Categoria: News

For those of you who know Nenem please pray for her right now as she has just lost her mother who was quite young. Nenem is the young woman who looks after our grandaughters Alice and Bia when their mum Sacha is working. She has been doing this work for years and is very much part of the family and more like an adopted daughter to Liz and I. Nenem’s mum was diagnosed with cancer a few months back and finally lost the battle. Nenem is beside herself with grief. Please pray.

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I led the service this morning which had an early start, owing to the elections, at 8am. It was a really lovely service with even one visitor in to hear the Gospel. PTL! I preached on Colossions 1:1-14 and it flowed great. God is good. 


After the service Liz went with Sister Socorro Help to her Mother’s funeral to support her and I went to vote. Voting was very quick today as there were only two votes to make, as opposed to 5 last time. So now we await the results this evening which with the change in clocks in the UK means we should have the result for Governor at about 10pm (UK time) and midnight (UK time) for President. The UK is only 3 hours ahead of us now.


News from João Pessoa is of rampant vote buying by the candidate trying to defeat the incumbent governor. Sadly he never changes! In general it would seem that things are peaceful around the country. We watch and pray.

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In less than two hours the polling stations will open in Paraíba State where we will be voting in the second round of the general election for State Governor and National President. The top two candidates from round one on October 5th now will find out who is to be the Governor and President for the next 4 years. I am voting for both incumbant candidates – Ricardo and Dilma.


In the light of the election we will be having our service today at 8am so I will have my breakfast now and then head for church. May God bless you this Sunday!

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I have just got home with Liz from a wake where a 91 year old lady is laying in her coffin and will be buried tomorrow morning. She is the mother of Sister Socorro Help – a member of our Patos church. 


The atmosphere at the wake is indescribable! It is total spiritual darkness. It is absolute oppression. 


I have been to hundreds of catholic wakes over the years… but this was so so different! It hit me the minute I walked in the house. It was like a flashback to the middle ages!


The dead woman was probably one of the leading… perhaps the leader… of radical middle age Mariological ranty catholicism. Catholicism at its worst. The catholic taliban. Liz tells me she has been receiving letters from this woman for years trying to convert her to Mary!


At the wake one shift after another of chanting women, all glassy eyed, keep chanting memorized prayers. It is haunting. It is oppressive. It is spiritual darkness. Everything is Mary. They are all dressed in identical blouses with Mary written all over them.


I thought within one minute of getting in the place… get me out of here… this is serious oppression. Then God spoke to my heart and said: “Look what I have done for Socorro Help (our church member – the daughter)! I have saved her from this together with her family”! And not only saved her but kept her for years despite intense pressure from the taliban! Lord have mercy! Thank you Jesus for your grace! I could almost hear Luther shouting out: “The just shall live by faith”! “He who the Son sets free is free indeed”!


We went and visited Socorro Help to talk to her and pray with her and she commented that she can’t stand it at her own mother’s wake. Please remember this dear sister and her family in your prayers! Her son is married and they go to our church but the taliban tell them they are not married and are living in sin because they weren’t married in a catholic church! Boy… Patos sure needs the Gospel!

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The second and final stage of the Brazilian general elections will be tomorrow, with voting from 8am to 5pm. We will be voting for the State Governor of Paraíba and the national President. I have long declared my support for the re-election of the Governor of Paraíba – my friend Ricardo Coutinho. I will of course be voting for him and hoping and praying for success as he has been a fantastic governor in his first term of office and we badly need him to carry on the good work. He has, for example, over the past 4 years tarmacked more roads than could ever have been imagined! This is a fantastic help to EAB as we can get round the field so much easier and quicker. Places like Curral Velho and Passagem are now reached by tarmacked roads. It is wonderful! Even the road which links Ibiara to Manaíra has been tarmacked and that was an unbelievably terrible road.


I have only this morning declared my vote for president as this has been a much more difficult decision to take. I will be voting for the re-election of President Dilma. The decision has been difficult because on the one hand I have long recognized the tremendous social benefits to the poor that her party has brought since it came to power 12 years ago. On the other hand they have serious internal problems with corruption and some positions which I do not like as a Christian. However one never finds the ideal candidate so weighing everything up I have come to the conclusion that the work done for the poor is outstanding and this has tipped the balance and decided my vote.


