November 2018 Newsletter
Doug Dennis Ministries
Dear friend,
Greetings from Venezuela! We are doing well. James is doing good in 1st grade and enjoys playing soccer at school. Veronica teaches “A women’s group of leaders” class and she then teaches a weekly leadership class at a church here in Venezuela. She also teaches the children’s church every Sunday. And I have been doing well also, preaching at the tribes, preaching on the radio, doing my Bible school with the Indian leaders, preaching at churches- big and small, doing leadership meetings, having evangelistic services and also leading praise and worship at different churches. I minister on an average of more than 20 days a month, and on Sunday’s usually two times a day, and during the Bible school usually two or three times.
We had a great time at the Bible school at the Aroy tribe. We had a lot of Indian leaders attend but the leaders were mostly from the tribes that are closer to civilization. In this part of Venezuela October is the rainiest month so it’s very difficult for the Indian leaders from the far away tribes to come. For many of them they have to cross the rivers about 80 times to get down below to where there is transportation. With so much rain it becomes very dangerous. That’s the reason I never send out any of my teams of Indian leaders to the far away mountain tribes in October. My main Indian leader, Venancio, though said that he wanted to go at the end of September, so I paid him and bought him food to take, but I never ask anyone to go. Venancio started to return on Tuesday October 2nd from the tribes (he wanted to return before it started to rain too much) and though the river was rapid he said that during the last few kilometers of the trip that the river started to get a lot more rapid as it was raining hard upriver. That day a woman and her baby at one of the tribes Venancio ministered to on his trip, went down also to go to town. (they didn’t leave together; Venancio left from a different tribe.) They found her body and the baby’s body down river. They died because of the rapids. Deaths occur every year. Good thing she was a Christian and now she and her baby are in heaven. Some people have to go down the mountain because of some emergency, and sometimes the river is at a place where they can cross if they’re careful. But then many times it rains hard up river which causes the river rapids to increase and become dangerous. For this month’s Bible School, though, all the leaders will be able to come down safely from their mountain tribes because it doesn’t rain as much.
This past month I was given money to buy a chainsaw to help with the construction of the Indian churches. (I had some money left over after buying the chain saw so I used it to buy food for my Bible School.) In about two weeks when for the rains stop a little, we will start work on the church building at the Taremo tribe. Their church building is old and the wood is rotting so we will replace all the old wood. Then after that we will be building new churches and fixing older churches in other mountain Indian tribes that we built 10- 15 years ago. The church buildings are so important to the mountain tribes because many of the tribes gather for services every night. During regular weather they could meet without a church structure but a roof is needed during the rainy season.
A few months ago, I sent a group of Indian leaders on a trip to Colombia. One of the leaders, named Jose Luis Erermano, came back and gave a testimony. He shared that one morning, while at a tribe in Colombia, he had a vision. In the vision he saw a dark house and then a demon went into the dark house. In the vision he went over to the house to cast out the demon. He told the demon two times in the name of Jesus to leave, but the demon refused. The third time the demon left the house.
After the vision he and the other Indian leaders walked all day to go to preach at another tribe in Colombia called Granado. When they arrived, they evangelized and invited the people to their church service. That evening, some Indians from the tribe brought a man to their church service whom they said was tormented by a demon. His name was Francisco and he was about 65 years old. Francisco said he would see the demon and then after seeing him, the demon would cause painful headaches and pain in his body. Remembering his vision that he had that same day, José prayed for the man to cast out the demon. He told the demon two times to leave but nothing happened. Then he put his hand on the man and prayed the third time and those in the church service said that they felt something leaving the man. Franciso testified that he was free from the demonic oppression.
Well I want to thank all of you who pray for and support my ministry. Your prayers and financial support make possible all that we do in Venezuela and Colombia. God bless you.
In His Service,
Doug, Veronica, James & Ana