Sermon

I have been preparing a sermon for our New Year's Eve service which this year will be between 7:30 pm and about 9 pm. Last year we didn't hold such a service owing to the pandemic. Normally we would have held the Watchnight service from 10 pm till just after midnight, but the church council suggested an earlier time this year. I will be preaching on 1 Samuel 7:12.

Our 2 baby turkeys at Green Pastures have died. They got wet in the heavy rain we had and were dead the next day. Baby turkeys are very sensitive.

I ate fish for lunch yesterday which I like very much. Unfortunately Liz is severely allergic to fish so cannot even just taste it or else she will become very ill. 

We have just received a Christmas card from "David". The problem is we know a lot of Davids! Please could the David who sent us a lovely card, with 2 Robins and a postbox on the front, let us know so that we can thank him.

Brazil's public health's statistics were "hacked" about three weeks ago and have never been restored. Hence we don't know where we are with the pandemic! Some say that this "hack" was in fact sabotage by President Bolsonaro and his team. I consider this to be highly likely. 

The death toll from the floods in our northeastern state of Bahia has now risen to 25. 151 towns are in a state of emergency, 517 people have been injured, 643,000 people have been impacted by the tragedy and 37,000 of these have completely lost their homes. Meanwhile President Bolsonaro ignores this and remains on holiday riding his jet ski!

It rained 17 mm (over half an inch) last night at Green Pastures taking the month's total to 96 mm (4 inches). Things are greening up nicely.

Floods

The northeast of Brazil is made up of 9 states. To the extreme south of the northeastern region is Bahia State and to the extreme north is Maranhão State. The state where we live and where the headquarters of EAB/ACEV are is Paraíba State which in the centre of the region. In Bahia the rains have hit abnormally hard and 2 dams have burst flooding a wide area around the town of Itabuna. 21 people have been killed and over 475,000 people are affected with many left homeless and sleeping in schools. Our church in Bahia in the town of São Sebastião do Passé has not been flooded. Please pray for this very traumatic situation.

On Monday I rested after a very good, but tiring, Christmas weekend with 2 church services plus the baptismal service at Green Pastures of 15 people. I watched a film called 'Don't look up' and generally chilled out.

One of the young men baptized on Sunday was Lucas, aged 14. He came to Christ some years ago through the Sunday School. Then he won his father Orlando for the Lord. Later he won his mother Nazareth for Jesus. His Dad had already been baptized, but on Sunday his Mum was baptized on the same day as he was. Liz and I call him Lucas the evangelist! 

Liz and I went for a walk at Green Pastures yesterday afternoon to see the work that Francisco is doing there reinforcing the outer fence. We heard a Striped Cuckoo whilst there. This bird we often hear but rarely see.

If Covid wasn't enough we are now facing a sharp increase in the dangerous version of Dengue Fever. Two friends (Eraldo and Terezinha) are in intensive care with the hemorrhaging version of Dengue Fever which can kill people. Dengue Fever is transmitted by mosquitos. Please pray. 

15 baptized

We had a wonderful baptism morning yesterday at Green Pastures with at least 80 present for the joyful occasion. We decided to baptize at Green Pastures as the pool there is spacious and in the open air. People are now saying we should always have our baptismal services there even after the pandemic. We arrived there around 8 am and some folk had already arrived. Soon the place was teaming with Christians! We held a short service with some nice worship songs and I brought a message about baptism. We then took some photographs of the group of 15 people to be baptized.

Following this we started baptizing the 6 women and 9 men. The first woman called Nazareth we baptized by aspersion, as she has serious nervous problems which left her scared of the pool, and then we baptized the rest by immersion as we normally do. The women were Alice (our granddaughter), Milena, Monyque, Maryana, Nazareth and Fernanda. The men were Danrlei, Michael, Caetano, Jair, Kecinho, Toinho Adjuto, Leo, Domini e Lucas. Please pray for them. 

Whilst at Green Pastures yesterday I saw a beautiful pair of Narrow-billed Woodcreepers. They climb tree trunks using their tail and legs. They are fascinating to watch. On Christmas Day it rained 6 mm (a quarter of an inch) so we ended up getting at least a damp Christmas!

Last week I finished reading another book in the Blitz Detective series by Mike Hollow. This time it was the Dockland Murder which Detective Inspector John Jago sorted out nicely. These books are very well written and are really relaxing.

Yesterday's Boxing Day main service was blessed. I led the service and dedicated yet another baby called Luna. Assistant Pastor Rafael preached the Word from Lamentations 3. However numbers were down as a result of the good rain we had yesterday.

Yesterday was a true day of Boxing Day blessing with 65 mm of glorious rain at Green Pastures which is nearly 3 inches of rain. We sure do praise God for this!

Christmas Eve

In Brazilian culture celebrations are always on the eve of the day. Hence Christmas Eve is the main celebration of Christmas. For us this was our church Christmas service from 7:30 pm to just gone 9:00 pm followed by the traditional Christmas supper. Our Christmas service was comprised of entirely carols for the praise and worship, the dedication of a little baby girl called Liz, and three special moments. The first was "Hark the Herald Angels sing" sung by a quartet and which was expressed by ballet by our granddaughter Alice, aged 14, and Milena. It was beautiful.

The second special participation was very moving. This was a Brazilian carol sung by Philip (recorded) which was signed by the deaf and sign language interpreters. This included the new interpreters who have learnt Brazilian sign language during the pandemic from our deaf pastor Luis Carlos. I always find the plunge into the deaf people's silent world to be very touching.

Then the final special moment was a 15 minute one-act Nativity Play which was very well acted. The theme was to emphasize the true Biblical origin of the manger scene as opposed to some modern women who thought that was all religious fanaticism. After this I preached a short Gospel message. 

The service ended up with the giving of gifts and sweets to all the church children who come along regularly to Sunday School. It was a lovely service.

After church the family came to our house for the Christmas Eve supper. We relaxed together and talked and laughed a lot. I ended up getting to bed at 1.30 am.

I have just seen a Glittering-bellied Emerald Humming Bird in our front garden. We were dreaming of a wet Christmas, but unfortunately the drought continues.

Decisions at Bethlehem

 I have been talking to Pastor Naldinho, who leads the Belém (Bethlehem) church. He was thrilled to tell me that a couple in the village called Douglas and Roberta have committed their lives to Christ. They have been going to the services for a long time and have finally come to faith, but they are suffering considerable persecution as a consequence. Please pray for Douglas and Roberta.

Walking at Green Pastures yesterday I heard the beautiful call of the Rufous-browed Peppershrike. This bird intrigued me years ago as I could hear it singing, but didn't know it's name, and nor did anyone else. Since then I have learnt a lot.

Our grandson Felipe graduated as an architect on Tuesday. This means we have 2 grandchildren graduated from university and another 2 who are undergraduates. John David is studying to be a medical doctor and Arthur is studying law. Arthur is also a linguist. He speaks Portuguese, French and English well and he is now learning Spanish.

Yesterday I had a good detailed meeting with our project coordinators Lindon Carlos and Marah Danielle. We went through all we have achieved in 2021 despite the pandemic having been awful in Brazil. We evaluated where we had done well and where we could improve. We also did initial planning for 2022 once our team gets back from their holidays in January. As we end this year we have one new well nearly finished at Macambira dos Lúcios. We are just waiting for the electricity board to link us up to power for the well's pump, and for piping to be delivered to link the water to people's houses. We also have a new toilet/shower unit which is under construction this Christmas week.

Yesterday I received my new Brazilian passport which is valid for the next 10 years. This morning we received our new British passports which are also valid for 10 years.

Jesus is Light

I led the service on Sunday night, dedicated a 2-year-old lovely little boy called Arthur, and preached on 'Jesus is Light' based on Isaiah 9:2-7 etc. Whilst the sermon was Christmas based it also confronted superstition, which is widespread here, and condemned racism which is also sadly prevalent. The service was good and the sermon was well received. The church was as full as is possible under the pandemic limitations which by law limit us to 70% capacity.

We have been defining things for our baptismal service. The service will take place this coming Sunday morning, Boxing Day, at 8.30 am at Green Pastures. There are 14 on the list to be baptized and we already have 5 people on a waiting list for mid-2022. Assistant Pastor Rafael and I will be baptizing together.

Our Christmas Eve service will start at 7:30 pm (10.30 pm UK time) and it will be transmitted on Facebook and YouTube. The service will feature a quartet singing a carol, accompanied by ballet dancers Alice and Millena. Then there will be a presentation of another carol by the Deaf Fellowship and sign language interpreters. Then there will be the presentation of a one act Nativity Play by our Drama group (we're keeping numbers of participants to a low number owing to the pandemic). Gifts will be given to the children at the end.

At the weekend 3 women came to the Lord and made commitments to Christ at our São Vicente do Seridó church. 3 further women gave their lives to Jesus at our Soledade church. Please pray for these women that they might put down spiritual roots in God. 

My right arm is empty this morning as I have had blood taken for my routine tests. The laboratory nurse arrived at our house at 6:30 am, but my arm should fill up soon! 😉  

Dear Deer!

