Blaylock Missions Jan 2024 Newsletter
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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.
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.
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Hello
Happy early Thanksgiving! We are very grateful for all your prayers, love, and generosity in the ministry and our lives. The Lord is good, and there are many things to be thankful for each moment. Bless you!
One of the things that we are thankful for is that on November 8th, Elba and I celebrated 20 years of marriage. It is such a cliché, but time has really gone by quickly. We feel so lucky and fortunate that the Lord has put us together. We pray for the continued deepening with one another in our marriage. In celebration of our anniversary, we went to a nice restaurant.
We had the opportunity to drive 800 kilometers to Altamira for several days. It was a long day, and parts of the journey were challenging, especially on the dirt and dusty roads. It has been almost a year for Elba and me since we have been back. We went back because one of our pastors got married, and they asked Elba to help officiate the wedding. It was a pleasure to participate in this lifelong journey with them.
Returning to the Mirante church, where Elba preached, was also excellent. It was nice to see our friends and get to worship together. The church has many new faces and a lot of old ones as well. We are so proud of the beautiful work the team is doing, and we give all the praise to God for a continued successful transition. Even though we missed the faces, we did not miss Altamira. We are grateful that the Lord has led us to Belem.
As you know, we run a non-profit organization in Altamira called CDR. We can do that from afar because of the very talented people working for CDR. We got the opportunity to participate in some of the English classes. English is in great demand, and we feel privileged to be able to offer it to students for about ½ the price the market charges.
During our trip back to the States, we brought gear to play Pickleball. It has become addictive for the youth in Altamira. They play constantly, and they love it. While back in Altamira, I got the opportunity to get to play with them. Junior has been using the game as an evangelism tool to draw more youth to the church. In addition, Pickleball is also starting to blossom in Belem. I play with a group of a couple of people once a week. The group from Belem wants to challenge Altamira to a playoff. They also keep asking me to see if people from the USA would like to come and play as well in a tournament. Are any Pickleballers out there up for the challenge? Let’s see where this goes. Smile!
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.
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Hello
Thank you so much for your continued prayers, love, and generosity in our lives and ministry. Pray you are blessed with this month’s update.
We were fortunate to have a team come and join us in the ministry. The Vineyard Lancaster church sent a team of 4 to go to Brazil and participate in constructing a bathroom for our church along the Caju River in the Amazon basin. It is a very remote area near our sister church in Portel. We worked at the church for four days and lived on the boat. It was scorching hot and hard work, but we overcame it and got the bathroom walls up. The community was very grateful because they say bathrooms are rare in this area. We pray the bathroom will be completed in the next week or two.
Afterward, we had a church service for the community, and it was a great turnout—much more than I expected. Elba shared the salvation message, and Mickey shared a little bit about his testimony. Seven people committed their lives to Christ and one recommitted. It was awesome and a privilege to be a part of their story.
We then took the boat back to Portel and had a church service. Brian shared the message about joining God mission and power evangelism.
Then we returned to Belem via line boat, and our church group got together to have a barbeque. Elba continued in her series about Gospel Christianity with the theme “Who is Jesus?”, and Mickey shared his testimony.
The girls stayed home during our travels because they could not miss school. Thankfully, they had their cousin Apolana, her husband WD, and their favorite nephew Thomas come and stay with them while we traveled.
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 next 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.
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