Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I hope that this letter finds you well in this Christmas season and that you are able to enjoy time with family and friends remembering the real reason for the season!

Well the Lord has been faithful to Nate and myself in our visa situation and has provided, in his timing, our visas! We hope to leave the first part of the year, depending on the visa shipment, flight availability, and time line for the Abel families. We’ll be sure to keep you all posted as we begin to move forward relatively quickly with the process of going to Brazil! Thank you all for your continued prayers and we join you in giving thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord in this Christmas Season!

Jon Nelson and Nathan Olson

 

Merry Christmas! We pray that the Christmas season finds you in good health and with a merry heart! 

As we have gone through this advent season of waiting for Christmas and the time of Christ’s coming, it brings about such an opportunity to share of the wonderful Savior that has come to us! Both of us have been able to stay involved with ministry that the Lord has provided for us and count it a joy and privilege to make Him known in every facet of our lives.  

Jon is currently in Montana serving the Lord, and has been used in many ways to bless both his family and congregation. It has been relatively short but filled with so much! He has been able to help out at a local skateboard ministry serving dinner and listen to the speaker talk to the skateboarders about how Christ can make a difference in their lives. It was such an amazing ministry to be apart of! Jon’s also had the opportunity to do some extra labor work around the church that has needed to be done. Over the next couple of days building up to Christmas, Jon is planning on going door to door to the neighbors of the church, letting them know about the Christmas Eve service that will be offered. Jon’s schedule has certainly been kept full and he has also been enjoying the extra time he’s been given to spend with his family. It’s so great to be with family on Christmas and remember the true meaning for the holiday: a long awaited Savior, often foretold, completely fulfilled.  

Nathan is living in the Minnesota Metro and serving the Lord in all the avenues that have been opened up in that field. Most of his time has been occupied in serving as a youth worker at his home church in Shakopee. He has just completed a whole semester of teaching and training through the book of 1 John and looks forward to how the Lord will continue to work in the lives of the youth there! Another big time taker has been the preparation for his family to move as they are getting everything ready to sell their home. With everyone else in the family working or going to school, it has been good for Nathan to be around in order to get some necessary work done with some of his time in December. Once again, there is nothing like being with your family for Christmas and being able to spend time focusing on the coming of Christ, and also the promise of His coming again! 

Most of all, in all we do, we count it the greatest joy and blessing to be obediently serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Cor. 4:5) 

Living for Him and for His glory, 

Nathan Olson and Jon Nelson

  “¹⁰When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD. ¹¹They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? ¹²Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” ¹³And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. ¹⁴ The LORD will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”‘

Now many of us know the rest of this story about how the Lord created a way for the people of Israel to walk through the Red Sea on dry land and the sea crashed behind them on the Egyptians. What a miracle that was! What I want to focus on however is the people’s attitudes before this miracle took place. Can you imagine gaining freedom, only to have the person who gave you freedom change their mind and want to kill you? And then to make it worse the Lord led you to this place to be between a sea and an army! It’d be hard to think that the Lord wanted you to have freedom or wanted you to live. The Lord had other plans however; not only did he want the people of Israel to realize that He would be there for Him but He wanted all of the Egyptians to know that He was Lord.

These moments in life where you feel as though God has left you to die, where you wonder if He still cares, where you wonder if you’ve followed the path that He has laid before you have been affectionately termed as “Red Sea Moments.” Often times we begin to wonder what God has in store, what it is that He’s doing, or even if He remembers us at all, but I would want to encourage you that the Lord is faithful and knows your plights. He doesn’t ignore us and He doesn’t let us suffer without a reason. He is an all knowing, all powerful God and knows what He’s doing at all times. We may not be able to understand what the Lord is doing at the time but have faith that a miracle will happen, that your Red Sea will be parted.

So by this point you’re probably wondering what this has to do what Nate and myself are going through. Well, in these past couple of months we’ve been able to look at Scripture, continue praying and seeking guidance, and more than ever we’ve felt that we’re supposed to go. The Lord has laid it on our hearts to go and serve Him and that’s exactly what we plan to do. Yes, it is close to three months past the time we were scheduled to go but how can we not praise God? Do we know better than the Lord when we should be going? Both Nate and I have faith that the Lord is in control and we will continue to wait on Him.