I went for a walk at Green Pastures this afternoon with Francisco, who takes care of the place on a day to day basis, and we saw a Deer! It was probably an Ozotoreros bezoarticus but it could have been a Mazama gouazoubira. We saw it very clearly for about a minute as it gently ran through the bush near our dried up lake. The Deer was clearly quite fat despite the drought. Perhaps it is a pregnant female? This is only the second time I have seen a Deer in Brazil, just to show you how rare it is. I will not mention this on Facebook so as not to attract hunters.

I have been notified (email & text message) by the UK Passport Office in Durham that Liz's and my passport renewal applications were all correct and new passports are on their way to us. I also have discovered online that my new Brazilian passport is ready to be picked up.

I have been writing this blog for over 17 years. It started in August 2004. At first many people asked me what a blog was! I usually post what I've been doing and been involved with every other day, and then I post it out as the EAB Diary Update on the 8th and 22nd monthly.

I am reading 'Issues facing Christians Today' by John Stott. It is a very good book. I had been reading 'Surprised by Scripture' by N. T. Wright. Each chapter is a lecture he gave in different places in the USA. I don't know if the translation to Portuguese is bad or what it is, but I found the book heavy.

I led the service last night at Green Pastures and Bible College student Murilo preached the Word. He did very well. After the service we had a good talk to 2 couples who want to be baptized in the middle of 2022. It was a lovely chat we had with them. Parallel to this service the Christmas service for our Patos school was held and 2 adults plus 10 older children made commitments to Christ. Another service was blessed last night at Ipueira and the Deaf fellowship also had their meeting.

Granddaughter Louisa left yesterday for England. She was driven to the Recife airport by Netinho and her boyfriend Tiago. When she got to Lisbon they wouldn't let her board the flight for Heathrow as her Brazilian test result was not in English, so she had to do another quick test in Lisbon. Fortunately Liz had given Louisa the few Euros we had, just as she left Patos, so that she could pay for the test.

Spider-Man

Our granddaughter Louisa, aged 22, told us she was going to see the new Spider-Man film at the cinema, with her longtime boyfriend Tiago, on Wednesday night in the late night showing. What we didn't know was that they were going to get engaged there with Tiago on his knees in front of a packed cinema! (Tiago plays the guitar in the church band.) They have been going out together, on and off, for five and a half years.

Liz and I have been working on the Christmas Hamper distribution via 16 EAB/ACEV churches and schools. It's a lot of hard work, but it brings much happiness and food to hundreds of very poor families. The building materials have been delivered this week for the latest (26th) toilet/shower unit which we are building for Aldenora, Luciano and family at Barra de Oitis. The foundations and cesspits are being dug and we just might be able to finish this work for this needy family in time for Christmas. It will be quite a Christmas present as they have never had a toilet before, let alone a shower!

Our Campina Grande - Catolé church (this is one of the two churches we have in this city) held a glorious and joyful baptismal service on Sunday when 18 people were baptized. I have been busy preparing a Christmas sermon for this coming Sunday. Average Covid daily deaths are down here to 150. We have not felt the impact of the Omicron variant as yet and we hope and pray it will not affect us.

Last night we went to Louisa's graduation ceremony in Law. Liz and I were first to arrive half an hour early, but the ceremony started three quarters of an hour late! All went off fine in the end. Louisa has passed the first part of her bar exams and has sat the final part for which she is awaiting the result on January 12th. 

Mango

I have just eaten three lovely large slices of Mango, which I hope makes your mouth water. We were given 10 large mangos by a member of our Patos church who is a fireman. He had been given a lot of Mangos by a successful farmer in Pernambuco State and kindly passed some on to us. We are keeping the seeds to plant at Green Pastures.

33 young people took part in their Christmas pizza party last night in the church's side hall. They ate pizza and played games of bingo with different little prizes for the winners! It went on pretty late as Louisa didn't get in till after midnight. Our 22-year-old granddaughter Louisa will be flying to Heathrow, via Lisbon, this Saturday. She will be staying in the UK with her parents and brothers for 2 months, but plans to be back in Brazil in time for the carnival camp at Green Pastures.

We were due to officially inaugurate a new well at Macambira dos Lúcios this coming Friday, but this has been postponed until the new year because the team will not be able to get it finished this week. I thought when they combined with me to preach at the thanksgiving service that it would be pushing it for the 17th, but now they have realized it will be impossible. It's better to finish the job properly taking the necessary time.

Yesterday evening I went on a routine visit to my Doctor Felícia. She remarked how my diabetes has been in remittance for years without any medication. I have a lot to be thankful for. My blood pressure was perfect at 120/80. Now I do a battery of routine blood tests to complete my check-up. 

On Monday evening the Women's fellowship held a goodbye meeting for sister Magaly who is moving today to Recife with her husband Pastor Lucena. Yesterday evening it was the Men's fellowship's turn to say goodbye to Pastor Lucena and 22 men turned up for the emotional meeting. 

Saturday night

Every Saturday night we take part in the Green Pastures Church service which is a 20 to 25 minute drive from where we live. Saturday was the postponed communion service from last week and all went very well. Sacha led the praise and worship, assistant Pastor Rafael led the service and Pastor Lucena preached from John 15.

Yesterday morning we held our annual church business meeting in Patos and it went off very well. We brought the members list up to date and votes of approval were made for our assistant pastor Rafael, deacon Ricardo and deaconesses Josinete, Deborah Maria and Marcia. Then some adjustments were made to the leadership of our different church ministries. This was followed by the decision to try and return to holding our annual carnival camp at Green Pastures from February 26th to March 2nd. This will go ahead as long as the pandemic situation does not get worse here between now and then. To attend the 4 day camp people will have to pay 30 pounds. If anyone would like to contribute to this camp it would be appreciated as it will enable poorer people to go to the camp who would not be able to otherwise. After this we had a good discussion on the modernization of the Care Centre which was applauded by all present.

Our church has set the date for our next baptismal service in Patos so that it will be a Boxing Day Baptism! It will be held at 8.30 am and over 10 people will be baptized. I cannot give the exact number as yet as we are still sorting this out in the light of the backlog we have owing to the pandemic. It was decided that the baptism will take place in the pool at Green Pastures.

Last night's main Sunday service of the week was blessed. I dedicated 2-year-old Marina and assistant pastor Rafael preached. At the end we bid farewell to pastor Lucena and his wife Magaly. He clearly doesn't want to move to Recife and wept. His wife clearly does want to move there where her family live. I will say no more. I hope and pray that the move goes well for them.

Youth Meeting

Yesterday afternoon Liz and I had a good meeting with the Patos church youth leaders who are Ray, Rayla and Louisa. They are supported by assistant pastor Rafael who also was in the meeting. We discussed how we can work better with the adolescent and pre-adolescent age groups and we decided that Pastor Rafael and Rayla (they have been going out together for just over a year) will focus their attention on this age group in 2022, whilst Ray and Louisa will focus on the older youth. When does a child become an adolescent in this day and age? 10 or 11? It's a critical age group for churches to work with.

Yesterday evening we had a meeting with the architect drawing up the plans for the refurbishment and modernization of the Care Centre. We hope to start the work early next year.

We are busy working on preparations for the church annual business meeting this coming Sunday morning. We are also planning for baptismal services. This Sunday in Campina Grande 17 will be baptized. In Patos we will be baptizing about 14 shortly. We are just in a quandary as to where to conduct the baptism in the light of the pandemic. The church baptistery is tight for space and stuffy so perhaps we will do it in an outdoor pool.   

Bible Colleges

Our Campina Grande Bible College currently has 27 students. This number is down owing to the pandemic as normally we would have a number somewhere in the 40s. We hope that next year the number of students will increase. We also have 17 students doing online theology courses with ISBL (15) and FTSA (2) which are of a very high standard. These online students are very encouraging because some of them are in very off the track places and are thus preparing future leadership for difficult locations. 

EAB/ACEV has 68 registered pastors and leaders. We have 50 fully fledged churches plus 39 church plants, giving us a total of 89. One of my jobs is to maintain contact with all our leaders, coordinate things with them, and sort out problems when they arise. I have this week been liaising things with pastors Maesio (Teixeira), Renilson (Matureia), Wostenes (Campina Grande and Soledade) and Lindon Carlos (Imaculada). 

We were disappointed this week because one young man who was taken to the drug and drink rehabilitation centre last week has already given up after just 9 days! This is very sad. Please pray for a young mother in the Patos church called Aline who has suspected Lupus. Please also pray for Madiel (husband of our excellent deaconess Deborah Maria) who had blood pressure 220/150 yesterday but is now improved. The Men's Fellowship took the service last night at the ex-landless community where we regularly preach the Gospel. A nice little group of farm workers gathered for the service.

Yesterday Liz & I went for a walk at Green Pastures and a Fox (Cerdocyon thous) ran and jumped right in front of us. We also saw a Spot-backed Puffbird.  

BBC

I keep myself informed about world affairs watching the BBC World News on TV every lunch time and following the BBC News online. I am part of the BBC 'Global Minds' followers panel. I sometimes watch a bit of CNN at night. I subscribe to the Brazilian national newspaper online 'Folha de São Paulo' to keep myself in touch with Brazilian politics and affairs. I read this first thing every morning.

The Sunday service in Patos, which I led and preached at, was very good. I preached Mark 2 entitled 'This is Jesus!' - part 2. At our Soledade church, which is in transition to a new leader, our renewal team from Campina Grande was in action with Pastor Jânio preaching God's Word. We value your prayers for this church.

