She'll be coming up the mountains when she comes!

Yesterday's trip up the mountains to preach at the EAB/ACEV Imaculada church was fairly eventful on the way there, but we made it OK and the service was really good - crisp, cold (temperature!) and blessed!

To get out of Patos on the south side was the first problem. Initially the town centre is blocked off by a fair set up in honour of "Our Lady of Guidance" - the patron saint of Patos according to the Roman Catholic church. Every year they say that next year they will set up the fairground somewhere not to block the traffic, but always the catholic leaders backtrack, dig in their heels of power, and we have 10 days of mayhem plus the days needed to set up and dismount everything. It really is ridiculous, but I keep quiet about it or else they will say I am complaining because I am an evangelical pastor. There are plenty of catholics who complain so they will have to sort it!

Once we negotiated this obstacle we got caught up in a funeral procession so there was more delay. Then when we got outside of Patos I had to swerve quite violently to avoid some irresponsible dangerous drivers coming the other way... but we made it up the mountain eventually taking about half an hour longer than usual. However in true George Medcraft style we still arrived with 10 minutes to spare! Dad would however have had time to make a cup of tea on his primus stove too! Anyway the service started half an hour late too, but unfortunately that is usual here - so in the end we were ages early for kick off! (Talking about kick-off... QPR do so in 2 hours time against some little team in red shirts. They may be communists!)

The service was held in a gymnasium like it always is every year. There were about 300 present with support coming from our churches at Patos, Teixeira, Tavares, Juru, Princesa Isabel and Flores. It was a lovely service. Pastor Lindon Carlos is not a waffler and organised this crisply so as to flow quickly. You can see a photo of the local P&W group, in regional dress, on EAB's facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil . I preached and the Princesa Isabel & Patos P&W bands sang too. 

Our journey home was a lot simpler than the one going and we were in bed by 11.45pm.