Well I know it is about time for me to put something on the blog. So here it goes. As some of you know I have had a bout with my back. I am getting much better, thank you. But I needed to say something about Kelly. Kelly is truly am amazing person and wife. When all of this happened to me, she just kicked right in without missing a beat to keep everythinggoing. Just so you get an idea of what all this consisted of, Construction at the church, construction at the Training Center, taking me back and forth to the hospital and doctors visits, (since I can not drive, she is my persanol chauffer), keeping the house in order and her regular church obligations. The other day I was reading in Proverbs and ran across verse 4 of chapter 12. I looked up that verse in the Mathew Henry's Comentary and liked what I read. Here it is:
"He that is blessed with a good wife is as happy as if he were upon the throne, for she is no less than a crown to him. A virtuous woman, that is pious and prudent, ingenious and industrious, that is active for the good of her family and looks well to the ways of her household, that makes conscience of her duty in every relation, a woman of spirit, that can bear crosses without disturbance, such a one owns her husband for her head, and therefore she is a crown to him, not only a credit and honour to him, as a crown is an ornament, but supports and keeps up his authority in his family, as a crown is an ensign of power. She is submissive and faithful to him and by her example teaches his children and servants to be so too."
God has truly blessed me with a wonderful wife. I will probably get in trouble for doing this, but she really is awesome!
Friday, July 3, 2009
Don't Play Chicken with a Cow
We have a neighbor and he has a lot of cows. I find his cows very annoying as he lets them run free. Some of his cows are mad cows. Mad in the sense as you would not want to be walking down the road and meet some of his cows. His cows have their cow meetings in the field behind my house. The other day I was driving down the peaceful dirt road where we live. His cows were in the road and I slowed down some and they appeared to be moving but much slower than I liked. So, I decided to speed up in hopes that they would move a little quicker. Well, I hit one of the cows. To make a long story short, if you hit a cow with you car you will do damage to your car and the cow will walk away without a scratch. The moral, don't play chicken with a cow.
Update on Steve. He drove today. YEAH! Not much but just back from town. He still has not been able to do the MRI but he is daily getting better. He celebrated his birthday on Wednesday and the church surprised him by bringing out breakfast for the family.
Update on Steve. He drove today. YEAH! Not much but just back from town. He still has not been able to do the MRI but he is daily getting better. He celebrated his birthday on Wednesday and the church surprised him by bringing out breakfast for the family.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Current prayer letter
Greetings in the Name our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
As we near the date for our return to the USA for furlough we see the mighty hand of God at work at every turn and in the straight-ways as well.
RIO BRANCO – Please pray for this city and the work here. In the past years there has been a growing movement in our state that has made it in style to be an “evangélico” evangelical. You do not have to be saved and have a changed attitude towards sin and the world. Unfortunately this new fad has trespassed almost all denominations. Our state according to statistics has the most evangelicals in Brazil. Naturally this makes our task even that much more difficult due to the fact that when out soul winning and handing out tracts, everyone is an evangelical. To the most part this movement is based on prosperity and healing. We have in our city big healing crusades that leave the people that much more confused about the truth. They promote a lot of Benny Hinn’s materials and use his methods. The people here are a very emotional people. It is old fashion to be called a pastor. These guys come in calling themselves Prophets, Bishops and Apostles.
We know what the Bible teaches about the last days and we are certain that it is near. Please pray with us that we, through the mighty hand of God, will be able to reach these people that are blinded to the truth.
We have also been busy doing some remodeling work at the church. We have had to add another classroom to start a nursery and also added an above ground baptistery. Over at the training center we have been doing some work as well, getting some things ready looking ahead for our return from furlough.
COLONY – Pray for this work as well. It is always a blessing to be able to go out there for services. The people are so different from the city people. But we do have a need for a full time worker out there. We are asking God to raise up someone even from within our church that God would call and use for His honour and glory out there.
FURLOUGH – As we have mentioned in the previous letters, we are taking our furlough leaving the field September the 1st for 9 months. If you would like to have us come by your church and share with you what God has been doing these past four years, please let us know. You can email us at doolittle@brazilianmissions.org or stephendoolittle@mwbm.org. If you have skype we can be reached at steverdoolittle. By the time you get this letter we will no longer have a phone line to the house. Please let me know as soon as possible so that we can make the necessary arrangements. Once again, we would love to come and share with you what God is doing.
FAMILY – Stephen has had some issues with his back that has laid him out for over two weeks. Test results show that he has a herniated disc which is pinching a nerve in his left leg. He is doing much better now being able to sit and stand up for short periods of time. Kelly and the children have kicked in to keep things going as normal as possible.
I (Stephen) want to express a big thanks for the hard work that Kelly has had to do in keeping everything running from construction, chauffer, and already moving much of our personal items into storage, plus her stuff as well. I have truly been blessed with a wonderful wife.
As always we would like to thank you for your continued support of the ministry here. Thank you for your faithfulness.
As we near the date for our return to the USA for furlough we see the mighty hand of God at work at every turn and in the straight-ways as well.
RIO BRANCO – Please pray for this city and the work here. In the past years there has been a growing movement in our state that has made it in style to be an “evangélico” evangelical. You do not have to be saved and have a changed attitude towards sin and the world. Unfortunately this new fad has trespassed almost all denominations. Our state according to statistics has the most evangelicals in Brazil. Naturally this makes our task even that much more difficult due to the fact that when out soul winning and handing out tracts, everyone is an evangelical. To the most part this movement is based on prosperity and healing. We have in our city big healing crusades that leave the people that much more confused about the truth. They promote a lot of Benny Hinn’s materials and use his methods. The people here are a very emotional people. It is old fashion to be called a pastor. These guys come in calling themselves Prophets, Bishops and Apostles.