We have received photos from Antonio Rufino & Maria de Fátima at the Tamanduá Community showing their new Chicken Pen. They are very content with this help to their income. The new well at Macambira dos Lúcios is working out very well and will be officially inaugurated on the 17th, when we will hold a community thanksgiving service and preach the Gospel. The wide-mouth well has hit a good amount of water for which we praise God. This well will be known as 'Sylvia's Well' as the funds were donated in memory of Sister Sylvia Pusey.

My latest book in the Blitz Detective series has just arrived. I was starting to suffer with withdrawal symptoms as 'The Dockland Murder' by Mike Hollow took a long time in coming via the Brazilian section of Amazon. I see from the book's cover that the murder victim is a member of the Home Guard this time. I only hope it's not Captain Mannering or Corporal Jones!

Last night we had our Pastor Lucena with us crying his eyes out because him and his wife will be moving away from Patos to Recife around the end of the year. Lucena is a retired Congregationalist pastor who has settled in very nicely with us over the past 5 years in our Patos church. Lucena worked with me a lot in the Patos Bible College and has been a great friend for many years. We will miss them a lot.

Our daughter Lynn is now recovering well from her surgery and is getting over a post-op infection. Thanks for your prayers.

Rain stopped pray!

Last night's service at Green Pastures was cancelled owing to a most welcomed heavy shower of 8 mm (one third of an inch) of rain. When I left Patos all was dry, but on the main road, about half way to the Reserve, the rain hit us with lots of wind. I knew then that the service would be cancelled as the local farming folk can't make it in the mud. It wasn't a lot of rain last night, but for us that have not seen a drop for 4 months, it was most welcome. All the trees will be budding green within 5 days.

I have 3 babies to dedicate in the coming month and at least 8 people to baptize, including our 14-year-old granddaughter Alice. The church youth are having their Christmas pizza party on the 13th and the Men's Fellowship are having their Christmas get-together on the 21st. We will be inaugurating another well - this time at Macambira dos Lúcios in Tavares County - on the 17th. 

Please pray for our daughter Lynn who has a post-op infection. Please also pray for 4-year-old Maria Isabelly (Matureia Action School) who will have her cancerous kidney removed next Thursday (9th). Please also pray for the bereaved family of our sister Salete whose brother Messias died yesterday in his 40s. He died as a result of an untreated gall stone which got stuck in a duct and caused sepsis. If only he had gone to the doctor earlier, but he refused. 

Brazilian Passport

I had to go to the Federal Police's office in Patos yesterday afternoon to renew my Brazilian passport. The policeman who attended me asked me if I was Sacha's father. He then told me that the electronic checking of my fingerprints would be unlikely to work (which it didn't) as "beyond 60 years of age fingerprints wear out!" I now have to go and pick my new passport up in 10 days time. I am still waiting for news about the renewal of Liz and I's British passports, but I have renewed my British driving licence on line.

I have been preparing my sermon for this Sunday on Mark 2 - called "This is Jesus - 2". Doing a chapter at a time, in a 30 minute sermon, the idea is to get people to think back to what it must have been like reading the Gospel of Mark for the first time some 1,965 years back and reading "This is Jesus!" (Mark was probably the first Gospel written) On Sunday I will cover Jesus' authority to forgive sin & heal; Jesus' calling of Levi (Matthew) & the controversial meal at his home; Fasting and the fact that Jesus is Lord of the sabbath.

The end of year services are now organized. A week on Sunday (12th) we will have our annual church business meeting in the morning. This day is Bible Day in Brazil. On Christmas Eve we will have our main Christmas service at 7:30 pm. On New Year's Eve we will hold our watchnight service also at 7:30 pm. Sunday services will be as normal at 6:30 pm.

Last night I had a nice time of fellowship with a young pastor from another denomination. His name is Williton. It was nice to share about our respective ministries. I hope and pray I was an encouragement to the young man.

Wostenes

Wostenes is the name of the pastor of EAB/ACEV's largest church at Campina Grande in the borough of Catolé. He is also the deputy chairman of the work here and I am the chairman. The 11-person leadership team is elected by all our church leaders every 4 years with the next election in 2024. Wostenes is a lovely sound and balanced brother and a real personal friend. On Monday we had one of our regular online meetings discussing the transition at our Soledade church from where the current pastor Ângelo has resigned. Wostenes is now responsible for this church for a few months because the church is at a low ebb. Our aim is for Wostenes and team to inject new life into the Soledade church before a new pastor is brought in. Please pray for the Soledade church and for Wostenes.

We have taken a further man to drug and drink rehabilitation this week. We pray that this man, whom we know well, will be set free.

On Monday night we had a terrific service with the church packed out with teenage students, teachers and family from the Fera School. It was a thanksgiving service for the students having finished junior high school. I led the service and preached a lively crisp Gospel message for the glory of God. Just think that on one night we had the opportunity to preach the Gospel to over 100 non-evangelical Christians! Amongst the students was our granddaughter Alice.

Yesterday I went to Green Pastures to take cleaning supplies and to go for a walk. I heard a Green-barred Woodpecker whilst there and I saw a Great Kiskadee in it's bright yellow colouring. We have just had the 3 bird tables repaired and they are looking great. We have also repaired and rebuilt 5 benches.  

Saturday night

Saturday night was a night full of activities with the Patos church. First of all there was, as always, the deaf fellowship's meeting in the Care Centre. Then the Christians in Action group held their regular service at Ipueira in Rio Grande do Norte State. I also led the normal Green Pastures service and I preached too on John 8:12. Granddaughter Louisa and her boyfriend Tiago (guitar) went with me to take care of the praise and worship. What was particularly encouraging at this service was how a young local farm worker called Francisco came forward and asked to read a verse of Scripture from Isaiah. He had made a reconsecration of his life to God in the previous meeting and this was his way of saying he meant it! He can hardly read and slowly read one syllable at a time, but he made it. The good number at the service burst out in applause when he finished. 

On top of these three Saturday night activities we also held a special night of child evangelism in the borough of Jatobá on the south side of the River Espinharas in Patos. This event was in the open-air outside our school and it attracted a large number of children together with a good number of their parents. We have been trying for years to plant a church in this borough. Saturday night's service was the return to regular monthly services in this place now that the pandemic has calmed down somewhat.

Yesterday we had the Sunday School for all ages at 9:30 am and the main service of the week at 6:30 pm. I led the service and assistant pastor Rafael preached on Jonah 1. Tonight I will be leading and preaching in a service for teenage students whilst parallel to this two prayer meetings will be held in the Care Centre. Prior to this I will be having an online meeting with Pastor Wostenes (Campina Grande).

Nationwide Meeting

I took part in a 4-hour meeting of RENAS today online, which is a network of Brazilian evangelical Christian organizations that practice social community action. Whilst I was in this meeting our daughter Lynn got back to Patos after her surgery.

Yesterday I went for a good walk at Green Pastures. I heard the Red-legged Seriema which are large birds between 70 and 90 cm tall. I also heard the Stripe-backed Antbird and the Long-billed Wren. I also noticed that the two Turkey chicks that have hatched had been put into a different pen separate from the guinea pigs because the chicks were killing the guinea pigs with their sharp beaks. We keep some animals like this especially for the children.

Last night there was the usual Friday night sign language lesson training new interpreters for work with the deaf. This work is led by our deaf pastor Luis Carlos. The deaf and interpreters are also preparing a presentation for our special Christmas Eve service. The drama group is also preparing a short play with reduced numbers owing to the pandemic.

I have also been doing a lot of ACEV church administrative work. On Thursday night was the usual Bible study going through the book of James.   

Wheelchair Bank

EAB's wheelchair bank is going flat out. We have a fleet of wheelchairs which we lend out to poor people when they need them. We lent out another chair today plus a pair of crutches. It is a simple way to minister God's love to the needy.

Yesterday our region (150 counties) in the State of Paraíba was declared in a state of emergency with the horrific drought we are facing. The leaves are off the trees like in the UK, only here it's because of the drought and not the cold. 

Walking at Green Pastures on Tuesday afternoon I saw and heard (a fine whistle call) the tiny Tawny Piculet 4" woodpecker. I also saw many Chalk-browed Mocking birds which imitate the calls of a variety of other birds.

Our daughter Lynn left hospital yesterday afternoon after her surgery. She is now staying for the time being in João Pessoa at her son's flat. John David is studying at university there to be a doctor. Our two youth leaders who had Covid are now better. Thanks for your prayers. The Covid situation in Brazil continues to improve with the average daily death rate at 217 and the average daily new infections at 9,528. When comparing this with UK statistics you need to remember that Brazil has more than three times the population than the UK.

Pastor Williton Farias is a new pastor to Patos from the Betel denomination. He has asked for a meeting with me next week to see what he can learn. I have also been invited to take part this Saturday in a nationwide network of evangelical churches and organizations that care about integral mission and social action. It should be interesting.

Drug addict

A new drug addict is now on his way to the rehabilitation centre near João Pessoa and our assistant pastor Rafael is going with him. He is a young man whose life has been threatened. Please pray that God will set him free and bring him to faith in Jesus. Next week we will be taking another man to the centre. He only didn't go today because he hadn't been vaccinated against Covid and the rehab centre only accepts vaccinated people. We are going to get the second man vaccinated this week.

