Categoria: News

A new drug addict is now on his way to the rehabilitation centre near João Pessoa and our assistant pastor Rafael is going with him. He is a young man whose life has been threatened. Please pray that God will set him free and bring him to faith in Jesus. Next week we will be taking another man to the centre. He only didn’t go today because he hadn’t been vaccinated against Covid and the rehab centre only accepts vaccinated people. We are going to get the second man vaccinated this week.

Thank you for praying for our daughter Lynn who had her surgery for endometriosis yesterday. It was a very tense day for us. Thankfully the surgery turned out to be less complicated than was expected. It only took 3 and a half hours instead of the 7 or 8 hours that was expected it could take. Lynn is now recovering in hospital but hopes to be sent home today. 

Sunday night’s service went very well. I preached the whole of Mark’s first chapter in just over 30 minutes and it worked very well. Many have contacted me to thank me. I am now preparing a sermon for the Fera School thanksgiving service a week today. Our granddaughter Alice (14) is part of the group graduating from junior high school. These sort of services are a great opportunity and challenge as one has a church full of virtually all non-evangelical Christians with some quite hostile to the Gospel.

Our Covid cases in the Patos church are recovering well. Ray is already out of quarantine and Rayla comes out tomorrow. 

Please pray for our daughter Lynn who will have surgery tomorrow to remove endometriosis including a hysterectomy. She is in João Pessoa on the coast (4 hour drive) with her husband Hutan. We are looking after Amanda who is their 6-year-old daughter. This means we now have 2 grandchildren in our home. We have Louisa (Philip’s daughter) on a more permanent basis. We love this. 😁

Louisa will be going to England for Christmas and she will stay for 2 months with her family. Louisa will sit the second part of her Bar Exams on December 12th, graduate from University on the 16th and fly out on the 18th! She will be very happy to see her Mum, Dad and brothers again. Louisa finishes the first semester of Bible College too this month. All her marks have been 90% plus thus far! She will have December off from Bible College and will start her second semester in January. When she returns to Brazil in February she will also do post-graduate studies in law. 

I had a good long walk at Green Pastures on Friday afternoon and nearly trod on a White-bellied Nothura. This is a grouse-type bird about the size of a small chicken. It hunches down in the undergrowth when approached and I only saw it when it flew out suddenly. I also saw a pair of Pileated Finches and I found the remains of a giant Lizard Salvator Merianae which had clearly been eaten by a wild cat or fox.

Last night the Christians in Action group held the weekly service at Ipueira and our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos was the speaker. This attracted a lot of attention and the service was really blessed. At the same time I was leading the weekly service at the Green Pastures church and assistant pastor Rafael was the speaker. Numbers were down at this service owing to ill health and owing to the breakdown of an old banger of a car which normally brings one family.

Liz put our Christmas tree up yesterday! Covid cases are down further in Brazil. Average daily deaths are down to 211 and average daily new cases are down to 8,631. However in the interior of our State cases are up. This has meant the inauguration of the Travessia church, which was planned for December, has been postponed.

We are very happy to have received, in good time for Christmas, 2 Christmas puddings, 2 jars of Marmite and one tin of Birds Custard! This was sent to us by our son Philip and his wife Gylmara, via Miriam Price who lives in Basingstoke, but is from Brazil and is here visiting her family at Princesa Isabel. Many thanks to all.

We attended our granddaughter Louisa’s presentation of her graduating law dissertation at university yesterday. The three examining professors were unanimous in their praise for both her 17,000 word written dissertation and her oral presentation and defense of it. She was outstanding and got full marks of 100%. Louisa’s parents were able to watch her presentation via internet.

I have been in discussions with Valdeir at Barra de Oitis via Messenger. It was nice to be able to encourage this young man who is doing a theology course online through distance learning. We are in the process of fixing him up with a secondhand computer so that he can press on with his studies as the one he had has bit the dust.

Driving at night we saw another White-eared Opossum. We are seeing a lot of them lately.

We were waiting for funds for 2 new market garden projects with one for the County of Ibiara and the other for the County of Santana de Mangueira. We have just received enough money for one of these which will nearly be enough for the second one once EAB gets the gift aid back on the donation. At the present exchange rate a market garden can be set up, with fencing, water tank, hose pipes, wheel barrow, spades, trowels and shading netting plus many packets of seeds and dozens of fruit tree seedlings, for 1,100 pounds. This project is a life changing project for the glory of God.

The difference in costs between the Brazilian and British passports is mind boggling! I am renewing both my passports at the moment. The British passport cost me 135 pounds and the Brazilian passport cost me 37 pounds! I know the British one involves postage both ways, but nevertheless the UK price is over the top! 😕

Yesterday Liz and I travelled to Belém (Bethlehem), in the County of Tavares, to officially inaugurate the new EAB/ACEV market garden, and hold a thanksgiving service. The journey took us 2 and a half hours to get there and 3 hours to get home. The last half hour of the journey to Belém was hair raising as the authorities are in the process of making the earth road into a tarmac one. The road was extremely dangerous, but we made it! Coming back on the dangerous section was unbelievably complicated.

The new market garden has only been set up for 3 months, but it is already producing vegetables for sale and Fernando and Sandra (owners) are so grateful. They have already planted 90 fruit trees as well as vegetables. These market gardens are real oases in the desert. 

The thanksgiving service was held outdoors near Fernando and Sandra’s house. Some of the youth were there from our Tavares’ church with keyboard and acoustic guitar. The praise and worship was lovely. Liz did the Bible reading from Luke 2 and I preached the Gospel. Please pray for Fernando and Sandra to be converted. They are attending our services at the Belém church. After I preached we distributed Bibles to those who didn’t have one. After the service Sandra served us all with Munguzá which is typical local dish based on maize. It was lovely. 

