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.