Thank you for praying for our daughter Lynn who had her surgery for endometriosis yesterday. It was a very tense day for us. Thankfully the surgery turned out to be less complicated than was expected. It only took 3 and a half hours instead of the 7 or 8 hours that was expected it could take. Lynn is now recovering in hospital but hopes to be sent home today. 

Sunday night's service went very well. I preached the whole of Mark's first chapter in just over 30 minutes and it worked very well. Many have contacted me to thank me. I am now preparing a sermon for the Fera School thanksgiving service a week today. Our granddaughter Alice (14) is part of the group graduating from junior high school. These sort of services are a great opportunity and challenge as one has a church full of virtually all non-evangelical Christians with some quite hostile to the Gospel.

Our Covid cases in the Patos church are recovering well. Ray is already out of quarantine and Rayla comes out tomorrow. 

Lynn's surgery

Please pray for our daughter Lynn who will have surgery tomorrow to remove endometriosis including a hysterectomy. She is in João Pessoa on the coast (4 hour drive) with her husband Hutan. We are looking after Amanda who is their 6-year-old daughter. This means we now have 2 grandchildren in our home. We have Louisa (Philip's daughter) on a more permanent basis. We love this. 😁

Louisa will be going to England for Christmas and she will stay for 2 months with her family. Louisa will sit the second part of her Bar Exams on December 12th, graduate from University on the 16th and fly out on the 18th! She will be very happy to see her Mum, Dad and brothers again. Louisa finishes the first semester of Bible College too this month. All her marks have been 90% plus thus far! She will have December off from Bible College and will start her second semester in January. When she returns to Brazil in February she will also do post-graduate studies in law. 

I had a good long walk at Green Pastures on Friday afternoon and nearly trod on a White-bellied Nothura. This is a grouse-type bird about the size of a small chicken. It hunches down in the undergrowth when approached and I only saw it when it flew out suddenly. I also saw a pair of Pileated Finches and I found the remains of a giant Lizard Salvator Merianae which had clearly been eaten by a wild cat or fox.

Last night the Christians in Action group held the weekly service at Ipueira and our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos was the speaker. This attracted a lot of attention and the service was really blessed. At the same time I was leading the weekly service at the Green Pastures church and assistant pastor Rafael was the speaker. Numbers were down at this service owing to ill health and owing to the breakdown of an old banger of a car which normally brings one family.

Liz put our Christmas tree up yesterday! Covid cases are down further in Brazil. Average daily deaths are down to 211 and average daily new cases are down to 8,631. However in the interior of our State cases are up. This has meant the inauguration of the Travessia church, which was planned for December, has been postponed.

Christmas Pudding

We are very happy to have received, in good time for Christmas, 2 Christmas puddings, 2 jars of Marmite and one tin of Birds Custard! This was sent to us by our son Philip and his wife Gylmara, via Miriam Price who lives in Basingstoke, but is from Brazil and is here visiting her family at Princesa Isabel. Many thanks to all.

We attended our granddaughter Louisa's presentation of her graduating law dissertation at university yesterday. The three examining professors were unanimous in their praise for both her 17,000 word written dissertation and her oral presentation and defense of it. She was outstanding and got full marks of 100%. Louisa's parents were able to watch her presentation via internet.

I have been in discussions with Valdeir at Barra de Oitis via Messenger. It was nice to be able to encourage this young man who is doing a theology course online through distance learning. We are in the process of fixing him up with a secondhand computer so that he can press on with his studies as the one he had has bit the dust.

Driving at night we saw another White-eared Opossum. We are seeing a lot of them lately.

We were waiting for funds for 2 new market garden projects with one for the County of Ibiara and the other for the County of Santana de Mangueira. We have just received enough money for one of these which will nearly be enough for the second one once EAB gets the gift aid back on the donation. At the present exchange rate a market garden can be set up, with fencing, water tank, hose pipes, wheel barrow, spades, trowels and shading netting plus many packets of seeds and dozens of fruit tree seedlings, for 1,100 pounds. This project is a life changing project for the glory of God.

The difference in costs between the Brazilian and British passports is mind boggling! I am renewing both my passports at the moment. The British passport cost me 135 pounds and the Brazilian passport cost me 37 pounds! I know the British one involves postage both ways, but nevertheless the UK price is over the top! 😕

Bethlehem

Yesterday Liz and I travelled to Belém (Bethlehem), in the County of Tavares, to officially inaugurate the new EAB/ACEV market garden, and hold a thanksgiving service. The journey took us 2 and a half hours to get there and 3 hours to get home. The last half hour of the journey to Belém was hair raising as the authorities are in the process of making the earth road into a tarmac one. The road was extremely dangerous, but we made it! Coming back on the dangerous section was unbelievably complicated.

The new market garden has only been set up for 3 months, but it is already producing vegetables for sale and Fernando and Sandra (owners) are so grateful. They have already planted 90 fruit trees as well as vegetables. These market gardens are real oases in the desert. 

The thanksgiving service was held outdoors near Fernando and Sandra's house. Some of the youth were there from our Tavares' church with keyboard and acoustic guitar. The praise and worship was lovely. Liz did the Bible reading from Luke 2 and I preached the Gospel. Please pray for Fernando and Sandra to be converted. They are attending our services at the Belém church. After I preached we distributed Bibles to those who didn't have one. After the service Sandra served us all with Munguzá which is typical local dish based on maize. It was lovely. 

Whilst we were away at Belém our Patos men's fellowship led a special thanksgiving service for this year's army recruits. The service was led by our deacon Lieutenant Colonel Esaú and our Bible College student Murilo preached the Gospel. I am told it was a lovely service and that Murilo spoke especially well. It is very encouraging seeing a lot of young Bible College students getting increasingly involved in Christian service.

I today have had an online meeting with Pastor Wostenes and his wife Gleydice (Campina Grande). They held a church business meeting last night at our Soledade church to discuss the way forward once their pastor Ângelo leaves. It was unanimously agreed that pastor Angelo will leave a month earlier than planned on November 30th. The church will then be under a temporary leadership period to revitalize the church led by Wostenes, Gleydice, Liz and I, with support from pastors Umbirajara and Hamilton. After some months, with the church in a better state, the induction of a new pastor will take place. Please pray.

Married Couples Day

On Saturday we held a married couples fellowship day at Green Pastures. It was a long hot day, but it was fruitful. It was the sort of day when you can chat lots and build on relationships with people. Of special blessing was for Liz and I to get closer to Andreia who leads the Patos women's fellowship. We also had long chats to a new couple to the Patos church called Alberto and Dany when we shared the Gospel with them. In the evening I led the local Green Pastures church service and Pastor Lucena preached. The day had started at 5.30 am and ended about 11.30 pm. It was tiring, but very productive.

Whilst at Green Pastures I both saw and heard a Common Tody-Flycatcher, which is bright yellow with a black cap and back. It makes the sound of an old fashioned watch being wound up. This is why its popular name in Portuguese is a "watch mender". It is about the size of a UK Blue Tit.

Please pray for two sick children at our Matureia Action School. Maria Isabelly (aged 4) has cancer in a kidney. She is having chemotherapy and will then have surgery. Lázaro (aged 6) is an autistic boy who is in hospital with appendicitis. 

In Sunday's main service of the week our youngest daughter Sacha preached the Gospel wonderfully well. She is an excellent school teacher and she maintains her teacher-like aplomb in the pulpit. I am seeking to give women more space in church ministry. Evangelical churches, in my view, are wrong in maintaining culture bound limitations to women's ministry. Also in the service yesterday I dedicated 4 months old baby Arthur who is the first child of José Waldir and Denise. I also was asked to invoke God's blessing on their marriage which we did in word and song (Sacha).

Rayla, who is one of our youth leaders, has gone down with Covid. She has joined fellow youth leader Ray with the same illness. We have suspended all our youth activities at church for the time being. Covid in Brazil continues at a low level with average daily deaths at 262 and average daily infections at 11,320.

Our dear friend and faithful sister in Christ, Doreen Griffiths, has gone to be with the Lord aged 105. She was lucid to the end and we praise God for her long blessed life. Doreen came from the same London and Notting Hill church roots as me.

We have another grandchild living with us at the moment. We already had Louisa (21) finishing her law degree, and we now have Felipe (24) finishing his architecture degree. It is nice that our grandchildren feel they can move in with us when they need to.

Tomorrow I will be preaching the Gospel at Belém (Bethlehem) Village and value your prayers.

Barra de Oitis

On Thursday Liz and I travelled to Patuscada and Barra de Oitis communities, in Diamante County, for the official inauguration and thanksgiving service of toilet/shower units, market gardens, chicken runs and 4-legs goat projects. It took us 3 hours to get there with the last part on earth road which was terribly bumpy. Upon arriving we met up with our projects team and went for a 2-hour tour of the projects. As always, people were profusely grateful for the toilets and showers and for all the projects. What joy folk had in "having eggs to eat" from the chicken pens! How proud was Tico to show us his splendid market garden which has grown to a garden of Eden in just 16 months, amidst a bad drought. The paw-paw and banana trees (lots of them) were laden with fruit.