Whilst we were away at Belém our Patos men’s fellowship led a special thanksgiving service for this year’s army recruits. The service was led by our deacon Lieutenant Colonel Esaú and our Bible College student Murilo preached the Gospel. I am told it was a lovely service and that Murilo spoke especially well. It is very encouraging seeing a lot of young Bible College students getting increasingly involved in Christian service.

I today have had an online meeting with Pastor Wostenes and his wife Gleydice (Campina Grande). They held a church business meeting last night at our Soledade church to discuss the way forward once their pastor Ângelo leaves. It was unanimously agreed that pastor Angelo will leave a month earlier than planned on November 30th. The church will then be under a temporary leadership period to revitalize the church led by Wostenes, Gleydice, Liz and I, with support from pastors Umbirajara and Hamilton. After some months, with the church in a better state, the induction of a new pastor will take place. Please pray.

On Saturday we held a married couples fellowship day at Green Pastures. It was a long hot day, but it was fruitful. It was the sort of day when you can chat lots and build on relationships with people. Of special blessing was for Liz and I to get closer to Andreia who leads the Patos women’s fellowship. We also had long chats to a new couple to the Patos church called Alberto and Dany when we shared the Gospel with them. In the evening I led the local Green Pastures church service and Pastor Lucena preached. The day had started at 5.30 am and ended about 11.30 pm. It was tiring, but very productive.

Whilst at Green Pastures I both saw and heard a Common Tody-Flycatcher, which is bright yellow with a black cap and back. It makes the sound of an old fashioned watch being wound up. This is why its popular name in Portuguese is a “watch mender”. It is about the size of a UK Blue Tit.

Please pray for two sick children at our Matureia Action School. Maria Isabelly (aged 4) has cancer in a kidney. She is having chemotherapy and will then have surgery. Lázaro (aged 6) is an autistic boy who is in hospital with appendicitis. 

In Sunday’s main service of the week our youngest daughter Sacha preached the Gospel wonderfully well. She is an excellent school teacher and she maintains her teacher-like aplomb in the pulpit. I am seeking to give women more space in church ministry. Evangelical churches, in my view, are wrong in maintaining culture bound limitations to women’s ministry. Also in the service yesterday I dedicated 4 months old baby Arthur who is the first child of José Waldir and Denise. I also was asked to invoke God’s blessing on their marriage which we did in word and song (Sacha).

Rayla, who is one of our youth leaders, has gone down with Covid. She has joined fellow youth leader Ray with the same illness. We have suspended all our youth activities at church for the time being. Covid in Brazil continues at a low level with average daily deaths at 262 and average daily infections at 11,320.

Our dear friend and faithful sister in Christ, Doreen Griffiths, has gone to be with the Lord aged 105. She was lucid to the end and we praise God for her long blessed life. Doreen came from the same London and Notting Hill church roots as me.

We have another grandchild living with us at the moment. We already had Louisa (21) finishing her law degree, and we now have Felipe (24) finishing his architecture degree. It is nice that our grandchildren feel they can move in with us when they need to.

Tomorrow I will be preaching the Gospel at Belém (Bethlehem) Village and value your prayers.

On Thursday Liz and I travelled to Patuscada and Barra de Oitis communities, in Diamante County, for the official inauguration and thanksgiving service of toilet/shower units, market gardens, chicken runs and 4-legs goat projects. It took us 3 hours to get there with the last part on earth road which was terribly bumpy. Upon arriving we met up with our projects team and went for a 2-hour tour of the projects. As always, people were profusely grateful for the toilets and showers and for all the projects. What joy folk had in “having eggs to eat” from the chicken pens! How proud was Tico to show us his splendid market garden which has grown to a garden of Eden in just 16 months, amidst a bad drought. The paw-paw and banana trees (lots of them) were laden with fruit.

Having done a tour of the projects in the hot sun, with the temperature at 38 degrees, we headed for the Barra de Oitis church for a 5 pm thanksgiving service. The church was a buzz and filled with people despite it being an early start for a normal 7.30 pm start. The local church band kicked off with a song of thanks to God. The bass guitar player was very limited, but nobody cared. Our projects team leader Lindon Carlos then explained what had been achieved in recent months in that region and this was followed by a band from our Conceição church. This typical regional music band was composed of a piano accordionist, one enormous drum, one triangle and pastor Betinho on vocals. This band set the place alight! Then came Liz’s turn and the pastor Manoel Abílio asked her to say something to the church as well as reading part of Mark 1. Then came my turn to preach the Gospel of Mark chapter 1. I preached the whole chapter in 15 minutes covering John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus, Jesus’ baptism and confirmation from heaven, Jesus’ temptations, the calling of the first disciples, the casting out of demons and the healing of the sick. “This is Jesus Christ that the Gospel presents”, I said. “With power over demons and sickness. Give your life to Christ tonight. Amen.” A non-Christian man immediately took me at my word and asked for prayer because his son was trying to kill him. He said he needed the power of Jesus to keep him from demon power. We immediately prayed for the man.

The regional drum, triangle and accordion band did 2 more songs, the local women’s choreography group danced a hymn, and then I closed in prayer. This was followed by a piece of cake and a cup of Guaraná (Brazil’s answer to Coca Cola!) being distributed to everyone. After chatting to everyone we headed home by a different route than which we came by, as the locals told us it was safer from bandits. We took our social worker Marah Danielle with us in the jeep, ate sandwiches …

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. 

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 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.  

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. 

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. 

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.

Green Pastures hosted a Fun & Fellowship Day for the youth yesterday, with 70 young people from our Patos, São Mamede, Juazeirinho and Teixeira churches. 10 of them formed an advanced party which prepared food on the Friday night and the main group started arriving on Saturday morning at 5.30 am. The youth held meetings in the morning and afternoon and these were interspersed with swimming, table tennis, volley ball and nature walks. At night the youth took the weekly service for farming folk with the young Bible College student Murilo preaching the Gospel. It was a lovely day.

