Autor: eabrazil

The Patos church band travelled to Manaíra on Saturday and led the P&W at the 23rd anniversary service there. It was a real blessing.


Sunday was great in Patos with 4 raising their hands at the end of the evening service – 2 were for rededication and 2 first commitments to Christ. PTL! The Lord really blessed the sermon I preached on John 6:37-47.


On Monday Liz and I had a great meeting with the Desert Flower Project team and what a good team it is! It was good to spend time listening to their experiences. Part of the team works with the “battered wives” and part works with their children. Slowly we are seeing some change in the folk. But some of the things the team goes through are unbelievable and I can’t say too much here. Toilets have to be totally washed down and sterilized after each day and much immoral behaviour is thrown at the team at times. It takes a lot of grace to cope. Please pray for the team and the project.

https://www.facebook.com/john.p.medcraft/posts/10155709831881240

Yesterday’s ‘Drug Free’ ministry group was really blessed with 2 visitors being helped. One has been off Crack for 14 months and the other for 8 months. Please pray for these two cases that God might help us to help them. We cannot mention names. The former has come back to God but the other is not a Christian. We pray that they might both live for God and that many more might come to the drug free meetings.

I have just had a very good meeting with the leader of the Drug Free Ministry Group, who is Nurse Liliane, and the assistant leader and University worker Adelson. We discussed the progress in the work and how to expand its effectiveness and influence for God’s glory.

Click below to watch my 90 second video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bwqyx-aLBjHRaEJ4YkhuYkZRbk0/view?usp=sharing

The EAB magazine ‘In Touch’ edition 88 should be hitting your doormat shortly. Many thanks to Marian Rashleigh for all her work on this. The online edition is already available at: http://www.eabrazil.com/wp-content/uploads/eab-intouch88.pdf

Well it was a week with enough to do to keep us out of mischief! Liz and I over the past days visited no less than 15 EAB/ACEV churches – talking to the leaders and praying with them and taking part ministering in services. We took workers Josinete and Ray with us.


We went up the mountains to Teixeira, Matureia, Imaculada & Glória and then moving further west to Juru, Tavares, Cedro, Maia, Princesa Isabel and Manaíra. We held the opening service of the new church at Água Grande where I preached. We also went to Mandacaru, Pinheira, Travessia and Umburana before preaching again at Caroá. 


It was quite a marathon but really blessed. A big crowd gathered for the opening service on Saturday night. It really was lovely. The service on Sunday saw the Caroá church full. We visited well projects and plantations projects too. 


The jeep has returned unrecognizable covered with earth, dust and sand! What tracks we have been coping with these past days. Incredible!


I feel in need of a siesta now this Monday afternoon! Thanks for all your prayers and support. 

We had a lovely service in the village of Arruda yesterday where I preached the Gospel at our church’s 14th anniversary. It was a two hour drive each way to get there but well worth it.


Tonight in Patos there were three decisons for Christ at the end of the communion service and one person re-dedicated their life to Christ. PTL! It was a lovely service.

We are exhausted after an intense leadership conference which gathered all our leaders from far and wide at Green Pastures Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There was a packed program of activities, especially for the senior leadership team who didn’t have the Saturday morning free like the rest, but there was a wonderful spirit at the event with harmony and the presence of the Lord very real.


Friday started with a fellowship welcome meal and then we got into our first meeting with different leaders sharing very positive news from Campina Grande, Curral Velho etc. We were off to a good start. On Saturday morning the leadership discussed a harmonious series of changes to our projects coordination team with Pastor Lindon Carlos taking up the main leadership role, Flávia, who was in that role, going back to being the assistant leader at her own request. Who had been the assistant leader had to leave her post owing to work commitments, but we introduced a new additional position for social worker Marah Danielle to take up in a further support role in the coordination team. Hence instead of it being 2 people it is now 3 – Lindon Carlos leading, Flávia writing projects and supporting aand marah supporting both. Our financial coordination Eduardo continues unchanged. These changed were very well received by everyone in the afternoon general assembly.


