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ZDolan Steve, Author at Xingu Mission | Page 8 of 9

Aug, 4

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XM

Church Camp

The InterVinha 2013 was held at the Church Camp in Altamira. This is the place we used to call “The Ranch”. For all who have helped support us and the movement in Altamira over the last 18 years, thank you. Here is a small glimpse of how the team there is taking things forward!

Aug, 4

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XM

Phil Strout

Phil Strout is the leader of the Vineyard Movement in the USA. I am very encouraged for the Vineyard movement in the USA, and around the world! 
Phil was the guest speaker at this InterVinha conference. Our girls rehearsed his sermons for hours on the way home the next day. Even now I am sure they still remember all the main points.
TEN PILLARS OF LEADERSHIP – by Phil Strout (spoken over three evening, in Altamira)
1.  Get people in front of Jesus, whatever the cost! “WHATEVER IT TAKES!” (story of the paralytic let through the roof)
2. This is the most important thing we’ve ever done. (Every day, every service, every task…)
3. It is amazing what can get done when you don’t care who gets the credit. 
4. Take care of your soul. (The key to going the distance.)
5.  The ministry is not overwork, it is overflow. 
6. Fruitful longevity. (I am making a date with everyone 25 years old and under. Let’s meet back here, on the 29th of July, 30 years from now. 2043! I want to hear stories of how you are still serving well in ministry.)
7. Do to others what you want them to do to you. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Matthew 7:12. 
8. If it is worth anything, it is worth everything.  Matthew 13:44-46 
9. Ignatious – Everyday everything that happens is for the greater glory of God and the well-being of people. 
10. Drink the cups of The Lord. 
Galatians 4:19
John 18:7-11
Mark 10:35-40
Matthew 26:36-39

Aug, 4

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XM

River Church

Clenildo tells stories that the river people can identify with. Many times God has directly answered prayers to calm storms, give him fish, one time he and Athila caught a deer with their hands. People around there could not believe it. As Clenildo shared stories about how God wants relationship with people, He wants our friendship and He is a living God, the people respond. Leading people to give their lives to God is one thing. Making disciples is a much longer and more involved process. We travelled to two river villages, Cruerá is overseen by the church in Souzel, and Tomandoá by the church in Vitoria.

Aug, 4

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XM

Three Ordinations

We ordain people for one year. We call this giving them a “license” to pastor. If all goes well, we ordain them for another year. Another “license”. If all goes well, we ordain them permanently.

We had three ordinations at this InterVinha Conference in July. Three “licenses” to pastor for a year. They all are taking existing churches, while the existing senior pastors are moving on retraining or, in Clenildo and Angelita’s case, to be freer to help all the churches.

I trust that those they lead will make their work a joy! May God give them vision, grace, patience, perseverance, and everything else they need to equip the saints!

These three couples are:

Athila and Elke (sp?): Central Church in Altamira
Leão and Edna: Gurupá
Jefferson and Simone: Mutirão Church


Never be in a hurry about appointing a church leader. Do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. 1 Timothy 5:22 NLT

Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you. Hebrews 13:17 NIV


Aug, 4

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XM

Clenildo and Angelita

At the InterVinha Conference Clenildo and Angelita were blessed to be supervisors, freer to travel and encourage the leaders here in Northern Brasil, and to help new regions open up. They were the founding and senior pastors of Central Church. They have now passed this responsibility over to Athila and Elqui (sp?). May this be a great blessing to all involved, and my God’s Kingdom advance rapidly.

Aug, 1

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XM

Danny Meyer

Danny Meyer brought a team to come and help us during our first year in Brazil. Since then he has come back once or twice every year, and became a mentor to me, and to our team. Things got even better when his wife Penny started to come. Last year they sent their son Christopher to Altamira as a full-time missionary.
One of Danny’s main messages throughout the years is: “Pace yourselves. Take one rest day per week. This is a marathon, not a sprint.” I know I speak for all our Brazilian and foreign team when I say that we are so grateful that God sent Danny and Penny to help us along the way.
“Thank you Danny and Penny.”
These photos were all taken at the July InterVinha Conference in Altamira. Translating for Danny in these photos is Denise, Clenildo and Angelita’s daughter.

Aug, 1

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XM

Macacheira

“Would you like to come and get some macacheira with me?” I was walking by Clenildo during the InterVinha Conference. It was still before breakfast. Clenildo drove me out to his chacara, and pulled up some small trees. The roots of these trees kind of grow like potatoes. You can boil them, fry them and bake with them. They are easy to replant. You just put one of the branches back into the hole you pulled the tree out of, and it will be ready again in a few months. Clenildo also showed me banana and papaya trees that were bearing fruit, and lots of fruit trees that are still very young. “Thanks for coming out here with me. Life is a lot more fun when you can show friends what you are doing.”
Clenildo is the main pastor of this movement here in the Northern Brasil, and greatly loved. 
The cooks prepared the macacheira as part of the lunch for the 200 + conference participants.

Jun, 25

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XM

June 2013 Newsletter

We’ve been in the city of Pacajá for a year now and working with our Brazilian team mates for six months. We’re in a neat phase of expectation and newness as we work together to establish a church here. We appreciate your prayers and support.

  

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For six months now we’ve been meeting as a church in our garage. The group is slowly growing and we now have 4-5 families that come regularly. Logan and Justin are leading worship with Marsha, Justin on guitar and Logan on the drum. 
Our main focus at this early stage is getting to know people and getting known in our community. We’ve been having cookouts, get-togethers, visiting people, and anything else to get to know people personally.

Events focused around special days are great for building relationships. We had a film night for Good Friday and a Mother’s Day event that was extremely successful as we honored the mothers in attendance.