Having done a tour of the projects in the hot sun, with the temperature at 38 degrees, we headed for the Barra de Oitis church for a 5 pm thanksgiving service. The church was a buzz and filled with people despite it being an early start for a normal 7.30 pm start. The local church band kicked off with a song of thanks to God. The bass guitar player was very limited, but nobody cared. Our projects team leader Lindon Carlos then explained what had been achieved in recent months in that region and this was followed by a band from our Conceição church. This typical regional music band was composed of a piano accordionist, one enormous drum, one triangle and pastor Betinho on vocals. This band set the place alight! Then came Liz's turn and the pastor Manoel Abílio asked her to say something to the church as well as reading part of Mark 1. Then came my turn to preach the Gospel of Mark chapter 1. I preached the whole chapter in 15 minutes covering John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus, Jesus' baptism and confirmation from heaven, Jesus' temptations, the calling of the first disciples, the casting out of demons and the healing of the sick. "This is Jesus Christ that the Gospel presents", I said. "With power over demons and sickness. Give your life to Christ tonight. Amen." A non-Christian man immediately took me at my word and asked for prayer because his son was trying to kill him. He said he needed the power of Jesus to keep him from demon power. We immediately prayed for the man.

The regional drum, triangle and accordion band did 2 more songs, the local women's choreography group danced a hymn, and then I closed in prayer. This was followed by a piece of cake and a cup of Guaraná (Brazil's answer to Coca Cola!) being distributed to everyone. After chatting to everyone we headed home by a different route than which we came by, as the locals told us it was safer from bandits. We took our social worker Marah Danielle with us in the jeep, ate sandwiches and chatted for the 3 hour journey home. We got to bed, at about midnight, exhausted, but happy in Jesus.

This Saturday we have a married couples fellowship day at Green Pastures, with a local church service at night. On Sunday I will lead the service in Patos and next Tuesday we will be back on the road again to inaugurate a new market garden at Belém in Tavares County. We value your prayers and support always.

Ray Santana

Ray Santana, aged 26, is one of our Patos youth leaders and he is a journalist. Yesterday he tested positive for Covid. Rayla, who is another of the 3 person youth leadership team, also has the symptoms. We have therefore cancelled youth meetings in Patos for the coming days and value your prayers.

The UK has now acknowledged the Chinese Coronavac vaccine that Liz and I had for Covid as valid. This is good news for us as it opens the way for future travel. 

Liz checked our British and Brazilian passports and discovered that both our British passports expired last year as did my Brazilian one. Now it is much simpler to renew British passports online so I did these yesterday. The cost is high but the efficiency is good.

Inflation in Brazil is steadily rising and is now at 10.67% p.a.

A Patos ambulance had a sad accident this week when taking a woman to hospital for a check-up following cancer surgery. The driver lost control on a bend, turned the ambulance over and killed the patient. The driver has a broken arm.

Liz and I will be leaving for Patuscada and Barra de Oitis communities in just over 2 hours time. Liz will be doing the Bible reading and I will be preaching the Gospel at the official inauguration and thanksgiving service for recent 4-legs, toilet/shower unit, chicken runs and market garden projects. I will be preaching Mark chapter 1. Please pray for us as we travel for about two and a half hours to get there with the first part on tarmac and the second on a bumpy earth road ideal for our jeep. 

Pastor Wostenes

Liz and I had an excellent Google Meet online meeting for 1 hour and 20 minutes yesterday with Pastor Wostenes and his wife Gleydice. They are our best friends in Brazil. Wostenes is vice-chairman of ACEV. We had a long discussion about the way forward concerning the EAB/ACEV Soledade church, and as a result of this Wostenes will hold a meeting with the church members a week today. It is so encouraging to feel the love that this couple has for the work of God, and they will be key in moving forward at Soledade in the coming months. We also discussed some issues linked to another pastor called Davi.

Sunday night's service went well although the young assistant pastor, who preached on Psalm 90, was very depressing as he told everyone so many times that they are going to die! I will talk to him and give him some guidance. It was good to see a new bass player called Ricardinho taking part with the praise and worship. Ricardinho is having lessons and is developing well. This coming Sunday our daughter Sacha will be both leading the worship and preaching.

I will be preaching the Gospel this Thursday, and Liz will be doing the Bible reading, at the inauguration and thanksgiving service at Barra de Oitis village. We will be officially inaugurating market gardens, chicken runs and toilet/shower units in this desperately poor community.

Please pray for our daughter Lynn who will be operated on in João Pessoa on November 22nd. She has endometriosis and will be having a hysterectomy plus any other surgery necessary. We pray that it will just be a straight forward hysterectomy. We will be looking after Lynn's 6-year-old Amanda whilst her Mum is in hospital.

Our automatic Bushnell trail camera at Green Pastures (we have 2, but 1 is not working) is registering a lot of Sharp-shinned Hawks. These are a species not normally seen a lot in our area. 

EAB Christmas Gift List

 * Click on the order form to read it better.

InTouch#96

EAB publishes a little magazine twice a year called EAB InTouch. Each edition shows photos and news of a cross section of our activities over the previous 6 months. I am pleased to announce that EAB InTouch#96 is now in the post to everyone on our mailing list, and that you should receive it in the coming week. This edition reports on our baking pastor, an online wedding, evangelism in Flores, the 4-Legs goat project etc.

Together with EAB InTouch#96 goes our Christmas Gift List. You can obtain EAB Christmas cards and gifts with a difference and bless the poor and needy this Christmas in the interior of northeast Brazil. Our thanks go to Marian Rashleigh for all her work in compiling another edition of EAB InTouch and to Dave Flowers for his layout and artwork.

I led the service last night at Green Pastures. It was lovely to see local farmers Fred and Manoel volunteer to sing solos in the service. Manoel committed his life to Christ many years ago because I picked him up in my car when he was drunk and took him home. The speaker last night was Rayla who has just graduated in law at university. I saw a Squirrel Cuckoo at Green Pastures which is a light-brown bird about the size of a UK Magpie. 

We had a surprise visit from our Deaconess Josinete at our house. It was a surprise because it was the first time she felt secure enough to visit us since the pandemic began. Prior to the pandemic she visited our house most days. Thankfully in Brazil the average daily death rate continues to drop and is at 236 (as opposed to 4,000 at the peak earlier this year) and new daily infections are down to about 10,000.  

Well

Liz and I travelled to the County of Princesa Isabel yesterday to take part in the official inauguration of the new EAB/ACEV well in the Saco dos Pintos Community. We left home at 1.30 pm and got to the community at about 4.20 pm, which is in an area with beautiful rock formations with some rocks unbelievably precariously balanced on top of others. Having chatted to the local folk, and our projects team, we walked to the well's water tower where I was asked to offer a prayer of praise to God for the well with lots of local folk all around. Everyone burst out in applause at the end of the prayer.

We then all walked back to the centre of the community where all the folk gathered round in a large circle for the start of the thanksgiving service. Pastor Gersé, who leads the first EAB/ACEV church in Princesa Isabel, started by leading us all in a couple of hymns which he accompanied on his guitar. Then Liz was asked to do the Bible reading and this was followed by me preaching the Gospel. 

I preached on "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it". (Psalm 24:1). I linked this to Genesis 1:28 (the cultural mandate) and Genesis 2:15 "caring for the earth". I then jumped to Matthew 13 and the Parable of the Sower, discussing which type of "earth" or "soil" we are, as far as receiving the seed of God's Word is concerned. The 40 or so people present sat with great attention hearing the Gospel. Once I had finished our social worker Marah Danielle asked who didn't have Bibles and Bibles were presented to them. I noticed that one young woman had been touched by the word and received a Bible with great joy. We pray that she, and many others there, might become a Christian.

Once the service was over we left after a final chat. The earth road at the start was very bumpy but we bumped along in our jeep full of the joy of the Lord. Once we got on the asphalt road we took it steady, at about 50 mph, as you never know what animals you are going to face. It was nice to get home and have a good shower before curling up in bed. Thanks for all your prayers on behalf of our travels carrying the Gospel of Jesus. 

Widow

Yesterday Liz and I visited the recently widowed deaconess Beatriz whose husband Pedro died last Thursday. We hadn't seen 86-year-old Beatriz since Pedro's death as Beatriz didn't go to the funeral. It wasn't an easy visit as naturally Beatriz was very low and tearful, but she was very grateful for the funeral service which she watched online. We talked as best we could with Beatriz, read the Bible and prayed with her. Please do pray for her. Beatriz has survived Covid twice.

Cases of Covid in Brazil continue to fall. The average daily death rate is now 261 and the average daily infection rate is down to 10,073.

Pastor José Renildo and his wife Tânia have been to Soledade for the baptism of 3 new converts. Thus they met up with all the members and got on well. This couple is potentially who will take on the leadership of our Soledade church next year as pastor Ângelo is resigning amicably at the end of this year.

I have been having discussions with pastor Maésio from our Teixeira church. He is facing one or two difficulties. 

23 Graduates

Our 2nd church at Campina Grande started a 2-year basic theology course for its members 2 years ago and 23 brothers and sisters have just finished the course. This really is excellent. 

Covid deaths in Brazil have now reached the lowest level since April 2020. In the last 24 hours 296 deaths occurred and 11,077 new infections were registered which is a great deal lower than in the UK.

