Ray Santana

Ray Santana, aged 26, is one of our Patos youth leaders and he is a journalist. Yesterday he tested positive for Covid. Rayla, who is another of the 3 person youth leadership team, also has the symptoms. We have therefore cancelled youth meetings in Patos for the coming days and value your prayers.

The UK has now acknowledged the Chinese Coronavac vaccine that Liz and I had for Covid as valid. This is good news for us as it opens the way for future travel. 

Liz checked our British and Brazilian passports and discovered that both our British passports expired last year as did my Brazilian one. Now it is much simpler to renew British passports online so I did these yesterday. The cost is high but the efficiency is good.

Inflation in Brazil is steadily rising and is now at 10.67% p.a.

A Patos ambulance had a sad accident this week when taking a woman to hospital for a check-up following cancer surgery. The driver lost control on a bend, turned the ambulance over and killed the patient. The driver has a broken arm.

Liz and I will be leaving for Patuscada and Barra de Oitis communities in just over 2 hours time. Liz will be doing the Bible reading and I will be preaching the Gospel at the official inauguration and thanksgiving service for recent 4-legs, toilet/shower unit, chicken runs and market garden projects. I will be preaching Mark chapter 1. Please pray for us as we travel for about two and a half hours to get there with the first part on tarmac and the second on a bumpy earth road ideal for our jeep. 

Pastor Wostenes

Liz and I had an excellent Google Meet online meeting for 1 hour and 20 minutes yesterday with Pastor Wostenes and his wife Gleydice. They are our best friends in Brazil. Wostenes is vice-chairman of ACEV. We had a long discussion about the way forward concerning the EAB/ACEV Soledade church, and as a result of this Wostenes will hold a meeting with the church members a week today. It is so encouraging to feel the love that this couple has for the work of God, and they will be key in moving forward at Soledade in the coming months. We also discussed some issues linked to another pastor called Davi.

Sunday night's service went well although the young assistant pastor, who preached on Psalm 90, was very depressing as he told everyone so many times that they are going to die! I will talk to him and give him some guidance. It was good to see a new bass player called Ricardinho taking part with the praise and worship. Ricardinho is having lessons and is developing well. This coming Sunday our daughter Sacha will be both leading the worship and preaching.

I will be preaching the Gospel this Thursday, and Liz will be doing the Bible reading, at the inauguration and thanksgiving service at Barra de Oitis village. We will be officially inaugurating market gardens, chicken runs and toilet/shower units in this desperately poor community.

Please pray for our daughter Lynn who will be operated on in João Pessoa on November 22nd. She has endometriosis and will be having a hysterectomy plus any other surgery necessary. We pray that it will just be a straight forward hysterectomy. We will be looking after Lynn's 6-year-old Amanda whilst her Mum is in hospital.

Our automatic Bushnell trail camera at Green Pastures (we have 2, but 1 is not working) is registering a lot of Sharp-shinned Hawks. These are a species not normally seen a lot in our area. 

EAB Christmas Gift List

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InTouch#96

EAB publishes a little magazine twice a year called EAB InTouch. Each edition shows photos and news of a cross section of our activities over the previous 6 months. I am pleased to announce that EAB InTouch#96 is now in the post to everyone on our mailing list, and that you should receive it in the coming week. This edition reports on our baking pastor, an online wedding, evangelism in Flores, the 4-Legs goat project etc.

Together with EAB InTouch#96 goes our Christmas Gift List. You can obtain EAB Christmas cards and gifts with a difference and bless the poor and needy this Christmas in the interior of northeast Brazil. Our thanks go to Marian Rashleigh for all her work in compiling another edition of EAB InTouch and to Dave Flowers for his layout and artwork.

I led the service last night at Green Pastures. It was lovely to see local farmers Fred and Manoel volunteer to sing solos in the service. Manoel committed his life to Christ many years ago because I picked him up in my car when he was drunk and took him home. The speaker last night was Rayla who has just graduated in law at university. I saw a Squirrel Cuckoo at Green Pastures which is a light-brown bird about the size of a UK Magpie. 

We had a surprise visit from our Deaconess Josinete at our house. It was a surprise because it was the first time she felt secure enough to visit us since the pandemic began. Prior to the pandemic she visited our house most days. Thankfully in Brazil the average daily death rate continues to drop and is at 236 (as opposed to 4,000 at the peak earlier this year) and new daily infections are down to about 10,000.  

