Wow! What a week! The EAB Field Conference was great but it only happened by the skin of its teeth! This is because of the Petrol tankers’ drivers’ strike now a week old and continuing! Some how our folk managed to get to the Conference at Green Pastures and it was greatly blessed. PTL! The whole event was wonderful!


However the strike carries on and it is holding the country to ranson. Food starts to run out in shops, doctors and nurses can’t get to hospitals, schools will be shut down this week and so it goes on. It is an horrific situation. Please pray.


The service tonight in Patos was very good.


Liz continues to be a lot better in health. PTL!

The ridiculous outrageous road blockades, caused by the petrol tanker strikers and associates, continue despite temporary agreement  reached with the government last night. It is what’s known as anarchy! Nevertheless a lot of our leaders have already got through the blockades and are already at Green Pastures for the Conference start. Your prayers are valued. We look to God for a great conference.

Petrol tankers’ drivers’ strike latest: The press is right now announcing that the national government and strikers have reached an agreement to resume petrol supplies and unblock roads for a fortnight whilst a longer term agreement is reached. If this is confirmed in practice at morning light this Friday it will mean EAB/ACEV’s annual conference has been saved by the bell! Thank you for praying.

I sent out emails last night to all on our EAB Diary Update address list asking for consent to be able to continue sending updates. So far 25% have already replied positively.


As soon as I can I will send out emails with a similar request to all on the EAB Nutshell Update list.

The 80th annual EAB/ACEV Field Conference should be starting this Friday but is in severe doubt owing to a strike of petrol tanker drivers nationwide which is bringing the country to a standstill. We are very worried about the whole situation. It will be awful if the event doesn’t go ahead after all the organization and logistics. How does everyone get to Green Pastures without petrol? There are no rail transport options in our region so food, health care etc. is all in danger of supply chain collapse. It is chaos!


Our Pentecost Sunday was good. The sermon went very well. On this Monday we had the special event in honour of EAB/ACEV’s 80th anniversary in the Patos Town Council chambers. It was a fantastic event. Our praise group sang and I told the story, with the help of PowerPoint, of the 80 years of the work. The impact was great! PTL!


Yesterday I took another school round Green Pastures teaching them to care for creation. I got back to Patos in time for a meeting with the State vice-Governoress who had requested a meeting with me. God opens up doors we could never have imagined.

The title of my sermon tonight is exactly this: “The Day of Pentecost” – in which I will be speaking on Acts 2:1-21.


Yesterday was grandson Lucas’s 11th birthday (Philip & Gylmara’s son) so we had a nice time with family and friends.


On Wednesday I spoke to 150 university students and teachers, by invitation, for two hours! I offered to speak for an hour and a half but they insisted they wanted more so can’t have been bad! What an opportunity!


I had a great meeting with our social worker Marah Danielle this week. We discussed a variety of projects. She’s a great lass!


Liz continues in better health. PTL! It really is good to see her relatively pain free and fully mobile again. We had even wondered if our UK trip would be possible with Liz so ill, but now the tide has turned and we are getting into gear for Blighty!


I spent a lot of time sorting out different problems this week. Anyone involved in Church leadership knows what it’s like. You plan your day and then bang! This or the other happens and you have to drop everything and help. One person made a stupid mistake in the financial field and it took me a lot of time to get a lawyer onto her case and calm her down. Then there was a couple of young Christians disgruntled with some simple things and talking a lot of rubbish and causing trouble. May the Lord help us!

Saturday’s leadership team meeting lasted 9 hours but it was very good. Exhausting but in a great spirit amongst the 10 leaders and very productive. All was in preparation for the annual Field Conference to be held at Green Pastures and Patos from the 25th-27th May.


Key points decided were that 2 new ministers will be given probationary ministerial status at the Conference and 2 others will be ordained. Two smaller churches are to be given full church status rather than remaining church plants of other churches. Many other planning issues were discussed and the financial difficulties the churches face with the economic crisis in Brazil affecting things was discussed and prayed about.


On Sunday we had a good day in Church on what was mother’s Day here. Today I gave a two hour lecture at a university by invitation which went extremely well to well over a hundred students. 