I preached on Sunday night on the 'Messianic Secret' and it was greatly appreciated by many people who spoke to me after the service and sent me messages via WhatsApp. I have also sent video messages to our Princesa Isabel church, for their 81st anniversary, and to our Caroá church, for a memorial service for our late brother Silvino there.

One of our drug addicts, who we had sent to rehab, came home to get his Covid jab and promptly got drunk. He has repented of his ways and will be going back to rehab. We are also sending a new person to rehab who I know well but I can't say his name here. Please pray for these men seeking a new life, free from drugs and drunkeness. May they find new life in Christ.

Please pray for a woman whom Liz has been counselling. She is facing a serious family problem which I can't mention. May God help this dear woman at this very difficult time.

Our Flores church has been doing child evangelism. They evangelized 160 children in 3 boroughs and 3 rural areas distributing sweets and ice lollies. May the Lord bless the good seed sewn in these young hearts and lives.

Cactus Parakeets are making a lot of noise at Green Pastures as they feed off the Prosopis Juliflora trees laden with seed pods at this time of year.

Fun & Fellowship Day

Green Pastures hosted a Fun & Fellowship Day for the youth yesterday, with 70 young people from our Patos, São Mamede, Juazeirinho and Teixeira churches. 10 of them formed an advanced party which prepared food on the Friday night and the main group started arriving on Saturday morning at 5.30 am. The youth held meetings in the morning and afternoon and these were interspersed with swimming, table tennis, volley ball and nature walks. At night the youth took the weekly service for farming folk with the young Bible College student Murilo preaching the Gospel. It was a lovely day.

On Saturday afternoon we had an excellent online meeting of the senior leadership team which was mainly to discuss who will replace the current pastor Ângelo at our Soledade church as from January 1st. Pastor Ângelo and his wife are both suffering from depression problems and are going to have a good sabatical. Their replacement at Soledade may be Pastor José Renildo and his wife Tânia. This is the couple who went to Portugal but have now returned. They will be visiting Soledade this coming week and taking part in a baptism there. Please pray for this situation. 

We have bought 6 leather footballs and sent 2 a piece to the 'Sport in Action' projects at Juru, Flores and Barra de Oitis. This Bible and Ball project gets kids off the streets practicing healthy organized sport within a Christian setting.

The Women's Fellowship held a special meeting this week which focused on preventing breast cancer. They invited a visiting speaker and 50 women went to the meeting which was very good. 

A large American Barn Owl is hunting smaller birds at night around the Green Pastures meeting hall. The birds like to roost in the trees around the hall and the Owl comes and picks them off.

Funeral service

Yesterday morning our dear brother in Christ, and elder in the Patos church, Pedro Guedes, went to be with the Lord. He was 89. He left his wife Deaconess Beatriz, 14 children, 22 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

Pedro's death changed our day yesterday. We had been due to inaugurate the new market garden project at Belém Village in Tavares County but this was postponed until November 18th. Instead of this I spent much of yesterday preparing the funeral service for this morning, which I have just conducted. To get all the names of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren was quite a job, and even in the end the family forgot 2 grandchildren! I am glad it was made clear to the father that it wasn't my fault. 

The funeral service this morning started at 8.30 am and lasted an hour. I conducted the service with Pedro's open coffin in front of me. Sacha and Tiago did the 4 hymns, Philip brought a lovely short word from the UK via Zoom, Pastor Edivaldo (Pedro's son-in-law) also brought a short word. I spoke a bit on Romans 12:1-2 (Pedro's favourite Bible passage) and also on Psalm 23. I preached the Gospel clearly as a good part of Pedro's offspring are not following the Lord.

We thank God for Pedro's long blessed life. He will be greatly missed. He was converted in his teens and was kicked out of his house and family because of their anti-protestant prejudice. Pedro left his home with just a hammock to sleep in, and even that had a hole in it. But Pedro never caved into such pressure and God blessed him. At 20 he married Beatriz, and they were married for 69 years, with a quiver full of offspring. He ended up having a shop which sold hammocks in Patos, as opposed to the "holy" one he was kicked out with. He was kicked out of his family, but God replaced that with an enormous family of his own. Please pray for them as they mourn Pedro's loss. He is with the Lord. 

Leadership Conference

Yesterday we held our annual Leadership Conference online with all our leaders taking part. The brilliant speaker was pastor Antonio Carlos Costa from Rio de Janeiro. He is my friend who organizes all the protests on Copacabana beach which you may have seen on the TV news, as what he does has worldwide repercussions. Yesterday he spoke to us from Matthew 5:14-16 on 'Integral Mission'. It was fantastic!

Tomorrow Liz and I will be travelling to the village of Belém in Tavares County to officially inaugurate EAB/ACEV's latest market garden project run by Fernando and Sandra. Liz will be doing the Bible reading and prayers and I will be preaching the Gospel at the thanksgiving service. The trip will involve a 5 hour round trip so we very much value your prayers for travelling mercies and protection from the pandemic.

On Saturday our senior leadership team will meet online to discuss what to do about our Soledade church where the current pastor is resigning at the end of the year. Please pray.

I have been asked to add photographs of the wildlife I see at Green Pastures to our updates, so I will try to remember to do this. It is so important for Christians to encourage care for God's creation. We are praying for COP 26.

I have read a brilliant academic article from the Christian sociologist Paul Freston on 'Bolsonaro, populism & evangelicals in Latin America.' Paul is an anglo-brazilian like myself, who is in Canada at the moment where he taught for 12 years at a university.

President Bolsonaro's video in which he outrageously links Covid vaccine to AIDS has been removed by the owners of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as fake. Bolsonaro is utterly irresponsible. 

Weekend

Our weekend was full of activities in the work of the Lord. Liz and I went to the Assentamento (ex-landless) where we had an excellent meeting with Dodora and Paulo and encouraged them. They encouraged us too with their simple joy in serving Jesus. The Sunday service in Patos was especially blessed. I led and we received a new member called Rogaciano into fellowship. Assistant pastor Rafael preached the Word. It was so good to be allowed 70% capacity in church for the first time. First it was 30% months back, then the State Government increased the permitted capacity to 50% and now it's up to 70%. However President Bolsonaro continues to say that all forms of restriction are stupid and he actively opposes vaccination. In his latest speech he insinuated that people who have received two vaccination jabs are likely to get AIDS!

On Saturday the Christians in Action group travelled to Ipueira in Rio Grande do Norte State and held a very good street service there. From Friday to Sunday the Campina Grande Men's Conference went very well at Green Pastures. I saw a small flock of Guira Cuckoos at Green Pastures.

Tomorrow we will have our annual leadership conference online and our invited speaker will be Antonio Carlos Costa from Rio de Janeiro. He will speak for an hour on 'Integral Mission'. This will be followed by a general assembly. We hope and pray that the pandemic situation here will continue to improve so that next year all our conferences will be in-person. 

Our senior elder Pedro Guedes continues in intensive care with Covid and is holding his own. He is being fed by tube. His situation is delicately balanced. His wife and Deaconess Beatriz is improving at home. Your prayers continue to be greatly valued for this precious couple.

Footballs

We are supplying our churches at Juru, Flores and Barra de Oitis with footballs for the 'Sport in Action' project, which involves getting children and youth off the streets to play football as well as hearing from God's Word. We have a Bible + Ball approach! Please pray for this project which is now restarting as the pandemic eases.

The daily Covid death rate is now 355 and there were 14,242 new Covid infections in the last 24 hours. It is interesting to compare the latter figure with the UK as it means Brazil has less than a third of new cases than in the UK, whereas the Brazilian population is over 3 times as big. It is clear that the situation in the UK is far worse today than in Brazil. Our Patos senior elder Pedro Guedes is stable in intensive care. If only he would eat it would help! His wife Beatriz is improving at home and their son Jesiel is better. On Thursday I took my Pfizer booster jab against Covid. I felt no side-effects from the vaccination. 

The Men's Conference is in full-swing at Green Pastures as from yesterday afternoon. It is running from Friday through Sunday. Tonight the 'Christians in Action' group will be holding a service at Ipueira in Rio Grande do Norte State. The Kombi will take 9 and another car will go with 5. We pray that God will richly bless these weekend activities. Last night Liz and I did a session of 'Fiancée counselling' with Rogaciano and Monyque who got engaged on the 13th. Our cooking pastor João George has just done another cookery training course for ladies at the Sítio Amolar community in Imaculada County.

I heard Prince Charles on the BBC saying that he has 2 meat-free days a week as his contribution to reducing his carbon footprint. In case he reads this I would like to tell him that I have 3 meat-free days a week with Macaroni cheese one day, egg and chips another and fish another! 😀 

I finished reading the very interesting book by Christian sociologist Paul Freston about the political participation of evangelicals in Brazil. I am now enjoying reading 'Personalized Psalms' by Mike Holmes. This book is a very interesting modern freestyle writing of each Psalm as Mike has clearly thought deeply about each Psalm. I've read the first 44 Psalms so far and am finding it very helpful and interesting with my NIV open alongside. Mike Holmes has some excellent ways of putting things over.  

Intensive Care

Our senior elder Pedro Guedes has been taken into intensive care with Covid. His lungs are 75% affected by viral pneumonia but he is holding his own. His wife Deaconess Beatriz also has Covid but she is at home with her lungs only 30% affected. At EAB's Patos school 2 children have Covid as do their parents. A cleaner from the school also has Covid. Your prayers are valued.

