Categoria: News

I will be speaking at EAB/ACEV’s Curral Velho (Old Cow Pen) church this Saturday. I will be having a meeting with the local and regional leaders at 5pm prior to the evening service. Our communications man Ray Santana will be going with me to do the photography. I will be preaching on “Fan into Flame the Gift of God” (2 Timothy 1:6-8). Your prayers are valued.


I led another school group round Green Pastures this morning on another educational nature trail. I altered the normal route to take in more tree shade as the heat is so unbearable in December. Schools can never get there very early which complicates things. But it was good. A family of Tropical Screech Owls posed nicely for them in a tree and a Rock Cavy also posed. The last time we had a light shower of rain at Green Pastures was on July 26th!

I have just dispatched our latest EAB Nutshell Update. If you have not received it and would like to please email us at eabrazil@gmail.com

I have a meeting with the Patos Bible College leaders this afternoon in my advisory capacity which I now have with the College. Sadly the College is going through difficult days.

Today we had 38.4º C (101.1º F) with extremely low air humidity of just 12% which is dangerously low – I am told lower than the Sahara Desert. It means any walking at Green Pastures will now have to be done earlier than ever. I think the next time I go I will sleep there so as to be there ready to walk from 4 am to no later than 8 am. For in the northern hemisphere you now have short days and ours are long with it getting light at 4.

We had a great service in the Patos church tonight. The church was full as usual and there was a real blessing on the P&W and ministry of the word.

I have been to Tarcísio’s father’s wake this afternoon at a small holding not far from Green Pastures. I will be conducting the funeral service at 7 am tomorrow. It’s not everyday you get to do a funeral at that time!


In the afternoon this Saturday I will travel to Campina Grande and back, which is two and a half hours each way, to speak at the EAB/ACEV Bible College’s graduation and 15th anniversary service.

I left as planned for the well inauguration in Tavares County yesterday afternoon but on the way was hit by a drunk driver at Água Branca. Fortunately I managed to brake sufficiently to minimise damage and impact and nobody was hurt. The man was driving an old truck with no rear section on it apart from the chassis, and had no lights or indicators. He said to me afterwards that he had only had “3 beers”! He went on to insist that he had fixed an EAB/ACEV lorry the previous day which we don’t have! He certainly was the worse for drink. Anyway our Jeep received a damaged radiator with the impact so I had to get it towed back to Patos for repairs.


Now this morning Tarcísio’s father at Green Pastures has died aged 87. It has been really ill for a long time and had had both legs amputated. Please pray for Tarcísio and family. I am awaiting news from Tarcísio regarding when the funeral will be as I expect I will conduct that. I was hoping to do another well inauguration today in Princesa Isabel County but await the funeral details so as to know what I will be doing. Your prayers are valued.

The Soup Run last week went very well and reached out to desperately poor and hungry people. We always distribute Gospel tracts with the food too.


I held an exposition of some of my nature photos all week which attracted a total of 2,000 people from all walks of life ranging from judges and medical doctors to teachers and very poor children. It was a wonderful opportunity to estimulate greater care of God’s creation. There was a real impact on the population.


On Wednesday Liz and I enjoyed our 48th wedding anniversary by the grace of God.


From Friday to Sunday the EAB/ACEV Youth held their annual Youth Conference at Princesa Isabel and this was a real blessing.


The Sunday services went well in Patos. I continued my series of sermons in John’s Gospel and am nearly at the end of chapter 7.


We extended the nature photographs exhibition to Tuesday (yesterday) owing to popular demand and especially moving was to have the deaf on the Monday evening present and on the final day the Special Needs School came. The great challenge was to make the experience work for the blind! So I gave them graphic descriptions of each photo and relevant stories with special sound effects attached to them and they really loved it. It was a very moving experience.


Tonight the ‘Drug Free’ group is in action. We really need to pray for the group.


Tomorrow and Friday I will be inaugurating new wells in Tavares and Princesa Isabel Counties and holding thanksgiving services with the preaching of the Gospel at each place. Then on Saturday I will be ministering at our Campina Grande Bible College before getting back to Patos for ministry on Sunday. Your prayers are valued.