On Saturday afternoon we had an excellent online meeting of the senior leadership team which was mainly to discuss who will replace the current pastor Ângelo at our Soledade church as from January 1st. Pastor Ângelo and his wife are both suffering from depression problems and are going to have a good sabatical. Their replacement at Soledade may be Pastor José Renildo and his wife Tânia. This is the couple who went to Portugal but have now returned. They will be visiting Soledade this coming week and taking part in a baptism there. Please pray for this situation. 

We have bought 6 leather footballs and sent 2 a piece to the ‘Sport in Action’ projects at Juru, Flores and Barra de Oitis. This Bible and Ball project gets kids off the streets practicing healthy organized sport within a Christian setting.

The Women’s Fellowship held a special meeting this week which focused on preventing breast cancer. They invited a visiting speaker and 50 women went to the meeting which was very good. 

A large American Barn Owl is hunting smaller birds at night around the Green Pastures meeting hall. The birds like to roost in the trees around the hall and the Owl comes and picks them off.

Yesterday morning our dear brother in Christ, and elder in the Patos church, Pedro Guedes, went to be with the Lord. He was 89. He left his wife Deaconess Beatriz, 14 children, 22 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

Pedro’s death changed our day yesterday. We had been due to inaugurate the new market garden project at Belém Village in Tavares County but this was postponed until November 18th. Instead of this I spent much of yesterday preparing the funeral service for this morning, which I have just conducted. To get all the names of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren was quite a job, and even in the end the family forgot 2 grandchildren! I am glad it was made clear to the father that it wasn’t my fault. 

The funeral service this morning started at 8.30 am and lasted an hour. I conducted the service with Pedro’s open coffin in front of me. Sacha and Tiago did the 4 hymns, Philip brought a lovely short word from the UK via Zoom, Pastor Edivaldo (Pedro’s son-in-law) also brought a short word. I spoke a bit on Romans 12:1-2 (Pedro’s favourite Bible passage) and also on Psalm 23. I preached the Gospel clearly as a good part of Pedro’s offspring are not following the Lord.

We thank God for Pedro’s long blessed life. He will be greatly missed. He was converted in his teens and was kicked out of his house and family because of their anti-protestant prejudice. Pedro left his home with just a hammock to sleep in, and even that had a hole in it. But Pedro never caved into such pressure and God blessed him. At 20 he married Beatriz, and they were married for 69 years, with a quiver full of offspring. He ended up having a shop which sold hammocks in Patos, as opposed to the “holy” one he was kicked out with. He was kicked out of his family, but God replaced that with an enormous family of his own. Please pray for them as they mourn Pedro’s loss. He is with the Lord. 

Yesterday we held our annual Leadership Conference online with all our leaders taking part. The brilliant speaker was pastor Antonio Carlos Costa from Rio de Janeiro. He is my friend who organizes all the protests on Copacabana beach which you may have seen on the TV news, as what he does has worldwide repercussions. Yesterday he spoke to us from Matthew 5:14-16 on ‘Integral Mission’. It was fantastic!

Tomorrow Liz and I will be travelling to the village of Belém in Tavares County to officially inaugurate EAB/ACEV’s latest market garden project run by Fernando and Sandra. Liz will be doing the Bible reading and prayers and I will be preaching the Gospel at the thanksgiving service. The trip will involve a 5 hour round trip so we very much value your prayers for travelling mercies and protection from the pandemic.

On Saturday our senior leadership team will meet online to discuss what to do about our Soledade church where the current pastor is resigning at the end of the year. Please pray.

I have been asked to add photographs of the wildlife I see at Green Pastures to our updates, so I will try to remember to do this. It is so important for Christians to encourage care for God’s creation. We are praying for COP 26.

I have read a brilliant academic article from the Christian sociologist Paul Freston on ‘Bolsonaro, populism & evangelicals in Latin America.’ Paul is an anglo-brazilian like myself, who is in Canada at the moment where he taught for 12 years at a university.

President Bolsonaro’s video in which he outrageously links Covid vaccine to AIDS has been removed by the owners of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as fake. Bolsonaro is utterly irresponsible. 

Our weekend was full of activities in the work of the Lord. Liz and I went to the Assentamento (ex-landless) where we had an excellent meeting with Dodora and Paulo and encouraged them. They encouraged us too with their simple joy in serving Jesus. The Sunday service in Patos was especially blessed. I led and we received a new member called Rogaciano into fellowship. Assistant pastor Rafael preached the Word. It was so good to be allowed 70% capacity in church for the first time. First it was 30% months back, then the State Government increased the permitted capacity to 50% and now it’s up to 70%. However President Bolsonaro continues to say that all forms of restriction are stupid and he actively opposes vaccination. In his latest speech he insinuated that people who have received two vaccination jabs are likely to get AIDS!

On Saturday the Christians in Action group travelled to Ipueira in Rio Grande do Norte State and held a very good street service there. From Friday to Sunday the Campina Grande Men’s Conference went very well at Green Pastures. I saw a small flock of Guira Cuckoos at Green Pastures.

Tomorrow we will have our annual leadership conference online and our invited speaker will be Antonio Carlos Costa from Rio de Janeiro. He will speak for an hour on ‘Integral Mission’. This will be followed by a general assembly. We hope and pray that the pandemic situation here will continue to improve so that next year all our conferences will be in-person. 

Our senior elder Pedro Guedes continues in intensive care with Covid and is holding his own. He is being fed by tube. His situation is delicately balanced. His wife and Deaconess Beatriz is improving at home. Your prayers continue to be greatly valued for this precious couple.

We are supplying our churches at Juru, Flores and Barra de Oitis with footballs for the ‘Sport in Action’ project, which involves getting children and youth off the streets to play football as well as hearing from God’s Word. We have a Bible + Ball approach! Please pray for this project which is now restarting as the pandemic eases.