Next Monday the Patos Town Council will be holding a special session of the Council in honour of EAB/ACEV’s 80 years! It should be quite something and certainly an historic mark for God’s glory!

In our 80th year EAB’s first church at Princesa Isabel, which itself is 75 years old, has been demolished and is in the process of being rebuilt. This weekend more work was carried out. EAB has contributed substantial funds to this project. The church is being expanded to cope with growth which is always a good problem to have.


In Patos the monthly communion service was really blessed this Sunday. I preached on ‘Communion’ based on 1 John 1:1-7.


Twin kids have been born to an EAB 4 Legs Project Mother Goat at the landless community a few miles from Green Pastures. This also happened on Sunday in time for the service! Mother and twins are doing great.


We are flat out preparing for our annual Field Conference later this month and have a leadership meeting in preparation for this on Saturday. Leaders will come to the Patos headquarters from João Pessoa, Campina Grande, Itaporanga, Imaculada and Manaíra. Please pray.


The Deaf Fellowship had great meetings over the weekend. It was also good to see a new Soup Run Team set up and running at Juru up in the mountains. 

I have had a long counselling session this morning with someone delivered from drugs for nearly two years but who is under all sorts of pressure. I talked to him for ages, heard all his difficulties, counselled him and prayed with him. Please pray for this man I will call MAV so as to maintain anonimity. He is seeking to follow the Lord.


Please aso pray for the woman from the Desert Flower Project on drugs who has made a commitment  to Christ but who is struggling. Code name SAR.


I did a night Green Pastures two hour treck with Tarcísio yesterday alongside the lake and river looking for frogs, toads, snakes and spiders. It is quite complicated in the dark but interesting. I could hear different species of frogs but often not easy to locate. 


Liz continues to be in considerably better health, though not out of the woods yet.

The Married Couples Fellowship had a good day at Green Pastures today. Tonight I had a meeting of the ‘Drug Free’ Group evaluating our work to date and planning for the coming months. It was very good. 


Liz has been counselling all evening too so she is certainly a lot better in her health than she was. PTL!

This Saturday I will be taking part in one of the tri-annual EAB Board meetings, via Skype, which will be held at WestWellow, near Romsey, UK. I look forward to seeing everyone’s smiling faces! We will need to sort out the GDPR business as D-Day looms!


Liz’s health has improved a lot. PTL! She is in much less pain and is far more mobile. Please keep praying.


Last night’s service in Patos was great finishing off a greatly blessed weekend. Philip preached very well from Romans 12. 


Tomorrow is a public holiday and the married couple’s fellowship will be spending the day at Green Pastures. At night I will be chairing a meeting of the “Drug Free” group to discuss about how to improve our work. 


Next Sunday is communion Sunday so I need to prepare for that.

I’ve just got in from preaching at a street service run by the youth under Philip’s leadership in the Jatobá borough in south Patos where EAB’s school is. A good crowd gathered and at the end at least 7 raised their hands in commitment to Christ. I preached on Romans 1:16.


On Thursday we received the visit at Green Pastures on the chief of the federal environmental organization from João Pessoa who came to visit Green Pastures. He loved it!


I have been doing work on EAB’s magazine “In Touch” edition 89 and have sent off everything to co-editor Marian Rashleigh. 


Tomorrow I will be leading the main service in Patos and Philip will be preaching. On Tuesday the married couples fellowship from the Patos church will be having a fellowship day at Green Pastures. Last weekend a similar fellowship from the Princesa Isabel church spent the entire weekend at Green Pastures. This weekend we have a host of scientists there working on bats, frogs and butterflies! Never a dull moment!

We had a great day of services on Sunday around the theme of Earth Day, which of course was this Sunday. After all “The earth is the Lord’s and everything that’s in it”! The festive spirit was enhanced by the news that Green Pastures has been saved from the electricity pylons and we started with a great dance. The children presented a little play, we had an appropriate poem and I preached on Genesis 1:28 and Revelation 21:1-4. It is sad that God’s first mandate (Genesis 1:28) given to man is so forgotten these days with all its long term implications.