Having declared my vote I said on facebook that I am just being up front, but will not get involved in arguments about the matter and asked people to respect this. Those who don’t – like one brother who has told me that evangelicals couldn’t possible vote for the re-election of Dilma – and went on with loads of arguments about different things – has had his comments eliminated from my page as I am just not going to be drawn in to arguments about this. I have prayed and thought and read a lot for weeks to bring me to my decision which I take very seriously – so there we are.


We should have the result for Governor probably by 7pm tomorrow (11pm UK time) and the result for President about 9pm I would guess (1am UK time). We watch and pray.


I have just heard that Sister Socorro Help’s mother has died. Sister Socorro Help is a member of our church and her mother was a staunch Roman Catholic in her 90s. The funeral will be at 8am tomorrow morning which is the same time as our church service – so we will have to somehow do both. Liz has just gone charging over to Sister Socorro Help to support her as she is …

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As I am on the road I have little time to blog and I am very tired. I got to Conceição at about 8pm last night and was out birding all day with my friend Fred. I will be off again in the morning early at 4.30am. It has been a very good day with my tally of bird registers in Brazil passed the 300 mark at 301. Today I photographed 3 new species of large woodpeckers! Absolutely beautiful!

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Having had my series of routine bi-monthlyish blood tests done this morning I have survived to live another day despite a morning with an empty arm! The results thus far received online are excellent:


Glucose before breakfast 5.5 / Glucose HBA1C 5.3% / Thyroid T4+TSH levels correct / Cholesterol fine. So PTL!


I have been working on a variety of administrative issues and will be shortly going on a bit of a trip with my Baptist pastor friend who is a nature lover like myself, so I will keep you informed of any good sightings or discoveries.

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QPR scored 4 but lost 3 x 2 to Liverpool with 2 own goals. Vargas was brought on with 12 minutes to go and scored twice for the Rrrrs. Definitely lock up ‘Arry in some place for treatment! It’s no good talking about who deserved what. Football is won by who scores more goals and that’s it. But it was heartbreaking to lose it like we did after coming back from behind twice. Very sad. By the way Balotelli is a pathetic replacement at Liverpool for Luiz Soares. Luckily for him the QPR defenders put the ball in the net when he couldn’t despite an open goal.


Oh well – that leaves Rangers more rock bottom than ever. I think I’ve seen this film before.

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Anybody who is able to and would like to donate to the work of EAB (Evangelical Action Brazil) can please do so online at http://www.eabrazil.com/ . The Mission has worked in NE Brazil for 76 years and has an integral mission vision for the work of the Church of Jesus Christ. That is: we believe in and seek to live out preaching and practicing the Gospel – which is the whole of God’s message of love for the whole man – body, soul and spirit. It’s no good just talking about it – you’ve got to DO it!

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There’s half an hour to the QPR x Liverpool kick-off and ‘Arry has made 5 changes, but still leaves Vargas on the bench who scored 2 for Chile last week! Why buy him? If ‘Arry can’t cope with Spanish speakers who aren’t fluent in Cockney it is a problem. Oh well! My forecast is 0 x 1 at half-time and 1 x 3 full-time. I can’t see us getting even a draw but I hope I’m wrong of course.


I have done a good bit of exercise in the pool this morning early. I need to round off my sermon for tonight in Patos now. Looking forward to it. I love preaching more and more!

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An album of photos of the EAB Celebration is now available at https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil

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The annual EAB Celebration has just ended and it was really good. The P&W was excellent and a good number of supporters turned up. The live Skype link worked well as it has done so all day. Thanks to everyone who made the effort to be there. It is encouraging and appreciated. I felt free and well preaching. PTL!

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I have just finished taking part in the EAB Board meeting via Skype and all went very well. Many important subjects were discussed like adjustments to the Action Child programme in 2015 and general discussion on the annual field report.


Now it’s all stations go for the buffet tea at 5.30pm (I filled Hazel in with some last minute recipes) and then the 76th annual Celebration starting at 7pm. May God bless us all!