The daily Covid death rate is now 355 and there were 14,242 new Covid infections in the last 24 hours. It is interesting to compare the latter figure with the UK as it means Brazil has less than a third of new cases than in the UK, whereas the Brazilian population is over 3 times as big. It is clear that the situation in the UK is far worse today than in Brazil. Our Patos senior elder Pedro Guedes is stable in intensive care. If only he would eat it would help! His wife Beatriz is improving at home and their son Jesiel is better. On Thursday I took my Pfizer booster jab against Covid. I felt no side-effects from the vaccination. 

The Men’s Conference is in full-swing at Green Pastures as from yesterday afternoon. It is running from Friday through Sunday. Tonight the ‘Christians in Action’ group will be holding a service at Ipueira in Rio Grande do Norte State. The Kombi will take 9 and another car will go with 5. We pray that God will richly bless these weekend activities. Last night Liz and I did a session of ‘Fiancée counselling’ with Rogaciano and Monyque who got engaged on the 13th. Our cooking pastor João George has just done another cookery training course for ladies at the Sítio Amolar community in Imaculada County.

I heard Prince Charles on the BBC saying that he has 2 meat-free days a week as his contribution to reducing his carbon footprint. In case he reads this I would like to tell him that I have 3 meat-free days a week with Macaroni cheese one day, egg and chips another and fish another! 😀 

I finished reading the very interesting book by Christian sociologist Paul Freston about the political participation of evangelicals in Brazil. I am now enjoying reading ‘Personalized Psalms’ by Mike Holmes. This book is a very interesting modern freestyle writing of each Psalm as Mike has clearly thought deeply about each Psalm. I’ve read the first 44 Psalms so far and am finding it very helpful and interesting with my NIV open alongside. Mike Holmes has some excellent ways of putting things over.  

Our senior elder Pedro Guedes has been taken into intensive care with Covid. His lungs are 75% affected by viral pneumonia but he is holding his own. His wife Deaconess Beatriz also has Covid but she is at home with her lungs only 30% affected. At EAB’s Patos school 2 children have Covid as do their parents. A cleaner from the school also has Covid. Your prayers are valued.

We had a good meeting yesterday with the headteacher of EAB’s Patos School discussing the return to in-person lessons as from the beginning of November. This will also mean the return of monthly services at the school on the south side of Patos where we are seeking to plant a second church in Patos.

Considering the negative impact of the pandemic we have re-commenced our income generation project to help the poor find a way out of having become unemployed. For example: a barber lost his job as a result of Covid so we are helping him set up a barber shop in his front room buying scissors, razors, shampoo etc. up to the cost of 100 pounds and the man will support his family in this way. If anyone would like to donate this amount we will help the jobless get on their feet again for the glory of God.

Last night it rained 44 mm at Princesa Isabel which is a 2 hour drive west of here. It is very rare to get rain in October so we are very pleased for people there. Here in Patos we just had a one minute shower.

Tomorrow the Campina Grande Men’s Conference starts at Green Pastures running from the 22nd to the 24th with about 60 men present. We pray that God will bless them abundantly.

I worked on sermon preparation yesterday with one for Patos and one for the inauguration of the latest Market Garden Project at Belém to where we will be travelling next week. A technical visit has just been made to Belém by our agricultural specialist who gave advice and further guidelines to Fernando and Sandra who run it.

A mother has contacted us because she wants her son to go to the rehabilitation centre for drug addicts with which we work in partnership. Her son is coming out of jail soon and she hopes he will go straight to the rehab centre. Please pray.

I saw a Solitary Black Cacique bird on Tuesday at Green Pastures. The bird is black the size of a UK Blackbird and has a bright solid white beak. We also registered a number of times this week at Green Pastures a Wild Neotropical Spotted Cat (Leopardus emiliae). This small wild cat is the only endemic Brazilian wild cat and is on the endangered species red list.

Deaconess Beatriz (86-years-old) has gone down with Covid for the second time. She lives in Patos and is married to elder Pedro Guedes (89) who is very ill in hospital with Covid. Both are believed to have contracted the virus from their son Jesiel, in his 40s, who lives in their house and who had Covid first with mild symptoms. Please pray for this lovely couple who are very precious to us.

Last night we had a lovely meeting with the leaders of our ‘Christians in Action’ group, Dedé and Chico, and agreed with them a re-start of the services at Ipueira in the State of Rio Grande do Norte. The pandemic has sufficiently abated for this to be possible and the first service of this new phase will be this Saturday. Please pray for this church plant that God might abundantly bless and that many there will come to Christ.

Pastor José Renildo has phoned me to tell me that he and his wife Tânia have returned to Brazil from Portugal where they had gone to shelter from the pandemic out of control in this country. José Renildo just said to me that it hadn’t worked out living in Portugal with their daughter. We are glad to have the couple back working for the Lord on the coast at Jacumã. 

Our granddaughter Louisa, who lives with us, has just passed the first part of her entrance exam to be a practicing lawyer. She has to do a second and final exam on December 12th. She is finishing her degree in Law now, but has to pass these further external exams, from the National Lawyers’ Association (OAB), to be registered to practice. Please pray for her.

I led the Sunday service in Patos and assistant pastor Lucena preached. It was a good service.   

I led the Green Pastures church service last night and it was lovely to see local farming folk like Dodora and Marileide taking part in the service. Sister Magaly from Patos preached the Gospel very well. Fábio, who has lost 18 kilos in weight, led the praise and worship. We took the chance to ship out to Green Pastures, in the Kombi, eleven 20 litre bottles of mineral water for the Men’s Conference next weekend.