Liz’s health remains unchanged and she returns to see specialists in João Pessoa again tomorrow. Please keep praying especially for dear Liz. 

I am on my way now to the State capital João Pessoa to preach today and tomorrow. Back to preach in Patos for Sunday. Pastor Lindon Carlos and his wife going with me.

Liz got back to Patos from João Pessoa this afternoon where she did umpteen tests and scans regarding her ill health. She has to return next week for more tests. Her health remains unchanged and we continue to value your prayers.


Lots of the children from our Pastor Frank Dyer School in Patos received dental care this week and the families really appreciate this care is given on top of school and food.


The rain has stopped here.

We have been fighting a plan to run high tension cables and pylons through the middle of Green Pastures and thus ruining the place. We had made appeals for help from environmental agencies and the university professors united in speaking out on our behalf as did the press. Much prayer has been made too. So praise God we received an email from the electricity company telling us they had decided to attend our appeal to do a detour so as to miss Green Pastures as I had requested. We are rejoicing about this victory and thank all those who prayed with us on this matter.

Please note that EAB’s new website address is http://www.eabrazil.org

Liz is spending the week in João Pessoa, where there are more advanced medical facilities, having a whole battery of tests and scans done, to try to discover the root cause of her ill health which has now dragged on for seven and a half months. We value your continued prayers.


Sunday was a blessing in church in Patos. PTL! I will be preaching in João Pessoa on Friday and Saturday and in Patos on Sunday. Hence lots of preparation has been done. 3 down and one to go!


The Patos Band was fantastically blessed at Tavares on Saturday. The anniversary service there was great.


EAB’s 2nd church in Campina Grande had a wonderful full outreach day on Saturday in the area of the city where they are busy planting a new church. It is great to see a church so mobilized for God and the community!

Cadnam Methodist Church will be holding its annual charity concert for EAB this Saturday, 14th April, at 7 pm and tickets are £10. As well as the Concert you still get tea/coffee and cake! This must be the place to go this Saturday if you live in the Southampton/New Forest region. The church is behind the White Hart Pub (please don’t muddle things – the concert is in the church!) and the postal code is SO40 2NP.


We thank Hillary Babey for once again organizing this concert and for all who will take part and support it.

EAB’s website has changed address to www.eabrazil.org

We had 37 mm of rain today at Green Pastures but many other places in the area had more. This meant that my planned trip to the church plant at Belem had to be cancelled as it was impossible to reach the place for most people going, owing to the condition of the earth road. My 4-wheel drive jeep would have made it but it wouldn’t be too helpful preaching to empty seats! Rain stopped pray!

“The Cost of True Worship” was the title of my sermon on Sunday night based on John 12:1-11 where Lazarus’s sister Mary poured expensive ointment on Jesus’s feet in a beautiful act of humble personally involved worship which filled the house with the aroma. She didn’t pour ointment on His head but on His feet and she didn’t dry them with a towel but with her own hair. The message I believe was a blessing to many. In fact the whole service was blessed with a lovely spirit of praise and worship.


This week I have been preparing ministry for a seminar I will be preaching at in João Pessoa and further ministry at Belém Village in Tavares County on Friday. I will also be visiting a new church plant endeavour ar Jurema Village in that area.


The battle goes on to protect Green Pastures from invasion by a powerline. We have had a group of 50 adults visiting for a good 4 mile walk through the trails which is all part of our educational work and next week we will have a school visiting.

I spent my entire morning with the state-wide TV Paraíba team filming Green Pastures and interviewing me as a result of the widespread public interest and support for us defending the place from the invasion of a high tension power cable system. The report will be broadcast on Monday I am told.


We received just over an inch of rain last night for which we are grateful. Rains were poor in March and we hope they will be better this month. The general situation of the reservoirs in the region here remains critical.


Brazil is tense tonight with ex-president Lula refusing thus far to go to jail, despite a 12 year sentence, and surrounded by thousands of supporters in São Paulo. The whole situation is extremely delicate and explosive.

