March, 2025
Dear Friends,
One of our greatest ministries in the states is regularly visiting nursing homes where widows and widowers are concentrated. James tells us that pure religion and undefiled is to visit the widows in their affliction. The people in nursing homes generally are lonely and starved for affection and very much appreciate the visits.
BRAZIL
We sent out the Spring edition of “The Fundamentalist” last September. If you remember, we mentioned in our last prayer letter a couple of the articles from that edition; we will talk about the rest of the articles now.
The back cover of the journal is the most visible page when it is in the mail. The paper is folded with the address of the people getting the journal displayed on the back cover. The journal is sent out loose so even mail carriers can read it if they like. We try to have an article that catches the eye on the back; the article on the back of this issue is “My Group is Getting Smaller.” It discusses how few people can “endure sound doctrine” today. In big letters on the bottom of the page we have Luke 18:8, “Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?”
We generally have a full-page article each time by one of our ICCC pastors, Moyses Moreira Lopes. He writes Biblical articles for a local secular newspaper and we run one of them. The one in this issue is entitled, “Christmas in 3D.” Pastor Moyses discusses the birth of Jesus in three parts: the annunciation to Mary, the visit of the shepherds, and then the visit of the wise men.
There are small announcements of the coming Congress of ALADIC (the Latin American Council of the ICCC) in February of 2025 and the upcoming Congress of the ICCC in Kenya in 2026. Another small article tells of the Brazilian government banning evangelism in the prisons. Finally we started running the resolution from the ICCC from the last Congress entitled, “Music in the Life of the Christian and of the Church.”
Lord willing, we will put out the fall edition in March.
As was just mentioned, ALADIC was held in Colombia in February. Although we did not go, we helped a couple of Brazilian pastors with their airfare to the Congress. We have enclosed a picture of the Brazilian delegation of six pastors, together with Hal and Stephen Ricker, Brad Gsell, and the new president of ALADIC, David Aragon. One of the Brazilian pastors, Luciano Gomes, was elected Vice President of ALADIC.
As General Secretary of the ICCC, Ken has been involved, between Congresses, with approving new churches for membership. We recently held a Zoom meeting of the nominations committee, which is made up of the ICCC officers.
USA
We continue preaching on our circuit of churches in Marcus Hook, PA; Kingsville, MD; and Collingswood, NJ. We likewise continue our door-to-door ministry in Marcus Hook and Kingsville, although the weather has not permitted us to go out many times this winter. We attended the Christmas organ concert in Collingswood with John Gross, Jr. playing. We were also able to give memorials at funeral services for Mrs. John Dekker and Mrs. Geraldine Racz, as well as attended a couple of other funerals.
One final highlight for us, that we want to share, was a Thanksgiving visit in Florida. We had all our five children and ten grandchildren together. We are all pictured below.
Brethren, thank you again for all of your prayers and support.
In His service,
Ken and Ira Olson