Categoria: News

The youth led an afternoon of door-to-door evangelism today in Patos’s borough of Jatobá, having been very well trained for it. Then Liz and I joined them for a street meeting outside our school there this evening and it was excellent. A short play was performed, plus song and dance to praise the Lord and then Philip preached the Gospel. How lovely it was to see a young man at the street service who had committed his life to Christ during the door-to-door evangelism earlier. He says he’ll be in church tomorrow. PTL! Please pray for him and this new effort to plant a church in Jatobá borough.

Tonight sees yet another start at planting a church in the Jatobá borough of Patos which I have been trying for about 20 years! It’s in south Patos, as opposed to north Patos where the church is, and it’s where we have our EAB Pastor Frank Dyer School. Hence we have a building… we have one young man converted in the borough over the years… and now the youth have taken up the gauntlet to do door-to-door evangelism and hold evangelistic services there. Please pray for continued persistance, blessing and many commitments to Christ this year!

Tonight we have received the blessing of another just over half an inch of rain at Green Pastures, taking us up to the total of 14.3 inches in 2018 with 40 inches being our final goal by the end of the rainy season in May/June. We have to fill up lakes and reservoirs and plant now as the second half of the year is always drought. 


I’ve worked a lot on the ‘Drug Free’ Project today and on the 4 Legs Goat Project with 4 more EAB goats going to Belém Community in Tavares County and to Macambira Community in Princesa Isabel County. I have also has other discussions with pastors and leaders.


I had meetings with the Desert Flower Project leader also. The project at the moment is being a real blessing to 22 desperately needy mums and their kids. Some are starting to ask for prayer for their lives and two actually asked prayer for “deliverance” last week! God is working in their sin torn sad lives. Please continue to pray and support.

Our tour of European churches, family, friends and supporters is now set up and here are the details in case you haven’t already seen them:

Sunday’s service in Patos was very good and there were 4 decisions for Christ at the end. PTL! When we say decisions we of course do not mean conversions as only time will tell that. They were people who raised their hands at the end of the service asking prayer in commitment to the Lord. Please pray for them.


More rain has fallen at Green Pastures this week bringing the current total for January and February to 13.6 inches. The lake is about one third full. PTL! 40 inches is our need and target. 


Now that the Carnival Camp is over we will be revamping some toilets and showers at Green Pastures including the necessary construction of one toilet for wheelchair users which we do not have and definitely need. 


The church at Princesa Isabel is EAB’s oldest church (1943) and is to be expanded. EAB will be helping towards this project too.


I am now preparing my sermon for Sunday on part of John 9. I have also had a lot of discussions and meetings with some of our church and project leaders today. 

The Carnival Camp was a real blessing with 250 present. The theme this year for the messages was: EAB/ACEV 80 years – our commitment to integral mission carries on. “Here I am, send me”! (Isaiah 6:8)


The opening message on the Saturday night was brought by Pastor Wostenes (Campina Grande) on”what integral mission is and what it is not”. On the Sunday morning his wife Gleydice spoke on the place of art and culture in the integral mission of the church. On the Sunday night Pastor Gersé (Princesa Isabel) spoke about integral mission in rural areas drilling wells etc. On Monday morning Pastor Lindon Carlos (Imaculada) laid out the Biblical Basis for Integral Mission and at night I spoke about how environmental care is part of the integral mission of the church. On Tuesday morning our Social Worker Marah Danielle (Patos) spoke about the place of the woman in the integral mission of the church and the closing service that evening heard Pastor Rafael (Teixeira) speaking about church planting and evangelism as part of integral mission. 


As well as this Bible teaching there was much great praise and worship plus leisure times, walks, sport etc. There was a parallel programme for the children which also went well.


Thanks to one and all for your support and prayers.

I have just filmed this on this Monday morning after 4 inches of rain fell last night. This now takes us up to 9 inches this year. PTL! Thank you for praying. Our aim and need is 40 inches. Let it rain!

On Friday night it rained two and a half inches at Green Pastures so this is wonderful. The best rain of the year so far! We have now nearly reached the five inch mark this year. PTL! We value your prayers for the Camp which runs until Wednesday.

