Mumps!

Oh boy! It's all happening! We got back from João Pessoa yesterday evening and Alice went down ill vomitting. The poor kid is really knocked out and missed her sister Bia's birthday as a consequence.

We had a little lunch for Bia's 6th birthday for her friends and when her Dad came from work he complained of pain when chewing. He has already been diagnosed with Mumps this afternoon! Then her Mum Sacha went down with a virus so only the birthday girl out of 4 is well. It never rains but it pours! 

This messed up our planned leaving for the Ceará Outreach straight after lunch and now Liz is staying to look after the sick whilst a man is going to travel with me leaving Patos at 4am tomorrow. I hopefully will only arrive a bit later than originally planned and should be able to do all my visits prior to preaching at night in the Outreach. Your prayers are valued for the sick and for my journey.

João Pessoa

Liz and I are in João Pessoa with Sacha and her daughters. I had my medical check up and all was well. PTL! The ladies have got a bit of beach in and I have done some walking and had a good meeting with a chief environmental government man. We also saw Liz's niece Natasha who is in Brazil at the moment. We hadn't seen her since 2008.

Tomorrow we head back to Patos and on Friday we go to Ceará to minister at the Outreach. The Outreach is going well and two have come to Christ thus far. PTL!

Great Weekend

God has blessed us this weekend. The Patos church band led by Philip and with Sacha, Louisa and Sacha's husband Biba in it - travelled to Ceará and back safely and the service went off great despite it having to be held indoors owing to the rain!

Tonight's service went well too and the sermon on Paul's 1st Missionary journey part 1 flowed beautifully.

At Green Pastures this week we've had 24.5mm of rain (an inch) so that is good - though we still need so much more - but we have started and things are green again for Carnival Camp less than 4 weeks away.

This week I'll be going for a routine check-up at the doctor's in João Pessoa and after that I'll be going to preach at the Outreach in Ceará State.

EAB Annual Team Outreach starts

I went to Green Pastures yesterday morning and had a good walk, especially looking over the "Woman's Rock" area where we have planted hundreds of cactus plants this week. We will be adding more next week and this cacti area of the Reserve is really taking shape nicely. here are some photos I took yesterday.

We had another 11mm of rain on Thursday night, none last night but hope for more over the weekend according to forecasts. This takes us up to 77mm since rain started on December 18th which is about 3 inches. We need about 40 inches between now and May to replenish the dry reservoirs, so please keep praying.

Once back from Green Pastures I started on preparing my sermon for this Sunday night in Patos. I am going to continue the theme of challenging the church to accelerate evangelism in 2016 from last week's sermon. This week I'm going to preach on Paul's 1st Missionary journey.

Philip, Louisa, Sacha and Biba (her husband) are travelling the long journey to Ceará State today to sing and play with the Patos church band at the big opening of the annual January team outreach there. Liz and I will be going there next Friday and Saturday. Your prayers are valued. The team arrived there yesterday and had a welcome meeting last night.

Heavy Rain!

It is raining hard right now at 11pm. PTL! This is in Patos. We will know about Green Pastures in the morning.

Had a good Bible study tonight. 40 there. We had a bit of a problem to solve after the meeting. Such is the life of a pastor!

Last night we had 9mm of rain (1/3rd of an inch) at Green Pastures. Things are starting to improve a bit.

What a start to the New Year!

I woke up late on New Year's morning to discover that a very good Catholic journalist friend of 35 years standing had suddenly died of a heart attack during the night. Liz broke the news to me gently, as only she can, over breakfast. It was a terrible shock. That evening we were at the wake which was held in the Town Hall as he had been a Town Councillor many years back. The following morning (Saturday, 2nd) we were back at the Town Hall for the funeral where the family had asked me to speak. It was very moving and a tremendous opportunity. José Augusto's death left me reeling a bit. It takes a bit of coming to terms with.

The rest of Saturday I spent preparing my sermon for the Sunday night service. I made it, but it wasn't easy with a somewhat fuzzy head. However praise God He blessed mightily in the service last night. We received another 3 into fellowship.

Early on Sunday morning I had a walk alone at Green Pastures which is where I always go to cool my mind down when things are tough. My camera had a bit of a glitch so I sat under a tree to sort it and whilst there heard an unual bird call. It was the White Woodpecker (Melanerpes candidus) which I had never seen there before, having only picked it up once on the automatic camera. So an unusual species for Green Pastures. Great stuff.

Today I have done a lot of work on the Carnival Camp preparations. I have also done some more work on our environmental campaign to save Jabre Peak. If you haven't signed our petition and care about God's creation then please do so at http://chn.ge/1Hto8n4 All you have to do is put your name and email address. Every signature helps!

A Great Watchnight Service

Last night's watchnight service to see in the New Year in the EAB/ACEV Patos church was greatly blessed of God with 11 baptized, another received into church membership, much praise, preaching, testimonies and communion! The service lasted 2 hours 20 minutes & just flew by. It was great! A blessed 2016 to all EAB friends & supporters!