Deaf pastor

I was thinking after the Sunday night service in Patos how wonderful it is to observe the on-going ministry with the deaf fellowship, and I had a chat to our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos (via an interpreter) who is a lovely brother. Two other fine young Christian men who are deaf were with him. Our Sunday main services are always translated into Brazilian sign language and Pastor Luiz Carlos leads the deaf fellowship's own parallel sequence of services during the week. Please pray for this important ministry and that we will see many more deaf folk coming to the Lord.

I led the Sunday night service and assistant pastor Rafael preached the Gospel very well on Luke 13:6-9.

The Covid daily death rate continues to steadily fall here in Brazil as the vaccination programme steadily progresses. The current daily average is 671 which is a great improvement on the 4,000 peak earlier this year. The vaccination programme which was ridiculed by President Bolsonaro only has come about thanks to the outcry of the people and the incisive action of the State Governors which Bolsonaro tried to halt!

I have finished reading 'Ministries of Mercy' by Timothy Keller. This book expresses EAB's approach to this subject of the balance between doing and saying the Gospel. I have also checked and adjusted a variety of short articles for the next EAB magazine 'InTouch'. Marian Rashleigh sends me the material for me to check. Marian is a vital aspect of EAB ministries.

I have been hearing the call of the Great Kiskadee outside my office in Patos. This is a bird which is always seen at Green Pastures which has a bright yellow chest and belly and which is the size of a blackbird. It is not common to see this bird in towns but we have planted lots of trees and plants around our house so this is an attraction.  

José Roberto

Sadly José Roberto has died from Covid. We had previously asked prayer for this none EAB church brother who had refused to be vaccinated against Covid. Late on Friday night Liz received a request for a prayer team to go to his wife Adriana's house and pray with her and we sent the team there as she was very low. Adriana (who had been vaccinated) contracted Covid very mildly. We will be praying for the bereaved family tonight in our main service of the week.

Liz and I pray together every day, but on Sunday mornings we spend longer together in prayer and are reading a Psalm per Sunday. We have just finished this devotional time together. We have a list of prayer topics and people so as not to forget anyone in our intercession.

Last night the regular Saturday night service at Green Pastures went very well indeed with our granddaughter Louisa (in her final semester at Law School and her first semester at Theology School) bringing a lovely message for the farming folk from Psalm 23. A little boy from the farming village of Assentamento NS Aparecida II sang a song. The 4-year-old Josué (Joshua) froze when he got to the front to sing, but with his grandfather Paulo's help he managed be courageous and sing his song for Jesus!

The services at night at Green Pastures are accompanied by the bird song of a multitude of birds in the trees around the meeting hall which are awoken by the extra lighting switched on for the people's arrival. The meeting hall has no walls on two sides so it is totally exposed to the external bird song. It means the church needs to sing well to be heard! 

The workers at Green Pastures have virtually finished painting Block A dormitories plus the school rooms. They met up with two snakes this week. One was coiled up on the ball cock of a water tank on the roof and the other was in a store room. Both snakes were released out in the bush as everyone knows that we do not kill snakes.

Andressa

Andressa is a 16-year-old unmarried girl from the Fonseca slave-descendent quilombo community in Manaíra County, which is a 3-hour drive south-west of Patos. We have a small church there plus many projects such as well, goats, chickens and market garden. Andressa is 32 weeks pregnant and seriously ill with pre-eclampsia which includes very high blood pressure. She is in the Patos maternity hospital and our social worker Marah Danielle is monitoring her case. She has been in intensive care twice but is in a high-risk pre-natal ward at the moment. Please continue to pray for her. I have just spoken to our social worker who has spoken to Andressa's mother this morning who is with Andressa in the hospital. She says that the doctors are aiming to control things so as to have the birth as late as possible. This afternoon we will be sending items of personal hygiene (shampoo etc.) to support the very poor Mum.

Please continue to pray for the 4 drug addicts we have at a rehabilitation centre near João Pessoa on the coast. Kicking drug addiction is no easy thing and needs much prayer. The man who is now at the centre from Patos is doing well thus far. Yesterday his mother was visited and she is so grateful that her son is being helped. She says he really does want to get free. She told us her son has attempted suicide is desperation more than once.