At night we had a Christian psychologist as speaker on depression and other related psychological problems so prevalent these days. She spoke brilliantly. After the meeting we held a special inauguration event of the new ACEV Digital software developed by Philip for the work. This is an amazing tool online for all our churches to record their members’ details, church activities and results etc. It will be a great tool for us to monitor all EAB/ACEV churches, projects etc. with precision details almost as they happen.


On Sunday morning the Christian psycholgist spoke on the whole gender issue which so bombards Christian position and beliefs these days. She spoke very well indeed about this as she did the previous day. We took the traditional group photo in this final session and then had a closing fellowship lunch before all heading back to our respective churches for our evening services. Our evening service in Patos was wonderfully blessed. PTL!

I worked on In Touch 88 this week, which is produced by myself and Marian Rashleigh. Now it has gone to the graphics man Dave Flowers for the layout, before going to the printers. It’s due out in October. I also did some report material for a church which they requested.


I have prepared my sermon for Sunday, and done the order of service, as we have the leadership conference starting on Friday, so all has to be prepared in advance. I have also prepared the program for the Conference and the schedule for the leaders’ board meeting to be held there. 


I have also done a lot of work on Action Child here this week sorting out some important matters with the leaders. Action Child is going well again now. PTL!


I have had lots of issues to deal with this week with the leading pastors. It has been an exhausting week.


Tomorrow I take a group of 6 year old children to Green Pastures and on Friday there will be a group of 9 year olds – both groups in the mornings. The Conference starts late afternoon. We value your prayers.

Saturday saw Picotes village evangelized once again by a few of the Christians in Action group from Patos plus the whole Green Pastures church. It was a great meeting. The Deaf Fellowship also travelled up the mountains to Imaculada where God also blessed as our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos preached.


On Sunday the Communion service was greatly blessed with something like half the church flooding forward for prayer spontaneously at one point when the Holy Spirit swept across the church in power as Sacha sang. I later preached on the feeding of the five thousand. 


Today I had a long meeting with our new communications coordinator Ray Santana. It really was good. He is nearing the end of reading journalism at university and is an expert. He has ACEV on Instagram already and is getting Facebook and the website up to speed. Please pray for him.


Liz and I have been doing some church issues trouble shooting as well today. We value your prayers.

I have had a very intense day which started with the first meeting starting at 7:45 am at the project centre. The meeting was to discuss a possible public health project which if it works out could be fantastic. I will not say more about it yet as it is by no means sure. That’s how things are here in the work. People ask to talk to us and sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. If is comes to fruition the project will probably be established on land donated to ACEV by the Patos Council in 2006 which has never  been used for lack of funds. Please pray for this possibility which would be a massive long-term help for the health of thousands of extremely poor people.


After this I initiated the training course for those who are going to work in the new anti-drug project. I introduced the speaker/trainer and generally introduced the entire project idea. 22 came from 8 EAB/ACEVchurches. I stayed for the first part of the course before moving into another meeting. This Friday I will hold a meeting with those from Patos who were trained today to define where we go from here. Watch this space!


I then went into a two hour meeting with our projects coordinator Flávia discussing a very wide rage of projects and issues. It was well worthwhile.


Tomorrow I will be leading the main service of the week in Patos and Philip will be preaching. Your prayers are valued.

My EAB Nutshell Update was dispatched late on Wednesday night, just before midnight, so everyone around the world should have awoken to it in their inbox at breakfast today! If you want to receive a copy please let me know.


Yesterday we had the sad news that Jéssica, our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos’s wife, who is also deaf, lost her unborn baby at 36 weeks weeks of pregancy. When she went to the hospital there was no heartbeat and they estimate there had been no growth of the baby for the past 6 weeks. This is the second baby they have lost. The first was much earlier in pregnancy. So they will now try to discover the cause. Our church support team has been fantastic in all this and the Married Couples Ministry has been amazingly helpful. Thank God for Christians! Please pray for the couple.


On Tuesday I had an excellent meeting with the ‘Native non-stinging Bee’ professor from the university and next Thursday she will be going to our Green Pastures Reserve with me to commence her research. She told me that she found 2 nests of ‘Melipona interrupta’ bees there in tree hollows on her first brief visit which is a good sign of preservation. 


Liz will be giving the Bible study again this evening. 