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I did not have a good night’s sleep. I had my first Hypoglycemia (low glucose level in the blood) crisis for a long time. I had a shower before going to bed and then started to shake and felt awful. I immediatly checked my blood glucose level and it was the lowest I’ve recorded ever since I was diagnosed a diabetic. I then ate and drank appropriately and within an hour I was back to normal. However it messed up my night which was very disturbed and I only managed about 4 hour’s sleep.


Nevertheless I am now all ready to roll in the office with the EAB Board meeting in half and hour’s time. My message is also prepared for tonight’s EAB celebration and I have nearly finished the preparation of my sermon for tomorrow in Patos.


Watch this space and I’ll let you know how the Board meeting goes!

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I went to Green Pastures twice today so today was a very good day! I love going there and it relaxes me so much and makes me feel good. This morning I went for a nice long walk along the track following the river bed downstream (if there was a stream!) from the dam and soon walked into two Limpkins (large aquatic birds) which I hadn’t seen around for a long time. They were gone in a flash before I could snap them, but I have set up my automatic infra-red camera in the pond by the dam where they must be hanging out. I then walked up past the “Woman’s Rock” and up right round the lake coming back down to the dam in the shade of the Tamarind trees, laden with fruits, as far as the dam again where I had started.


This afternoon I returned to Green Pastures because I had a message from the Environmental authorities telling me they would be arriving with more birds to set free at Green Pastures. It was lovely doing this and then having an excellent long chat with the leading environmentalist of the 3-man team which came.


The church ceiling was finished late last night, so I am very pleased about this too! The new aluminium window frames are now being fitted and the painters press on too. The work is progressing extremely well. PTL!


I have prepared most of my sermon for Sunday night in Patos so that is good. Tomorrow I will be speaking at the EAB annual Celebration via Skype and taking part in the EAB Board meeting earlier in the day. I’m looking forward to all this and hope to see you at the Celebration.

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The new ceiling in the Patos church is nearly completed and certainly will be finished by tomorrow, possibly today. It really does give you the feeling that finally we are getting there! You can see it at https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil

I have already set aside two weekends as our options for the church re-opening celebrations; either November 29th & 30th or December 13th & 14th. On the Saturday the ‘Tenda do Encontro’ P&W group (whose CDs and DVDs many will have) have reserved both Saturdays for us and the Patos Worship team will lead on the Sunday. We can’t define which weekend it will be as we don’t know yet how long all the finishing off final details are going to take, but obviously we would prefer the November weekend if possible.


Thanks to everyone for their prayers and for all those who helped us financially achieve this tremendous achievement for the glory of God!

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2
days to go to the 76th annual EAB Celebration – this Saturday (18/10) –
5.30pm (buffet/chat) & 7pm (Celebration). Liz and I will be the speakers live direct from NE Brazil with the latest breaking
news! The place to be is the Lighthouse Community Church, Hardley,
Southampton, SO45 3NZ. We look forward to seeing you there!

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This morning the investigation into how Bia became so ill last night is certainly going to be carried out! It was scary! The poor kid was apparently unconscious for about an hour and a half and when she eventually came round and came home from hospital it wasn’t until 3.30 am that her temperature got above the lowest point on the thermometer at 35ºC.


Anyway she is fine this morning, but Liz and Sacha slept little all night. We thank the Lord for bringing little Bia through this.


Yesterday I finished the preparation of my message for the EAB Celebration on Saturday so that is good. Please don’t forget to be there if you can!

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Our granddaughter Bia has just been rushed to hospital by her mum Sacha and Liz. The doctor is keeping her in under observation. She has now come round, thankfully, as previously she was out like a light. Her blood pressure is very low so clearly too much medication was given her I would guess. Please continue to pray urgently.

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Please pray for our 4 year old granddaughter Beatriz (Bia) who has suddenly become quite dramatically unwell. She was fine this afternoon and then developed a 38ºC fever and was medicated by a doctor. However it is as if she has reacted to the medication or it was too strong for her and she looks really poorly. Please pray urgently!

