Services

Saturday night's service at Green Pastures went off beautifully. I led it, projects team worker Marah Danielle gave a word of testimony and assistant pastor Rafael preached. We learnt at the service that two of the girls from our church there have gone down with Covid. Joseane is about 23 and her sister Sabrina is about 17. Please pray for them. Sabrina was in the service on the previous Saturday. The girls' mother gave a word of testimony and read a verse from a Psalm and their grandfather Julio also brought a word and sang a song with great emotion. It is so encouraging seeing men like Julio now following Jesus as I remember him years back when he was far from God.

Last night's service in Patos went very well too with the same format as the Saturday with me leading and Rafael preaching. I will preach next Sunday. Last night Sacha, Louisa and João Filho led the praise and worship very nicely. We learnt that 20 year old Keylla is coping quite well with Covid thus far, but her uncle, who seems to be from whom Keylla got it, is seriously ill in intensive care. Please pray.

I am reading a book by my late great friend Robinson Cavalcanti. He was an Anglican bishop in Recife who was murdered nine and a half years ago by his own adopted son. His wife Miriam was also murdered on the same day. It was one of the most abominable tragedies I have ever come up against. Liz and I went to their funeral in Olinda, Pernambuco. The book is called: 'The church, the country and the world - the challenges of an engaged faith'. (in Portuguese)    

Wheelchair

EAB has a wheelchair bank in Patos and it is in great demand. We lend people wheelchairs who have surgery or who break a leg etc. It is a simple way to show compassion and the love of God.

Last night an evangelistic team went and held a service in front of a house at Sítio Lagoa de Favela which is about 5 miles west of Green Pastures. The service was led by Sister Dodora and Pastor Rafael preached. The lady of the house has cancer and requested that our team went there to conduct a service. The team was very well received.

I will be leading the service tonight at Green Pastures. Yesterday I saw about 50 Pigmy Nightjars flying and swooping over the Green Pastures Lake. Tonight the youth will be having a fun games night in Patos.

Our daughter Lynn bought us some ginger biscuits from Hayes in England last week, which were on sale at a supermarket in João Pessoa. The last time we had seen these was in 2018!

The Brazilian economy is in a mess as are most things here under President Bolsonoro. The official inflation rate per annum is now at 9.68%.

We are in the process of producing pastoral identity cards for all our leaders so as to help them with access to hospitals to visit the sick etc. The cards will be of similar material to credit cards.

Keylla is alright so far with Covid. She is on day 5. A little boy called Jacob who is also from our Patos church is suspected to have Covid. His mother has it but she is not part of our church. The result of Jacob's test is awaited.

Covid case

Please pray for a young woman in our Patos church who has just gone down with Covid. She is a 20-year-old student of psychology called Keylla. Her father Fábio sings in the praise and worship group so he will be out for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile on a national scale gratefully the daily death rate continues to fall from the peak of 4,000 some months ago, and is now at 461.

Yesterday was Liz's birthday and she had a nice day. We drove out to Green Pastures in the afternoon and went for a walk after we had checked on the work being done there. The painters are in painting the house.

I am preparing a sermon. I have also been having discussions with our projects team about the selection processes for the next wells we will drill, for which we have funding for four. We also have funding for four 2-wings Chicken Runs. The selection processes take a lot of time and demand great care choosing families and communities which will really take the projects seriously etc. We also have many requests for our Market Garden project but have no funds for this at the moment. The cost is 1,100 pounds.

Independence Day

Today is the 199th Brazilian Independence Day and it is very tense. This is because the populist extreme right wing President Bolsonaro has whipped up his supporters into a frenzy calling for the closure of the Congress and of the Supreme Court which would amount to a Coup d'état. This he is doing because the writing is on the wall for him to loose the 2022 election. Tear gas is already being fired in Brasília this morning to control the crowd. Please pray for Brazilian democracy and justice in these dark and difficult days. Our Patos church is having a day of prayer today.

To show the sort of chaotic situation Brazil is in at the moment the Brazil x Argentina World Cup preliminary match on Sunday was a classic example when public health officials stopped the match after 4 minutes alleging that 3 Argentinian players had not quarantined for Covid. It was a fiasco with the game cancelled. 

