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
Dear Praying Friends, We send you warm greetings from the Dominican Republic. As fall approaches, so also approaches the work that we have the privilege of performing in our Lord’s name. Looking behind, at the last two months, we praise the Lord for the results from our Youth Conference, our Summer Family Camp, and then the Neighborhood Bible Time for the children. The very first activity was the Youth Conference that brought out a great number of new teenagers and also some of the teens who had been missing. God really used Evangelists Johnny Serrano and Nelson Rodriguez from the Neighborhood Bible time ministry to preach for this meeting. After the Youth Conference was our Summer Family camp. God gave us 173 campers this year and praise the Lord that all of the funds came in to help some of the new campers we wanted to help attend this year. Thank you so much to each church that helped with this great need! As I have said before, I don’t believe there is a better investment in the year in our ministry than to help someone go to camp. We also appreciate greatly the presence of Brother Bob Hayward, from the Loudon Baptist Temple, who came to spend the week with us and take pictures at camp. He has a kindred spirit with us. Thank you also to the folks of Loudon Baptist Temple who sent my family all of the special treats! My good friend, Pastor Alexander Azofeifa, from Costa Rica, was our special speaker for camp. God used him greatly! We saw four saved at camp (although our camp is not really an evangelistic activity), and 70 people came forward during a very low key invitation surrendering their lives to God’s call in their lives or telling the Lord that they are willing to do whatever He would have them do with their lives. After camp we held our Neighborhood Bible Time for the children on August 12-14. There was a total of 471 children enrolled with 212 professions of faith. A few of them have begun to get baptized as we have followed them up and worked with their parents. What a blessed summer! We praise the Lord and are so thankful to Bro. Johnny Serrano, Brother Nelson Rodriguez, Pastor Alexander Azofeifa, all of the workers of our church, and for each and every one of our supporting churches who make it possible for us to reach souls here! Please pray for a few of the new teenagers who have been coming faithfully to church this summer. Some of these have also started attending our soul-winning invitation times. They are Samuel, Braylin, Leudi, Yanuel, Mergil, Yunior, Luis, Julio, Victor, Jeuri, Robert Julio, Robert Luis, Robin, and Robin’s dad – Reynaldo. There are also a few more people who have started coming soul-winning, others who have started coming to church, and others who have gotten saved and baptized. It is exciting to see God working! On September 5 our next semester of Bible Institute will begin, with our regular Bible Institute group and with some teenagers who are taking Junior Bible Institute classes on Monday nights. We are excited with some new students for this semester! There are also 3 students attending from “El Faro”, Bro. Josh Wesson’s old church, where Brother Ben Jordan is pastoring now. Our daughter Angela will be starting to work next week at the Woodlawn Baptist Church of Bowie, Maryland, teaching 1st and 2nd grades in their Christian School. We are so pleased for her to be involved in this great ministry under the leadership of Pastor William Tyson! Michael will be starting his Bible College studies this coming Monday. We are so very grateful to Bro. Tim Tullos and Pastor Rick Conner, of the Patuxent Baptist Church, for all of their help with my two kids during the last year in a half helping them get through these changing times in their lives! Michael and Angela have both stayed at Brother Tullos’s home and were treated as one of his own children. I know that they also loved going to Patuxent with Pastor Conner. God bless you and thank you for being our friends! Please note that the address for sending our support at the Mission has changed to: BIMI, P.O. Box 9, Harrison, TN 37341. God bless you and thank you for being our friends. Your Friends and Servants in the Dominican Republic
Dear Praying Friends, What a wonderful time we have had serving the Lord these last few months! We were able to attend our daughter’s graduation from Bible College and now she will be coming to the Dominican Republic to work for me in our church for six months helping us get some things organized in secretarial, technological, and computer areas. That is what she studied in Bible College. In December she will be travelling back to the states, Lord willing. She is praying that the Lord would give her a job as a secretary in a church in the states. Please help us in praying for her that God would have His will. During our trip to the graduation, we were able to report to some of our churches in the mid-west and the west coast. What wonderful supporting churches we have! We are praying that a few of the new churches that we visited would take us on for support as well, and get our support a little closer to what it should be. Next week we will be having a special Youth Revival with the Neighborhood Bible Time ministry. The Bible Time workers are in country until the end of August helping us with Bible Time meetings with the children and the teenagers. Please pray for our camp program, that we will have on July 11-14. We are trying to raise $2,000 for it to help some new people come to camp. Our people work all year trying to raise extra money to be able to go to camp. Most of our people make between $100-$200 a month, and camp is $50 per camper, so it is financial challenge and a big need for those who try to go. Last year at camp, 72 people surrendered their lives to serve the Lord full-time. Camp is such a fruitful ministry, but such a big expense. Our people are not lazy, but very poor. Please consider helping sponsor a camper so, or helping us with a special offering for this important activity. Also pray that God would bless in a great way! Please note that the address for sending our support at the Mission has changed to: BIMI, P.O. Box 9, Harrison, TN 37341. God bless you and thank you for being our friends. Your Friends and Servants in the Dominican Republic, Steve, Nohemy, Angela, Michael, and Sarah Sidler
