Happy Easter, and praise the Lord, for He has Risen!!!  We got to celebrate our Easter service at the church, and we are pleased to have many known and new faces come and celebrate with us.  During the service, we had a time of worship, followed by Elba preaching the good news of Jesus and His resurrection.  During the preaching, Camilly and Alyssa led the children’s ministry.  After the service, we had a dinner and celebrated together as a community of believers.  As a new church plant, we are still trying to get to know people and put Jesus in front of them.   It has been a slow trudge, but we keep keeping on. 

In addition, Elba, Angelita, and Deanna held a women’s conference last month for International Women’s Day with the theme of giving strategies for stress and anxiety.  Elba, Angelita, and Deanna have been educated and trained in these areas and were able to impart their wisdom to all who participated.  We were pleasantly surprised by the great turnout.    

We will be back in the States because my Mom died suddenly on Sunday, April 7^th.  My sister Lynn wrote about our Mom on Facebook, which I will share.  “Our amazing Mom, Phyllis A. Dolan peacefully went home to be with Jesus.  She was such a bright light in this world.  Always willing to step in and lend a hand to whoever needed it.  She was loving, kind, had a great sense of humor.  She was very creative, artistic and a great seamstress.  Mom I miss you so much already.  Thank you for all you did for us! .”  Lynn articulated it well, which was way better than I could have. 

Having my Mom pass away while being on the mission field for over 20+ years has been a struggle.  The distances of being apart and the time being separated with long stretches in between visits make it all the more tough.  Love you Mom!

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 the whole Dolan family for comfort and peace. 

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

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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:

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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 18^th.  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.