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)."