I am reading a book by Timothy Keller called "Ministries of mercy: the call of the Jericho road". It is a good book which encourages churches to get involved with their communities with an integral mission approach as we have. The disadvantage is that I am reading the book translated into Portuguese and translations are never as good as the original language - but it's what I've got so I shall press on. For my relaxation I have read another book by Mike Hollow called 'The Custom House Murder' set in East London in the 1940 blitz. His description of air-raid shelters (we used to have one in our back garden in North Kensington), bomb sites (I used to play war games in them as a child) and zinc bath tubs for a once a week Friday night bath (Ah yes, I remember it well!) are just some aspects of Mike's excellent writing. My congratulations to Detective Inspector John Jago on another crime solved!

Independence Day

The 7th of September is Brazilian Independence Day which is a public holiday. On this day President Bolsonaro plans to make a speech attacking the High Court of Justice and threatening a military take over. We shall see what he actually says on the day but that is the reported essence of the speech which wouldn't be surprising as he has often made strong hints in the direction of dictatorship and he is a military man. The sad thing is that many evangelical leaders are calling their people to support this speech with a public protest march in the centre of São Paulo on the same day. Please pray for democracy, justice and peace in Brazil.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time preparing a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Liz and I also went out to Green Pastures in the afternoon for our walk, as well as to check the work being done renovating the dormitories (ready for the new start for church conference events there in October) and the school room. We saw a Striated Heron whilst there. We see our bird tables are keenly visited in this time as food is scarce owing to the low rainfall this year. We took some rice that had gone sour out with us and the Marmoset monkeys devoured it and fought each other for it.

Temperatures today rise to a high of 34 degrees and a low during the night of 21.

I have been having discussions with Eduardo who leads our little church at Passagem. They are going to re-start in-person services next month.

The Ministry of Health has announced that it will be offering booster vaccinations for Covid as from next month using the Pfizer jabs. This will be a step in the right direction for us as our Chinese Coronavac vaccinations (that we were given) are not recognized by the UK government (quite rightly so). This would mean we would be half-way vaccinated for an eventual visit to the UK and would just need to somehow get a second Pfizer jab next year. 

Wild Guinea Pig

On the way to leading the service at Green Pastures on Saturday a baby wild guinea pig (cavea aperea) ran across the road in front of the jeep. We see a lot of them here. They are similar in colour to the wild rabbits in the UK. The service went very well with a lovely word of testimony from brother Manoel whose life was changed by the Gospel after having been quite a local rogue. The service in Patos last night was blessed in the praise and worship, but pastor Lucena's sermon was below par unfortunately.

Average Covid daily deaths are down in Brazil to 765. This is still sadly high but is a lot better than the 4,000 a day peak some months back. The vaccination campaign is bearing fruit and the death rate is slowly decreasing though we don't know what effect the Delta variant (now present in Brazil) may have.

The political situation in Brazil is very tense with President Bolsonaro and his followers calling for a military coup d'état as they see defeat in next year's election on the horizon. We would ask you to pray for democracy, peace and justice in Brazil. 

QPR has made a good start to the new football season with two wins and two draws in the league and one win in the League Cup. 😃

Green Pastures Service

At the moment I am preparing to take the service at our Green Pastures Church later today. We look to the Lord for his blessing. Yesterday at Green Pastures I heard a Roadside Hawk and a Rufous-bellied Thrush. The latter has a beautiful song which I can imagine joining praise to God one day in the new earth together with the angels and the redeemed of the Lord! We saw yesterday that the painters are now in at the Green Pastures School and Block A dormitories. It's starting to look much better. We also saw that Francisco has planted 19 of the 24 seedlings of Mango, Guava, Orange and Lemon trees.

Yesterday evening we spent a lovely time with our daughter Sacha celebrating her 35th birthday and eating a mini-barbecue in the moonlight.

The Brazilian national Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro, is a Presbyterian evangelical Christian and his remarks about special needs children are embarrassing and outrageous. He has referred to them as being a "nuisance" because they "get in the way"! Such insensitive comments have generated outrage from opponents of President Bolsonaro and his government.

The authorities here are starting to talk about a third dose of Covid vaccine to hopefully be applied later this year so as to improve prevention of the disease. Please pray for this to happen. Daily deaths to Covid are down to 800 which is a big improvement on the 4,000 peak a few months back. A brother called José Roberto who is a Christian from a non-EAB church refused to be vaccinated because he deemed it to be a "lack of faith in God". He is now intubated in intensive care fighting for his life. Please pray for him.

