Bethlehem

EAB/ACEV has a pioneer church plant at a village called Belém (Bethlehem) in the County of Tavares. It is the only evangelical Christian witness of any shape or size in the village. It is led by a lovely couple called Naldinho and Vera. They have two children. We have built a little church there. The family are living in the only house available for rent in the village and that was going fine until the owners have now said they need the house for themselves so need Naldinho and Vera to move out. What a predicament! What do we do as this young church plant, with just a few Christians, badly needs the support of its leaders and teaching from them.

Well the owners of the house next door to our church said they would be willing to sell their house to EAB/ACEV for 4,400 pounds if we could give them time to build a house for them to live in at their farm. So to cut a long story short we have managed to make a down payment today of 3,000 pounds and will pay the rest off as soon as we can. We are promised the house in about 2 months time. Naldinho and Vera are very pleased with the solution as we are too. Being that the house is next door to the church it will mean we can join the two back gardens to make a nice play area for children's work. Please pray with us that all will work out well and that this village will be further blessed mightily by the Lord.

Please also pray for an 11 month old girl called Maria Alice who is in intensive care in the Patos Children's Hospital since Saturday. She is the niece of the Alencar family who are part of our church family. Maria Alice was born with some problems but seemed to have got over them and was seen by the doctor last Friday and who was pleased with her progress. 

The weekend's services went well. On Saturday evening the youth led the service very well indeed at Green Pastures and one of their leaders, Ray, (not Murilo as I said previously! He's next Saturday.) preached the Gospel. On Sunday night Sacha led the service in Patos quite beautifully. It was a blessing.