We want to thank those of you who have remembered us in your prayers, the prayers have strengthened us as the Lord continues to give us strength and hope in Him. We would ask for continued prayers as our visa applications continue to be looked over and that we would be approved to go in the Lord’s timing.

We would also ask for prayer as Nate’s family has begun the moving process and are continuing to figure out other details. Praise God Nate was able to be here to help his family as the make this adjustment! I have gone back home to Kalispell, MT and plan on staying here until we hear positive words on our visas. I will be working temporary jobs around the area as well as getting involved with some ministries that my home church has established in the community.

The Lord has a plan and we continue to praise Him for that. We look forward to going to Brazil, knowing in full confidence that the Lord is working in His own time. God bless your day and please remember that in your own Red Sea moments God is always in control!

Jon Nelson and Nathan Olson

Hello friends and family,

It is now the week of thanksgiving and Jon and I are continually reminded of all the blessings of the Lord. Although we may not yet be in Brazil, we have been so abundantly blessed by the Lord while here in the States! We praise the Lord for such things as:

-Opened doors for Ministry: (Meza, AR; Madison, SD; Grafton, ND; Leeds, ND; WMF in Plymouth, MN; Shakopee, MN; Duluth, MN)

-Time with family: (Nathan’s family is looking at moving here shortly and he has been here to help that transition; Both Jon and Nathan have brothers at AFLBS and have been able to provide counsel; Jon has been able to visit with family and be here during weddings, birthdays, and intense surgeries; Nathan’s dad Kevin was gone for 5 weeks in India and that provided a chance for support for the family in his absense; etc, etc.)

-Time to Personally Grow: Both of us have grown so much in learning to trust in God and His faithfulness and being obedient to His call, while at the same time growing immensly in patience and in looking to the Lord’s will.

-Time to work on our Portuguese and be in the Word of God

This list is of course not exhaustive or complete by any means as we have seen the Lord at work every day. We do especially thank God for you, as you uphold us in prayer and remain faithful in bringing us before the Father. May the Lord bless you and keep you as you enter this Thanksgiving season!

Only Jesus,

Nathan Olson & Jon Nelson

Ministry has been continuing Stateside, as we prepare for the Lord’s leading and guidance for Brazil. I just returned from a fabulous time in Madison, SD working in the ministry alongside Pastor Tony Stockman in the great Home Mission church they have there! 15 hours of visitations, multiple meetings with the youth, bible studies, and times of mentoring and leading worship were some of the things that happened there in the 5 day period. It was obvious that the Lord’s hand was at work. Currently I am looking at possibly connecting with Jason Holt in ministering with Youth Ministries in visiting some other AFLC churches in the time to come until our visas arrive!

Jon has been extremely hard at work here with reading, preparing, and Portuguese! He is very motivated and dedicated, and definitely the force of our team that keeps us continuing in motivation. He is looking at going to help out in Fargo and Montana while continuing the training needed for our trip.

Please keep both of us in prayer as we are serving the Lord,

Nathan Olson

“I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait.”

John Waller “While I’m Waiting”

 

We didn’t get the positive response from the consulate that we had hoped for last Monday. We were told to check back today, instead we received an email this morning informing us that we still need another document before our visas can officially be approved.

The document that’s needed is a notarized letter from the mission in Brazil about where we are going to volunteer, describing the activities and places where the activities will take place. This letter is very similar to one we had sent in a couple months ago, but this document needs to be more in depth with the information provided than the one we had sent in previously.

As of now we’ve already notified the Abel’s letting them know that the letter is needed and we hope to get it to the consulate as soon as Wednesday. From what we’ve been told, the letter just needs to go to the consulate in Chicago and not back to Brazil. Please be in prayer as we send in this document! If our files do go to Brazil it could take another month before we hear a response.