I went to an ophthalmologist this week as my right eye was swollen a lot. He prescribed an antibiotic and an antiallergic drug and already my eye is back to normal.

I have been having a lot of discussions with our projects team about the next round of wells that we will be drilling. Also Pastor Valdemy of Caroá took part in the discussions as the poor rainfall this year is already affecting his region as it is ours. Please pray for us to hit water when we drill the next 4 wells we will be drilling. 

4 Legs

EAB's 4-Legs Project distributed goats and sheep yesterday in a journey of 720 km. The animals were bought over the past few weeks at Tavares where Pastor Robério is the leader and who is a member of our projects team. Then yesterday he and pastor Lindon Carlos loaded up the pick-up vehicle with the animals and left at first light with first stop at Teixeira which is 30 minutes drive south of Patos. They had a nice time of fellowship with the local pastor there, Maésio and his wife Fia, who took them to the rural area of the County to Sítio Sabonete II where the first families of the day received their animals with much joy. One lady called Maria (nearly all women in Brazil are called Maria!) has recently come to the Lord in this community. Each family benefitted by the project also receives a Bible. 

Next stop was the town of Juazeirinho which is a one hour drive east of Patos. There they met up with our local pastor Leandro who took them to the community of Antonio Ferreira where more animals and Bibles were distributed. In this community a number of people have come to Christ and the Juazeirinho church holds a weekly meeting there. There are plans to even build a little church at this place. Once again as well as the distribution of animals and Bibles there was good fellowship here with pastor Leandro and the local Christians in these out of the way places.

On from here next came São Vicente do Seridó which was another drive of about and hour and a quarter in a north-easterly direction. Here the leader of our church is an excellent woman called Maria das Dores (Mary of the Pains!) although she is known by her nick-name of Neném (Baby - which is a common nick-name here). She took the team to the Boa Vista rural community where once again goats and Bibles were distributed. By this time the animals still on top of the truck needed to be given baths to cool them down.

Finally the team drove on again to Portelo Community in the County of Puxinanã which was about another hour and a half drive south east, and were met at late afternoon by local pastor Sílvio and his wife Silvânia. The team drove on to Campina Grande to sleep.

All our projects are church based and so a day like yesterday, distributing goats, sheep and Bibles, just highlights the wonderful way the Gospel is being spread to villages and towns in north-eastern Brazil. All the indications for people to received goats were made by our local leaders who know the people. 

We thank you for your prayers and for the practical ways you support our projects which demonstrate to the poor the love of God. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan the priest and Levite walked by on the other side of the road, but it was the Samaritan who stopped, cared and paid for the wounded man's needs. EAB, with your help, seeks to live out this parable in the real world of north eastern Brazilian poverty.      

Baptism

4 people were baptized at the weekend at our Jacumã church which is just south of João Pessoa. Jacumã has a nice beach and is popular with holiday makers. Our church there is not far from the beach and can easily be reached after a gentle stroll. This is the church where José Renildo and his wife Tânia were leaders until they moved to Portugal. So it is good to see the church doing well there now under the leadership of Pastor Cleyton Carlos.

Our Sunday services went well in Patos which is 330 km west of Jacumã in the interior of Paraiba State. In the morning the deaf fellowship have their Sunday School in person and the youth have theirs online. Our main service of the week is at 6:30 pm and this I led. Our assistant pastor Rafael preached on the Parable of the Sower. One problem we had in the service was that Leudo who is part of the deaf fellowship had a bad cough and was in church against all the pandemic rules. Of course he and the other deaf brethren couldn't hear his cough. Fortunately after a while one of the interpreters of sign language noticed and discreetly asked Leudo to leave which he did. I have since asked our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos to emphasize to the deaf fellowship that they should not come to church with symptoms which could be Covid.  

Green Pastures Service

Last night I preached at the Green Pastures church service. Assistant pastor Rafael led the service and local girl Sabrina did a Bible reading. I preached on John 6:35 - "Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty". It was noticeably hotter in the service last night.

On Friday afternoon Liz and I went to Green Pastures to check the work being done to renovate the dormitory block A and the school rooms there. The school should be back with in-person teaching for local farmers' children in September and we will need the dormitories for church events as from October.

Whilst at Green Pastures Liz and I went for a walk and saw some Pied-billed Grebes and a Burrowing Owl. 

Pastor Nemias tells me that the drainage system at a lady's tiny house at Flores has been duly fixed. We sent funds to do this as the situation was so serious. Nemias sent us a video showing the finished job. The lady is extremely grateful to no longer have an open drain literally right on her front door step.

