Isaac And Brittany .com

The last six months have been awesome. God has opened so many doors. I (Isaac) have healed emotionally and physically. And He has done so much in our hearts. Family has been the richest part, so much catching up - so much love. We've met and grown with so many wonderful people here in Denver and Fort Collins. It has been some of the richest times of friendship Ive ever known.
We've been working perfect jobs for the transition, my job at a grocery store was awesome, I was totally favored in the position I was given and the pay I got. Brittany worked with children, as a nanny for a 3 and 1 year old, as well as volunteering at a day shelter for women and the boys and girls club. Its been amazing, a real testimony to the faithfulness of God to us...He has led us so well.
We are off to Oklahoma City, the plan is to start a house of prayer and to do inner city children's ministry, and to establish ourselves with a team of people known as NBI (No Boundaries International). We've grown very close with the founders who worked alongside with us in Sierra Leone. They took multiple trips to Sierra Leone while we were there and provided vision and funding for much of the work we did.
We know this is the next step, and that's as much as we know, we have such a promise in our hearts about the move despite the unknowns. There is so much grace to make this step, we've felt the hand of God all over it since we said yes. (even our plane tickets, 40 dollars)
Be praying for us, God has plans for us while we are there and is directing our steps to the next place He wants to send us in Africa.
You are all such a blessing and we love you so much!

A friend of ours recently prayed for Brittany and I. While she was praying she said she saw a picture in her minds eye and felt it was from the Lord. It was a quilt, one piece being completed, another just beginning, the entire quilt was scattered with hearts, the lives of people we have helped to love.


We know all of you reading this are being challenged just like we are by the current devastation in Haiti. Our hearts are opened when we see the orphaned, the injured, the mourning, the hungry and the thirsty. It makes us ask, 'but what can I do?' That question right now is leading people to do more than they thought they could. Many are giving their hard earned money. Some are dropping everything to go and help. There will be many who leave their lives as they are now and join the people of Haiti in rebuilding their country.

Why? Because of the love awakened in us all realizing that these people are no different than you, than me. Their lives are so important, so precious, so worth everything.


This 'stretching of the heart' is what has most impacted us during the last 2 and 1/2 years in Sierra Leone. We have lived with Pastor Andrew and his BIG family, we have ate and been hungry, laughed and cried, we have learned to give of ourselves in ways we never thought we could, spurred on by love. Sierra Leone has been a training ground for us, and a very good one. God used Pastor Andrew and his family as our teachers. They patiently lived with us, taught us, fed us, and loved us. They are our S.Leonian family.


Our plan has been to spend through 2010 in Sierra Leone helping with Iris Ministries there. We have always felt, along with Pastor Andrew, that God has another nation in mind for us in the future.

We are transitioning sooner than we originally thought. As we have prayed and sought the Lord we know that the time is now for this new 'piece of the quilt'.

We plan to spend this 2010 in Colorado. Brittany is going to study theology in an on-line school as well as volunteer at a Denver organization for single mothers. I am going to get my health back and work. We are also going to set up our own 501c(3) because our vision for the future is going that provision.


We need your prayers, that we would know the will of God, that our hearts would be able to give what He has put inside of them in the place that He has purposed for us.

We love you all. We want to thank you for believing in us, supporting us, praying for us. You have cared for us and stood behind us in our pursuit to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves.

If you are currently giving to us, thank you. We won't be needing it during this season. If you want to continue to give to Iris ministries go to www.irismin.com .
If you need help unsubscribing from paypal please email a reply and we will help you!

We will keep you all posted as we are setting our sights on our next assignment in Africa.


We love you all

Isaac and Brittany Oltersdorf

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours!

We want to write you and tell you all how grateful we are for you this Christmas season.

Our hearts are warm with love here in Colorado with our friends and family. 

We had a wonderful second year in Sierra Leone. As many of you know we have been living and working with a Sierra Leonian family, (pastor Andrew and his wife, their 8 children, and many others in the ministry and his family in the surrounding compound). We are missing all of them as we spend the Christmas season here. 

Some highlights from the last year: 

• Isaac started a business and successfully additional funds for the work in Africa.
• Brittany and Isaac were 'the mom and dad of the downstairs', helping take care of 8 of Pastor Andrew's kids.
• Isaac opened a 'prayer room' on the compound, a much needed place of solitude in the midst of our busy compound.
• We had 13 graduates from the Bible school that we helped start last year, many of whom were street boys from the year before.
• Brittany started a 'church for kids' in a bad area near to us. Over 20 kids would come and receive love, play, andworship God twice a week.
• We both grew so much in the love of God this year. Learning more of His heart for us and for those in need.

