Cidade Verde

Our second church on the coast in Joao Pessoa is in the borough of Cidade Verde and it has just celebrated its 19th anniversary under the leadership of Pastor Jose Vieira. A festive and blessed special service was held to commemorate the occasion. 

You will be thrilled to know that having lost at Norwich on Saturday, QPR actually managed to win a game last night at home to Stoke 4 x 2!! You will also have noticed that I had my hair cut yesterday. I hope you like it. 👨

Last night I preached on prayer in the town of Sao Mamede. It was a lovely service and my sermon went very well.

Yesterday afternoon I went for a nice walk at Green Pastures and saw a Chalk-browed Mocking bird and 3 White-naped Jays.

This Friday we will be travelling the 178 km east to Campina Grande where I will be speaking at the graduation service of our Bible College there. We will sleep there the night at Pastor Wostenes' house and travel back to Patos the following morning.

40th Anniversary Service

We drove to Caroa on Saturday afternoon leaving Patos at 1 pm and arriving at Caroa at 4:20 pm. The last 11 km of the journey is the worst although the earth track (road!) has been improved a lot over the last 40 years that we have been going there to minister. The anniversary service started 15 minutes late at 7:15 pm and was held in front of the church under a star-lit sky and a full moon. There was a constant gentle breeze blowing which was much appreciated so as to cool things down. An excellent crowd gathered from Caroa, plus pastor Francinaldo from our Manaira church, Fabio who leads the Fonseca and Travessia churches, Leonarda who leads the Umburana church, pastor Gerse (Princesa Isabel), pastor Roberio (Tavares), pastor Nemias (Flores), Deacon Sitonio (Mandacau), and others from Umbuzeiro, Olho D'aguinha Seco and Belem. I preached on 'Nothing will separate us from God' (Romans 8:31-39) The mayor was at the service and at the end I presented him with a copy of my book about the history of the work here.

After the service everyone was served with a hot dog and coke and we stayed talking to all the people. After this we stayed chatting to the local pastor Valdemy till gone 11 pm. We stayed at his house for the night and we left for Patos about 8 am the following morning. On the way home we went to visit brother Jose Paulinho and his wife Louisa at Manaira as Louisa doesn't enjoy good health and they were unable to go to the anniversary service. They are the parents of 17 children! We got back to Patos about 12:30 pm, ate egg and chips, had a siesta, and then got ready for the evening main service of the week in the Patos church.

I led the service in the Patos church and pastor Rafael preached. Sacha, Louisa and Marina led the worship. After the service the children's ministry sold a Munguza snack to raise money for the building work. Munguza is a regional maize based snack which was very nice.

Caroa

Later today Elizabeth, me and deaconess Josinete will drive to Caroa and tonight I will be preaching at their 40th anniversary service. We value your prayers.

Thursday night's prayer meeting and Bible study went well. There were about 25 there.

I have been doing a lot of administrative work. I have also had a nice walk at Green Pastures and had a good chat to Francisco. I heard the call of the Scarlet-throated Tanager whilst there.

Yesterday morning I inspected the construction work at the Care Centre. The brick layer was finishing off the wheelchair ramp and it is good to see the end of the work insight. Hopefully we will go into the new year with the Care Centre back in use and totally revamped. 

Christmas is coming!

Christmas approaches and the Patos church is already decorated appropriately. Every Sunday in December we will have a special Christmas feature in the service as follows. On the 3rd we will have a children's nativity play; on the 10th a Christmas ballet performance; on the 17th a special musical item; and on the 24th we will have our main Christmas play which I wrote.

On Tuesday evening I led the men's fellowship inductive Bible study called 'Jesus the great liberator' based on John 8:31-32. It was a lovely meeting with 12 present and which was very participative.

Our 22-year-old grandson Arthur presented his end of course dissertation for his law course at university and received the top mark. His dissertation, which was highly praised by his examiners, discussed the legal implications of Brexit. 

I have been in discussions with Gleydice in Campina Grande about our Bible College there. The college is struggling owing to the low numbers of students with only 22 this year. Please pray.

Liz went to the women's fellowship meeting last night which was held at Ana Karla's house. They had a good number there. (22)

Juazeirinho

At the weekend our Pastor Leandro at Juazeirinho baptized 4 new converts for which we praise the Lord. Juazeirinho is half-way between Patos and Campina Grande and our church there has 59 participants.

Sunday night's service was excellent in Patos. I led and Sacha preached on 'There is power in the name of Jesus'. She preached very well indeed. After church the worship group sold slices of cake plus savouries to raise money for the building work at the Care Centre. 

On Sunday both our grandson Arthur and his girlfriend Bianca sat their first stage of the Bar examination and they passed. They now sit the second and final stage of the Bar exam on January 21st. They both graduate from university as lawyers next month. They are both fine Christians.

Last night the youth prayer meeting had 12 in it which is up from 10 last week.

I went for a refreshing walk at Green Pastures yesterday afternoon.

Liz is down with the flu.

Well travelled week

This past week saw us doing 15 hours of driving as we travelled far and wide to preach the Word of God. First we went to Joao Pessoa on the coast and took with us one of our pastors (Lindon Carlos) and our social worker Marah Danielle. We had hours to talk and share about the work together. We took part in the 60+ Conference which is an interdenominational movement to make churches aware that Brazil has an ageing population and need to cater for the over 60s and not just the youth. The movement also seeks to make over 60s aware of the great use they can be in the work of God. I was one of the speakers at the conference. One thing which became clear was that our work with the over 60s was the oldest work of its kind amongst all the churches represented at the conference. We have been doing this work for 17 years.

Having returned from the 3-day conference in Joao Pessoa which was full of long very full meetings we just had time to get our breath back so as to leave for our Barra de Oitis church the following afternoon. This was to take part and speak at the special thanksgiving service there for another 7 toilet-shower units that we have built there. The service was jubilant and full of praise to God. The church band did well with a blind guitarist, a bass guitar, drums and keyboard led by 4 singers. We were served a nicely iced cake (the cook learnt from our pastor-cook Joao George!) after the service and drove back to Patos deep into the night getting to bed at nearly 1 am. We now prepare for the evening Sunday service in Patos.

Meeting with pastors

I have had an excellent meeting with pastors Lindon Carlos, Gerse and Roberio in my office in Patos. They came to see me on their way back from visiting our church in Ceara at Filipe. We had a good discussion about the work in Ceara. It is good to know that it is going well.

Paulino and Betania are a young couple from our Tavares church who this year took on the leadership of our church at Belem. They travel to Belem from Tavares for each service. However they are now planning to move to the area so as to be more on hand for the churches at Belem and Jurema which are only a few miles apart. How encouraging it is to see young couples like this taking on responsibilities in the work of God.

The youth prayer meeting on Monday night had 10 in it which is very good. All report blessing from the meeting.

Yesterday was our 54th wedding anniversary and we spent the day on the 5 hour journey to Joao Pessoa followed by a 5 hour meeting in a conference for the over 60s. Today I spoke to the conference.