Do take part in EAB's Christmas Card and Gift List as the 2018 version has just been launched. For each gift that you make on the list you will receive an appropriate card from EAB to send to friends and family for Christmas. In taking part you will make somebody's Christmas very happy in Brazil.
Yesterday's service at Devizes was the last one on this Eurotour 2018 and was really lovely. It was the first time we had been to the Rock Community Church and it sure took some finding with us nearly freezing to death in the process! However we were saved by a local lady who kindly led us there on foot from where we had parked the car, and the warm reception we received at the Rock soon thawed us out! The lovely ride from Hampshire was great as were the food and fellowship after church at Pastor David Fiddy's house.
From there we headed for London in the usual heavy traffic and we now prepare for takeoff on Wednesday early at Heathrow. This morning we went round Wembley Stadium which was fascinating. The development of the whole area around the stadium is quite impressive as is the Stadium itself.
EAB's InTouch magazine Nº 90 will be going into the post to all those on EAB's new GDPR approved mailing list by the end of the week. It should be online soon too together with the EAB 2018 Christmas Gift List / Card scheme.
All continues to go well on what we feel is the best itinerary we have ever had in Europe over the past 46 years and the busiest too. Since I last wrote here on my blog we have done the following:
Tuesday (16th): Had a lovely meeting with ex-Latin Link missionaries to Brazil who worked in Recife - Glen & Joyce Every-Clayton.
Wednesday (17th): Met our niece Lisa and her husband Steve's baby girl Isla Sarah Oakley for the fist time after her birth on the 2nd. We travelled to Streatham for this and it was lovely.
Thursday (18th): We had an excellent 2 hour meeting and lunch at Tearfund's headquarters at Teddington with Rosa Camargo who is their Latin America Coordinator.
Friday (19th): We visited our baby Johnny's grave at Gunnersbury. He died in 1975. Then we drove round my childhood places (home in Kensington, Primary School, Peniel Chapel which was my church, Portobello Road, etc. Also went to Grenfell Tower near where I was born and brought up, where tragically nearly 80 lost their lives in a fire last year. Outrageous!
Saturday (20th): Liz's brother David came to Harrow and spent a lovely day with us.
Sunday (21st): Drove early through the fog to Danbury in Essex where we arrived an hour early. We enjoyed a lovely service there and had lunch with one of the missionary committee members and other church members including Pat White who is an ex-EAB treasurer and Board member.
Monday (22nd): Went to Bournemouth to visit ex-EAB Board member and retired solicitor Deryck Scard who is 91 - does all his own shopping and cooking, living a health and blessed long life. PTL! We then went on to a lovely meal with Liz's cousin Jose and her husband Steve and sons.
Tuesday (23rd): Are about to leave for Southampton to speak at Millbrook Christian Centre's Luncheon Club and then will go on for a final short meeting with EAB's chairman of the Board Roy Dyer at Eastleigh.
This Sunday we will be ministering at Rock Community Church, Devizes in Wiltshire (SN10 1DY) for our final Sunday engagement at 10:30 am. Then a week tomorrow - Wednesday (31st) - we will be up at 3:15 am and then fly out from Heathrow with arrival late at night. We will sleep in Recife and drive 6/7 hours to Patos the next day. We value your prayers.
News from Brazil is that the annual EAB/ACEV Youth Conference went well this weekend in João Pessoa but I don't have much detail yet and at present am piecing together news seen by one of the other commenting on social media. Philip must have got back to Patos last night just in time to lead the evening service.
Please pray for the very tense and dangerous political situation in Brazil with the 2nd and final round of the general elections for president on the 28th. It certainly looks likely that the far right (akin to the French National Front of Marie Le Pen) will win. The majority of the evangelical Christians are fanatically supporting this candidate because he says he is against abortion. It's good to be against abortion, but the problem is all the other things he is in favour of which are far from aligned to Christian principles like torture, military rule if necessary, guns for all etc. May the Lord have mercy on Brazil!
We had a great day this Sunday (14th) at Thamesmead, London, speaking at the Emmanuel Baptist Church (8th out of 10 Sundays in the UK on this tour) where Vic and Lona Lambert were the pastors and who visited the work of EAB in Brazil in 2006. We travelled there from Harrow going through central London and arrived an hour early as usual!
It was so sad to see the Grenfell Tower, near where I was born and brought up, on the way and way back, which was destroyed by fire last year killing nearly 80 people.
On the way we went through Blackwall Tunnel under the Thames and on the way back we managed to go through it again plus 2 other tunnels later! Not quite sure how we managed it but we did! We ended up as planned going passed the Tower of London, Parliament, Westminster Abbey etc. so it was nice.
