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)."