We know what the Bible teaches about the last days and we are certain that it is near. Please pray with us that we, through the mighty hand of God, will be able to reach these people that are blinded to the truth.
We have also been busy doing some remodeling work at the church. We have had to add another classroom to start a nursery and also added an above ground baptistery. Over at the training center we have been doing some work as well, getting some things ready looking ahead for our return from furlough.
COLONY – Pray for this work as well. It is always a blessing to be able to go out there for services. The people are so different from the city people. But we do have a need for a full time worker out there. We are asking God to raise up someone even from within our church that God would call and use for His honour and glory out there.
FURLOUGH – As we have mentioned in the previous letters, we are taking our furlough leaving the field September the 1st for 9 months. If you would like to have us come by your church and share with you what God has been doing these past four years, please let us know. You can email us at doolittle@brazilianmissions.org or stephendoolittle@mwbm.org. If you have skype we can be reached at steverdoolittle. By the time you get this letter we will no longer have a phone line to the house. Please let me know as soon as possible so that we can make the necessary arrangements. Once again, we would love to come and share with you what God is doing.
FAMILY – Stephen has had some issues with his back that has laid him out for over two weeks. Test results show that he has a herniated disc which is pinching a nerve in his left leg. He is doing much better now being able to sit and stand up for short periods of time. Kelly and the children have kicked in to keep things going as normal as possible.
I (Stephen) want to express a big thanks for the hard work that Kelly has had to do in keeping everything running from construction, chauffer, and already moving much of our personal items into storage, plus her stuff as well. I have truly been blessed with a wonderful wife.
As always we would like to thank you for your continued support of the ministry here. Thank you for your faithfulness.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
BE POSITIVE
Someone recently sent me an e-mail and told me to be positive. I have thought about that a good deal the last couple of days. I am in general not a positive person. That is Steve. He is the positive and I am the negative. I personally think that makes a great match. But I have realized these last couple of days my attitude is important. Now, I am not preaching positive thinking but I do not think if I have a pity party that it will help my situation. Believe me when I tell you that I have had some good pity parties and the best ones are when I have snacks to go with the party. I have realized over the last week and a half how good God has been to our family. Yes, Steve has been down but at least it is something that can be fixed. He never complains. (If it were me everyone in the house would know my pain!) We have had the poorest people of our church offer us money. Funny huh? They said they thought we might need it with the exams and medicine. We told them thank you but we were fine. That is a blessing just to know that someone cares about you. Our kids have been great. I have been more irritable lately, but they have been wonderful. We even cleaned out Steve's shop. And we have this past week moved more of our stuff into storage. Not only that we have had so many wonderful e-mails of people saying they are praying for us. Because I am now driving myself everywhere I need to go, I have stopped more frequently for ice cream. Now, those of you that really know me and really know my mom, know that the love of ice cream is inherited. My mom passed her love of it right on down to me. With all my running, I have not even gained weight from the added intake of ice cream.
Now about Steve, he is doing much much better. He is still is not driving, but as you gathered from the paragraph above I am ok with that as long as I get my frozen treat. He has been back to picking some so I know that he is better. He started his physical therapy and we are praying that soon he will be able to get his MRI done. He is still not able to lay flat on his back or on his side for long periods of time, so he is still sleeping half laying, half sitting. But the pain has been much less especially the last 2 days. Thanks so much for your prayers! Continue praying.
Now about Steve, he is doing much much better. He is still is not driving, but as you gathered from the paragraph above I am ok with that as long as I get my frozen treat. He has been back to picking some so I know that he is better. He started his physical therapy and we are praying that soon he will be able to get his MRI done. He is still not able to lay flat on his back or on his side for long periods of time, so he is still sleeping half laying, half sitting. But the pain has been much less especially the last 2 days. Thanks so much for your prayers! Continue praying.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Santo Diame
Yesterday we had a slight mishap with our car (it broke down) and we were waiting for the tow truck. Up the road from where we broke down there was a Santo Diame church. This religion which is legal here in Brazil orginated in our state of Acre. What is consists of to my understanding is that they take the bark of certain trees and brew them into a tea. This tea is actually a drug which makes the person hallucinate. They have special services where there is a lot of singing and a lot of tea drinking and thus a lot of "visions". These services can last up to 12 hours long and even children are allowed to participate in the drinking. Sadly enough, this country looks at this religion as unique to their culture.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Why Me?
Steve asked this question, "Why me?" Steve was asked to speak to the graduating class of Portuguese students on Monday night. Actually they asked to use our church (a daughter of one of our members who was graduating) for a thanksgiving service, thanking the Lord for their graduation. They wanted Steve to speak at this graduation. He got a kick out of it because here he is an American speaking to students that graduated from the federal university in Portuguese. He was able to leave them all with a clear plan of salvation and so he was thankful for the opportunity. By the way, for those of you that do not know, Steve grew up in Brazil and his Portuguese is actually very good. Now mine, that is another story.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
19 Years
Stephen and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary on May the 19th. We had a rare night out with a sweet lady from the church watching the children. I feel so blessed these past 19 years. Steve has kept life exciting. For those of you that know him you can imagine that. Never a dull moment. The kids call him law and call me grace, but they all admit that he is a lot more fun than I am. Thank you Steve! I love you so much! (This picture is almost a year old. One of our children took it. I cannot remember which one.)
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