Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day in Brazil as it always is on the second Sunday in May. I see that Portugal has switched theirs from December to the first Sunday in May, as countries who are majority Roman Catholic tend to do as they have May as the month of Mary. Anyway I will be preaching in the Mother's Day service in a few hours' time and Sacha will be leading. My assistant pastor has gone to be with his mother at Soledade, which is about and hour and a quarter from Patos by car.

We have a fireman in the Patos church called Romildo and he has all the symptoms of Covid, but awaits confirmation, or not, from the test. Please pray for Romildo.

José Renildo, who was an EAB/ACEV pastor at the beach church of Jacumã near João Pessoa, is travelling with his wife Tânia to Portugal to live today. Please pray for their journey and settling in to a different climate, culture and a different version and accent of the Portuguese language. They are going there to live with their daughter but who knows if an EAB/ACEV church might not start up there. I am not saying this is planned but it could happen. Certainly some of our pastors are already praying for it to happen!

The death toll in the police shoot out in a Rio de Janeiro slum has gone up from 25 to 28! The confusion about the number only goes to show the chaos involved. The massacre is being highly criticized here by many although the right wing supports it. Brazil's vice-president who is an army General said all the victims were "bandits" before they were all even identified! Some Brazilians use the slogan "a good bandit is a dead bandit" and sadly many evangelical Christians say this.