Isaac And Brittany .com

Hello friends and family! I hope you are all doing well. I (Brittany) wanted to share a little bit of what has been going on in Sierra Leone.

Isaac and I just came back from a weekend at one of our churches in a village outside of Freetown. As we traveled I found a new love inside me. It was supernatural love, love that God has been working into my heart since I’ve been here. When I would look out the window at the people I just wanted to love them and bless them. We stopped at one little place on the way and I had so much love in my heart. As I was talking to one of the kids he kept pointing to his brother. I went over to his brother and saw that his arm had been broken but had healed wrong. He couldn’t move it and it was crooked. I asked him if he wanted prayer and he said yes. I called Isaac over and we began to pray for him. By the time we were finished he could bend his arm and move it up and down. He could even move his fingers which he couldn’t do before we prayed. It was such an amazing experience for this little boy but it also did something HUGE in my own heart. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be and I was in the middle of the calling that the Lord has for me. I saw so clearly that God knows what He is doing with me and that all that I have experienced and gone through since I’ve been here has all been preparation. It’s like in so many different areas I feel like my life has been in waiting. I see the lack of love in my heart or my inability to reach these people. But I have just been holding on to the promise that God has called us here. I’ve been keeping my eyes on Jesus believing and hoping that something beautiful is going to come of it. While we were on this trip I feel like so much came together for me. I was able to see what some of what God has been doing in me. Love is being established in my heart. Not my own love but love that comes straight from the Father. Seeing this and experiencing God’s love flowing through me has made everything worth it. It has made the struggle, the sacrifice, and hardship of being in Africa worth it. I would pay the price again and again. Having this new vision, I am excited to press on. I am excited about where I am going and what the Father is doing within me. And I am excited to be following Jesus wherever He might send me.

This is one of the most powerful, pivotal experiences that I have had since I have been here. So many things have come together for me in my heart and I wanted to share it with you all.

We love you all so much and are so grateful for your love and support. Thank you!

Love Brittany and Isaac

Happy Easter!!

Today is a busy day, Andrew is working excitedly on his new desk. Its an African creation that is unlike anything Ive ever seen, so beautiful. Brittany has been washing our clothes and I have been tying up loose administrative ends. This is our first day back in the old routine after two weeks of hosting 10 guests from Bill Johnson's church in CA, Visiting the President, the parliament, building relationships with some of the most influential people in Sierra Leone, and seeing a multitude of miracles mostly physical but some circumstantial. At the beginning of the year we really were feeling like God was going to do a lot. Andrew was saying 'we will do less and see more' encouraging us to just focus on God. So far we are far from disappointed. Here are some things that have happened.1. Miracles -- We went to the hospital with the team from California. One man due for spine surgery was later released as he no longer needed it. One young man, Unisa, who had fallen from a tree and had been paralyzed from the waist down for three years is now moving his legs, they are growing in strength and he now wants to be a pastor to his village in eastern S. Leone! We saw a multitude of other healings, bad vision perfected, arms and legs strengthened and lengthened, back pain removed, malaria healed. I learned a lot from the team from California to expect that God is good and He wants to heal all the time! Its a blessing here where people often don't have any other way to help themselves. 2. Pastor Andrew and the team from CA visited with the president and His wife. They were able to pray with them and be a real encouragement in the midst of a hard time. 3. We went to a session of Parliament and afterward met with and prayed with the speaker of the house and the other party leaders. 4. The team from CA had contacts with some of the more influential families in Sierra Leone. They are wonderful, Godly people and from that the ministry has gained access to three plots of land, one of which pastor Andrew's wife has been praying for for over 3 years.5.We started two new churches, Andrew now meets in town and holds a service every Sunday on the street. While doing business a businessman gave us a property to use across the street from a club where teenage prostitution is rampid. We have also begun to meet there. 6. The business Ive embarked on is going well. I am trying to raise funds through it for both the work in the provinces and also to raise money to send a container here. So far we have profited over 2000 dollars for the work. Watching Andrew make his new desk there is a sense of what we are here for. We want to help Africans rebuild Africa out of their African hearts. What would Africa look like without war, poverty, and corruption? For this reason God has allowed us to influence with His love and power this country from the President, to a crippled boy from a small village. All is related to helping give Africa their heritage, their glory. Isaiah 49, Rev 21:26 We are honored to be a part of this work. It is worth our lives, to give Him glory. There are so many other things big and small that God has done. We have seen a lot of people give their lives to Jesus, we have grown closer as a team, and God has grown us all individually so much. This is just my perspective, Brittany will have to give her own account soon too!We love you all so much, thank you for your prayers and supportLove Isaac and Brittany

