Poetry

Our Easter Sunday special service online was really lovely. It was especially nice to have the Christian poetess Zenilda Lua taking part with a poem she wrote about Jesus and the resurrection. She was born in Patos but now lives over 1,600 miles away at São José dos Campos in the State of São Paulo. Sacha led the praise and worship and I preached the Gospel.

I have two items of good news. First of all the deaconess Samara at Ibiara is much better after all her depression and its consequences. Her pastor Betinho reports that Samara is much brighter and positive. The other piece of good news is that our dear Pastor Umbirajara in hospital with Covid in João Pessoa is improving, and there is the possibility of him leaving the hospital by the end of the week as long as he keeps improving the way he has been recently. His viral pneumonia has improved so he needs less oxygen, and his appetite has now returned to normal. Thank you for praying.

We heard some startling news yesterday which got Liz investigating to see what exactly had happened. We heard that Sister Judite who is a senior lady in the Patos church, who takes part in our 'young at heart' project, "had lost an eye"! Judite is a quaint woman who used to keep a piglet indoors like anyone else would keep a dog or a cat so we wondered if she had had an accident or did she mean she had lost the sight in an eye with a bad cataract? When we discovered the truth we were horrified. For Judite has had an eye removed by surgery owing to some sort of abscess that had formed in her eye. It sounds outrageously extreme to have surgery to remove the eye but we will never know if it was really necessary. Judite now has an artificial eye and she is very low and depressed with this. Please pray for her.