Our 89-year-old elder Pedro Guedes remains in hospital with Covid and is holding his own. He is breathing with just a little oxygen and seems quite comfortable. João Paulo, who fell off his horse a week ago, remains in intensive care with bad head injuries. He went on his horse to separate 2 steers which were fighting and the fight spooked his horse. The horse ran out of control into a concrete post which smashed into João Paulo’s head and knocked him off the horse. Please pray for these men.

This morning saw a lovely service of child evangelism in Patos called the ‘Water Melon Festival’. The children loved singing praise to God and hearing an evangelistic message built around a water melon.

Our projects’ team has held two meetings at Macambira dos Lúcios village. The first meeting was with the community leaders discussing their request for a well to be dug and equipped there. The second was a larger meeting with members of the community. We plan to make this well before the end of the year. The area is in great need of water. Please pray that we will successfully hit water with the well.

4 chicken runs are now being built. 2 are at Barra de Oitis village, 1 at Patuscada and the other at Tamanduá. The families to be benefitted by this project are overjoyed as their diet will be improved and their income too.

Our 89-year-old elder Pedro Guedes has Covid and was taken into hospital yesterday. His son Jesiel, who is probably the source of the Covid as he works in the market and lives in the same house, also has Covid. We visited them recently so missed catching Covid by a whisker! Please pray for our elder who has both pneumonia and a kidney infection. The son has just mild symptoms. The average daily Covid death rate in Brazil has dropped further to 334.

We are busy finalizing preparations for our Campina Grande 1st Church’s Men’s Conference on the 23rd and 24th at the Green Pastures Nature Reserve & Christian Conference Centre. About 60 men are expected. We have carried out repairs at Green Pastures and repainted all the dormitories, bedrooms, leisure area, kitchen and meeting hall. This hadn’t been done for years and now that the pandemic is quietening down we expect Green Pastures to be in increasing demand by our churches, so all is now in order for this.

Yesterday our Manaíra Church held a day of child evangelism at the Fonseca (slave descendants) Community branch church which was very well attended and really blessed. A big crowd of children heard the Gospel. On Sunday the same church is going to do the same in their own church and next Thursday they will repeat the evangelism at the new Travessia church. Please pray.

The new Saco dos Pintos well, which will supply clean water for 34 very poor families, is in the final stages of being set up with water tower, electric pump, standpipe and animal drinking trough. I will be preaching the Gospel at the inauguration and thanksgiving service next month.

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.   

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. 

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. 

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.    

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. 

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.

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).”  

Liz and I went to visit Eva (Eve) and family. She is a widow and member of the Patos church who has two children and a son-in-law living with her. Our plan was to sit and talk in the front garden but Eva insisted we went into her house and both her and her son Marcos were without masks. Thus the visit didn’t go according to plan but once we were there there was little we could do about it. We had a long chat with the family, read the Bible and prayed with them. We plan to do another visit today and value your prayers. 

Yesterday I did hours of EAB administrative work sending receipts and bank paper trails to the treasurer in the UK. All this is an important part of our work.

20 men from our Men’s Fellowship went to the Assentamento village in São Mamede County last night to take a service. It is a joy to see such a fine group of men joyfully serving the Lord and preaching the Gospel on a Tuesday evening to a very poor ex-landless community.

Tomorrow I will be taking part online in the UK ‘Justice Conference’ with the Roman Catholic and most famous living Brazilian Liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff (aged 82), who will be the speaker. His topic will be ‘Climate of Injustice: The Climate Crisis and Inequality’. I am very much looking forward to hearing this brilliant theologian. He might be a bit too radical for me but we shall see. Anyway I am sure I will be challenged.

Yet another White-eared Opossum has turned up in a town showing how much this is happening as a result of deforestation. Our Pastor Lindon Carlos sent be a video of one in front of his house at Imaculada.

Our wheelchair bank this week lent a wheelchair to a lady who is 100 years old. She is totally lucid, but is very down because her 103 year old sister has just died. It was then that her daughter heard about our wheelchair bank for the poor via our online services. She hopes that it will cheer her up being able to get about in a wheelchair. Please pray that this family will hear God’s voice through this practical demonstration of God’s love.

The services over the weekend went very well. The service at Green Pastures on Saturday night which I led was really good with our young lawyer Rayla preaching the Gospel. She was excellent. This service was supported by the Patos church youth which was good having over 20 of them present. Then on Sunday morning the Sunday School in Patos had over 50 present. It is lovely to see our 11 year old granddaughter Bia doing such a great work with the little children who love her. Bia is just like Liz was at her age. Finally on Sunday night the service was lovely with some people back in church who we hadn’t seen since the start of the pandemic early last year.

Liz and I visited our 89-year-old elder Pedro Guedes on Saturday afternoon together with his young wife (86) and deaconess Beatriz. It was good to see that Pedro is better in health and we encouraged them to get a grandchild to bring them to church soon. Please continue to pray for them.

Early research in Uruguay shows that having a third Covid jab with the Pfizer vaccine on top of two jabs of the Coronavac Chinese vaccine, that we had, increases anti-bodies 20 times! We hope to have this third jab in October.

Liz, Lynn (she’s really attached to the couple) and I will be going to visit our elder Pedro Guedes and his wife and deaconess Beatriz this afternoon. He is 89 and she is 86. Beatriz is fine but Pedro is very weak and doesn’t want to eat. Please pray for this lovely couple.

I spent a lot of time yesterday chasing up all the Patos church members who haven’t been to church after our return to in-person services. It was good to chat to people and to hear from most of them that they will soon be back.

Our project team has presented to me 5 families at Barra de Oitis village that all meet our selection criteria so as to be apt to receive chicken runs with chickens from our 2 Wings Project. We have funding for 4 of these families. The selection process takes time but is vital to make sure we are dealing with genuine cases of the poorest of the poor.

