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.)

Precious Ladies

This picture was taken at the rural work on Saturday before Mother's Day. We honored these ladies that day. These ladies that live there are some of the hardest working women I know. It amazes me. They work like men in the fields and take care of their homes. Recently electricity was brought into the area but still Maria (the lady with the flowered shirt) does not have electricity. So that means no fans when it is hot, no fridge, no washing machine, and the list goes on. They work but never complain because that is just the way life is there. Not only do they work hard they are so giving. We almost always come back with something - rice, beans, pineapples, bananas and once a live chicken. I guess it amazes me so much because I have never had to do without.

The Yard Sale

Joshua and Benjamin decided the other day that they were going to have a yard sale. Yard sales are not done here in Brazil and I have never had one with my kids so I guess they just came up with this plan themselves. So, Joshua and Benjamin got together all of their toys that they did not want anymore and set up a nice display outside with prices on the toys. Then they invited the 3 neighbor boys to come and look at what they had to sell. Well, the little boys across the street had just a little money so they could not buy much. They spent all of their money but there were still things the little boys wanted. Joshua and Benjamin, not being very smart business boys, gave them their own money to buy more of their own things. After the boys had finished their buying one of the boys, Jocicley, went to his house got out his old toys and had his own yard sale. My boys felt guilty not to buy something so they did. I really do not know if they wound up with more or less money than they started with. I think they broke even.

March/April Prayer letter

Greetings in the Name our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

As we have been bombarded by heavy rains in these past months, we have also been bombarded with so many blessings from such a great and wonderful Savior.

RIO BRANCO - It has been such a blessing working with Bro. Jerri and Bro. Adilson in their training for leadership. Both of them have really stepped up to the bat in a real and genuine way. This past month both of them preached at different Sunday night services. What a tremendous job they both did. Last Sunday was Bro. Jerri’s turn and he was a bit nervous. He did a wonderful job in presenting the gospel. Then to top it all off a young man accepted Jesus Christ as his personal saviour. You talk about lighting someone’s fire, it sure lit his. This young man that got saved is a man that Stephen had known and witnessed to for a long time when we lived in Brasiléia. Due to his job he was transferred to Rio Branco, and Stephen ran into him the other day and invited him to church. This was on a Thursday and that following Sunday he came and got saved. PRAISE THE LORD!! Please pray for Bro. Jerri and Bro. Adilson as they take over in our absence and also for the church. The church is doing well. We had a couple’s retreat and a ladies’ retreat since our last letter, and God has really been working in the hearts of the people.

COLONY - The colony work is always a special time and a challenging one as well. When we leave the house and drive the 230 kilometres one way, 220 kilometres of holey paved roadway and 10 kilometres of dirt-mud, you never know what to expect. This last time there was a small washout of the road right before you get to the church. Someone ahead of us had already thrown some small logs in the washout so we could get by, even though we hit front and rear bumpers. The church there is doing well. A lady by the name of Antonia accepted Jesus as her personal Saviour, AMEN! God is good! Bro. Jerri and Bro. Adilson will be responsible for this work as well in our absence. Bro. Ely, who lives there, will be helping with the music.

VISITORS - This past month we had the privilege of having some friends from the USA come and also work. Mr. Courter and 5 of his children came and were a tremendous blessing to us and the people here. The Bible teachings given by Bro. Courter were very much needed and very well received. They were not afraid of work either and work they did. For our family it was a great time of fellowship and encouragement.

FURLOUGH – We have our tickets bought and are coming back to the USA on September 1, 2009. We are very excited about being able to take a furlough. The children are so excited. It will be four years since we have been back to the USA. We are in the process of getting everything together and meetings booked so we can hit the road running when we arrive. 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. Our phone number, when calling from the States, is 011-55-68-3221-0614 or if you have skype we can be reached at steverdoolittle. 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.

We would like to close this letter by thanking all of you for your faithfulness, first of all to the Lord and then toward the ministry here. Thank you so very much.