I am very happy to have recently managed to film the Red-nosed Field Mouse (Wiedomys pyrrhorhinos) twice, with the infra-red camera at night, at Green Pastures. This might not seem important to many, but for me it’s fantastic. An environmental expert helped me identify the species. If you’re interested you can see both little 30 second films on my Flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmedcraft/ . One film was posted today (21st) and the other on the 15th of August. 

Please pray for Pastor José Vieira and family in João Pessoa. His brother was a taxi driver and took a young woman to the Cristo borough of João Pessoa not knowing that she was an ex-convict and involved with drugs. Upon reaching the requested destination an ambush awaited her with various men opening fire to kill her, and in the process killed the taxi driver as well!


Pastor José Vieira is the pastor of the second of three EAB/ACEV main churches in João Pessoa in a borough called Cidade Verde. The wake is being conducted right now. Violence in Brazil is at unbelievable levels everywhere. 

On Monday evening our meeting with Dedé, who is the leader of the Christians in Action group at the Patos church, was long but very good. It was basically a review of all the different little works the group ministers at, as well as the fellowship group in Patos. Dedé is a quietly spoken unassuming father of two who is incredibly sincere and committed to the Lord and his work. Please remember him and the ministry of this group in your prayers.


On Tuesday morning Liz drove me out to Green Pastures where I had a nice walk of 1.2 km. I was pleased to see how beautifully in flower the Licania Rigida tree is along the banks of the now dry stream. I have not seen it flower so well for years so we hope for many seeds to transform into seedlings to plant along the banks where many have died during the droughts of the last 10 years.


On Tuesday afternoon we had a meeting with 2 single Mums who are to take on the leadership of the church’s singles fellowship. It was nice talking, praying & and planning with them for the future. Then in the evening we chatted to a young Mum who is a Vet and who, together with her husband, will join the other couple already leading the married couples Fellowship to try and shake it up a bit.


Today I’m working on my sermon for Sunday amongst many other administrative matters. 

Yesterday was Father’s Day in Brazil, the 2nd Sunday in August. The second in May is for Mums. I managed to lead and preach and all went well. A packed church, lovely P&W, a good slot for the Dads and then I preached the Word. 


Please pray for Tarcísio at Green Pastures whose elderly parents are ill. His Dad (87) had his leg amputated last week and now his Mum (77) has been taken ill. We took more food for the hungry to folk from the Green Pastures area as things are tough for everyone, especially for the poor.


We’ve a lot of meetings this week. Tonight is with the leader of the Christians in Action group. Tomorrow we have meetings with the married couple’s potential new leaders and later with the singles potential new leaders. I have a meeting with a Baptist pastor friend on Thursday and on Friday with our deaf pastor. Sunday is the Patos church members meeting.


Today, 15 years ago, my dear Dad died whilst on a visit to us. We have many happy memories of dear Dad and praise God for his blessed life.

The funeral service of a very faithful EAB supporter, Peter House, will be held on Monday, August 21, at 1pm at Emmanuel Church, Shirley Road, Southampton. We praise God for Peter’s 90 years lived for God and for his faithful encouragement and support for the work of EAB. Our prayers are with Margaret and the family.

We had a great communion service in Patos last night. The praise and worship was really blessed. The church was full as usual. There was a nice moment of thanksgiving in the service for the promotion of our previously Captain in the Military Police Esaú who has just been promoted to Major. Philip led the service very well.


It was so nice when my time came to preach and the Lord really blessed and strengthened me and I preached without any feeling of weakness or the likes. PTL! The sermon flowed really well and by the feedback I had from many people afterwards I feel many were blessed. God is good.


After the service I had some meetings with different leaders and I got home tired but not half as tired as a week earlier when I had done nothing and felt exhausted. 


My surgical wound is now completely healed. PTL! No more dressings and stuff. So good! Steadily stronger. 


Tomorrow we have a meeting of the Patos church senior leadership in preparation for a general church business meeting on August 20th in the morning.

Last night I returned to church having last been there on the last Sunday in June. So I missed 4 Sundays in July and was back for the last Sunday of the month of July. It was good to be back. PTL! I just opened the service with a few words and prayer. Philip led the service and Elaine from the Patos Bible College spoke. It all went well. I found it quite tiring, but first time back is always like this after health problems. I hope to be strong enough to preach next Sunday.