Our Sunday night service went well. I conducted communion and preached from Luke 10:25-37.

Last night we had a long meeting with our youth leadership team of Ray, Rayla and Louisa together with our assistant pastor Rafael. It was a good meeting planning for the remainder of the year and discussing one or two problems.

I have finished reading the book 'Planetwise' written by Dave Bookless who is the theology director of the Christian ecology organization 'A Rocha International'. The book presents a good Biblical argument in favour of Christian ecological action and lifestyle. I have long been in favour of this and seek to live it out caring for creation and reducing our carbon footprint. I like Dave's "one step at a time" approach as he challenges people about day to day options such as reduced meat and electricity consumption etc. It's good to realize that we can all take steps in the right direction which all add up to make important differences to God's earth.     

Rat

The Thursday night Bible study in our Patos church was hindered by an awful smell which was unexplained. By Friday morning the smell was yet worse so we investigated further and found a nest of rats underneath the floor in a store room with one extremely large rat dead. All was removed, disposed of and filled with cement. Problem solved!

Our daughter Lynn was in João Pessoa this week having medical check-ups but thankfully avoided a main road which suddenly produced a large deep crater which swallowed a car with a father and daughter in it. Thankfully the people were rescued.

Last night's communion service at Green Pastures was lovely. I led the service and Pastor Lucena preached. Louisa and Fábio led the worship and the birds were singing louder than ever last night. At Green Pastures I saw three Black-necked Stilts and I heard an orange and black Campo Troupial singing. I received my Bible back last night which has been repaired as the cover had come apart. For less than 4 pounds I have a new cover on my Bible!

I will be leading the communion service tonight in Patos and I will be preaching too on the Parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of a complete missionary. The theme of missions will be in the service as September 2nd was the 83rd anniversary of when the work here of EAB started in Brazil back in 1938. The service tonight will also be a thanksgiving service for the promotion of our military man Esau who has just been promoted to Lieutenant Coronel. Esau leads our Men's fellowship and is also a deacon.

Juazeirinho

I had some long excellent discussions yesterday with Pastor Leandro of our Juazeirinho church. He is one of our younger pastors and he is doing very well. He wanted to know what to do about a young mother who has been converted and who wants to be baptized, but she is not legally married to her husband who has not come to the Lord. I suggested that the church should offer to pay the legal costs of about 60 pounds for them to become legally married and that is what he is going to do. For poor people it is a lot of money to pay out so, as in this case, couples end up just living together without getting married. I also had discussions about the legal documents of our church at Juazeirinho and of the land given for a church building at a church plant at Antonio Ferreira community.

I also talked to Pastor Maésio who leads the Teixeira church and who is very encouraged by the amount of people going to the weekly service at their church plant at Sítio Sabonete 1 community.

The Covid daily death rate in Brazil thankfully continues to drop and is now down to 628, which is 84% lower than the peak.

16 -year-old mother Andressa is expected to be sent home with her baby daughter today our social worker tells us. Both mother and baby are really doing well. Thank you for your prayers.

It's a girl!

16-year-old Andressa gave birth to a girl yesterday by caesarean section in the Patos Maternity Hospital. She is from the Fonseca slave-descendent community in Manaíra County where EAB has a little church and various projects, including a well which supplies all the water to the population. Andressa was very ill with pre-eclampsia and was in intensive care, but praise God the hospital handled her case very well and mother and baby are doing well. Andressa's case has been carefully monitored by EAB's social worker Marah Danielle. Thank you for praying.

The Men's Fellowship took an open-air service at the Assentamento Village on Tuesday night and 14 travelled there. It was a really blessed time of fellowship and of sharing the Gospel with the community.

A carpenter has repaired 34 beds at Green Pastures in preparations for a return to church events there next month. 3 aluminium doors were put on toilet/showers as the wooden ones had become warped beyond repair. These toilets serve the local school which we run there as well as the dormitories. 

I saw a pair of Caatinga Cacholotes this week at Green Pastures. They are reddish rust coloured birds about 25 cm long and the pairs sing duets together.

We have finished building another toilet/shower unit at Barra de Oitis Village and the family is well pleased and grateful. We also have kitted out with chickens another chicken run. Previously we had built the run but didn't have any chickens to put in it, but now this problem has been solved.