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Ben Price is the pastor of the EAB/ACEV church in Ibiara and he has been into Patos today so we have been able to have a good chat about all sorts of aspects of the work here. Very good. Sad that he keeps on “blowing bubbles”, but apart from that he’s fine!


I am preparing my message for the EAB Celebration on Saturday today. I have started and will now endeavour to press on. I value your prayers.


The Patos church ceiling installation is progressing well, having started yesterday morning. The company doing this is saying it will complete the ceiling by tomorrow night so that will be good. The workers start early in the morning, work till 8pm and then sleep on the job! Amazing stuff!

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EAB’s
76th annual Celebration will be held this Saturday at the Lighthouse
Community Church, Hardley Green, Hardley, Southampton, SO45 3NZ. 5:30pm:
celebration buffet and chat.
7pm: service with special guests – John & Elizabeth Medcraft, live on video link from Patos, Brazil. Don’t miss it!

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I have just seen the great news that this coming weekend QPR has one of those easy games… at home to Liverpool! Flippin Aida! May the Lord help us! I’ll think about my forecast to put on the QPR fans page but it’s a question of guessing by how many goals we will lose? The mind boggles! Oh dear! The team is in disarray – Ferdinand came from Man. Utd but should have retired – and Vargas, who scored twice for Chile last week is not even picked to play. Please get your act together ‘Arry and quick or else I’m gonna be over there at Loftus Road to fix you!

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I had a much better night’s sleep last night than the night before (which was awful – don’t know why) so feel good this morning. How apparently insignificant is this matter but in fact so important a good night’s sleep!


Our crowd of young people got back from the Youth Conference in Ceará State late last night. I just saw Gyl quickly who said all had gone well. I should get more detail later today. Gyl came to pick up Lucas who stayed with us over the weekend and was a very good lad despite being without his Mum!


I have understood thus far that the Youth Conference was different (yet to understand what this means!), good and that there were a number of decisions for Christ at the event from the population of Nova Olinda in Ceará – so PTL for that.


News from my Mum’s 90th birthday knees up is that all went extremely well. Mum forgets most things these days, but remembered some people, all the words of the hymns they sang with all her friends at the home, and all the words of the national anthem. There’s a lovely photo taken yesterday at her party on https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil


Last night’s service in the Patos church went well though numbers were down. I think everybody will be glad to get back into our church next month! My sermon went well and Sacha did very well with the P&W just with one chap on an acoustic guitar as everyone else was away at the Youth Conference.


I need now to work on preparing my message for the EAB Celebration this Saturday. Don’t forget to be there!

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The Parable of the Ten Virgins will be the text for my sermon in the Patos church this evening. I spent all day yesterday preparing it. This is sermon number 7 in a series on the Parables of Jesus.


Today is my dear Mum’s 90th birthday. There will be a little party at her home at 2pm organised by my sister Jean. A few friends and family members are expected. Happy Birthday Mum!


Today is Brazil’s patron saint day which we ignore of course. More importantly it is celebrated as Children’s Day here too.


The EAB/ACEV Youth Conference continues in Ceará today. Philip arrived there at the nearby airport ahead of schedule only for the people who picked him up to turn up late! Oh boy! I have not received any more news as yet on the Conference.

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The birds have flown (or are flying) is a reference to the youth group from Patos which left a little after 6.30pm for the State of Ceará for the annual EAB/ACEV Youth Conference. The group is travelling under the leadership of Philip’s wife Gylmara. They should arrive at their destination sometime around midnight. Liz went to see the mini-bus load off and asked the driver if he had the directions. He replied that he knew he had to drive them to Nova Olinda in Ceará State, but it soon became apparent that nobody knew the address! A frantic phone call to the local pastor soon sorted that out!


Philip is also flying to the same destination from New York via Miami, Recife & Juazeiro do Norte – so a slightly different and longer route, but he should join all at the Conference by tomorrow afternoon as long as all the connections work out as planned. At least his first flight out of New York was on schedule.


I went to Green Pastures early today and then got back to Patos to finalize some document details for the environmental people. Next week we are expecting more birds to be set free at Green Pastures by the Government body responsible for this.