Overall this has been a time of waiting for Nate and myself. At times discouraging, but overall encouraging, with people voicing their concerns and offering their prayers. We are continuing to wait on the Lord, looking to Him for guidance and strength as we keep preparing. Nate and I can both see the Lord working in our lives as we wait and as He molds us and uses us while we’re here. The Lord is faithful in all that He does and we thank you for your prayers. God bless!

Jon Nelson and Nathan Olson

Well, we’ve been waiting to hear this week about our visas as many of you know and have been praying for, which we certainly appreciate!  Nate and I were beginning to wonder why we hadn’t heard from our visa runner service this week so Nate contacted them and was able to get an answer for us. He found out that the visa runner service can only contact the Brazilian consulate on Mondays, and since they didn’t have the visa this past Monday, we are hoping for a positive response this coming Monday (November 2nd). It was a blessing to find out this information because God orchestrated an opportunity for us to talk to a different contact at our visa runner service, who has also been working directly with our file. She was very positive and optimistic that we would have our visas this coming Monday which would be amazing! From there we would need to rebook our plane tickets and then we should be on our way! Thank you so much for your continued prayers!

Jon Nelson

Nathan and  I were able to spend part of this last weekend in Grafton, North Dakota speaking with the church about our trip to Brazil and what a blessing it was! We were able to see the Saturday evening youth ministry that the churches in the area put on and how that looks as though it is going strong! We got the opportunity to fellowship with the youth leader at a nearby church in Grafton and a praise and worship band made up of college aged people who were playing at the youth center. They were sent from youth encounter, based out of Minneapolis, and it was great to see how on fire for the Lord they are! It was a blessing to be able to talk with them about the Lord’s faithfullness and just continuing to rely soley on Him. They were an encouragement to both Nate and myself and I pray that they were encouraged by us as well. 

We left Grafton and are hoping to hear from the Brazilian consulate as soon as today about the status of our visas! Please be in prayer as we continue to move forward, looking to God and relying on Him. Nate and I have both been blessed by the time we’ve spent here in the states while waiting for our visas, in seeing the Lord’s faithfullness and being able to be involved in ministries that we otherwise would not have had the opportunity. We anxiously look forward to Brazil and still are asking for your prayers as we continue in the preparation for what the Lord has in store!

Thank you and God Bless!

Jon Nelson and Nate Olson

Brazilian visas have always been hard to obtain, and they just keep getting harder.

The LA Times Travel section recently had an article featuring the problem facing travelers to Brazil and the hardship of obtaining visas (http://travel.latimes.com/daily-deal-blog/index.php/bound-for-brazil-bew-5390/). In the article, it is explained that the reason why the authorization process has been so slow in Brasilia, Brazil is because of the recent New Processing System installed for the consulate. Instead of processing 120 visas a day as normal, they are down to  a hopeful 30 per day.

Thus, Jon and I are still in the United States awaiting our visas, and vigorously learning Portuguese in the meanwhile. All of our documentation is in, all of it is down in Brazil receiving authorization, and all of it is in God’s hands! We continue to trust in Him alone, knowing that He can do more than we could ever ask or imagine!

Please continue to keep us in prayer as we look to the Lord on this one!

Nathan Olson

Bom Dia! Como vai voce?

God has certainly been blessing us with time to work on our Portuguese! Even though this time in waiting here in the States has been growing us in our patience, it has been a blessing for the Lord in developing much needed language acquisition.

Jon just returned today from 2 weeks in Meza, Arizona in working with the Home Missions Church down there with Pastor Giles. Much of his time was spent in canvassing and sharing the gospel with those around him in Mesa and working alongside the church in their time of transition in having a new Parish Builder in Brandon M.

Nathan has been keeping actively involved with ministry in Shakopee, MN, working with youth, college, and adult ministry in the form of Bible Studies and praise and worship. He has also been trying to master the portuguese language and is at the point where he is able to understand most words and is able to speak most basic sentences.

This past Tuesday, we heard word from the Consulate of Brazil that they are “processing our visa” which we pray means a 3-5 business day process and that we will be flying out ASAP. However, we look contently at what God’s plan is, know that He who has called us is faithful! Please continue to pray for us as we wait for our visas!

God bless!

Nathan Olson & Jon Nelson