Half Marathon for EAB

Kira Taylor is to run the Southampton Half Marathon in May for EAB! This is wonderful news in difficult days for EAB financially with giving and the pound down. Please do support her with a contribution. Everything helps. Please do so at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/eab-taylor 

Big problem solved

Last week I spent hours talking to one leader and then talking to another to try and sort out some leadership changes that need to be made. It became a real headache basically because one of our pastors dug his heels in in an unreasonable fashion and by Friday I was despairing with no clear way forward. I prayed a lot that day and asked God to show us His way forward as it was beyond me. However, early on Saturday the brother in question contacted me, asked forgiveness, had completely changed his position and now we can see a way to sorting it all out. PTL! Tears came to my eyes when he contacted me on the Saturday. When there is no way forward God makes a way!

Sunday night's main service of the week was excellent with a packed house again. The worship and sermon went very well. I preached on John 12:12-36. We even had a nun there who is doing post-graduate research and asked me if she could come to our church to do it by coming to the services. Of course I agreed. 

We've had some more rain and have now passed the 14 inch mark at Green Pastures on our way to our 40 inch goal. What we need now are one or two big all night rains as it's these that fill up the lake and the river.

We continue very busy indeed preparing for the Carnival Camp which starts on Saturday, March 2nd and ends on the 6th. Please pray.

Liz has had a heavy cold but is much better today. PTL!

I have done quite a bit of work with Marian Rashleigh for the next edition of the EAB magazine In Touch - edition 91. The new edition should be out in April.

Good weekend

We had a good weekend with a lovely service last night despite numbers down a bit. 

I conducted a 5.5 km guided walk round Green Pastures at the weekend with 46 people coming from 4 counties in 2 States. It really was good. A great opportunity to get people to care about God's creation and look after it.

We are flat out preparing for the Carnival Camp. I am also busy trying to figure out how to make some changes around the churches with some leaders because this is necessary. We value your prayers.

Rain was good over the weekend and we are up to 13 inches of rain at Green Pastures for the year so 27 inches to go to reach the ideal target quantity for the year. This will essentially need to fall by the end of May as only dribs and drabs come in June and then that's it till the following year with increasing temperatures and evaporation as the year goes by. Please praise and pray with us. 

The grandmother of our grandsons Felipe and Arthur died yesterday of a heart attack. We were in the wake till late last night. These are our eldest daughter Deborah's sons from her marriage to Cleytson which ended some years ago. Please pray for all the family. Cleytson's mother was 69 and headteacher of a school.

Excellent Bible Study

Thursday night's Bible study saw Philip continuing his very good series in Romans and advanced in chapter 5. There were 21 present and it was good to see many asking questions in a very participative and blessed evening.

I went for a walk at Green Pastures this morning and sorted out a number of matters in the build up to the Carnival Camp just 2 weeks away. One interesting thing is that we are being given a 52,000 litre rain water harvester by a Roman Catholic NGO which is quite a turn up for the books and most welcome. The harvester is a water cistern to which water from the roofs of two dormitories is channelled so as to guarantee good quality drinking water during long periods of drought.

I am in the process of sorting out with the senior general churches leadership team a number of crunch issues, so value your prayers. My sermon for Sunday on Philippians 2:1-11 is ready to roll too.

Rain

We are happy because we had another inch of rain yesterday taking us up to not far off 10 inches for this year. Our goal always is 40 inches or there abouts. As we always say this needs to fall in the first 5 or 6 months of the year as it doesn't rain here in the second half of the year. Thank you for praying.

Once again this week the men's fellowship group on the Tuesday and the women's on the Wednesday both went really well. PTL! Tonight it's Philip who gives the Bible study and he presses on in Romans.

Outreach Follow-Up goin well

The 10-day Special Evangelistic Outreach was held at Curral Velho last month with a 100+ team but now is the time for the long follow up being carried out by the local team. There are 15 who made decisions for Christ to be cared for plus 3 who came back to God. There are also quite a number of people who asked for home Bible studies expressing interest in the Gospel.

This week 4 women in the latter category had a home Bible study with great interest, under the leadership of local leaders Tica and Ramos. We praise God that one of them commited her life to Christ.

Please pray for the massive amount of work to be done in the vital follow up over the coming weeks and months.

12 Baptized

The service went well yesterday with pastor Lucena, retired Congregational pastor who joined us last year, preaching and me leading. He worked alongside me at the Patos Bible College for 18 years and we always got on well together - so he is a blessing and a help. He could be more expositional but he does alright. He's a lovely brother.

On the coast at João Pessoa at the weekend 12 were baptized. PTL! 5 were from the number one church (of 3 in the capital that we have) and 7 were from the Mata Redonda church plant 25 miles south of João Pessoa on the way to Recife. Please pray for the EAB churches in that area.