We have now received two of the three missing Action Schools report packages so this means Sacha can get stuck into translating it all next week. Just one School has not come into line as yet.

I’ve been contacted by the biggest “Globo” Brazilian TV network wanting to interview me next month.

My throat is still not completely better, but I am preparing to preach on Sunday by faith. I feel a bit rough still.

I looked over the church refurbishment project in Patos this afternoon as on Monday the ceiling team moves in to put it up in a week together with acoustic panels we are going to install on some walls. The whole church has now been rewired, the sound equipment re-cabled and renewed and a new burglar alarm system set up. All this mass of wires (well organized) is now in place and will be above the ceiling. We certainly are on target for a return to our beloved church by Christmas as planned and thank everyone who is praying and who has donated to this cause or is still going to. Things are extremely tight, but we are nearly there. Liz is being fantastic with this project. The iron lady or the rock of Gibraltar might be appropriate terms to use to describe her.

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Liz and I went out to Green Pastures quickly this afternoon to bring into Patos 15 mattresses for the youth from the church to take to Ceará tomorrow to sleep at the Youth Conference.


Whilst there I fixed up a makeshift filter for the pump which we have now installed with a little water fountain for the wild birds. The problem is that with so many trees around the leaves fall and block up the pump. I pinched a plastic sieve from Liz’s kitchen and fixed it with rocks on top of the 150cm pipe in which the pump is positioned. I hope my invention works! The water fountain is in the meeting hall area for those who know Green Pastures. 


We’ve had some tense moments this week with some Action School leaders who are behind with their reports / letters / photos for sponsors. The deadline given them by Sacha to send them to her was August 8th and on October 8th I opened fire on the schools who have still not sent their report packages and they did not like it. We will be having meetings during the rest of the year to revamp this project and adjust where necessary. Please pray.

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I covered lots of ground this morning. It was good to see the level of satisfaction with the event at the Patos Bible College yesterday. (photo at https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil)


I have also had discussions about different aspects of EAB’s Action Child Schools, both with the Patos Secretary of Education as with EAB/ACEV leaders.


I have also discussed the possible building of a little church at the ex-slave community of Fonseca and supplied photos for the Itaporanga Council who want to feature EAB/ACEV on the front cover of a magazine linked to the town’s 150th anniversary celebrations coming soon.


This Sunday will be my dear Mum’s 90th birthday – bless her heart. My sister Jean has organised a little party for her. I would have been there for it had it not been my time of illness earlier in the year.

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My throat continues as croaky as ever! I value your prayers.


I went for a walk at Green Pastures as it was an overcast morning and I felt with my RTI I shouldn’t have much sun. It was nice to relax a bit.


Please pray for our youth all travelling to their annual conference on Friday – this year in the State of Ceará. It’s quite a long way to travel for many, but we trust it will be well worthwhile and greatly blessed. Philip has a very tight schedule to get there direct from New York, where he’s working this week, so please pray for his connections to go smoothly.


The Patos Bible College has had a special Conference day today open to the general public as we do each semester. It was really blessed. PTL!


The snake I photographed at night during the leadership conference at Green Pastures has now been identified as a Banded Cat-eyed snake. You can see it at https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmedcraft/ 

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My infected throat meant I wasn’t able to travel today to minister at Ibiara. I am speaking as little as possible and taking antibiotics.


Yesterday evening it rained half an inch in Patos (not at Green Pastures unfortunately) and a temporary cold front came in with it. Liz and I were freezing at 21ºC when we went to bed! 


Please pray for the EAB/ACEV Youth Conference to be held this week in Ceará. Philip will be getting back from New York on Saturday and flying straight to the event. Your prayers are valued.

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The day after the Brazilian elections has left me a lot to think about. The race for governor of Paraíba is finely balanced – neck and neck! What concerns me are reports filtering though to me about rampant corruption and vote buying in this process. If such reports are confirmed it will sadden me greatly as we have worked so hard to combat this and it also makes a mockery of democracy.


In the presidential race the current left-wing president starts the second round with a big advantage over the centre-right candidate. However that is far from decided either as people are happy with the left’s help to the poor but unhappy with their party’s corruption. On the other hand the centre-right candidate has a pretty dodgy track record too. People are starting to ask me who to vote for and I am saying I’m praying and thinking! 


