On Board the Ark

We spoke at a great service tonight on board the Ark! This is the name given to a building owned by the Horden (Co. Durham) Victory Church to reach into the community in creative ways. It was a lovely and blessed service. PTL!

We have got in some good healthy exercise yesterday and today walking beaches, climbing cliffs and exploring the countryside.

Great Lumley & Bishop Auckland

Today we've had a very good day of ministry. We had a lovely service this morning at Great Lumley Evangelical Church (below) where we travelled from Horden with my cousin Philip and his wife Debbie. After the service we took part in a church fellowship lunch.

This evening we were in Bishop Auckland at the Wear Valley Christian Centre where the service was wonderful. PTL!

A lovely time in London

We  travelled from Basingstoke to London on Thursday afternoon and yesterday we made the most of the nice weather to first of all go to Kew Botanical Gardens which was absolutely great. After spending hours there, and doing lots of walking, we headed for North Kensington/Notting Hill where I was brought up. We visited my first house (where I was brought up and lived in childhood and youth). Not much appeared to have changed.

From there we went on to see my first school and my first church - Peniel Chapel. Then to QPR's stadium etc. It was all lovely.

Now we are all set to leave for the train station to go to Co. Durham for a week's ministry prior to going on to Scotland the following weekend for ministry there too. Your prayers are valued.

Team Work

My laptop is now up and running to full capacity. A man at Fleet kindly worked over the weekend to get it working again and replaced the hard disk successfully copying all the data from the old one. However when I received the computer back from him there were still a few lesser, but important, problems to fix which he couldn't do because of him not speaking Portuguese etc. So yesterday I contacted my technician in Patos who corrected the rest of the problems by remote control from Patos. The mind boggles!

I dispached the EAB Diary Update yesterday. I have also posted news from the 15th anniversary of EAB/ACEV's 2nd church in Campina Grande which is really flourishing by the grace of God. See photo below from the celebrations.

I have been clearing up the backlog of emails and we are now about to go to the Lavender Farm near West Wellow to have a light lunch prior to going to speak at the Shirley Warren Baptist Church followed by a meal at Ken Rashleigh's flat in Southampton. Tomorrow we head back to London prior to getting the train to Durham on Saturday for ministry in the north-east of England.

What a bargain!

Liz & I went and picked up the repaired computer about lunch time today at Fleet. It has a new hard disk with all that was on the old one transferred (we hope). I have now had to uninstall Norton Internet Security and reinstall it and am now in the process of doing a complete check/sweep on the computer which will take a few hours. By tomorrow I should have a good idea of the complete situation but I am hopeful.

After this we went to see dear Mum who was not having a good day.

From them we went to M&S to buy me a new cardigan as my old one has had it! Lo and behold we bumped into Mike Hollow (ex-Tearfund who has been in our home in Patos) and his wife! She kindly gave us a voucher and explained that with it I would get a 20% discount! So we ended up not paying for the arms of the cardigan, so to speak. In little ways like this we see God caring for us through the loving care of His people.

Pigs in the New Forest

We got back to England from Switzerland on Saturday evening and even managed to get our computer to a technician at Fleet prior to sleeping at Basingstoke. It looks like the problem is the HD as we had suspected. He's working on it. Please pray.

On Sunday morning we left earlier than planned owing to the fog and arrived bright and early at Cadnam Methodist Church where we had a lovely service followed by a beautiful lunch at Howard & Hillary's home. Driving through the New Forest we were surprised to see lots of large healthy pigs grazing freely on acorns! We're used to seeing ponies, cattle and deer but pigs was a new one for us!

On Wednesday we will be at the Shirley Warren Baptist Church in Southampton prior to going by train to the north-east next Saturday.

Lovely time in Switzerland nears end

Yesterday evening's family & friends fellowship and food time was lovely with 2 gigantic one meter long sandwiches filled with everything delicious imaginable! This all took place at Sam & Gerti's house in Winterthur.

This morning we visited the jumble sale Gerti and her friend Marianne are running for EAB and now we are about to eat an amazing lunch cooked by Sam!

We leave for the airport in an hour's time.

She'll be coming down the mountain when she comes

We'll be leaving the Alps just after lunch today to go to Sam & Gerti's city house 20 minutes from Zurich Airport. We will be having a meal there tonight with all the family and friends who know of EAB.

Tomorrow we fly back to Heathrow after lunch, pick up our car in Harrow, drive to sleep in Basingstoke and go to speak at Cadnam Methodist Church on Sunday morning.

Jean has lined up a tecnician to fix our laptop in Basingstoke.

Red Squirrel

It is very good to see the Red Squirrel still doing well in Switzerland.  I have taken some good photos which I can only post when my laptop is repaired. However here is one I took with my mobile phone on Sam & Gerti's house's veranda.

Climb every mountain!

We are having some great healthy walks in the Swiss Alps. Yesterday we climbed to 2 thousand metres at Roseg where we had a lovely lunch.

My computer continues on the blink so I'm managing this on my mobile.