We had a good meeting yesterday with the headteacher of EAB's Patos School discussing the return to in-person lessons as from the beginning of November. This will also mean the return of monthly services at the school on the south side of Patos where we are seeking to plant a second church in Patos.

Considering the negative impact of the pandemic we have re-commenced our income generation project to help the poor find a way out of having become unemployed. For example: a barber lost his job as a result of Covid so we are helping him set up a barber shop in his front room buying scissors, razors, shampoo etc. up to the cost of 100 pounds and the man will support his family in this way. If anyone would like to donate this amount we will help the jobless get on their feet again for the glory of God.

Last night it rained 44 mm at Princesa Isabel which is a 2 hour drive west of here. It is very rare to get rain in October so we are very pleased for people there. Here in Patos we just had a one minute shower.

Tomorrow the Campina Grande Men's Conference starts at Green Pastures running from the 22nd to the 24th with about 60 men present. We pray that God will bless them abundantly.

I worked on sermon preparation yesterday with one for Patos and one for the inauguration of the latest Market Garden Project at Belém to where we will be travelling next week. A technical visit has just been made to Belém by our agricultural specialist who gave advice and further guidelines to Fernando and Sandra who run it.

A mother has contacted us because she wants her son to go to the rehabilitation centre for drug addicts with which we work in partnership. Her son is coming out of jail soon and she hopes he will go straight to the rehab centre. Please pray.

I saw a Solitary Black Cacique bird on Tuesday at Green Pastures. The bird is black the size of a UK Blackbird and has a bright solid white beak. We also registered a number of times this week at Green Pastures a Wild Neotropical Spotted Cat (Leopardus emiliae). This small wild cat is the only endemic Brazilian wild cat and is on the endangered species red list.

Deaconess

Deaconess Beatriz (86-years-old) has gone down with Covid for the second time. She lives in Patos and is married to elder Pedro Guedes (89) who is very ill in hospital with Covid. Both are believed to have contracted the virus from their son Jesiel, in his 40s, who lives in their house and who had Covid first with mild symptoms. Please pray for this lovely couple who are very precious to us.

Last night we had a lovely meeting with the leaders of our 'Christians in Action' group, Dedé and Chico, and agreed with them a re-start of the services at Ipueira in the State of Rio Grande do Norte. The pandemic has sufficiently abated for this to be possible and the first service of this new phase will be this Saturday. Please pray for this church plant that God might abundantly bless and that many there will come to Christ.

Pastor José Renildo has phoned me to tell me that he and his wife Tânia have returned to Brazil from Portugal where they had gone to shelter from the pandemic out of control in this country. José Renildo just said to me that it hadn't worked out living in Portugal with their daughter. We are glad to have the couple back working for the Lord on the coast at Jacumã. 

Our granddaughter Louisa, who lives with us, has just passed the first part of her entrance exam to be a practicing lawyer. She has to do a second and final exam on December 12th. She is finishing her degree in Law now, but has to pass these further external exams, from the National Lawyers' Association (OAB), to be registered to practice. Please pray for her.

I led the Sunday service in Patos and assistant pastor Lucena preached. It was a good service.   

Green Pastures

I led the Green Pastures church service last night and it was lovely to see local farming folk like Dodora and Marileide taking part in the service. Sister Magaly from Patos preached the Gospel very well. Fábio, who has lost 18 kilos in weight, led the praise and worship. We took the chance to ship out to Green Pastures, in the Kombi, eleven 20 litre bottles of mineral water for the Men's Conference next weekend.

Our 89-year-old elder Pedro Guedes remains in hospital with Covid and is holding his own. He is breathing with just a little oxygen and seems quite comfortable. João Paulo, who fell off his horse a week ago, remains in intensive care with bad head injuries. He went on his horse to separate 2 steers which were fighting and the fight spooked his horse. The horse ran out of control into a concrete post which smashed into João Paulo's head and knocked him off the horse. Please pray for these men.

This morning saw a lovely service of child evangelism in Patos called the 'Water Melon Festival'. The children loved singing praise to God and hearing an evangelistic message built around a water melon.

Our projects' team has held two meetings at Macambira dos Lúcios village. The first meeting was with the community leaders discussing their request for a well to be dug and equipped there. The second was a larger meeting with members of the community. We plan to make this well before the end of the year. The area is in great need of water. Please pray that we will successfully hit water with the well.

4 chicken runs are now being built. 2 are at Barra de Oitis village, 1 at Patuscada and the other at Tamanduá. The families to be benefitted by this project are overjoyed as their diet will be improved and their income too.

Elder has Covid

Our 89-year-old elder Pedro Guedes has Covid and was taken into hospital yesterday. His son Jesiel, who is probably the source of the Covid as he works in the market and lives in the same house, also has Covid. We visited them recently so missed catching Covid by a whisker! Please pray for our elder who has both pneumonia and a kidney infection. The son has just mild symptoms. The average daily Covid death rate in Brazil has dropped further to 334.

We are busy finalizing preparations for our Campina Grande 1st Church's Men's Conference on the 23rd and 24th at the Green Pastures Nature Reserve & Christian Conference Centre. About 60 men are expected. We have carried out repairs at Green Pastures and repainted all the dormitories, bedrooms, leisure area, kitchen and meeting hall. This hadn't been done for years and now that the pandemic is quietening down we expect Green Pastures to be in increasing demand by our churches, so all is now in order for this.

Yesterday our Manaíra Church held a day of child evangelism at the Fonseca (slave descendants) Community branch church which was very well attended and really blessed. A big crowd of children heard the Gospel. On Sunday the same church is going to do the same in their own church and next Thursday they will repeat the evangelism at the new Travessia church. Please pray.

The new Saco dos Pintos well, which will supply clean water for 34 very poor families, is in the final stages of being set up with water tower, electric pump, standpipe and animal drinking trough. I will be preaching the Gospel at the inauguration and thanksgiving service next month.

Christmas preparations

Our drama group leader Dilma asked me what to do for Christmas this year as clearly our large plays involving lots of youth and children would not be appropriate owing to the pandemic. Thus she managed to find a play from a Christian book shop in Fleet, Hampshire, which we bought when there some years back, as it only has 5 characters in it. Dilma, who is fluent in English and teaches at our daughters' English school, has translated the play into Portuguese. Rehearsals can now begin.

On Monday afternoon Liz and I had a good meeting with our assistant pastor Rafael. He is young and inexperienced so we wanted to spell out quite clearly to him his responsibilities when he will be in charge of the youth group going to spend the day at Green Pastures on the 30th. There are all the environmental matters about not throwing litter everywhere and there are issues of behaviour which need care. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls so we had to spell things out clearly to Rafael.

Please continue to pray for my niece Lisa who continues with Covid in London. Her daughter Isla has now similarly gone down with it. I am glad to say both are improving but continue to need our prayers. In Brazil the daily Covid death rate continues to drop from the 4,000 peak to 367. This is the lowest this year. 

I did a lot of EAB administrative work yesterday and also did some reading of my latest book written by my friend Paul Freston called "Religion & Politics yes - Church & State no". It is a good book. The new edition of the EAB magazine 'InTouch#96' is about to go to the printers and will be with everyone early in November. Our thanks, as always, go to Marian Rashleigh & Dave Flowers for all the work they put in to this. The annual Christmas Gift List will be sent with the magazine.

The Men's Fellowship held a service last night at the Assentamento village for the ex-landless in São Mamede County. Sister Dodora is so dedicated in leading the work there and we pray for a breakthrough there with people coming to the Lord.   

7 baptized

Tavares is a town up in the mountains which takes about a one and a half hour drive south-west of Patos. This weekend local pastor Robério baptized 7 new converts there in a joyful service. PTL!

On Saturday night I led a lovely service at Green Pastures where a good number gathered to hear the Gospel. The service was supported by the Married Couples' Fellowship from Patos, as will now happen on every second Saturday in the month. Fire Fighter Romildo and his wife Claudia were there and she brought a lovely word of testimony.

Last night in Patos we had serious electrical problems in the church once again with the voltage at 180 instead of 220. This meant we had to have most of the lights off to be able to get through the service. I have been on to a lawyer this morning so as to take legal action to force the electricity company to sort out the power supply to our church. Despite the problems the service went well and assistant pastor Rafael preached well from Psalm 51.

Veteran brother Silvino, who was one of the founder members of the Caroá church, went to be with the Lord this morning after a long illness following a severe stroke. Our prayers are with the family and the church.

Tomorrow is the "patron saint of Brazil" day and it is also children's day. As we don't believe in patron saints we commemorate the latter. It is beautiful to see Sister Dodora at the Assentamento Village distributing little pieces of a simple cake she made for the children. It's what she could do so she did it! Our churches are holding special children's services and ours in Patos will be next Sunday morning.

Please pray for my niece Lisa in London who has Covid. She is far from well. 

39 Degrees

It is increasingly hot here as we are into October. We are having highs of 39 degrees in the shade and lows at night of 22. The heat will now be intense until the rains arrive hopefully in January.