November 30, 2015 Dear Pastor and Church Family: At this wonderful time of Thanksgiving and Christmas, we want you to know how thankful we are to have you as our friends and that you have allowed us to represent the gospel outreach of your church here in the Dominican Republic! May the Lord continue to pour His blessings upon each and every one of you! The first church we started first here in the community of Quita Sueño just celebrated its 18th Anniversary. Usually around 200 come to the Sunday Services, but on our anniversary, there were 821 in attendance, with 126 professions of faith, and 51 baptized. Wellington, one of the young men who was saved and trained in our church, took the pastorate of a church that needed a pastor around 6 years ago. Their church just celebrated its 35th Anniversary. Their anniversary is the same day as ours. They had an attendance of 194 and 17 saved. Our second church in Vietnam, Santo Domingo, just had its 8th Anniversary in November with 185 in attendance and 12 saved. Our third church in Los Frailes celebrated its 5th Anniversary in August with 180 in attendance and 49 saved. Our 4th and 5th churches will be celebrating their anniversary services in January. These churches are 3 and 4 years old. My family and I are looking forward to being with them as I preach for their anniversary services. Lord willing, we will start a 6th church in February. Please pray that the Lord would lead, bless and protect us during that time. During this holiday season, we have different special activities planned. This past Saturday was our Christmas Concert. This activity is used to help raise money for our summer camp program. It went great! What great music! There were a few other churches that also came and sang for us. One of the churches present was the “El Faro Baptist Church”. Praise the Lord that they have voted in as their Pastor, Missionary Ben Jordan after the passing of Pastor Josh Wesson. We all miss Brother Wesson, but we are so encouraged with Brother Jordan. He wants things to continue to move in the same direction as they did under Brother Wesson´s ministry. He worked with Brother Wesson for a short time as co-pastor of the church. Please continue to pray for that ministry. As I read the book Second Peter this week, I was reminded that it is because of the patience and longsuffering of the Lord that the rapture has not happened yet, as He really wants to see more people saved! (2 Peter 3:9 & 15) Saturday morning I had the privilege of winning 12 more precious souls to the Lord while out soulwinning. I am so concerned of the short amount of time we have to reach our communities and our world with the gospel! I pray that until He comes, that the Lord would help me to stay faithful in planting many more gospel preaching churches, and that he would use my feet and my mouth to be a faithful witness personally! We pray that you have a “Wonderful Thanksgiving”, a “Very Merry Christmas”, and a “Happy New Year”! God bless you! Your Servants and Missionaries in the Dominican Republic, Steve Sidler Steve, Nohemy, Angela, Michael, and Sarah Sidler
Dear Pastor and Praying Friends, Just wanted you to know that we had a special church anniversary church service today. Usually, we have around 200 that come to services, but today there were 821, with 126 saved and 51 baptized! Praise the Lord! We are excited as well that, Lord willing, we will be starting another church this February in an area called Manoguayabo! God bless you and thank you for making it possible for us to serve the Lord planning churches here in the Dominican Republic! Your Friend and Servant in the Dominican Republic, Missionary Steve Sidler
July 28, 2015 Dear Pastor and Church Family: We send you warm greetings from the Dominican Republic. It has not only been extremely hot here this summer, but also very dry! The entire island is experiencing great need of water. On the news we have heard that most of the crops have been lost this year because of the lack of water. My wife read an article today that said that if we do not get some good rain within the next 35 days the capital city will be out of drinking water. Without a doubt, the people here need the good news of the gospel more than drinking water, but many people are suffering right now. Please pray that God would give us a good amount of rain if it is His will. Praise the Lord for His wonderful works among us during these last two months! Brother Johnny Serrano and Brother Giovanny Perez came from “Neighborhood Bible Time” to work with us in 9 churches helping us with special meetings for the children and the teenagers. In each church there were professions of faith made, baptisms in some of the churches, new young people reached, and great decisions made for the Lord. Next year, Lord willing, instead of 2, we are planning on having 4 evangelists come to help. These men speak Spanish already, are well trained, humble, and do a great job! We are excited already about them coming to help next year. We can do the same work they do, but it means so much in each church to have the help of a fresh face. I know also that for some of the new churches or churches that have been experiencing problems, their help is invaluable! In addition to the Vacation Bible School and Youth Revival, our Family Summer Camp went great. The Lord protected us, spoke to our hearts, and allowed us to make great decisions. After a great message from James 4:15 – “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this, or that”, 40 young men and 32 young ladies came forward with a very low key, but direct invitation. The young men came forward saying that they know God wants them to pastor, be a missionary, or that they believe that God wants them to, and they want Him to know that they were willing. The 32 young ladies came forward saying that God has called them to be missionaries, pastor´s or missionary´s wives, or that they believe and are willing for that. If we are going to be able to reach the Dominican Republic and the world for Christ, we need to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into His harvest. Praise the Lord for those who responded! Please pray for each of these young people as their different pastors work in helping them! Also, thank you so, so very much to all of you who prayed and to those who gave to help us with our camp program. God did marvelous things among us! You will probably here some more about this in our next prayer letter, but please pray that many of these young people would enroll in our Bible College this fall to better prepare themselves for serving the Lord, and that the Lord would continue to show them what He wants in their lives. We are so thankful for your friendship and your partnering with us to plant churches here in the Dominican Republic. God bless you! Your Servants and Missionaries in the Dominican Republic,Steve SidlerSteve, Nohemy, Angela, Michael, and Sarah Sidler