Basingstoke, Bristol, London & Zurich

Sunday saw us leaving Basingstoke at about 8am and we arrived at Bristol Ivy Church about an hour early. The service was lovely.

In the evening we ministered at the Bristol Pentecostal Holiness Church and this went fine too. It was a very good day. PTL!

We travelled to London at night and had a short night's sleep prior to brother-in-law Jon taking us to Heathrow for the 9.30 flight to Zurich.

We arrived in Switzerland at midday and were met by Liz' brother Sam and his wife Gerti who immediately brought us up into the Alps to Tchiertschen for a lovely break. We have already been mushroom picking, photographed lots of birds and eaten breakfast alongside a squirrel.

Unfortunately today my computer has stopped working so next week I am going to need to get it fixed.

Bristol here we come!

We visited my Mum on Thursday. It wasn't one of her best days - bless her heart. We also went round a few shops. I sent out the EAB Diary Update too.

I have kept up with quite a few issues in Brazil via facebook and email. Nothing stands still because we're in the UK so there have been a number of matters to discuss. Sadly 3 dry well drillings were one of the things we talked about and all the pressure on the Exploited Women Project was discussed, which has forced us to move location once again owing to drug gangs interference. Please pray for our team on the job and never far from danger.

This Sunday we will be in Bristol for 2 services. The morning one will be at the Bristol Ivy Church (AOG) in Montpellier at 10:30 and the evening one will be at the Pentecostal Holiness Church in Southmead at 18:30. 

We will drive back from Bristol to London and sleep there prior to a 09:30 flight out to Zurich on the Monday morning. We will be spending the week high up in the Swiss Alps with Liz's brother Sam and his wife Gerti.

Back in Hampshire via Windsor

We had a nice walk back in the lovely Windsor Park today (photo below) on the way back to Basingstoke from Harrow. Enormous trees that were there when I was a kid are still there. In the morning I'll see my Mum again which will be nice.

The photo album section of the EAB website has now been updated so that completes the entire site. http://www.eabrazil.com/

Long Walk

Liz and I went for a very nice long walk today as part of Liz's birthday celebrations - in the midst of which we had a lovely lunch in Harrow on the Hill. Tomorrow we head back to Basingstoke prior to a trip to two churches in Bristol on Sunday. The following day we fly to Switzerland for the week prior to returning for the following Sunday at Cadnam Methodist Church in the New Forest.

Sad news from Brazil is that the well-drilling work this week was unproductive. We drilled for wells in three communities and none of them hit water. You can perhaps imagine how down the communities are amidst such a severe drought as we are having this year. Please pray for them.

The weekend in the Patos church went fine. God is blessing Philip's ministry for which we praise the Lord.

Liz's Birthday!

Liz is celebrating her birthday today and we are going up to Harrow on the Hill for lunch together with Liz's sister Eunice. She already had a birthday cake at Thamesmead on Sunday! Happy Birthday Liz! Have a great and blessed day!

Thamesmead, Enfield & Acton

On Saturday Liz and I took a nice long walk at a Nature Reserve at Rickmansworth, not very far from the old London School of Theology. This was one photo I took there of a Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus).

Yesterday we headed early for the other side of the Thames, going through the Blackwall Tunnel, and arriving 45 minutes early for the lovely service at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in South Thamesmead, London, where we were warmly received by Pastors Vic and Lona Lambert and all the church. It was a great time together in church followed by a lovely Caribbean style lunch.

Late afternoon we took the Woolwich Ferry to get north of the Thames again and head for Enfield where we spent a beautiful evening with my niece Emily, her husband Jon and their gorgeous little boy Raphael. We got home fairly late but it had been a great day. PTL!

Today we spent a large part of the day in the Borough of Acton - first of all visiting our darling son's grave at the cemetery who died as a little baby back in 1975 - our second child. From there we went next door to Gunnersbury Park where we had a very nice long walk.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner!

We arrived in my city of birth yesterday afternoon. It only took an hour travelling from Basingstoke to Harrow. I immediately took photographs in John & Eunice's beautiful garden which is absolutely lovely! Here are 25 photos I took of the fantastic colour display available.

This Sunday we will be speaking at the Emmanuel Baptist Church - Yarnton Way, South Thamesmead, London DA18 4DR (Phone:+44 20 8311 3976) at 11am. Please be there if you can.

Nice Evening

We spent a pleasant evening with Ben and Mirian Price who work with EAB/ACEV in Brazil, but who are having a break in the UK for a year or so. We had a good old chat around a cup of tea. Their kids are growing up fast!

We're off to London today and will be speaking at the Emmanuel Baptist Church at Thamesmead in Greater London on Sunday morning.

BBC Radio Solent interview

This morning started with a 5 minute interview on BBC Radio Solent at about 08:30 and it went off very well. Thanks to Marian Rashleigh for lining up this excellent opportunity. You just never know who will listen to such an opportunity to reach a wide audience as radio affords. Here is the interview https://soundcloud.com/user221710608/bbc-radio-solent-01092015-5-mins-interview

Following this we visited Mum who wasn't so bright today and we also did a bit of shopping.