Dear Friends,
The above passage is a principle of scripture that if we sow bountifully we shall also reap bountifully. The easiest way for the average person to sow and water the gospel seed bountifully is with tracts. False conversions with tracts are relatively few because there is no pressure as God works on hearts in private. George Whitefield said of gospel tracts, “Why should we not scatter them everywhere? They are like the leaves of the tree of life, for the healing of the nations.”
BRAZIL
There have been a couple of items of news about gospel tracts in Brazil. We have enclosed a page from a recent newsletter of Chick Publications which pictures a tract entitled, “A Escolha” (The Choice). It has a caption that reads, “Found this in tract rack at church in Brazil on edge of the Amazon. Chick tracts get around.” This tract could have been left there in our ministry on the edge of the Amazon. We gave out 10,000 copies of this title alone, all over Brazil. The tract in the picture looks well-worn, as many of our tracts looked after a while with the ravages of high humidity.
The other news is that there is opposition from the government of Brazil to Chick tracts. Chick Publications put out a notice that a Brazilian brother had received concerning sending tracts to Brazil. It read, “Unfortunately, the Brazilian government decided recently to prohibit the importation of our products to your country. All of the shipments have been returned to us.” Chick tracts must be effective to warrant this exclusion. Prayer is requested concerning this situation.
We put out our fall edition of “The Fundamentalist” in March. We included an article on the exposed back cover, telling about the prohibition of Chick tracts coming to Brazil. We said, “Where did freedom of religion go?” This, in turn, has brought on some opposition, we believe, from the post office in Brazil. They are now returning many of our journals to the sender. They claim that their machines read the return address as the destination address. We have been sending the journals in the same manner for 15 years and never had this problem before. Pray for this problem as well.
On the left, you see that we have enclosed a picture of the front cover of this latest issue of the journal. It features Ken`s sermon, “Worthy is the Lamb” preached at the closing assembly of the ICCC Congress in Collingswood last year. More will be said about this latest issue in the next prayer letter.
USA
Ken has been preaching a bit more of late and it looks like we will be doing even more in the near future. It seems that in addition to Marcus Hook and Kingsville he will be probably preaching at a third church, regularly – Collingswood. We continue to go door-to door-when the weather and schedules have permitted, passing out tracts and witnessing.
We had our Faith Presbytery meeting at Marcus Hook the end of March, and had an earthshaking moment in the midst of our meeting. Yes, there was an earthquake centered nearby, which was the strongest earthquake measured on the east coast at least since 1884!
We have started preliminary preparations for the next ICCC Congress in Kenya in 2026. In our last letter we wrote that Ken has not been flying for the last couple of years because of blood pressure problems, but that he was going to try to take a short flight to Florida in February to see our new grandson, Jotham. Well, we took the flights to Florida, and all went very well. Ken hopes to at least be able to fly to Kenya in 2026.
We had a blessing that an earth-worship “metaphysical store” called “Grounded Souls” located directly across from our house in Smyrna, has closed down. Souls need to rise up to heaven and not be grounded. Also, Ken finally got the engine of his old Barracuda to start. Leah is doing well, but is still undergoing treatments for some spots seen in a scan of her lungs. Continue to pray for her. Below is a picture we found of last Christmas. It is of our two daughters and two of our grandchildren dressed up in 19th century clothes, caroling at the Delaware Agricultural Museum.
Thanks again for all your prayers and support.
In His service,
Ken and Ira Olson