Liz bought beards, oustaches and paints for our Patos church drama group last week and we also sent 3 old 200 foot 8 mm films, passed on to us by Neil Parsons which were filmed by Albert Mundy, to be digitilized. We took a chance as there could be interesting film from the early days of EAB or it could be useless, but if we don't try we will never know. Hopefully we will get them back, on DVD, just in time for our return to Brazil. Watch this space!
This week we having some sort of engagement every day and next Sunday we will be at Danbury Mission in Essex (CM3 4QL). The following week is our final full week here as we leave on Wednesday, 31st. That week is almost completely full with engagements too and with our last Sunday (28th) at the Rock Community Church in Devizes (SN10 1FE).
We will fly out of Heathrow on October 31st and arrive back in Brazil late that night. We will sleep in Recife and travel to Patos by road the next day. We will be preaching in Patos on the Sunday (Nov. 4th). Our ministry engagements for the rest of October in the UK are:
14th: Emmanuel Baptist Church , Thamesmead, Kent, DA18 4DR at 11am
16th: Meeting with Latin Link friends in Harrow
18th: Meeting at Tearfund Headquarters
21st: Danbury Mission, Essex, CM3 4QL at 10am
23rd: Millbrook Christian Centre Connect Luncheon Club (SO16 4QF) at 1pm
28th: Rock Community Church, Devizes, Wiltshire, SN10 1FE at 10:30am
We value your prayers for all this and more and hope to see you at one or all of these places!
Liz and I got back from Scotland to her sister's house in London at 7:30pm this Monday evening, having left on the Saturday morning at 8:50am. The journey by bus and train was fine both ways with the bus and 3 trains all on time! The snacks on the train were good and the toilet even talked to you! Amazing!
We were met at Larbert Station near Falkirk by Pastor Michael Rollo of Found Church and him and his wife took us out for a meal. Then Sunday was a very full and worthwhile day speaking at the morning service at 11:15am, then having lunch with part of the pastor's family (wife, 2 daughters, 1 son + wife and 3 children + a son-in-law). Then we spoke at the evening service at 6:15pm and at the after service youth gathering too. Yesterday (Monday) we had breakfast with Pastor Michael Rollo from where he dropped us at the station for 3 more trains + a bus back south.
The weekend was a blessing. The church is going very well and there were 220 there in the morning. The band is great leading lovely worship. The church is fast moving and alive just like we like it! Our Patos church is already working on copying 2 ideas from Found church: a count down 4 minute video showed imediately before the start of the services + the way they do the announcements via video. Loved it all!
Today we have had a walk and been catching up on different aspects of the work that we needed to do. We are busy preparing for our next ministry in Kent.
We travel to Scotland this Saturday morning. We will leave at 9am and get a bus to a tube station and then it's train all the way to Larbert near Falkirk arriving there at 5:19pm.
We will be ministering all day on Sunday at Found Church in Larbert so if you live in the area do join us.
We will head back to London on Monday travelling for most of the day and should be in Harrow by 8pm. We value your prayers.
Please pray too for the Brazilian General Elections this Sunday with a very divided and tense country.
We are exhausted but very happy with the lovely weekend.
All started with the EAB Board meeting in Basingstoke on the Friday evening which was excellent. Good decisions were taken in an excellent spirit, and it was lovely to have a new young couple present too who surely will become Board members before long. Amen!
Saturday we headed for lunch with David, Liz's brother, plus his sons and their children, at the Westquay Shopping Centre in Southampton. That was all lovely.
From there we went to Lepe to scatter the ashes of Liz's late Aunt Gwen.
Then at 5:30 the tea and auction started at Hardley and what a great crowd showed up for this and the Celebration! The tea was lovely but the auction dragged a bit. No more auctions I feel. That idea had given what it had to give. It raised £423.50 but next time round I reckon EAB should receive donations of items (as they did kindly for the auction) and these should be sold on E-bay or sent to a professional auction to raise funds for the Mission and then EAB should publish the results.
The Celebration flowed beautifully in the Spirit with 110 present. The praise and worship was great. In fact everything was. We even had a lovely iced 80 years cake at the end for everyone to enjoy! The whole Celebration was conducted according to schedule in 95 minutes. Thanks very much to one and all who supported the event.
On Sunday morning we were off to Cadnam Methodist Church and the lovely service was followed by lunch with Howard and Hillary from that church who organize an annual fundraising concert for EAB. From there we went to Winterslow near Salisbury and had tea with the church leaders, Nat & Heidi, before taking the second service of the day in their church which also was excellent.
We are now back in London ready to head north to Scotland at the weekend. Thanks for all your prayers and support. The work presses on! Oh yes it does!