Please note that my QPR Teddy insisted on being on the video. Please give him a wave whilst you watch!

Please be at EAB’s 79th Annual Celebration this Saturday (Nov. 11th) to be held at the Lighthouse Community Church, Hardley, Southampton, SO45 3NZ. There will be a fellowship tea at 6pm and the Celebration will start at 7pm. 

Saturday night’s service at Green Pastures went very well. 42 present in a rural area on a Saturday night is not bad! We had all the people doing their bits in the service and then I preached the Gospel. It was a refreshing night blessed of the Lord.


On Sunday I took the Communion Service in Patos which also went very well. During the week we had done quite a lot of counselling with folk from the church.


On this Monday (6th) we took off for João Pessoa again. Another 4 to 4.5 hour drive. This was for Liz to have her second cataract surgery on Tuesday morning. This went off fine and we travelled back to Patos yesterday (Wednesday). 


Also during this week I wrote our annual report for the EAB Board of trustees, in time for this weekend’s Board Meeting and EAB celebration. We also made a video message for the service. We hope you can be there!

My plan for yesterday was to concentrate on preparing my message for the Green Pastures church on Saturday and for the Patos church this Sunday. However things often don’t work according to plan.


First of all a community leader asked for a meeting in my office to discuss the state of the Patos River Espinharas which is polluted and in a terrible state. I have long been campaigning about this.


Then came a series of eventually three people from the church for counselling, which took up most of the morning and afternoon. Eventually I got to working on my message for Saturday and press on today with this and my Sunday message.


However this afternoon I will drive Liz back to the coast (4 to 4.5 hours) to see her cataract surgeon first thing in the morning. Thankfully Liz is doing very well and I am sure her doctor will be thrilled with what she sees as Liz’s operated eye looks perfect – and after all I put the drop in every three hours so have monitored it closely since surgery last Thursday. I hope the surgeon will set the date to do the other eye tomorrow. It will be nice for Liz to get it all done. We hope to travel back to Patos tomorrow latish. Thanks for your prayers.

Statistics just out show that there were 61,619 murders in Brazil in 2016 maintaining a rate of 7 per hour! The worst area is Brazil’s northeast! Your prayers are always valued.

Saturday ministering at Teixeira went very well and yesterday in Patos too. Both services were excellent. Last night the Patos church was very full and especially moving was the deaf fellowship’s participation in the services together with the interpreters. The dance group also brought a very impactive presentation. I preached on the 500 years of the Reformation.


Tomorrow we go back to João Pessoa for a check-up on Liz’s eye operation. Praise God she is fine.


On Saturday I will be preaching at the Green Pastures church and will be back preaching at the Communion service in Patos on the Sunday.

Liz had a cataract removed from one eye today and an artificial lense inserted. All went well here in João Pessoa and we plan to return to Patos in the morning. Liz will have the other eye done as soon as possible. We value your prayers.


Last Sunday’s service was excellent. Preaching on “eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood” (John 6) was challenging, especially in the catholic context in which we work, but the Lord really blessed.


On Tuesday the drama group had a fantastic opportunity for the Gospel as they were invited to perform our missions play (that I wrote together with Liz and our drama leader Dilma) in the Patos open-air theatre as part of the town’s 114th anniversary celebrations. It went extremely well reaching a very large crowd. So well did it go that the group has been invited to perform our Christmas play (which I wrote about 30 years ago and which is being revived this year) in the same venue during Christmas week – so another great opening for the Gospel. PTL!


On Saturday I will be preaching at our Teixeira church up in the mountains and on Sunday I will be preaching on Reformation Sunday – being the nearest Sunday to 500 years on from October 31st 1517. The deaf and choreography groups will be taking part in the service. As Luther said, “Hear I stand”! And here we stand too in our belief in the supremacy of Christ, the Bible, salvation through faith in the grace of God which leads us to live exclusively for His glory! (Scripture alone – Faith alone – Grace alone – Christ alone – All glory to God alone)

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


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


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

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


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

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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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


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

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


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


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


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