Today I have written and sent to the EAB UK Board of Trustees the annual report and appraisal document for the AGM on October 18th. Please do be there for the Celebration with the 5.30pm eats + 7pm service. Liz and I will be speaking via Skype from Brazil.


People are asking me what happened regarding my Islamic article which made me take it off the secular news site here and keep it only on my blog in Portuguese? What happened is that I was receiving lots of racist hate comments on an awful scale! My article, as you can see if you translate it on my Portuguese language blog, was mild and more a challenge to the evangelical church to wake up than anything else. However there are people here that hold the Brits as responsible for Crusades in the middle ages and for anything colonial done by us. The USA and others get put in the same basket. There were many here who cheered at 9/11. Brazil’s current president Dilma said last month at the United Nations that Brazil is against the 50 or so country alliance of nations fighting ISIS and that we should be holding a dialogue with them! In other words when we talk about Islamic radicalism many here say that we are the cause of it!


We need to pray and wake up about Islamism! God has woken me up through the BBC and I am not intending on going back to sleep!

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With the Brazilian election results now almost all in we know that we will have second round run-off elections for President and State Governor here in Paraíba on October 26th – 3 weeks today. The system works so that when no candidate has a a clear majority then the top two in round one go into a run-off.


President Dilma has thus far received 41.45% of the votes and Aécio Neves came second with 33,71%. Our Christian candidate sadly only came third with 21.28%. (98.59% of the votes have now been counted)


Here in Paraíba State it is much tighter with the present excellent governor receiving 46.05% of the votes and his opponent Cássio (previously removed from office when a governor on another occasion owing to his corruption!) received 47.44%. (99.95% of the votes have been counted)


My impression is that Dilma will be returned to power as president, but the battle for the State of Paraíba is too close to call. I will certainly vote for the present governor Ricardo again, but who I will vote for for president will need a lot of thought. 


So it’s been a tough day and adding to everything else QPR lost again and are firmly cemented at the bottom of the Premiership again and heading full steam ahead for the Championship in 2015. Calls amongst supporters for the manager to go are growing. Sooner, rather than later, would be best in my opinion, before we lose all touch with the pack.

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Everything is very tense here as the election results begin to emerge. Tension in Paraíba is especially high because there was chaos in João Pessoa during the voting as many voting machines did not work. Thus many voters gave up waiting for the machines to be fixed and did not vote. This is especially serious as it is the main source of votes for the present governor. Many are openly accusing the opposition of sabotage and thus fraud. May the Lord help us. 


Up to this moment 54.1% of the ballot boxes have been counted and the opposition candidate leads with 47.8% of the votes as opposed to the present governor who has 45,51% of the votes. We watch and pray.


No partial results for president have been released as yet.

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I have already been to church and conducted the communion service at 8am. It went off beautifully. Prior to this I watched the BBC documentary “My Brother the Terrorist” at just after 6am which I had already watched yesterday at midday. I have only just realized that my tweet about the documentary last week was re-tweeted by the film’s director!


Today 142 million Brazilians are eligible to vote for the president for the next 4 years and about 3 million are eligible to vote for the governor of Paraíba. I voted on the way home from church. The results should be available this evening. It is a very fast electronic system, although I am hearing reports of lots of breakdowns in the equipment in João Pessoa which is alarming. 


QPR will be playing at West Ham a bit later and my forecast is for a win for the Rangers 2 x 1. It is just a hunch I have that the Rrrrs will win and certainly not a scientific calculation!

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Patos is very noisy today, on the eve of the general election, with candidates and their teams going round in vehicles with loads of huge loudspeakers blasting everyone with their candidates’ songs and calling people to vote for them. When it get’s to this point you feel you’ll be glad when it’s all over! However if the elections for president and governor go to a run-off on the 26th then we will have 3 further weeks to endure!


I have been preparing a word for tomorrow morning’s 8am communion service, but I am not quite sure how this is going to work out as my throat is no better.