This morning I had a meeting with the Federal Job Agency in Patos with a view to setting up a partnership with our Projects and Care Centre. I had a very profitable discussion with the director explaining our wide-ranging scope of projects and how one way to help people out of the poverty rut was to get them a job. This is especially difficult when someone has a drugs track record as does one man in our church, now off Crack for 20 months. PTL! We agreed a partnership in which we will send them CVs of folk from our projects needing work and I am thrilled to say that the man I mentioned got a job interview this afternoon already! PTL!


Last night’s “drug-free” project meeting was excellent. The meetings are for for people who have stopped using drugs and are fighting to stay off them, or the same for excessive alcoholism. The meetings are also to support the families of people affected by a family member on drugs or alcoholism. Last night we had people pouring their hearts out with all the stress of seeing family members under the grips of drugs or drink. It was wonderful to be able to really minister into these families. 


Liz and I continue flat out for the Carnival Camp which starts this Saturday. We expecting about 200 there and count on your prayers as we look to God for rich blessing.


The rain situation continues precarious. No rain this month yet at Green Pastures.

This is almost live film. Tarcísio’s son filmed the three quarters of an inch which has just fallen at Green Pastures. I’m sorry it’s a bit erratic! He got rather excited!

The rains are getting going here somewhat. PTL! At Itaporanga today they have received 5 inches in one bang and there has been flash flooding! Caroá has also received a total of 7 inches so far and at Green Pastures we’ve had an inch and a half. We rejoice at this, pray that these rains will go on and on, and be evenly distributed.


I have been doing stacks of work linked to EAB/ACEV projects today.

My Flickr Nature photos album has now passed the 400,000 viewings spot. If you’re interested please see: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmedcraft/


My blog, which started in 2004 when many asked me what a blog was, has now passed the 212,000 visits spot. We plod on!

It was a lovely journey to Manaíra this Saturday to preach at the final big Gospel rally in the open-air as the last public service of this year’s 10-day special Outreach. This Sunday morning the 100 strong team broke bread together in a service of thanksgiving prior to everyone heading home. 


The service was great yesterday and the sermon went down really well. The crowd present was enormous. It was lovely to chat to all the team and the leaders and get a full feel of how well the Outreach had gone and which yielded a total of 25 decisions for Christ. PTL!


The only difficult part of these Saturday night services are the long journies (about 3 hours each way) plus meetings and service etc. It meant we got to bed at 1am and we never manage to sleep in the next morning so it is tiring but well worthwhile.

This year the Outreach is being held at Manaíra and as usual I go with Liz to preach the final outdoor Gospel service message. I spent yesterday preparing for this. There have been a number of decisions for Christ during the event. PTL!


It makes for a long tiring night as we need to be back in Patos for services tomorrow and we value your prayers.


We had 9 mm of rain at Green Pastures on Thursday night and the weather forecast is good for some more rain tonight. We sure need massive abundant rain over the next months as the situation is desperate here.


We continue going flat out preparing for the Carnival Camp now just 3 weeks away. The dormitory being expanded and upgraded should be finished next week I hope. Then the car park needs to be finished off. We should just about make it with all being done prior to the Camp. All the cleaning and preparing of all the dormitories and buildings now starts. The painters are doing overtime today. We also have snake and frog researchers on site all weekend too. 


I went to the dentist’s (and survived!) this week and to my dermitologist to sort out routine skin problems which crop up as a result of the heat and my walking a lot in the bush. I also have has Action Child Project meetings and done a lot of EAB administrative work. I have also done some counselling. 

Despite January being the big holiday month here we had a good crowd in church on Sunday with a dear sister, who was born in Patos but now lives in the south, who is an excellent poet. She recited three beautiful poems in the service which were a great blessing. I then preached on John 8:1-11 and this went well. PTL! We saw that some important first-time visitors to church were greatly impacted by the Gospel! Please pray for them.


We are working flat out getting ready for the Carnival Camp. We are desperate for rain at the same time! Please pray!

Our Desert Flower (euphamism for women targeted by the project in our semi-arid region) Project goes into its 4th year in one of the hardest and poorest and most dangerous parts of Patos. The area is dominated by drug abuse and the women attended by the project all have partners involved. The project at present attends 22 women and their children. Their problems are varied as they face domestic violence, health problems, low self-esteem and spiritual involvement with the realms of darkness.


The Desert Flower Project is teaching these women handicraft skills so as to give them the capacity to have an income through its sale as an alternative to drugs. The group now approaches the stage where the marketing of their handicraft will start to happen from 2018 onwards.