Yesterday Brazil passed the 600,000 Covid deaths mark which is the second highest accumulation of Covid deaths in the world following the USA. There was a protest on Copacabana beach with 600 white handkerchiefs hanging in the breeze. The protest was organized to complain about President Bolsonaro's ineptitude in handling the pandemic. The protest was organized by my good friend Pastor Antonio Carlos Costa who will be speaking to our leaders in an online conference on October 26th.

I am glad to report that Pastor Gersé's wife Sandra has been given the all clear from Covid and that nobody from the rest of the family caught it. Thank you for praying. The average daily Covid death toll in Brazil is down to 451. Brazil has been removed from the UK's red list, although the Chinese Coronavac vaccine Liz and I had is not recognized in the UK.

Inflation in Brazil is up again to 10.25% p.a.

Pastor Betinho and his wife Maciene lead our churches at Ibiara and Conceição and both are doing the ISBL distance theology degree. We have decided to pay for Maciene's course as inflation is biting hard for them.

I will be taking the Green Pastures service later today. Yesterday Liz and I had an excellent meeting with the architect who is organizing the modernization project for our Katriona M. Graham Care Centre. EAB has 2 specific designated gifts for this project and we hope that these will cover the cost. We value your prayers. 

Pastoral Meeting

Liz and I had a nice time of fellowship with Pastor Maésio and his wife Fia last night in our back garden. We had a good chat with them about the church they lead up in the mountains at Teixeira and gave them some advice on a number of matters. We also had a good time of prayer with them.

This morning we visited 87 year old Maria Prata and her carer and daughter Vasti. The visit was more for the daughter than the mother as Maria has dementia. We sang some old hymns, shared from God's word and prayed together. After we left this house Liz felt we should call in at a young woman's house (I can't give name or details) from the church. We found her in a depressed state and sobbing. We talked to her and prayed with her and we have since paid for her to see a psychiatrist. Please pray.

Today our project's team is delivering to Barra de Oitis village the building materials for 4 new chicken runs. They are also selecting a family for a new toilet/shower unit. I had an excellent in-person meeting with the Projects Team leaders yesterday which lasted 2 and a half hours. It was a superb meeting. We discussed the 4 wells in the pipeline and aim to do one well yet this year with the other 3 early next year after the team has their holidays in January which they very much deserve. We also gave them the good news that funds are coming for 2 new market gardens. PTL!

Our Flores School is back this week to in-person lessons with much care and caution. Next week our Matureia school will also be in-person and others will soon follow. We believe the Green Pastures will be in-person next week. All has been re-painted and revamped for this.

I have been talking to the pastor in Manaira and region called Francinaldo. He tells me that they are going to do children's evangelism at Travessia and Fonseca this month followed by special adult evangelism next month. The official inauguration of the new Travessia church will be in December at which I hope to preach. Liz and I plan to drive the 3 and a half hour journey there, take the service, and drive the 3 and a half hour journey home rather than risk Covid staying there the night. Please pray.

I have had good talks with Sister Nenem who leads the São Vicente do Seridó church. I have also had a good chat to a young man in our Patos church called Murilo who is doing very well in his Bible College course with ISBL. It is very encouraging to see young men developing spiritually like this.    

Baptism

Mata Redonda is a town near the coast between João Pessoa and Recife and at the weekend our church there, which is led by Pastor Manoel Severo, held a mini-retreat which included the baptism of 3 young men - Lucas, Leydson and Jesse. We praise God for His blessing on this growing church.

I preached from Paul's epistle to the Colossians on Sunday in Patos and all went very well. The praise and worship was good although this is our weak point at the moment and for which I ask prayer. First of all we lost Philip to the UK just over a year ago, which was a major blow. Philip is an excellent leader and capable singer and player of guitar, bass or drums. Losing Philip put our band on an instrumental knife edge. Then a month or so ago our bass player left our church for no apparent reason and this has really made things difficult with just a guitar player (Tiago who is our granddaughter Louisa's boyfriend) left and Netinho on drums. Sacha's husband Biba is a reserve drummer but he is a fanatical supporter of President Bolsonaro and therefore refuses to get vaccinated - so he is not allowed in church. We have Lucas who is a reserve guitar player but he is away at university in Pombal a lot of the time.

I am glad to tell you that Pastor Gersé's wife Sandra has had a very mild bout of Covid and is fine. I had a lovely talk yesterday with another Sandra. This time it was Sandra Nogueira from our Água Grande church. She sent me some lovely photos of the Sunday School work she is doing. What an example this young woman is! The Água Grande community is off track and isolated but she presses on doing a great work for God. She is also studying theology online with the ISBL college and doing very well. 

Midnight

I was dealing with a leadership issue till midnight yesterday, having got back from an excellent service at Green Pastures. Pastor Ângelo, who leads our Soledade church (1 hour 20 minute drive east of Patos), sent me a message on WhatsApp resigning as pastor as from the end of this year. This was not a surprise to me because he has not been happy in his work for a long time and I had heard rumours that his resignation was imminent. Nevertheless rumour is one thing and a fait accomplit is another. I talked to Ângelo a bit but I didn't try to get him to think again as I feel his decision was a right one. I then passed on the news to our 11-person leadership team for thought and prayer. There then ensued a discussion between me (chairman) with pastor Wostenes (vice-chairman). (The 11-person leadership team is elected every 4 years by all our church representatives and leaders) We have planned that Wostenes and his wife Gleydice, who are only 40 minutes away from Soledade where they live in Campina Grande, will have a meeting with the Soledade church council without the pastor next Friday (October 8th). The objective of the meeting will be to evaluate the present state of the church and hear what the church leaders feel and have in mind for next year onwards. Please pray for God to raise up a new leader for Soledade and guide us to him or her. 

The communion service last night at Green Pastures was particularly good despite us having to use playback for the praise and worship as we had nobody to play the guitar. I led the service and Sacha brought the message which was exceptionally good.

Yesterday afternoon Liz and I visited a family which includes 3 church members - Aina, Lourdes and Solange. We had a nice time of fellowship with them and read God's Word and prayed together.

Thank you for your prayers for Pr. Gersé's wife Sandra in Princesa Isabel. She is having a very mild bout of Covid just like a common cold. She is vaccinated with 2 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which no doubt helps a lot. Average daily Covid deaths here are now at 500. We hear that Brazil is amongst the countries to be removed from the UK's Covid red list in the coming week. This is good news.

I will be preaching in a few hours time here in Patos at our monthly communion service.

Help

Liz and I visited sister Socorro Help who is another of our seniors on Wednesday afternoon. She is known as Socorro Help as Socorro means help! She was thrilled with our visit. We could see that it did her a world of good. We sat out in her front garden for the visit. We hadn't seen her since March 2020. We chatted about everything under the sun and we sang some hymns for her at her request, shared the Word of God and prayed with her.

We went on from there to wish Vasti a happy birthday. She is a woman from our church in her fifties who faithfully cares for her invalid mother Maria Prata who is in her 80s. She was also most appreciative for our visit. We will go back to visit her mother next week. Now that the intensity of the covid crisis has eased we are doing all we can to get to visiting all the flock that we can, to encourage them in these difficult days for both physical and mental health. We take all possible precautions on our visits.

Please pray for Sandra who is the wife of our pastor Gersé in Princesa Isabel. She has tested positive for Covid but has light symptoms so far. They have 2 teenage sons and are all in quarantine. 

Liz had her booster injection (Pfizer) against Covid yesterday. She had it before me at her arthritis doctor's request. I should have my booster jab on October 20th which will be 6 months after my second Chinese Coronavac vaccine. 

Liz is proof reading my 29 chapters of mission history from 1938 to 2018 which we hope to publish in Portuguese this year. I am at present writing the introduction.

Yesterday afternoon I took part in the UK Justice Conference which was mainly organized by Tearfund. The speaker was the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff who spoke on the Climate Crisis and inequality. It was an interesting and challenging seminar. Boff spoke in Spanish with English subtitles. One quote from the seminar stuck in my mind about the current climate crisis: "We need to hear the cry of the poor. We need to hear the cry of the earth. We need to hear the cry of God (from the cross)."  

Eve

Liz and I went to visit Eva (Eve) and family. She is a widow and member of the Patos church who has two children and a son-in-law living with her. Our plan was to sit and talk in the front garden but Eva insisted we went into her house and both her and her son Marcos were without masks. Thus the visit didn't go according to plan but once we were there there was little we could do about it. We had a long chat with the family, read the Bible and prayed with them. We plan to do another visit today and value your prayers. 

Yesterday I did hours of EAB administrative work sending receipts and bank paper trails to the treasurer in the UK. All this is an important part of our work.

20 men from our Men's Fellowship went to the Assentamento village in São Mamede County last night to take a service. It is a joy to see such a fine group of men joyfully serving the Lord and preaching the Gospel on a Tuesday evening to a very poor ex-landless community.

Tomorrow I will be taking part online in the UK 'Justice Conference' with the Roman Catholic and most famous living Brazilian Liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff (aged 82), who will be the speaker. His topic will be 'Climate of Injustice: The Climate Crisis and Inequality'. I am very much looking forward to hearing this brilliant theologian. He might be a bit too radical for me but we shall see. Anyway I am sure I will be challenged.

Yet another White-eared Opossum has turned up in a town showing how much this is happening as a result of deforestation. Our Pastor Lindon Carlos sent be a video of one in front of his house at Imaculada.