I watched the second BBC documentary on Islamism today – ‘My Brother the Terrorist’ (broadcast in the UK on BBC 3 – April 2014). It was very good and enlightening, but not as good as the previous ‘My Brother the Isamist’ (broadcast on BBC 3 in April 2011). To start with today’s 50 minute documentary has no participation from the islamist brother Richard Dart from Weymouth because he is in jail on terrorist related charges and would not receive his step-brother when in prison. Today’s sequel also lacked the surprise elements about conversion to Islam etc. that were present in the previous film. Nevertheless there were still good insights into possible factors which aid the islamic recruitment process plus two face-to-face encounters with so called “hate preacher” Anjem Choudary. These documentaries are very important and I hope to be able to obtain a copy of both on DVD or the likes.

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I am happy to have just received the following reply from Sarah Baines of the BBC World News audience relations team:

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The BBC documentary ‘My Brother the Terrorist’ will be shown on BBC World News at 4.10pm this Saturday (UK time). It traces the story of a young man converting to Islamism in Weymouth, becoming radicalized and ending up in jail on terrorist related charges. I certainly am not going to miss this fantastic sequel to last week’s ‘My Brother the Islamist’.

This blog has now reached the 130,000 visits mark! Many thanks to one and all.

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I have a painful throat which became worse after I gave the Bible study last night in the Patos church.


This morning I made a brief visit to Green Pastures prior to visiting my doctor.


I have instructed the secular news media, which asked to publish what I have written on Islamism on my blog, to remove the article from their site because I have been suffering such unbelievable verbal and racial abuse in reaction to the article. The article is on my blog and what I would consider to be very mild – bringing a challenge to the evangelical church. This week has been an enormous eye-opener about attitudes of some people here. Unbelievable! I will continue to write about the matter on my blog where I can control abuse. I will not be silent on the matter. It is a major challenge to the whole world.


All this started as a result of a BBC documentary I saw called “My Brother, the Islamist” – which is brilliant and amazing. This weekend I will watch the sequel: “My Brother, the Terrorist” and will comment next week. Please pray.

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The Islamic debate, which has resulted from my article on the subject, first in my Portuguese language blog and then in the secular press, is taking on totally unforseen proportions! Having received 2 attacks and 1 defence in comments on the site, I have now had a further big attack, including a lot of racist insinuations, then another attack, followed by a further 4 defences! Crumbs! 550 people have read my article on the secular site thus far. Your prayers are valued.


Election fever grips the nation as the big day on Sunday approaches. It looks like the Paraíba governor has every chance of being reelected, but the Christian presidential candidate seems to have it tougher. Ideally Ricardo Coutinho, the present governor, will be elected on Sunday in the first round. For that he has to receive 50% + 1 votes. He won in the second round last time. As regards Marina Silva, the Christian candidate – she needs to get to the second round and then face the current president Dilma in a straight dispute which would be decided on October 26th. We watch and pray (and vote)!

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Please pray for the EAB Annual Celebration to be held on Saturday, October 18th. Please plan to be there as well. The event will be held at the Lighthouse Community
Church, Hardley, Southampton, SO45 3NZ. The traditional ‘chat while you nibble
& sip’ time will start at 5.30pm and the Celebration will start at 7pm. Liz
and I will be the speakers via Skype from Brazil. 

Go on! Go mad! Go to church on Saturday as well as Sunday! Radical stuff!

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I am preparing for tonight’s Bible study this morning.


I have just received the news that our pastor in Ceará, whom I mentioned in the EAB Nutshell Update yesterday, lost his father in the early hours of today. We knew he had been ill for some time. Please pray for pastor Márcio Muniz at Nova Olinda in the the state of Ceará.


Philip flies to New York on business at the weekend. We will miss his help in the church and in general.


This Sunday we will have one service only at 8am owing to the elections. It will be the monthly communion service which I will lead and preach at.


Please pray for Brazil at this critical moment. These elections are of great importance for the future of this vast country.

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I was up at 5.20am and went out to Green Pastures. I managed to photograph the Fulvous Whistling Duck which I have been searching for over a period of years and sort of accidentally photographed it on our lake on Monday. I was photographing something else and only noticed the creature when back home on the computer screen. Hence I had a hunch I would find it today and could then get a better photo of it. I indeed found a pair of these quite large ducks and got a good photograph. You can see on flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmedcraft/15409949521/


I wrote, produced and dispatched the EAB Nutshell Update today. I am rather inundated with work.


