Half Marathon for EAB

Kira Taylor is to run the Southampton Half Marathon in May for EAB! This is wonderful news in difficult days for EAB financially with giving and the pound down. Please do support her with a contribution. Everything helps. Please do so at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/eab-taylor 

Big problem solved

Last week I spent hours talking to one leader and then talking to another to try and sort out some leadership changes that need to be made. It became a real headache basically because one of our pastors dug his heels in in an unreasonable fashion and by Friday I was despairing with no clear way forward. I prayed a lot that day and asked God to show us His way forward as it was beyond me. However, early on Saturday the brother in question contacted me, asked forgiveness, had completely changed his position and now we can see a way to sorting it all out. PTL! Tears came to my eyes when he contacted me on the Saturday. When there is no way forward God makes a way!

Sunday night's main service of the week was excellent with a packed house again. The worship and sermon went very well. I preached on John 12:12-36. We even had a nun there who is doing post-graduate research and asked me if she could come to our church to do it by coming to the services. Of course I agreed. 

We've had some more rain and have now passed the 14 inch mark at Green Pastures on our way to our 40 inch goal. What we need now are one or two big all night rains as it's these that fill up the lake and the river.

We continue very busy indeed preparing for the Carnival Camp which starts on Saturday, March 2nd and ends on the 6th. Please pray.

Liz has had a heavy cold but is much better today. PTL!

I have done quite a bit of work with Marian Rashleigh for the next edition of the EAB magazine In Touch - edition 91. The new edition should be out in April.

Good weekend

We had a good weekend with a lovely service last night despite numbers down a bit. 

I conducted a 5.5 km guided walk round Green Pastures at the weekend with 46 people coming from 4 counties in 2 States. It really was good. A great opportunity to get people to care about God's creation and look after it.

We are flat out preparing for the Carnival Camp. I am also busy trying to figure out how to make some changes around the churches with some leaders because this is necessary. We value your prayers.

Rain was good over the weekend and we are up to 13 inches of rain at Green Pastures for the year so 27 inches to go to reach the ideal target quantity for the year. This will essentially need to fall by the end of May as only dribs and drabs come in June and then that's it till the following year with increasing temperatures and evaporation as the year goes by. Please praise and pray with us. 

The grandmother of our grandsons Felipe and Arthur died yesterday of a heart attack. We were in the wake till late last night. These are our eldest daughter Deborah's sons from her marriage to Cleytson which ended some years ago. Please pray for all the family. Cleytson's mother was 69 and headteacher of a school.

Excellent Bible Study

Thursday night's Bible study saw Philip continuing his very good series in Romans and advanced in chapter 5. There were 21 present and it was good to see many asking questions in a very participative and blessed evening.

I went for a walk at Green Pastures this morning and sorted out a number of matters in the build up to the Carnival Camp just 2 weeks away. One interesting thing is that we are being given a 52,000 litre rain water harvester by a Roman Catholic NGO which is quite a turn up for the books and most welcome. The harvester is a water cistern to which water from the roofs of two dormitories is channelled so as to guarantee good quality drinking water during long periods of drought.

I am in the process of sorting out with the senior general churches leadership team a number of crunch issues, so value your prayers. My sermon for Sunday on Philippians 2:1-11 is ready to roll too.

Rain

We are happy because we had another inch of rain yesterday taking us up to not far off 10 inches for this year. Our goal always is 40 inches or there abouts. As we always say this needs to fall in the first 5 or 6 months of the year as it doesn't rain here in the second half of the year. Thank you for praying.

Once again this week the men's fellowship group on the Tuesday and the women's on the Wednesday both went really well. PTL! Tonight it's Philip who gives the Bible study and he presses on in Romans.

Outreach Follow-Up goin well

The 10-day Special Evangelistic Outreach was held at Curral Velho last month with a 100+ team but now is the time for the long follow up being carried out by the local team. There are 15 who made decisions for Christ to be cared for plus 3 who came back to God. There are also quite a number of people who asked for home Bible studies expressing interest in the Gospel.

This week 4 women in the latter category had a home Bible study with great interest, under the leadership of local leaders Tica and Ramos. We praise God that one of them commited her life to Christ.

Please pray for the massive amount of work to be done in the vital follow up over the coming weeks and months.

12 Baptized

The service went well yesterday with pastor Lucena, retired Congregational pastor who joined us last year, preaching and me leading. He worked alongside me at the Patos Bible College for 18 years and we always got on well together - so he is a blessing and a help. He could be more expositional but he does alright. He's a lovely brother.

On the coast at João Pessoa at the weekend 12 were baptized. PTL! 5 were from the number one church (of 3 in the capital that we have) and 7 were from the Mata Redonda church plant 25 miles south of João Pessoa on the way to Recife. Please pray for the EAB churches in that area.

Busy Week

As usual it's been a busy week. I had my periodical eye test on Monday and ordered a reserve pair of glasses as one pair disintegrated whilst I was in England. 

We've handled quite a few church problems this week - that is people with all sorts of problems. These things seem to come in waves in church work. One person is not walking straight and giving us a lot of headaches. Please pray.

Then there have been various issues to sort out with the leadership at general level but we thank God for a good team. 