Yesterday saw a classic example of the need for care with choosing project beneficiaries. Our head-teacher at our Patos school got into a state of panic because two of our pupils had moved with their families into cardboard shacks on the outskirts of town “because they couldn’t afford to pay the rent for their tiny houses”. Liz insisted with the teacher that the story was properly checked with visits made to the cardboard houses etc. Thus it was discovered, as Liz had suspected, that the families had in fact opted to live in this precarious way so as to qualify for council housing.

On the other hand another shanty town dweller has been checked out and seen to be a genuine case where a donkey and cart (100 pounds) will help the family to help themselves through rubbish collection and recycling, so we will help.

I have finished reading ‘The church, the country and the world’ by Robinson Cavalcanti. I have also finished reading another book by Mike Hollow in the Blitz Detective series called ‘the Stratford Murder’. I am glad to report that Detective Inspector John Jago managed to solve the mystery! I am now reading R.T. France’s commentary on Matthew’s Gospel. Dick France was an excellent teacher of mine at LST decades ago and his commentary is great. I have often used it over the years as a point of reference on different texts, to the extent that the book is falling apart with wear, but now I have decided to read the book from start to finish with the Bible open to match.  

Elvis Presley is the treasurer of our Manaíra church at the extreme west of Paraíba State! Please do not spread this news otherwise we could receive an avalanche of fans hindering the work here! I discovered this yesterday when the local pastor Francinaldo asked for me to help in opening a church bank account there and I asked for the treasurer’s full name which is Elvis Presley Pereira Florentino. Beat that! 😁

We held a Patos church leadership meeting in our back garden last night. Apart from Liz and I, also present were deacons Ricardo and Esaú, assistant pastor Rafael, deaconess Deborah Maria and Social worker Marah Danielle. The meeting was excellent and lasted just short of two hours. We decided that we will hold a meeting of all the different ministries’ leaders shortly. We also decided that on the second Saturday of every month the married couples’ ministry will go to Green Pastures to support the weekly service there. The youth already do the same on the last Saturday of the month.

19 men were in the Men’s Fellowship meeting on Tuesday evening. The fellowship is going very well. I am in the process of preparing another sermon.

The Brazilian health minister has tested positive for Covid in New York and has stayed in quarantine there, whilst the president has returned to Brazil after speaking at the United Nations general assembly. The Covid passports are being disputed & questioned in Patos, but are still being legally required. However, most shops are not asking for the passports which is what they are legally required to do.

The Green Pastures Meeting Hall is being painted this week so that will be nice and fresh for this Saturday’s service.  

We will be holding a Patos church leadership meeting tomorrow evening and value your prayers for it. One or two problems have cropped up and we will be meeting to discuss and pray about them.

Sunday night’s service went very well indeed. I preached on ‘A Life with Purpose’. The praise and worship group was particularly blessed when they reintroduced a very old hymn which was especially good.

I am glad to say that our 20 year old psychology student Keylla has recovered from Covid. Thank you for praying. Sadly, however, her uncle died with the disease this week. The Covid death rate in Brazil is rising again somewhat and has reached an average of 557 a day. It would seem that Liz and I may be able to receive a booster dose of Covid vaccine next month. This will be especially good as we received the Chinese Coronavac vaccine which is low in efficiency and not recognized in the UK. If we were to receive the Jansen single dose vaccine, which is recognized in the UK, it would be particularly good. We shall see what happens and value your prayers.

Please also pray for our daughter Lynn who has endometriosis and will have to face extensive surgery which will include a hysterectomy. Please also pray for Fatima, the wife of Pastor Nemias at Flores in Pernambuco State, who is also far from well.

I have been having discussions with our project team leaders Marah Danielle (social worker) and Lindon Carlos (pastor) about different aspects of quality control in our projects which we always want to keep improving for the glory of God.

President Bolsonaro is speaking to the United Nations in the USA right now. Yesterday he and his group of ministers were refused entry to a restaurant because the president has not been vaccinated against Covid! He ended up eating pizza outside and I saw the photo! The president gives a terrible example living in a fantasy world of denial concerning the virus. I know people in Patos who devotedly follow his lead and are refusing to be vaccinated.   

As from tomorrow a new law in our State of Paraíba means that people can only go to church or to the supermarket, and such places, if they show their vaccine passport. This will create a delicate situation at the door of the church if we have to turn away church members who are Bolsonaro supporters and have not been vaccinated. President Bolsonaro has said people will turn into crocodiles if they are vaccinated! 

Last night’s service at Green Pastures went well. I led the service and one of our young men called Murillo, who is studying both law and theology, preached the Gospel from John 21:15-19. He was excellent. It is so encouraging to see how some of our young people are growing in the ways of the Lord and developing as excellent speakers. One person at the service called Fred, who is a local farm owner, remarked how quickly the service flew by as it was so good. Praise God! 

This week at Green Pastures one of our automatic cameras took some excellent photos of a beautiful Jaguarundi wild cat. I am in discussions with the Christian ecology organization, A Rocha International, so that Green Pastures will become a ‘Friend of A Rocha International’ with a view to becoming an associated project of the organization.

This week I took part in a meeting organized by the Roman Catholic church about renewable energy projects in our State and region. At the rate such projects are being installed, with both wind turbines and solar energy farms, our state will be self-sufficient in electrical energy quite soon. Of course this self-sufficiency is good. However our concern is for the land small-holders who are being sucked into the process without hardly any share at all in the profits of the systems. What we are seeing are massive companies intimidating simple farm folk, and the international companies have the support of the State Government.

I will be preaching in the service tonight in Patos. I value your prayers. I will be leading the service too. I had invited the assistant pastor to lead but he is not feeling well. Please pray for Rafael.    

Our Patos church has a burglar alarm principally to protect our musical instruments and sound equipment. We once had a burglary before we had an alarm. Last week the alarm kept going off for no apparent reason, but eventually we discovered that the problem was a nest of large black ants behind one of the sensors!

