MISSIONARY PROFILE
Steve
& Nohemy
Sidler
Missionary Information
Name:
Steve Sidler
Age: 59
Spouse:
Nohemy Sidler
Age: 59
Child: Angela Sidler
Age: 28
Child: Michael Sidler
Age: 26
Child: Sarah Sidler
Age: 19
Mission Field: Dominican Republic
Years of Service: 28
Home Church: Independent Baptis Church
Clinton, Maryland
Missions Agency: Baptist International Missions Inc.
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Our Missionary for 28 years
Missionary Update 09/20/2019
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends: We send you warm greetings from the Dominican Republic. I joke quite a lot about the weather, but it really has been extremely hot during the last two months. The electricity here, through the years, is really bad, then it gets a little better, a little better, and then it gets pretty good. Then all of a sudden it gets really bad again. Right now, we are back in the really bad phase again. Yesterday our electricity was off for 9 hours, and from what I understand, it has been that way all over the country over the last several weeks. It is even hotter with no electricity! (Welcome to the Dominican Republic!) Pastor Scott London and a group of young people, from the Bethel Baptist Church of Graham, NC, were with us at the end of July. They helped us with a Vacation Bible School for the kids, and a special Teen Youth Rally. Praise God, between both activities we saw 167 professions of faith! Then, a few weeks later, some great friends, Bro. Eliseo, his wife, Norma, their kids, Julian & Ivana, and Warner & Madelina Ochoa came to be with us. What a great time we had with them! Bro. Eliseo is a police officer in Washington, D.C. and he always is such a blessing to my family and church when he and his family visit us! Since April, we have been working on trying to receive a shipment of gospel tracts and books of Romans from the Beacon of Truth Ministries. Tracts, Bibles, and portions of Scripture are invaluable here, as most people receive them when you give them out. Of course, the devil knows that, so he did everything he could to keep us from getting access to this gospel literature. The broker we were using ended up being a thief, who took the container and two pallets of tracts & Romans and put them into his name, he created fraudulent paperwork, he had someone in customs hold up our shipment on purpose, he informed them that there were other things other than tracts and Romans in the shipment, and the bill ended up going up to $45,000 with all of the trickery he pulled. God intervened, and he put two generals close to the President, the President himself, the Director of Port Authority, the Director of Customs, the Director of the shipping company “Navieras”, the Sub-director of Technical Problems with Customs, and many other people in our path to help us. Let me say that we are so very thankful to each and every one of them for absolutely bending over backwards to help us resolve getting our tracts and Romans and exonerating almost all charges. We, of course, praise the Lord, but we also thank these kind people for allowing the Lord to use them to help make this gospel literature available to the Dominican people, who we love! Our church in Fantino is going to have its 1st church anniversary this coming weekend, I just preached for our 9th church anniversary for our church in Los Frailes, our new church in Manoguayabo will have its 1st anniversary in November, I am going to preach for Pastor Wellington’s 40th anniversary on October 6th (he did not start this church, but has been there for about 9 years), and we will have the 22nd anniversary for the first church we started in Quita Sueño on October 27th. We have another church in an area called Wachupita that is not even a year old yet. I am praying about some other areas where we want to start works. Please pray for us as we try to do what we can before it is too late! Our Bible Institute has started up for the semester. My night of teaching is Monday nights. My first class has 14 enrolled in it and 26 in the second class, with the Jr. Bible Institute students included. I allow the teenagers who want to take classes in our Institute to so on Mondays to help encourage them in looking forward to the day when they can take all of the classes in our Institute. It is exciting to see what God is doing in each of their lives! Thank you for helping make all the things we have mentioned in this letter possible. God bless you, my friends! Your Friends and Servants in the Dominican Republic, Steve Sidler Steve, Nohemy, and Sarah Sidler