The airwaves in Sierra Leone on will be filled on Tuesday Nights with the sound Pastor Andrew's worship! People in Africa, (take our word for it) listen to the radio all night, and LOUD. Its just a thing here I dont know why.
But that will be a good thing as Pastor Andrew begins to broadcast his program on Tuesday nights. I have never met a musician like Pastor Andrew, He claims that the Holy Spirit taught him how to not only play the guitar but also how to make his first one (ive seen the pictures, its huge)!
When he told us his vision to broadcast I knew that it was from the Lord. We have been praying for a way to do it as it costs about 630 dollars for 3 months of airtime/1day per week.
Well we found a way. Ive begun to do some small buisness here selling those little memory sticks and a few other things. In one month the profit was 600 dollars.
I came home from a long day in town and handed Andrew the money. I was so happy that my work had produced enough to open up this door! Andrew was really happy too it was a really special moment.
One man who I met in town is going to give us property to use to open two new churches. (Property is very expensive in Freetown) Everywhere I go when Im doing buisness I keep meeting people that I know God has wanted me to meet. I get to share the gospel often and I really like it.
Brittany too is doing really well, expect to hear her side of the story soon.
There is so much else going on but I wanted to let you all know about this new development.
Be praying for wisdom and direction.
Love you all
Isaac

I want to write and just say how wonderful it is to be here and to see the hand of our Creator taking care of us at every step. God has really connected us in a special new way with Pastor Andrew and his wife Angella. We are really 'embracing' each other and this year I know that so much good will come out of that.
Emmanuel is doing really well, He calls Brittany 'ninny' and tells me to 'sit down' while pointing at a chair. The other kids too are doing well, they missed us and us them.
The streetguys 'God's favorites' are also doing well. Although two of them left us (one stole a few things then, a few days later in a town 20 miles away, Pastor Andrew just 'happened' to see him and forgive him and tell him that we love and believe in him)
Three of our pastors began to go out to the provinces. The purpose, to encourage the pastors there, set up future training, and start a program to give them seed to do farming.
In one village a group of pastors met. One stopped our pastors with a shocked look in his eyes "what did you say your name was?" Five years before, in a dream, the Lord had told this old pastor that 'Iris ministries' was going to come and they would bring with them blessing for the whole nation. Five years ago Iris ministries was not in Sierra Leone or even Western Africa, and this old pastor never could have accessed the internet or heard of Iris before that. He left and came back with an old notebook with the dream written in it and showed our pastors.
Its encouraging to know that God has us on the right path.
We will begin in two weeks to send a team to bring our Bible school to help train and support these pastors. One called the next week and said "I was about to give up being a pastor and move, but since you came I know that I will stay and do the work of God"
I am beginning to do a little bit of buisness, selling small computer memory. Pray that through this and other means we will be able to finance this work without the help of people internationally.
We love you all and miss you all. We had such a wonderful two months in the States. It was a blessing and everyone here says that my 'belly big' ha ha
Love
Isaac

Merry Christmas from Isaac and Brittany

We want to thank all for loving and supporting us this year.

We love and appreciate you all so much and we want to ask you all to stay in contact with us in this next year!