A new missionary movement
Missions has been founded on some false prepositions and ideas.
Mainly how do we face conditions and ways of doing things in a helpful way.
We have seen the colonizing type of missionary making small western worlds in Africa. Putting Africans in subjection to white culture as the answer to development. Meaning development must look western to be development. Obviously from the outside this is very ethnocentric but unfortunately the attitude still exists I think mainly because of the great difference in development between the first and third worlds giving westerners an aura of superiority and at the same time giving those in a third world an inferiority complex.
The second type is the aid based type of missions.
A very biblical need driven way of spreading the gospel. This type of missions is done all over the world providing food and other necessities to millions who need it. Many however do not even preach the gospel or disciple which is to be our real goal. We show Jesus' love in practical ways and then open up ways for them to know Him more.
One of the problems with this type of missions is that it creates dependency. An aid dependent culture has developed in many third world countries and it is very destructive and unhelpful in the long run. Organizations like the WFP and the UN are looking at ways to build sustainable ways of helping third world nations and this is very good.
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The kind of missions that I think is coming and that needs to come is not new. I heard about it first from the story of the Moravians who sold themselves into slavery to be missionaries the West Indies. To become a slave, a servant of all.
Most missions now is far from that, people are brought in to enforce western protocol and help 'advise' or oversee.
I believe that although this is good in the short term it has such a aura of colonial master, creates dependency, and also sets up something that isn't culturally sustainable.
Many of these nations are in fact very behind in development. Leadership styles have not evolved in understanding like in the west. Many nationals don't know how to handle money well or plan well. Lack of education and experience makes giving power to nationals seem foolish. The truth of the matter is that we are called to disciple nations, where they are at. We cannot make up for the fact that they have not learned something by doing it for them. We are to empower nationals to do what is in their heart for their nation, not force them to do what is in our heart for them. This takes patience and most importantly love.

If you are going to get married my job as the wedding planner isn't to tell you how your wedding should look, how big it should be, where it should be, how the ceremony should be carried out. That needs to come from the heart of the bride and groom. Or it will not feel like their wedding. Although as a wedding planner I have seen the most spectacular weddings in the most beautiful places with the most creative ceremonies. That experience is only good if you as the couple ask for my direction. If I force you to try and do something you don't want to I will either succeed and you will resent me or fail and and you will feel like I am judging the ideas that you want to institute in your wedding. Like I am judging your heart. This could make you feel untrusting of me and my heart towards you or else insecure about your own way of doing things and desires.
My job as a wedding planner is to ask the right questions and advise and help according to the desires of your heart. Its true that we in the west have for the most part, more experience, education, resources and opportunity. Those need to be used rightly. Our job like the wedding planner is to dig out the desires and vision of the hearts of the people and then to help them to flesh those things out. Their heart brought into reality in part by some who lay down their lives for them, to serve them.
This is a very good analogy of missions, its heart and its usual pitfalls. What if your wedding planner made you feel incompetent, came it and forced you to have the kind of wedding that he/she envisioned for you? The better kind of missions is being a wedding planner, empowering and preparing the bride of Christ for her Bridegroom!

Hi friends and family
We are coming home in two months and are very excited to
see all of you. Things here are going very well.
Pastor Andrew left yesterday for a trip to Mozambique.
He will be gone for 3 weeks and then a few days after he
gets back he will be heading to america for a month.
This is his first time going and he is planning on going
to California, Oklahoma, and Texas. We are all very
excited for him and for this opportunity. It is very
hard for a Sierra Leonan to get a Visa into the states
and even Pastor Andrew has tried 2 other times and was
denied. But this time he was able to get a 3 year Visa.
We all believe that this is going to be a very fruitful
and powerful trip both for Pastor Andrew but also for
the ministry. And Andrew will be able to experience his
first Thanksgiving which we have told him ALL about. (: It will be different not having Pastor Andrew around but
we really believe that God wants to use this time to
strengthen all of us and learn to trust Him in places
where we have trusted in man. We are planning on using
this time to practice and learn the different things God
has placed on all of our hearts to do. A lot of people
are learning to play instruments (guitar, keyboard, and
drums) others are pursuing evangelism, street preaching,
prison ministry, and even hip-hop dance. God has put so
much inside of each one of us and it has been so fun
seeing it start to come out. As for Isaac and I we are doing really well. I am
getting really excited about my work with the children.
It seems like everyday I wake up and I have more love
for the kids and more passion to see them come alive. I
have started two different children's programs and am
just trying to follow the Lord's leading in how to do
them. It has been so fun and challenging. In this
culture there is a lack of play with children. So, we
try to play and just have fun with the kids. We play
tag and duck duck goose and the kids LOVE it. The other
week we had a big game of duck duck goose and tons of
people from the whole community came out and were
watching. I really believe that we are brining light
into these different areas. I also feel like the Lord
is saying that He wants to use the kids even now. We
are teaching them to evangelize and pray for people. I
feel like it is just the beginning and I'm so excited to
see where this goes. Isaac has been recovering from this sickness and is
doing better everyday.
We love you all and can't wait to see you. Two months! Love Brit and Isaac
P.S. If you guys have any ideas, impressions, or just
love we love hearing from you!

We go to a local clinic every week and pray for the sick there. Brittany and I don't always go but this last week I felt that I needed to. I came late as Brittany and I had something to attend to, when we arrived the team had already prayed for all the sick. I thought 'maybe God wanted me here just to spend time with the team.' And I was satisfied with that conclusion. But as we were about to leave one of the nurses protested us going without praying for them. God impressed on my heart that someone had an eye problem and a hand problem. One of the nurses was dealing with both of things, we prayed for her and her hand and eyes were restored. This woman had the keys to all the medicine in the hospital but she needed the keys only God could provide. Revelation 3 talks about Jesus having the Key of David and the doors He shuts no one can open the doors He opens no one can shut. With Jesus impossible things can open up!