Well

Liz and I travelled to the County of Princesa Isabel yesterday to take part in the official inauguration of the new EAB/ACEV well in the Saco dos Pintos Community. We left home at 1.30 pm and got to the community at about 4.20 pm, which is in an area with beautiful rock formations with some rocks unbelievably precariously balanced on top of others. Having chatted to the local folk, and our projects team, we walked to the well's water tower where I was asked to offer a prayer of praise to God for the well with lots of local folk all around. Everyone burst out in applause at the end of the prayer.

We then all walked back to the centre of the community where all the folk gathered round in a large circle for the start of the thanksgiving service. Pastor Gersé, who leads the first EAB/ACEV church in Princesa Isabel, started by leading us all in a couple of hymns which he accompanied on his guitar. Then Liz was asked to do the Bible reading and this was followed by me preaching the Gospel. 

I preached on "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it". (Psalm 24:1). I linked this to Genesis 1:28 (the cultural mandate) and Genesis 2:15 "caring for the earth". I then jumped to Matthew 13 and the Parable of the Sower, discussing which type of "earth" or "soil" we are, as far as receiving the seed of God's Word is concerned. The 40 or so people present sat with great attention hearing the Gospel. Once I had finished our social worker Marah Danielle asked who didn't have Bibles and Bibles were presented to them. I noticed that one young woman had been touched by the word and received a Bible with great joy. We pray that she, and many others there, might become a Christian.

Once the service was over we left after a final chat. The earth road at the start was very bumpy but we bumped along in our jeep full of the joy of the Lord. Once we got on the asphalt road we took it steady, at about 50 mph, as you never know what animals you are going to face. It was nice to get home and have a good shower before curling up in bed. Thanks for all your prayers on behalf of our travels carrying the Gospel of Jesus. 

Widow

Yesterday Liz and I visited the recently widowed deaconess Beatriz whose husband Pedro died last Thursday. We hadn't seen 86-year-old Beatriz since Pedro's death as Beatriz didn't go to the funeral. It wasn't an easy visit as naturally Beatriz was very low and tearful, but she was very grateful for the funeral service which she watched online. We talked as best we could with Beatriz, read the Bible and prayed with her. Please do pray for her. Beatriz has survived Covid twice.

Cases of Covid in Brazil continue to fall. The average daily death rate is now 261 and the average daily infection rate is down to 10,073.

Pastor José Renildo and his wife Tânia have been to Soledade for the baptism of 3 new converts. Thus they met up with all the members and got on well. This couple is potentially who will take on the leadership of our Soledade church next year as pastor Ângelo is resigning amicably at the end of this year.

I have been having discussions with pastor Maésio from our Teixeira church. He is facing one or two difficulties. 

23 Graduates

Our 2nd church at Campina Grande started a 2-year basic theology course for its members 2 years ago and 23 brothers and sisters have just finished the course. This really is excellent. 

Covid deaths in Brazil have now reached the lowest level since April 2020. In the last 24 hours 296 deaths occurred and 11,077 new infections were registered which is a great deal lower than in the UK.

I preached on Sunday night on the 'Messianic Secret' and it was greatly appreciated by many people who spoke to me after the service and sent me messages via WhatsApp. I have also sent video messages to our Princesa Isabel church, for their 81st anniversary, and to our Caroá church, for a memorial service for our late brother Silvino there.

One of our drug addicts, who we had sent to rehab, came home to get his Covid jab and promptly got drunk. He has repented of his ways and will be going back to rehab. We are also sending a new person to rehab who I know well but I can't say his name here. Please pray for these men seeking a new life, free from drugs and drunkeness. May they find new life in Christ.

Please pray for a woman whom Liz has been counselling. She is facing a serious family problem which I can't mention. May God help this dear woman at this very difficult time.

Our Flores church has been doing child evangelism. They evangelized 160 children in 3 boroughs and 3 rural areas distributing sweets and ice lollies. May the Lord bless the good seed sewn in these young hearts and lives.

Cactus Parakeets are making a lot of noise at Green Pastures as they feed off the Prosopis Juliflora trees laden with seed pods at this time of year.