My article on Islamism, which I wrote on my Portuguese language blog, and which was then requested by the secular press, has been causing a bit of a stir. I received criticism from a journalist in Sousa, a town 2 hours west of Patos, and then a Catholic Friar. However now an evangelical expert on the subject has defended me – so it’s all happening.


The BBC documentary which sparked off my writing the article will air the sequel to it this weekend and I definitely want to watch it as the first one was brilliant. The first was “My Brother, the Islamist” and the second will be “My Brother, the Terrorist”.

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I have done quite a lot of work linked to the Patos Bible College today. We had some things outstanding from May and finally we seem to be getting everyone’s act together! Liz and I endeavour to take on a more advisory counselling role in the College leaving younger one’s to take on the detailed nitty-gritty. I was principal for 17 and a half years and Liz has been treasurer for a long time now. Hopefully by next month we will have it all sorted.


With the general elections in Brazil this Sunday there’s a lot to pray about. I have been working quite a bit on political matters. We have to elect a president, governor, senator, federal deputy and state deputy – so there will be 5 votes to cast and all, as usual, via eletronic ballot boxes. I have decided on my 5 candidates. It looks like the president Dilma will be re-elected, but she is facing a strong challenge from a very good well balanced pentecostal evangelical Christian called Marina Silva. I will be voting for Marina Silva. I will also be voting for the re-election of our state governor Ricardo Coutinho who served a superb first term of office.


I have prayed a lot for the Iraque/Syria situation today. It is unbelievable that the west let things get so out of hand. Though a supporter of Barack Obama usually, this time I am sure he has dithered far too long and have written to tell him so. I have also written to complain to the BBC who is giving little and poor coverage of events in the middle-east. I pray for God to overule in that terrible situation.

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May God help us! I have just watched the BBC documentary ‘My Brother – The Islamist’ and it is one of the most alarming things I have seen in a long time showing how extreme fundamentalist Islamism is growing in the UK. The brother in question from Weymouth in Dorset is an articulate intelligent fanatic utterly devoted to promoting his version of Islam at any cost. He is now in prison for inciting terrorism in the UK.


Having watched this 45 minute documentary makes me realise why the UKIP party is fuelled to expand in the UK. The whole issue of Islam, Sharia law etc. is a terrific challenge to the very fabric of democratic pluralistic societies the world over. May God help Christians to wake up and be more active and devoted to the Faith in a tolerant, loving and peaceful way.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3csxc0b

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EAB’s annual celebration will we held this year on Saturday, October 18th at 7pm – so it’s just 3 weeks away. It will be held at the Lighthouse Community Church, Hardley Green, Southampton, SO45 3NZ. I will be the speaker via Skype. Please plan to be there!

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I forecast Southampton would beat QPR 3 x 1 today and it was slightly better at 2 x 1. Oh well… at least they did a bit better overall. Nothing else to say about it.


I spent all morning working flat out on my sermon for tomorrow. I will preach on the third of the 7 “I am” statements by Jesus in John’s Gospel. This time it is 10:9 and “I am the door”. The preparation is going well and I am two-thirds done. This time round I have gone back to the importance of the “I am” theme in Jewish/Christian theology and worked a bit on origins issues prior to pressing in to Jesus as God being the only door to salvation. I value your prayers.


Philip is away in João Pessoa with his wife and son, but plans to be back for the evening service in Patos. Their daughter has stayed with us, though I am sure her boyfriend in Patos is more the attraction than us! However we love having her with us anyway.


I have dispatched the latest EAB Diary Update with my diary/blog jottings over the past couple of weeks or so.


The Patos church building project plods along. I think that’s the ideal verb at the moment! We seem to be at a slow stage waiting for bits and pieces to be done before we can start putting it all together in the final push to finalize everything. We certainly want to be back in our church for Christmas and hopefully this will be in fact by the end of November. Thanks for prayers and support which are welcome and appreciated.

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