I had a good meeting with pastor Luis Carlos, the deaf pastor. He is such a lovely brother. We had good discussions about this year's deaf conference which brings in the deaf from all over the State of Paraíba and will be held at Green Pastures this year. 

We had building problems at the Patos school as the rains brought a bit of the ceiling down but that has been fixed. We had a problem with a cracked wall at the church projects centre but that too has been repaired.

The Bible study last night had 25 present which is an improvement for mid week. We've been working in preparation for the Carnival Camp too.

Please keep praying for rain for our region. We've had just over 8½ inches to date in 2019 so have started well but we need this to keep going over the next 3 months to reach somewhere around the 40 inches mark in the rainy season of the first 5 months of the year. 

Please pray too for our girls' English school which is their means of income and which gives work to others from the church. Please pray for Philip too as he takes some important decisions regarding his work, life and ministry.

Communion Service

Last night's Communion service was lovely. I preached on Isaiah 53 digging out the interpretation of "By his stripes we are healed" from the context of the book of Isaiah as from chapter 1 onwards and not taking the phrase out of context in a vacuum as some do. Hence clearly Isaiah is referring to spiritually healing and not physical and this is above all the great need of our era. This does not mean that physical healing is not to be prayed for as Jesus did it all the time! However it is not what Isaiah 53:5 is referring to. Such an intepretation avoids the absurd aberations of prosperity theology guaranteeing in the atonement physical healing for everyone always, which, if it were true, would mean nobody who adheres to such an idea would ever die! One such theologian said he hadn't had a headache for 45 years! I myself read this! He is now dead by the way.

Thus yesterday the Lord really blessed as we focused on the wonderful truth of the possibilty in Christ of spiritual healing from the wounds and scars of sin. Praise Jesus for this!

The service also was taken over by the church at one point to celebrate my birthday, give me presents, say generous things and then everyone eat cake! It was a lovely time of celebration and fellowship. God is good!

Excellent Carnival Camp planning meeting

We had a wonderful planning meeting yesterday for the 2019 Carnival Camp which will start exactly in a month's time. 12 gathered on a Saturday evening for a meeting which lasted a bit over 2 hours. By the end we had worked out a complete schedule for the camp and divided responsibilities between different people/groups.

The theme this year will be "Connected to Christ", based on John 15:4-5, seeking to emphasize the need for living out true christianity in everyday life and not just in church!

Pastor Rafael (Teixeira) will bring the opening general introductory message in the opening service on the Saturday night (March 2nd). 

On the Sunday the youth (Louisa, Rayla, Brenda, Ray & Mailson) will take the day discussing how to remain connected to Christ in a world of Digital Media (Netflix, TV, Music, Books, Social Media).

On the Monday Pastor Rafael, Andreia & Marah Danielle will lead the day talking about the importance of the Bible and Prayer, so as to remain connected to Christ.

On the Tuesday Philip will speak on remaining connected to Christ whilst evangelizing your own family and in the other service I will speak on relationships, male chauvinism, feminism and the likes and remaining connected to Christ amidst all this.

Liz will as usual coordinate the logistics of the whole event, expected to attract hundreds, and I will lead the overall spiritual and sporting programme. Please pray.

If anyone can contribute to helping poorer families not miss the camp it would be appreciated. To feed people and maintain everything clean, and other running costs, people pay 30 pounds, for the 4-day camp, which is pretty cheap - but many don't have this money. Please send duly earmarked donations to the EAB treasurer and let us know you have sent please so that we can allow for this help coming. Thank you. 

Rain and other statistics

Thank you for praying for the rain. Please keep praying. In January we had 183 mm (7.625 inches) at Green Pastures so it was a good start to the year and to our rainy season. We need 40 inches of rain to be a good year as the second half of the year doesn't rain and the rising heat as the year goes on causes massive evaporation of water reserves. 

I walked 68.34 km in January - up from 60.72 km in December - so my daily rate was up from 1.95 to 2.20 km. Physical exercise is such an important thing to everything so I always endeavour to make time for it. The important thing is to find some form of exercise you enjoy. I tell everyone this. My eldest daughter Deborah likes cycling and cycles for miles doing her the world of good physically and psychologically. I like walking at Green Pastures. It is excellent to shake off the stress involved in the work of EAB at times. I walked 5.7 km today.

I have prepared my sermon for Sunday on "By his stripes we are healed". It is the monthly communion service. 

I have done a lot of work with the leaders all week. There are times when problems in the local church arise and in the wider work too. There is a lot to work on, think on and pray on at the moment. We value your prayers. The WhatsApp means of communication is such a help for us in the work though. Quite wonderful. I have had discussions at length with so many this week. I've lost count with so many leaders around the more than 80 churches. It's a lot of work and responsibility. We always value your prayers and support.

Yesterday we had a lovely chicken curry (my choice) with all the family at our house celebrating my birthday. It was a really nice relaxed time together. I got a new shirt and jeans out of it too! In the evening Liz and I went and relaxed and slept at Green Pastures and were up before 5 am today for walking. Thanks to all who sent me e-cards, real cards etc.

Tomorrow we have a leaders meeting in Patos in preparation for the Carnival Camp which starts on March 1st.