen it.  Check it out!  We pray it will inspire, encourage, and bless you!  If it does, please share it with your friends. 

 

 

You can watch it on Redeem TV.

https://watch.redeemtv.com/videos/other-side-of-the-river

 

Or you can watch it on YouTube. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-sacFZnmtU

 

Elba was asked to speak at a marriage conference at one of the local churches here in Belém.  Elba started the talk and probably could have ended it with the quote from Timothy Keller: “Do you want to have a successful marriage?  “Start here.  Do for your spouse what God did for you in Jesus, and the rest will follow.”

 

Elba talked about the power of marriage, the essence of marriage, and our mission of marriage.  She ended with another Timothy Keller quote: “One of the greatest expressions of love is the willingness to change, to commit to change attitudes and behaviors that bother or hurt your spouse.  Everyone must be willing to accept corrections and take responsibility for true and concrete changes.  This kind of change is always difficult; without God’s grace, it is almost impossible.  At the same time, it is one of marriage’s greatest signs of love.” Timothy Keller

 

Ultimately, it was very nice to be invited and get a chance to meet new people in this new city called Belém. 

 

  

 

We went back to Altamira to celebrate Christmas with our family.  Elba preached at the Mirante Church and praise the Lord 7 people accepted Christ as their Saviour.  What a great Christmas gift that they received!!!

 

 

 

For Christmas, we played games like Charades and BINGO.   We also got to see a HUGE Santa Clause display, which was over the top big.

 

 

 

During our time in Altamira, look what I found on the road.  A sloth!  He was trying to cross the street amid traffic.  They are the funniest of animals because of their gentleness and how they move slowly.  I took some pictures, and he smiled for the camera.  After taking him off the street, I put him in the trees so he would not wander back on the road.  This is life in the Amazon basin.  The other picture is a white monkey, which, I have been told, is very rare. 

 

  

 

Praise the Lord, we will be having three couples come and join us in starting a church in Belém.  An answered prayer!  Thank you!  I will write more in the next update.  Again, thanks for all your prayers!

 

We appreciate your continued prayers:

·         Please pray that we will identify the new senior pastor of the Belém church plant.

·         Please pray that the Lord will continue to reveal His plans to the church and us.

·         Please pray for our church, leadership, and congregation to help people draw close to God as we navigate this time and leadership transition.  

·         Please pray for our family, especially our girls, in this phase of our lives.  

·         Please pray for our spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial health.  

·         Please pray for the rejection of this virus from your loved ones and its eradication.

 

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

 

Please click the donate button to make a secure online tax-deductible donation:

 

 

Or you can send a check to Xingu Mission at the below address:

 

 

If you want to unsubscribe from this email, please reply with “Unsubscribe,” and I will remove you.  Thanks.

 

 

 

18
Dec

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE AMAZON!

Hello

 

Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year!  We have so many things to be grateful for this year, and indeed, one of those is our friendship with you and working with you to evangelize Brazil with the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Thank you.  We are also grateful for your continued prayers.  We will keep this month’s update short by sending our family’s CHRISTmas card.  May the Lord bless you richly and abundantly with His presence!!!

 

 

We appreciate your continued prayers:

·         Please pray that we will identify the new senior pastor of the Belém church plant.

·         Please pray that the Lord will continue to reveal His plans to the church and us.

·         Please pray for our church, leadership, and congregation to help people draw close to God as we navigate this time and leadership transition. 

·         Please pray for our family, especially our girls, in this phase of our lives.  

·         Please pray for our spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and financial health.  

·         Please pray for the rejection of this virus from your loved ones and its eradication.

 

Much love, Steve, Elba, Camilly, and Alyssa

 

Please click the donate button to make a secure online tax-deductible donation:

 

 

Or you can send a check to Xingu Mission at the below address:

 

 

If you want to unsubscribe from this email, please reply with “Unsubscribe,” and I will remove you.  Thanks.