I was asked to write an article for the principal nationwide evangelical magazine in Brazil called ‘Ultimato’ and I managed to do this over the last few days. My deadline was today. I have already received good feedback from the magazine so that is nice. 


I have a meeting tonight in my office with leaders of the Action Child programme. I’m slowly getting back to normal! Most of the surgical wound is now healed – just one section still open. Patience! We’re getting there! PTL!

Thanks for your prayers. I went back to see the surgeon in João Pessoa and he was very pleased with my progress to recovery. PTL! I ended the antibiotics on Tuesday thankfully and now it’s a matter of continually changing the dressings of the wound which he says will still take some time to totally heal. He removed the last 6 stitches. I can’t drive for another month. The surgery was 4 weeks ago this Friday.


Please pray for a serious problem we have just learnt of at Soledade. I can’t say anything about it at this stage. Just please pray. We are lining up another pastor to go there and support and counsel. 


This Saturday the Patos church children will be spending the day at Green Pastures as the final event in their holiday activities which have been excellent this year. The following two days after this a team of researchers will move in to Green Pastures for 2 days of further research into lizards.


This Sunday’s main service will be evangelistic. Please pray.

The weekend services in Patos went off great. Philip did a great job and preached very well last night.

I have been feeling somewhat brighter today. Thanks for your prayers.


Philip will be leading church this Sunday in Patos so please pray for him too.

All was going well after my surgery, but then I developed a post-op infection which complicated everything. I have taken and am taking loads of expensive antibiotics and was quite rough. I now feel a bit better but it’s going to be a slower recovery now. I value your prayers.

I have this week completed the writing of a new drama for church. I have done this before writing Christmas plays but this is the first play about mission. I wrote it in conjunction with Liz and church drama leader Dilma. It is an entirely true story from our history and I believe will be most impactive and moving. I will say no more about it now so as to maintain the surprise. You can see it’s first performance live in the special mission service on September 3rd, marking the 79th anniversary of our founders arrival in Brazil in 1938.


Liz will be driving me now to João Pessoa to get my surgery checked over with the surgeon.

I left the hospital on Sunday morning and we stayed till the Monday in João Pessoa before heading back to Patos. It was a very tiring journey straight after surgery but Liz did very well driving very fast to get me home as quickly as possible. On the Sunday night we watched the entire service in Patos via the Internet and that went very well. PTL!


We got back to Patos at 3.35 pm yesterday (Monday) and I was particularly exhausted. Today I feel a bit brighter. It’s a matter of taking things steady now and resting plenty so that everything heals nicely.

Late in the afternoon this Friday I went down to sugery in a João Pessoa hospital to finally get my inguinal hérnia fixed. The operation took longer than had been expected because the hernia turned out be larger than originally thought. Nevertheless all went well and I hope to be discharged on Sunday morning. We plan to go to Patos on Monday. I had a shower this morning and had the dressing changed . I am back to normal food today which is helpful. Thanks for your prayers. Philip will be leading the service in Patos.

Liz and I arrived in João Pessoa around 10.30 am today to sort out one final burocratic detail linked to the hospital and my surgery here tomorrow. That done and dusted we have spent the rest of the day resting.


I can only eat till 9 am tomorrow as my hernia surgery is now set for 5 pm (9 pm UK) so it’s going to be interesting how it works out as diabetics not eating is a bit complicated. I expect to be released from the hospital after about 24 hours and we will stay in a hotel until Monday when we plan to head back to Patos. We value your prayers.

I will be going into hospital this Friday afternoon and my hernia surgery will be done early in the evening. I value your prayers. I have had an iguinal hernia for years, but it has steadily got worse, so I will be glad to get it fixed and be able to walk more freely again. I will of course need a lot of post-op rest to avoid reoccurrence but I have lots to do like writing the history of the work here, reading, family history research etc. – so I have plenty to do! I of course will keep in contact with everyone here on my 13 year old blog, on Facebook and via WhatsApp and Messenger.


I would expect to be released from the hospital on Saturday or early Sunday. We then plan to stay in João Pessoa and head back home to Patos on Monday.