Rural evangelism

Rural evangelism has been resumed in the County of Flores in Pernambuco State by Pastor Nemias (Nehemiah) and his wife Fátima. They have loudspeakers on the top of their car to allow them to conduct short open-air services in farming communities. They feel that the pandemic has improved enough so as to permit such open-air services in this way.

I had a good and long online meeting yesterday with the EAB Action School leaders of our Princesa Isabel and Patos schools. It was very good. 

Our projects team has been visiting market garden projects at Patuscada and Quebra Joelhos (break knees) Communities yesterday. The agricultural expert was with the team to give tips and advice. The team also visited Barra de Oitis to see how the building of the new toilet/shower unit there is going. They were pleased to see the work has advanced a lot since their last visit. I imagine it will be finished next week.

This week I prepared a sermon for tomorrow night's service at Green Pastures. We value your prayers for the weekly service with the farming folk in that region at which I will be preaching.

I finished reading a short 100-page book this week on spirituality, which was written by a Brazilian friend of mine who lives at Fortaleza. In the first part of the book Carlos Queiroz does a critique of Roman Catholic, Prosperity theology and other shallow evangelical spiritualities. In the second part he emphasizes that grace, love, humility, faith and justice are the essential elements of true evangelical spirituality. 

Men's Fellowship

Last night the Patos Men's Fellowship went up the mountain to Teixeira to take part in the service there of the EAB/ACEV church led by Pastor Maésio. It was lovely to see 27 mostly men travel there on a Tuesday evening and take part in a lively fashion. 2 brought words of testimony and 1 preached. The objective of such trips is to encourage fellowship between the 2 churches.

Unfortunately the drug addict who was supposed to be taken to the rehabilitation centre yesterday backed out at the last minute. Our team was ready to take him at 6 am as agreed but he didn't show up. Please pray for this man who can't be named.

Yesterday President Bolsonaro paraded tanks and armoured vehicles in the heart of the capital Brasília to threaten the country with a military coup as he sees it is unlikely that he will be re-elected next year. The man is plain evil yet sadly is backed by the majority of evangelical Christians but certainly not me. Please pray for a peaceful democratic transition of power next year and that Bolsonaro will not be able to imitate his idol Trump.

We were very encouraged to see 11 in the Monday night youth prayer meeting. This week I have been catching up with a lot of administrative work. Liz and I have had a meeting with the architect responsible for the revamp of our Care Centre and it is good to see that the project is developing well. We praise God for funds now in for 2 new wells and 4 new chicken runs. These funds have been forwarded to our projects team. The team has drilled a well today at Saco dos Pintos Community in Princesa Isabel County, which hit plenty of good water I am pleased to say. This well was previously funded. The team is also in the middle of constructing a new toilet/shower unit at Barra de Oitis. 

"Million Dollars"

I led the service last night in Patos and I preached as well. A brother called Dedé came up to me after the service and said I had preached a "million dollar" sermon! 😀 He didn't give me a million dollars but he did make it clear that he'd been blessed which was great. Yesterday was Father's Day in Brazil so we had a special fathers slot in the service too. The whole service went well.

Yesterday saw the maiden flight between Patos and Recife so it was a real historical day. Flights will be daily from now on with the company Azul (blue). This should be a big help for us on trips to and from the UK cutting out the long and grueling 6 to 7 hour road trip.

Tomorrow morning at 6 am another drug addict will be taken by our young assistant pastor Rafael to the Santa Rita, near João Pessoa, drugs recovery centre. This will be the fifth man we have at the centre at the present time. Please pray. The man who is going tomorrow wears an electronic ankle monitor owing to previous troubles with the law, and he had to get special authorization from the judge to be able to travel.

Saturday night's service at Green Pastures was a real blessing. Liz and I went early to sweep the meeting hall from dust and leaves and put the chairs out duly spaced. Normally Francisco, who takes care of Green Pastures, puts the chairs our and his wife Leca sweeps the hall, but they were busy with Francisco's grandfather, Sr. Heleno, who had had an emergency appendicitis operation. Praise the Lord Sr. Heleno is now home and recovering well.