I feel profoundly sad with the news just in of the imprisonment of ex-President Lula planned for tomorrow. I do not think he is an angel or agree with all his policies, but much less do I think his opponents are angels or agree with their policies. I am not convinced he is guilty, yet he is getting 12 years in jail. I am not convinced about the independence of the judiciary nor do I like the implied threats and undertones of the military.


From tomorrow onwards anything can happen in this country. It is split between right and left and I can’t see this ending very peacefully. I think we are all in for a very rough ride. Ex-president Lula was on track to be re-elected president in October. Hence obviously his support base is very large. He was a very good president for the poor and for black people.


Please pray for safety, justice and peace in Brazil.

I have just completed my preparations of my sermon for this Sunday in Patos on John 12:1-11 and entitled “The Cost of True Worship” about the story of Lazarus’s sister Mary annointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume and drying his feet with her hair.


Liz’s health continues to be a concern. She is up and down with one day more pain and the next somewhat easier. The antibiotics have not had the desired effect as yet and on Monday Liz will face more drastic treatment for which we ask your prayers. We hope and pray that this new biological treament will have the desired major effect and improve her health big time.


The work presses forward and good news from the Travessia village is of further decisions for Christ there. PTL! This is an absolutely pioneer place where there was no previous Gospel witness. In the town of Manaíra 8 were baptized at Easter. A new work in the city of Recife seems to be developing which has been a long-time strategic goal of EAB/ACEV so as to move more heavily into that State of Pernambuco. The regular Patos church services broadcast weekly has had a direct input into this development. 


We still need much prayer in defense of Green Pastures against a planned invasion by high tension electricity pylons and cables. We have hopes that the Federal Environmental Agency will help us and we ask prayer for this.

We had an excellent service in the Patos church last night following on from a brilliant street service on Saturday night outside the EAB School in the Jatobá borough of Patos. 150 people came to the service which is really something! It was an amazing blessing in a place we have been trying to plant a church for some time. Please pray.

I am happy to say that yesterday we received the results of tests done on Liz last week which have finally discovered the bacteria which is the root cause of all Liz’s very serious health problems and which no previous tests had managed to discover. 


Last Tuesday Liz had 7 syringes of fluid removed from one knee and this fluid was sent to a laboratory for different tests including a culture. This culture both discovered the hidden bacteria as well as defining which antibiotics will be effective in killing the bacteria. We are all very happy about this of course and thank you for your prayers. The specialist caring for Liz is really thrilled too and says that this bacteria is what had stopped all previous medications working for Liz.


Thus Liz today has started on a mammoth 2 month course of antibiotics and we hope and pray she will start to improve in the near future and feel stronger and better. Please continue to pray.

The whole of north-east Brazil had a long blackout (which I refuse to call a power outage!) yesterday afternoon and evening. It was yet another example of the chaos Brazil is in at the moment.


Amidst all this the brightspot was to observe dear Liz just a bit brighter! PTL! She has had 2 B12 injections and will have another tomorrow which is at least combatting some of the side-effects of her condition. She also had lots of liquid removed from one knee which was sent to a laboratory for tests and it is now confirmed that she will soon be starting on different ‘biological’ treatment which we hope and pray will zap her illness. Please continue praying.


Please also pray for the rains to restart here. March has been a hiccup and the rains have stopped which is most concerning as either we get plenty of rain in the first months of the year, up until May, or we have had it till 2019!


I am working on my sermon for Sunday. Yesterday we received feedback from the ladies of the Desert Flower Project (pseudonymn for Battered wives involved in drugs – never use these terms on Facebook please unless you want me killed) and there was a wonderful general buzz of approval. 16 went plus 9 kids. We feel it was a real breakthrough with the group. Some have expressed their desire to come again. One woman made a genuine comittment to Christ out of the group last Sunday and we checked this yesterday which she reaffirmed. PLEASE PRAY. She is on drugs and trying to get free, lives with a partner which complicated things, has a child and wants to live for Jesus! We are doing all we can to support her first steps with the Lord and hope she will be back in church this Sunday.