Parallel to this core aspect of income generation are: 1) A psychologist working on their self esteem etc. 2) Advocacy work by our project coordinator who is Marah Danielle (an experienced socialworker) teaching them about their rights as women etc. 3) Health with voluntary nurses from our church, teaching and giving them health guidance etc. 4) The children are given basic education + Bible lessons by church volunteers. 5) Evangelism in every session for the women.


Every session of the project everyone gets a meal. Many arrive not having ate that day. We bring them in to the Care Centre / Projects Centre paying for their bus tickets and to get them home again. We fund the materials used in the handicraft lessons.


This project has always been funded by EAB + Tearfund but the challenge now is for ACEV and EAB to stand alone and fund the project as Tearfund is apparently stopping support for it for reasons known only to them. We as a church feel we can’t abandon ship with such a desperately needy community and so yesterday Liz, me and the project leader and social worker from our church, Marah Danielle, had a long meeting planning and praying for this year. We have another meeting of the full team tomorrow. So please pray and support this project. We believe in the God of miracles who will help us carry on and see people converted and transformed in the name of Jesus!

Our dear brother and long time EAB supporter Don Skivington will be layed to rest at Blackfield Cemetery on Thursday, 18th January at 1pm. This will be followed by a Celebration of Life Service at the Lighthouse Community Church at 2pm, with refreshments afterwards. We trust that EAB will be well represented. Special prayer was offered for the family in the EAB/ACEV Patos church this Sunday. 

We have just had a wonderful Watchnight service. Probably the best ever. The whole service flowed from 10 pm to 12.30 am. The P&W was great, the dance group fantastic and the sermon went very well. Straight after midnight we broke bread together and then as the service ended there was a big Brazilian hugs all round session wishing each other a happy new year. It was all wonderful.


I am now off to bed after having had supper with all the family. Most of them are still chatting but my time for bed is well overdue at nearly 2 am.

The press today carries the alarming headline on the front page that Patos, a town of 107,000 population, faces total water supply collapse in February if rains do not fall in abundance between now and then. This is because of the accumulative effect of climate change and low rainfall over years. 


Patos’s reservoirs are at rock bottom with Jatobá reservoir with just 1.9% left and Farinha reservoir reduced to 2%. Patos has long been enduring water rationing and survives today thanks to the pipepline we fought for 15 years ago. The problem is that the two joint reservoirs which feed the pipeline, Coremas and Mãe Dágua, are down to 4.27% and 3.13% respectively. 


Please pray for rain – big rain – abundant rain – monsoon rain in the first month of 2018. The consequences of no rain is unthinkable. 

Our thoughts, love and prayers are with Liz’s cousin Pearl Skivington together with her son David and daughter Hazel – whose husband/father went to be with the Lord, aged 81, early today. Hazel kindly let us know early. Pearl is the eldest daughter of Liz’s Aunt Flo.


Don was a longtime EAB supporter who first invented having the Brazilian flag at EAB AGMs and always provided them. Don was the most positive person imaginable with an amazing cheerful disposition and tireless sense of humour. It is going to be strange not having Don at EAB’s 80th celebration next September but of course we praise God that he will be celebrating at a higher level!

I’ve just got home from another meeting of the Drug Free group which seeks to help folk seeking to get free and stay free from drugs and excessive alcohol and also to help their family members affected by the situation. Tonight we had a lady in whose son has been an alcoholic for years and she was pretty much at her wits end. We listened to her, spoke to her and prayed with her. Please pray for this lady who I cannot name and her son that God might do a miracle of deliverance in his life.

We have put English subtitles on the Christmas Hamper video clip because it has such a beautiful message from such an unexpected source. Below screen to the right click on the 1st box with lines in it to opt for subtitles and then click on the cog to chose subtitles in English. I have watched this dozens of times! It is very moving!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwWpes5uSCI

I know most won’t understand the Portuguese language spoken but this short TV report on the largest Brazilian Globo TV network will give you a good picture of some of the work done today.

http://g1.globo.com/pb/paraiba/jpb-1edicao/videos/t/campina-grande/v/moradores-carentes-da-cidade-de-patos-ganham-cestas-basicas/6377281/

Liz and I were roped in to joining the kids in their festivities in church this morning! It nearly killed me but it was fun! What a joy to see the church packed with so many very poor children hearing the true Christmas story and praising Jesus!