C & A

Our granddaughter Louisa, who is in her final semester of Law School and has now started Bible College, said to us last night that she was going to visit the C & A store with her boyfriend which opened in Patos this week! She was shocked when I told her that I used to go to such a store in Kensington High Street when I was a child. She was also surprised to learn that C & A was founded in Germany in 1841. Anyway Louisa liked the store in Patos which is a sort of tourist attraction!

Yesterday Liz and I took 24 new fruit tree seedlings (Mango, Guava, Orange, Lemon) to plant at Green Pastures. We also checked the work being done to revamp some buildings in preparation for the re-opening of the use of our Christian Conference Centre in October (DV).

We will be holding a service again at Green Pastures this evening. I will be taking the monthly communion service.

Outbreak

There is an outbreak of Covid cases at the village of Barra de Oitis which is quite alarming and causing much concern. EAB/ACEV does a lot of project and church work in this village which is desperately poor. So far this week 13 people have tested positive for Covid and many others have the symptoms and await tests. Please pray.

The construction of another toilet/shower unit is carrying on in this village despite the outbreak at the house of Cláudia and Jacleildo. The work is progressing well.

At Belém Village in Tavares County over 50 tree seedlings plus all the equipment were delivered for the setting up of a new market garden project which is under way. The family of Fernando and Sandra are very grateful for everything. This project is a classic example of 'helping people to help themselves' producing income with dignity as a result of hard work. Participants of the market garden project receive specialist advice from an agricultural expert and take part in our online WhatsApp group to share photos, questions etc.

I have finished reading two books this week. I recommend the Blitz Detective series by Mike Hollow. I have finished the second book in the series called the Canning Town Murder. Mike is a Christian friend who used to work for the BBC and Tearfund. It was while he was working for Tearfund that he visited us here in Brazil.

The other book I finished this week was 'The Story of the Church' by A.N. Renwick which gives a good overview of church history through the centuries. The more I study church history the more I find the enormous amount of violence and killings involved between religious factions to be quite unbelievably outrageous.    

Matureia

Yesterday I had an excellent meeting about the EAB Action School in Matureia with local pastor Renilson and his wife Getiane. Matureia is situated up in the Teixeira mountain range and has the highest peak in our State of Paraíba. Getiane is the head teacher of our school there and does a wonderful job. She reported to me on all aspects of the school and it is great to see the school going so well and really impacting this small town through the transformation of very needy children's lives. I also discussed the local EAB church with pastor Renilson and it was good to see him upbeat and encouraged about the progress of the church. Thank you for your prayers.

The neighbouring Teixeira church has a flourishing church plant in the rural area of the County at a community called Sabonete 1. I say flourishing because many people are attending the services there but only one family has made a commitment to Christ there thus far.

Here in Patos I am glad to report that a young woman has this week committed her life to Christ and is being duly involved into the youth fellowship of our church.

We have started this week building another toilet/shower unit at the village of Barra de Oitis. The construction is taking place in the back yard of Claudia and Jacleildo's mud and sticks house. All the family are very happy at the prospect of for the first time having a toilet/shower. Their children are particularly excited just like it was Christmas Eve! 

Saturday break

We had a nice break at Green Pastures on Saturday spending the whole day there with the family to celebrate our granddaughter Alice's 14th birthday. We stayed there for the weekly service that we hold there on Saturday nights and we led that. It was lovely to hear a Tropical Screech Owl joining us in the praise and worship! Surely this was a foretaste of eternity when in the new heavens and new earth all nature will join the angelic and human choirs in praise to God. It was very encouraging to see the local farming folk from around Green Pastures really joining in the service too with enthusiasm. Most of them present have made commitments to Christ and form a nice little farming congregation. One important family was missing because their old old banger of a car, which we jokingly call a Ferrari, completely packed up and left them stranded 6 km from the service.

I led last night's service in Patos and it was very good. The church was full to the capacity we are allowed by State law as everyone must be masked and one and a half meters apart. I say by Paraiba State law because if the president was listened to, at a federal national level, there would be no masks or social distancing!

Things have improved in Brazil as regards the pandemic and we are grateful to everyone for their prayers. Average daily deaths have dropped from 4,000 at their peak to 991. This is of course terribly high but it is a lot better than it was. Elizabeth and I remain very vigilant and careful as we are aware that the Chinese vaccine we have been given only gives us 50% cover for the Covid virus and is much less effective than the other vaccines administered in Brazil which are Astrazeneca and Pfizer. The problem is here you don't get a choice here so we took the Chinese Coronavac as it was better than nothing. We still value your prayers.