Results in from Manaira’s follow up work (2 months) after the special 10-day Outreach in January show 6 firm in the faith and 2 or 3 humming and harring and coming and going. We praise God and ask prayer for all.


I had an excellent meeting yesterday with Pastor Lindon Carlos about churches and projects issues. It really was a blessing.

When I drove into Green Pastures this morning in a large police van, followed by three more full of police armed to the teeth, Tarcisio nearly fainted! The special police visit had not been planned and Tarcísio thus was expecting nothing. What happened was that I had had a meeting with the new environment police chief and other police authorities in Patos – and everything went so well that they asked if they could go and visit the Reserve at Green Pastures there and then! I said sure, and we took off in convoy!


It was a fantastic opportunity to speak to these powerful men and discuss how we need to care more for God’s creation and combat hunters, poachers and tree choppers! “The earth is the Lord’s” is what I told the Police chief. I think he got the message!

Liz has become very unwell indeed and stands in need of much prayer. I have never seen her so ill before. She has a sudden and severe version of reactive arthritis, formerly known as Reiter’s syndrome. It has developed suddenly in her body as a response to an unknown infection, causing cross-reactivity. She is being looked after by two specialists but has thus far not responded to any medication. She is weakened, has much pain and has limited mobility. She will apparently need a long period of treatment over many months. Please pray.

I have just got home from a great Sunday night “Desert Flower Project” service which went so well. PTL! 16 of the 23 women at present in the project came with 6 smaller children plus an older daughter and her boyfriend! Even 4 of the devout spiritists came! 


The service had had lots of prayer put into it and it was electric. The praise was great and the sermon flowed in the Spirit. At the end 2 of the women made decisions plus a number of others who were visiting as well. Thank you Lord.


After the service we had the sale of their handicraft products and that went very well too. So thank you for your prayers and support. God is good!

Liz and I were travelling on Thursday and Friday as Liz needed to see a blood specialist as she is far from well. She has something which has recently and abruptly cropped up which is wrong with her immune system and we value your prayers very much.


Today is the big “Desert Flower Project” service at 6.30 pm our time and I have prepared my sermon and we are looking to God for a greatly blessed service. We count on your prayers. A big spiritual battle is going on around this and the spiritist women involved in the project are creating difficulties – but we believe God is greater than all the opposition and difficulties.

People tend to seek us out when they have wildlife they want to return to the wild so that we can put it in the Green Pastures Nature Reserve which is becoming increasingly well known. We do all we can to make people understand that birds should be free to fly in the wild and wild animals should be left in the wild unharmed. Sometimes our message and example produces the desired effect and people either let free what they had in a cage of had captured and were planning to kill and eat.


Hence yesterday I received a 6-banded Armadillo which was saved from the knife. So this morning Liz said she would take it to Green Pastures to set it free there as she was going to check the toilets renovation work on-going there. I put the Armadillo in a large bucket in which it was brought to us and off she went. But after a few minutes Liz called me on her mobile asking for help as the Armadillo had got free in the Jeep! So I got a lift to where she was and put the Armadillo back in the bucket and went with Liz to let it free. In the end all was well, but it was rather funny when I got to Liz and saw the Armadillo sitting on the back seat!


I am now preparing my sermon for Sunday which will be a very important and special service for the Desert Flower women’s project.  I will be preaching on Isaiah 35.

Our EAB website is temporarily off line owing to a technical matter which we are trying to sort out as soon as possible.

The Sunday services went well with a full church as usual. PTL! Today I have done so much that I hardly know how to relate it all but there was lots of work linked to the Action Child Programme. I also have done a lot of work with the Drug Free Project. The team is really fired up after the weekend’s training sessions. 


Last night I miraculously managed to watch a film – Dunkirk. I really enjoyed it. I watched it thanks to my granddaughter Louisa who managed to download it some how or other in English for me and put it on a pendrive.


Please pray for the special service this coming Sunday with some of the women in church from the Desert Flower Project. They will be selling their handicraft after church and will have to come to the service to do so.