We love you all so much!
Merry Christmas

Isaac and Brittany Oltersdorf

Brittany and I want to offer all of you a special opportunity to give this Christmas.

Paul and Margret and thier children Augusta and Isaac (named after Me!!) are pictured to the left.
Paul is blind, he and his family have become close friends of ours and we want to ask if anyone would be interested in helping to support this family for Christmas.

Our plan is to help Margret start a small buisness and from there help to provide for the needs of the children and also for Paul to continue his education.

If you want to help them please let us know!
Merry Christmas
Isaac and Brittany

I want to write to you all about what I have learned recently about compassion and its power. I know that some of you who read our blog posts dont necessarily believe in devine healing. I am going to talk about it but with an emphasis I think a little closer to what it should be. Recently one of our church members Baba gave me a letter. He gave me permission to share from it.
In the letter he thanked me and God for what was happening in His life. I was so blessed because every other 'letter' I have received here has been a request for money. His was not, in it he related to me that since the time he was a young boy 3-4 he has never walked on his own and has never felt like a man. Since the previous sunday when we prayed for Him he has begun to walk. His right knee which he had never been able to move began to move and the muscles in his feet also. He said 'pastor I can kick now and the other night I stood for a long time with no assistance'. I am changed through this testimony. I must confess that in the past divine healing has been something that really excited me but until this testimony, it was something that never touched my heart this deep, I never experienced the compassion of God. I saw in Baba the restoration of not just his legs but his dreams. He talks now, as his legs get progressivly stronger, about playing football on the beach with us. He now dresses to impress, and carries himself with an aura of confidence. He can now walk quickly without any crutches when before he needed two. He is happy. He knows that he is loved, by us, but more profoundly by his Creator.
There is another story I want to share with a similar heart. We have been housing 8 guys from off the street who are now attending Bible college. One of them, Ali, has the biggest heart of them all. He also has the biggest temper. Pastor Andrew and I realized that this temper was not getting better no matter what we did. We told him, after a morning fight, that we wanted to have a special meeting with him that night. We sat him down and Andrew began to pray and talk to Ali. He asked Ali what was going on inside of him. In the middle of Ali's explaination Andrew interrupted Him, with a kind of insight that only could have come from God, and a kind of heart that could only come from a father. Andrew spoke truth to Ali about the forgivness of God and the love we have for him of the truth that its not Ali's fault. His part in the war as a child soldier, the people he killed and thing things he did, were him being taken advantage of by wicked people. Ali just cried and recieved the love. I sat in awe. It felt like family. Ali felt it. I felt it, and Andrew definitly did as well. I wanted to cry all night as I thought about what happend. This guy who has never known a stable home, who is an outcast from his own family and village, was finnaly recieveing the love of the Father in heaven and a father on earth in Andrew. I felt the heart of God for these guys, the fatherless, the ostricised. God sees them. He feels for them so deeply. Im beginning to too.
Both of these stories together are trying to teach me something. I say this becaus the Bible says it. It calls testimonies 'our teachers'. I am learning that God values a kind of living that only He makes possible. Its a kind of living that has hope for the world around us beyond the help of the world around us or the abilities within us. It is the 'audacity of hope' that having faith in the one who died for our sins and by whose 'stripes we are healed' produces. I am challenged to believe again. I am challenged to turn my head towards and not away from the one in need. I am challenged to believe that when I choose to love that my weakness is met not only with Gods strength but also His compassion. A kind of compassion that I am learning melts my heart completely. I am learning that in a world that says I need to be more (stronger, wiser, richer, better planned) that I can be less. That I can be weak, that I dont have to be better than anyone else, or prove myself to myself or to the world around me. I want to learn instead that there is hope for the hopeless, and to be a part of delievering that same hope. There are better things going on. Baba's and Ali's that God wants to bless me to know and wants to touch with His love. I like that and I pray we will all learn more together.
Love you
Isaac