With the destruction of wild animals’ habitat we are increasingly coming up against them in urban areas in search of food. This week a person told me how Skunks are appearing in her back garden and another told me of White-eared Opposums. People come to me with requests for information about such animals as I am known for my care for God’s creation.

We have been working on our Patos School building today as a large crack has appeared in one of the walls. This appears to be a structural problem which will have to be fixed at considerable expense. Maintenance of buildings is always an on-going task. We are soon to modernize the Care Centre and we are in the process of repairing and painting the dormitories at Green Pastures.

I have agreed with the Projects team the dates for the next project inaugurations and thanksgiving services. At these services Liz will be doing the Bible readings and prayers and I will be preaching the Gospel. On October 28th we will inaugurate the new market garden project at Belém community in Tavares County. On November 4th we will inaugurate the latest well at Saco dos Pintos community in Princesa Isabel County. Then on November 11th we will inaugurate and give thanks for a variety of new projects at Barra de Oitis community in Diamante County including toilet/shower units, chicken runs and market gardens. 

This Sunday our Sunday School for all ages returns to its normal Sunday morning in-person format with classes for children, adolescents, older youth and adults as well as a separate class for the deaf. Everyone will be masked and socially distanced. In the evening main service of the week the kids’ church will return which runs whilst the sermon is being preached.

Thus far this week we have had the prayer meetings for youth and adults on the Monday and the Men’s Fellowship meeting last night. Tonight the Women’s Fellowship meeting will be held. On Thursday we hold the seniors young at heart meeting online and the Bible Study at night.

This week I have held some important meetings with leaders. First of all I discussed the EAB Action Schools programme with our Patos head teacher Gerlânia. Then I have had meetings with Pastor Wostenes who leads the larger of our two churches in Campina Grande. Both churches are going particularly well. Pastor Wostenes’ church is in the process of purchasing a piece of land at the back of the church where they aim to expand work with children and youth. Our other church in Campina Grande led by Pastor Hamilton has bought adjacent land for parking.

Yesterday I went alone to Green Pastures for a walk as Liz was too busy to go. I saw a pair of White Woodpeckers, a Swainson’s Flycatcher and many Scarlet-throated Tanagers. There was a lot of bird activity yesterday.

Thanks to those praying for our folk down ill with Covid. Keylla (aged 20) is doing alright as are Joseane (23) and Sabrina (17). The little boy Jacob who had symptoms turned out not to be Covid thankfully. By the way President Bolsonaro has still not been vaccinated! He lives in a world of Covid denial. 

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)    

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.

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.

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.     

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.

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.

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. 

I was thinking after the Sunday night service in Patos how wonderful it is to observe the on-going ministry with the deaf fellowship, and I had a chat to our deaf pastor Luiz Carlos (via an interpreter) who is a lovely brother. Two other fine young Christian men who are deaf were with him. Our Sunday main services are always translated into Brazilian sign language and Pastor Luiz Carlos leads the deaf fellowship’s own parallel sequence of services during the week. Please pray for this important ministry and that we will see many more deaf folk coming to the Lord.

I led the Sunday night service and assistant pastor Rafael preached the Gospel very well on Luke 13:6-9.

The Covid daily death rate continues to steadily fall here in Brazil as the vaccination programme steadily progresses. The current daily average is 671 which is a great improvement on the 4,000 peak earlier this year. The vaccination programme which was ridiculed by President Bolsonaro only has come about thanks to the outcry of the people and the incisive action of the State Governors which Bolsonaro tried to halt!

I have finished reading ‘Ministries of Mercy’ by Timothy Keller. This book expresses EAB’s approach to this subject of the balance between doing and saying the Gospel. I have also checked and adjusted a variety of short articles for the next EAB magazine ‘InTouch’. Marian Rashleigh sends me the material for me to check. Marian is a vital aspect of EAB ministries.

I have been hearing the call of the Great Kiskadee outside my office in Patos. This is a bird which is always seen at Green Pastures which has a bright yellow chest and belly and which is the size of a blackbird. It is not common to see this bird in towns but we have planted lots of trees and plants around our house so this is an attraction.  

Sadly José Roberto has died from Covid. We had previously asked prayer for this none EAB church brother who had refused to be vaccinated against Covid. Late on Friday night Liz received a request for a prayer team to go to his wife Adriana’s house and pray with her and we sent the team there as she was very low. Adriana (who had been vaccinated) contracted Covid very mildly. We will be praying for the bereaved family tonight in our main service of the week.

Liz and I pray together every day, but on Sunday mornings we spend longer together in prayer and are reading a Psalm per Sunday. We have just finished this devotional time together. We have a list of prayer topics and people so as not to forget anyone in our intercession.

Last night the regular Saturday night service at Green Pastures went very well indeed with our granddaughter Louisa (in her final semester at Law School and her first semester at Theology School) bringing a lovely message for the farming folk from Psalm 23. A little boy from the farming village of Assentamento NS Aparecida II sang a song. The 4-year-old Josué (Joshua) froze when he got to the front to sing, but with his grandfather Paulo’s help he managed be courageous and sing his song for Jesus!

The services at night at Green Pastures are accompanied by the bird song of a multitude of birds in the trees around the meeting hall which are awoken by the extra lighting switched on for the people’s arrival. The meeting hall has no walls on two sides so it is totally exposed to the external bird song. It means the church needs to sing well to be heard! 

The workers at Green Pastures have virtually finished painting Block A dormitories plus the school rooms. They met up with two snakes this week. One was coiled up on the ball cock of a water tank on the roof and the other was in a store room. Both snakes were released out in the bush as everyone knows that we do not kill snakes.