Sunday was blessed with a lovely communion service as always here on the first Sunday of the month. I preached on John 9/10 in my 33rd sermon in the John’s Gospel series. After the service I had quite a difficult incident with a deaf couple who wanted me to do a sort of façade wedding cerimony so that they can live together without actually being legally married! They want this because the man is on government benefit for his deafness which he fears losing if he gets married. I declined to get involved other than to help them check with a lawyer regarding if in fact he would lose his benefit. Both families were there to pressurise me! The things we get involved in!


On Monday we travelled to João Pessoa for Liz to see her eye specialist where she got top marks for her sight after the cataract surgery. On the Tuesday Liz had a check up with another doctor. We headed back to Patos yesterday morning.


On the way back Tarcísio phoned from Green Pastures to say the local authorities had illegally set fire to the rubbish dump not far from Green Pastures. I got Lynn’s husband Hutan to go and photograph and film it so as to be able to register a formal complaint with proof of what occured. 


When I got back to Patos I posted a film on Facebook and made a formal complaint. I have since received profuse apologies from the Mayor and Secretary for the Environment as they knew they were in trouble as what they did is totally illegal. They promised me never to do it again and promised to make efforts too for rubbish not to be allowed to come with the wind to Green Pastures. I decided to give the authorities one more chance or else I will take legal action.


Tonight is the Bible study and tomorrow and Saturday are training sessions for our anti-drugs teams. Please pray. It was lovely to see last night how a young married couple have got back together as a result of the “Drug-Free” project and the help the husband battling with getting free from drugs received.


It was also great to see out young pastor in Teixeira lead a neighbour to the church to the Lord yesterday. PTL!

The above title is the title of my sermon tomorrow in the Patos church based on John 10. I finished preparing the message this morning. I will endeavour to present the context from John 9 (the healing of the man born blind) and the ensuing flack from the Pharisees as usual, which takes us into Jesus’s words in John 10. There Jesus declares that “the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber (the Pharisees?). The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep (Jesus)… I am the gate for the sheep… I am the good shepherd”. It is a great passage of Scripture and I am ready to roll and preach it!


Yesterday at Green Pastures I saw how the revamping of toilets (normal + special access) are progressing well.


It is good to see a new church plant at Jurema village in Tavares County getting started. There is no Gospel witness in this place and the challenge is great.


I have been preparing for the new anti-drug project training which will happen from next Thursday to Saturday. Then following that on the Sunday I’ll be dedicating baby Daniel. This Sunday is the monthly communion service. Then on the Sunday two weeks from now (18th) will be the Desert Flower Project special service when some of the rough diamonds from the project will be present to sell their hand made produce after the service.It will be wonderful to thus get these women into church and I will be preparing a special appropriate Gospel message for that night. Please pray.


Rainfall is now up to 19.3 inches at Green Pastures this year. PTL! Please keep praying.

I have been flat out this week organizing the drug free project training sessions for next week from the 8th to 10th of March. So far we have enrolled:


23 for the training in João Pessoa on the Thursday.


14 for the training in Patos on the Friday.


15 for the training in Patos on the Saturday.


Your prayers are greatly valued for this tremendously needy field of action for the church of Jesus Christ.

With the good rains thus far the imminent water supply collapse in February was averted at the last minute and we now have enough reserves to last to the end of August. PTL! Of course we obviously need a lot more as in the second half of the year it doesn’t rain like you don’t get snow in England in the summer. However we have water now and pray for lots more in March, April and May.


The 4 Patos reservoirs are now as follows:


Jatobá – the one you can see from the road in south Patos – now has 10.2% of its capacity.


Farinha – not far from Jatobá but a bit to the east – has 7.24%.


Capoeira – south west of Patos – has 8.2%.


Coremas – from where the pipeline comes and which even the BBC reported on back in 2002 – has reached 6.83%.


Thank you for your prayers. Please don’t stop praying. We pray that we will see all 4 reservoirs overflowing by June!

My sister Jean is doing a sugar fast to raise money for the EAB Desert Flower Project. Please have a look, support if you can with any amount and spread the word to friends.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jean-north