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We seek to apply the Gospel to the daily reality of our community (its interests, its problems, its culture). To that end we’ve started a few outreaches.

One is a community development center we call CDR. CDR Pacajá is currently offering an English school, though we hope to offer more programs with time. English as a second language is a felt need of many Brazilians, even in a small rural community like Pacajá. Marsha is teaching introductory English and next semester we hope to offer two levels, Marsha teaching one and Logan the other.

Another activity we started is a weekly soccer game. Ferreira is the champion of this project and is doing a great job organizing and inviting new people.



Most soccer in Brazil is very competitive which ends up leaving out kids, older, injured, or busy enthusiasts. Our soccer group is much more recreational and relational. It’s turning out to be very relevant to a number of folks.


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In March we broke ground on construction of a multi-purpose building. It will serve as our CDR building and the initial church building. In the future we hope to build a larger attached auditorium. Part of the project strategy is to get better known in the community as we run after material work with others, and visit with curious neighbors.


Two short-term teams, the Marabá church planting base, and a number of financial supporters have been a blessing to us as we undertake this large project. If you’re interested in helping out, please contact us.



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We’ve been overseeing a small church plant in the interior (KM 120) for several years. The leaders there come from Maranhão, the next state over, and have a very large extended family there. For some time now Virgilio and Joana have wanted to share with their family how God has radically changed their lives.




A number of things came together which led to Pacajá and Marabá joining forces to visit Maranhão. We spent three days visiting and modeling Christ to over 100 people. Virgilio is well known in the communities we visited and his testimony of a changed life was significant. We don’t know what future God has for either the Marabá or Pacajá teams in Maranhão, but please pray that God will work in these folks lives. Maranhão is considered the country’s capital for macumba (African based occultism).




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Prayer requests:

v  That we can be a light to our community
v  Our family’s health, safety and adjustment in this new area
v  For unity of our team here in Pacajá

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Thank you for all your support! Please keep us and this work in your prayers.
Blessings in Christ,
The Wilsons









Apr, 1

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XM

Small Steps Towards God

We speak of many things in life as if they where pure black and white, positive or negative, on or off. That’s probably true for many things but, not all is as it appears. Like we say “the light is either on or it is off”, “the water faucet is either on or it is off”, “the car is running or it is not”.  Those statements seem true enough for all practical purposes, but there must be,  even in these examples, some time, even if so briefly, when the light filament is hot, but not yet glowing hot; or when the water valve has been opened a bit but the water is not gushing out; or when the car’s engine is rotating but still needs force from the starter motor to fully start the cyclical combustion process (have you ever held the key for a fraction of a second short of what was needed for the motor to catch completely?).
When we think of spiritual life, many times Christians think of people as completely “lost” or completely “saved”. We may say a person “is worldly” or she “is godly”, or she “is backslidden” This is all fine, it is practical talk, a fair amount of generalization has been assumed in the comment. We clearly don’t mean to say she is fully this or the other. After all, it would be cumbersome and boring if every comment we made was highly accurate and technical. But the way we speak does seem to influence, to some degree, how we think. When was the last time you looked at some “clearly ungodly person” and thought, “That guy there looks like a…(insert what you want, thug, dealer, immoral person, cheat, etc), but is it possible that he is on the edge of giving himself over to God?”
You see we all are either walking in the direction of intimacy with God or away from intimacy with God. Our relationship is not possibly static.  Don’t worry I’m not talking about salvation or justification here. I’m talking about the state of our relationship either before or after salvation. Have you ever thought that there is some process going on in a person’s life prior to them accepting Christ….which of course means prior to them giving control of their life over to Christ. If it is a relationship, there must be some start, some revealing, some gradual understanding of WHO God is. Something that wins us over to Him. (Clearly something like a Paul encounter, something apparently immediate, is not out of the question for God, either.)
I mention it because I’m not sure that I had ever really stopped to think about it before I started serving as a missionary. It seemed to me, from my Christian culture exposure that “evangelism” was about making a convincing logical argument and getting a decision. It always seemed to me to assume starting and finishing the thing all at the same time. It never even occurred to me that there might be some process involved. (And for that matter, I never really thought too much about there being a growth process after accepting Christ.)
Last week I went to help a local guy, Dorivaldo, lay out his property to start digging footers for a house he is going to build.( I’m building a brick house with my two teenage boys, more out of courage than know-how, and Dorivaldo now insists that I’m a builder. I figure if he’s got courage to trust me to help him, then sure why not.). Dorivaldo, and his family have been faithfully attending the small church in our garage since December. He hasn’t made any commitment to Christ, at least not a public one, and they’ve got their own family problems. Dorivaldo you might say is a bit “rough-around the edges”, but a generally decent guy. 
So as I was pulling out the tape measure and brick layer’s line he said “Hey, maybe we could pray before we start.” What he wanted was to pray for our work time and the project before we even started. So you have to ask what is going on here!? Why does a guy with a non-religious background in a non-religious setting, with no immediate life-threatening circumstance say, “Hey let’s pray”?… It’s because he is starting to journey in the direction of God! As I prayed for the project and our work day, outwardly, I remained calm like nothing was happening, but inside I said “That’s it! That’s the first fruit! This is cool!”
This is what I’m looking for, signs of a person starting to walk in the direction of God. Decisions for Christ are awesome, but they don’t generally just happen, there are lots of small and apparently insignificant steps along the way. If we consider that people are on a journey in one direction or another, not fully in one place nor fully in the other, not fully “godly” nor fully “worldly”, we may be more likely to believe that we individually can somehow help influence in what direction they will travel, or possibly facilitate their attempts to journey in the direction of increased intimacy with God. 
In pursuit of small steps towards God,
Keith