Andressa is a 16-year-old unmarried girl from the Fonseca slave-descendent quilombo community in Manaíra County, which is a 3-hour drive south-west of Patos. We have a small church there plus many projects such as well, goats, chickens and market garden. Andressa is 32 weeks pregnant and seriously ill with pre-eclampsia which includes very high blood pressure. She is in the Patos maternity hospital and our social worker Marah Danielle is monitoring her case. She has been in intensive care twice but is in a high-risk pre-natal ward at the moment. Please continue to pray for her. I have just spoken to our social worker who has spoken to Andressa’s mother this morning who is with Andressa in the hospital. She says that the doctors are aiming to control things so as to have the birth as late as possible. This afternoon we will be sending items of personal hygiene (shampoo etc.) to support the very poor Mum.

Please continue to pray for the 4 drug addicts we have at a rehabilitation centre near João Pessoa on the coast. Kicking drug addiction is no easy thing and needs much prayer. The man who is now at the centre from Patos is doing well thus far. Yesterday his mother was visited and she is so grateful that her son is being helped. She says he really does want to get free. She told us her son has attempted suicide is desperation more than once.

I am reading a book by Timothy Keller called “Ministries of mercy: the call of the Jericho road”. It is a good book which encourages churches to get involved with their communities with an integral mission approach as we have. The disadvantage is that I am reading the book translated into Portuguese and translations are never as good as the original language – but it’s what I’ve got so I shall press on. For my relaxation I have read another book by Mike Hollow called ‘The Custom House Murder’ set in East London in the 1940 blitz. His description of air-raid shelters (we used to have one in our back garden in North Kensington), bomb sites (I used to play war games in them as a child) and zinc bath tubs for a once a week Friday night bath (Ah yes, I remember it well!) are just some aspects of Mike’s excellent writing. My congratulations to Detective Inspector John Jago on another crime solved!

The 7th of September is Brazilian Independence Day which is a public holiday. On this day President Bolsonaro plans to make a speech attacking the High Court of Justice and threatening a military take over. We shall see what he actually says on the day but that is the reported essence of the speech which wouldn’t be surprising as he has often made strong hints in the direction of dictatorship and he is a military man. The sad thing is that many evangelical leaders are calling their people to support this speech with a public protest march in the centre of São Paulo on the same day. Please pray for democracy, justice and peace in Brazil.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time preparing a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Liz and I also went out to Green Pastures in the afternoon for our walk, as well as to check the work being done renovating the dormitories (ready for the new start for church conference events there in October) and the school room. We saw a Striated Heron whilst there. We see our bird tables are keenly visited in this time as food is scarce owing to the low rainfall this year. We took some rice that had gone sour out with us and the Marmoset monkeys devoured it and fought each other for it.

Temperatures today rise to a high of 34 degrees and a low during the night of 21.

I have been having discussions with Eduardo who leads our little church at Passagem. They are going to re-start in-person services next month.

The Ministry of Health has announced that it will be offering booster vaccinations for Covid as from next month using the Pfizer jabs. This will be a step in the right direction for us as our Chinese Coronavac vaccinations (that we were given) are not recognized by the UK government (quite rightly so). This would mean we would be half-way vaccinated for an eventual visit to the UK and would just need to somehow get a second Pfizer jab next year. 

On the way to leading the service at Green Pastures on Saturday a baby wild guinea pig (cavea aperea) ran across the road in front of the jeep. We see a lot of them here. They are similar in colour to the wild rabbits in the UK. The service went very well with a lovely word of testimony from brother Manoel whose life was changed by the Gospel after having been quite a local rogue. The service in Patos last night was blessed in the praise and worship, but pastor Lucena’s sermon was below par unfortunately.

Average Covid daily deaths are down in Brazil to 765. This is still sadly high but is a lot better than the 4,000 a day peak some months back. The vaccination campaign is bearing fruit and the death rate is slowly decreasing though we don’t know what effect the Delta variant (now present in Brazil) may have.

The political situation in Brazil is very tense with President Bolsonaro and his followers calling for a military coup d’état as they see defeat in next year’s election on the horizon. We would ask you to pray for democracy, peace and justice in Brazil. 

QPR has made a good start to the new football season with two wins and two draws in the league and one win in the League Cup. 😃

At the moment I am preparing to take the service at our Green Pastures Church later today. We look to the Lord for his blessing. Yesterday at Green Pastures I heard a Roadside Hawk and a Rufous-bellied Thrush. The latter has a beautiful song which I can imagine joining praise to God one day in the new earth together with the angels and the redeemed of the Lord! We saw yesterday that the painters are now in at the Green Pastures School and Block A dormitories. It’s starting to look much better. We also saw that Francisco has planted 19 of the 24 seedlings of Mango, Guava, Orange and Lemon trees.

Yesterday evening we spent a lovely time with our daughter Sacha celebrating her 35th birthday and eating a mini-barbecue in the moonlight.

The Brazilian national Minister of Education, Milton Ribeiro, is a Presbyterian evangelical Christian and his remarks about special needs children are embarrassing and outrageous. He has referred to them as being a “nuisance” because they “get in the way”! Such insensitive comments have generated outrage from opponents of President Bolsonaro and his government.

The authorities here are starting to talk about a third dose of Covid vaccine to hopefully be applied later this year so as to improve prevention of the disease. Please pray for this to happen. Daily deaths to Covid are down to 800 which is a big improvement on the 4,000 peak a few months back. A brother called José Roberto who is a Christian from a non-EAB church refused to be vaccinated because he deemed it to be a “lack of faith in God”. He is now intubated in intensive care fighting for his life. Please pray for him.

I went to an ophthalmologist this week as my right eye was swollen a lot. He prescribed an antibiotic and an antiallergic drug and already my eye is back to normal.

I have been having a lot of discussions with our projects team about the next round of wells that we will be drilling. Also Pastor Valdemy of Caroá took part in the discussions as the poor rainfall this year is already affecting his region as it is ours. Please pray for us to hit water when we drill the next 4 wells we will be drilling.