Blessed Service

Philip led the service tonight and I preached. It was a lovely service. PTL!

More rain has fallen at Green Pastures nd we are nealy up to a total of 36 inches this rainy season! Extraodinary! So many places haven't had anything like this amount so we pray for them. An Anteater was again seen at Green Pastures this week.

Tomorrow the married couples fellowship will be spending tomorrow's bank holiday at Green Pastures.

My Mum's Funeral Service

My Mother's Funeral

My dear Mother's funeral has been set today for Friday, May 12th, at 1pm. The service will be held at my sister Jean's church - Christ Church, Chineham, Basingstoke, RG24 8LT. We very much value the support of all that can be there.

Liz and I will fly to the UK for this and spend two weeks there so as to get back in time for the annual Field Conference here on May 26-27 at João Pessoa. We value your prayers for everything. Philip, who is assistant pastor, will lead the Patos church in our absence.

We had another three quarters of an inch of rain again yesterday at Green Pastures and when I got there this morning the dam was again overflowing. It has rained again tonight and so far nearly two inches has fallen at Green Pastures bringing our total rainfall this rainy season to almost 35 inches! Wonderful! PTL!

EAB Magazine

The EAB InTouch magazine #87 is at the printers and should be despatched to all next week. The new edition has been put on the website today where you can read it right now at http://www.eabrazil.com/

Over 500 messages have already been received with condolences for my dear Mum's passing. Many phone calls have been received too. We are very grateful to all for their care and support at this time. My sister Jean is working on the funeral arrangements and Liz and I will seek flights to be there once a date is set. I can tell you that the funeral service will be held at Christ Church, Chineham, Basingstoke. Liz and I plan to be in the UK for about a fortnight, which should include getting to the EAB Board Meeting at West Wellow. We have to be back in Brazil in good time for the Field Conference on May 26-27 in João Pessoa.

Mum is with the Lord

My dear Mother, Margaret, was born at Prince’s Street, Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England, on the 12th October 1924. She was the daughter of Isaac and Alice Biddall. Mum moved to London in her youth where she survived the bombings of World War II. She married Dad, George (who died in Brazil in 2002), in May 1947. I was their first child, born in January 1949, and was followed by the arrival of my sisters in 1950 (Jean) and 1955 (Joy). My Mother loved to visit Brazil. The photos are from her last visit to Green Pastures in 2009 for my 60th birthday. My Mum lived 92 blessed years and was a fervorous Christian who loved to pray. Mum went to be with the Lord this Wednesday, 26th April, at 20:10 (UK) time. I praise God for my wonderful Mother’s life. 

New Nutshell

I produced the latest EAB Nutshell Update today and have successfully dispatched it. If you haven't received a copy and would like one then please send me your email address as a comment at the bottom of this publication.

My dear Mum just keeps plodding on there in England. Bless her heart. I am in constant contact with my sister Jean via WhatsApp about the situation. One minute Mum's a bit better and another she's worse. Tonight Jean left the home with Mum not so well. It's all in the Lord's hands and I value your prayers.

Mum is in an extremely fragile condition

My dear Mother, aged 92, there in Hampshire, England, is hanging on to life these last few days. It doesn't matter what your Mum's age is - it's always your Mum and one feels it even at this distance. We know she's in the Lord's hands and trust Him always. The doctor thought Sunday would be Mum's limit and all the family in the UK gathered. Mum however is still with us this Monday night and we pray for her and for my sister Jean who is doing all she can to support the staff at Mum's home where she is. We value your prayers for the whole situation.

A week ago today I had five blibs and blobs removed from my skin and that went very well. Liz and I had our annual eye tests too with no change in lens strength for either of us.

We had a good meeting of the Patos church leadership last Tuesday and had a good united discussion on a variety of matters. The service in Patos yesterday was good. My sermon on true worshippers went well when we focused on the need for worship to be in spirit (from the soul/heart) and in truth (absolutely sincere). Another soup run went great on the Friday and the Christians in Action group did well again with the church plant at Ipueira. 

We've had the Butterfly researcher team (Federal University) back for another 3-day spell at Green Pastures and on Wednesday it's the Lizards (Iguana, Teju and smaller lizards) team from the same university who will be back for another 3-day spell. Today the native tree experts were there. Over the weekend we had another inch of rain and our rainy season total is now over 32 inches! PTL!

The new edition of EAB's 'InTouch' magazine is about to go to press. Watch this space... and your letter boxes in a couple of weeks or so's time!

Easter Family Break

Amidst all the church activities over Easter we managed to fit in our traditional family break at Green Pastures. I went alone on Wednesday night because everyone else was scared of getting stuck on the earth road - but my jeep has 4-wheel drive so goes anywhere. I arrived there to a power cut but all was fine. I layed on the veranda in a hammock in the moonlight and rain (half and inch). We have now had 31.5 inches of rain this rainy season which is far more than most places.

I was up at 4.20 am on Thursday morning and set off walking for 4.5 hours. Wonderful! My boots and jeans were soaked up to the knees from the overnight rain. During my walk Liz arrived with lots of family members and by lunch time we had a good crowd. My nephew and his wife and Liz's neice and her family arrived later and eventually we had 31 present adding up kids, spouses, grandkids, neices and nephews! Things have developed from 50 years ago this Easter when Liz and I started going out together!

We had a lovely relaxing family time with cricket, table tennis, walking, swimming, eating, chatting, Easter egg hunting, praying together etc. Really wonderful! We were back in Patos on Saturday night all ready for the big day in church on Easter Sunday.

That was quite an Easter!

The church activities during Easter week continued (from where I last left off) on Wednesday with a service in the Patos church with the 'Desert Flower' Project ladies and families. This was not an easy service as the atmosphere was heavy owing to the murder of one of the participant's sons. Nevertheless the Gospel of hope in the living Christ was preached.

On the Friday we held our traditional 'Good Friday Pit Stop' at the traffic lights by our church - wishing those who pass a Happy Easter, giving them an appropriate Easter Gospel tract and inviting them to the Sunday services. 31 people took part. The same group spent time in prayer together inside the church after the Pit Stop.

Sunday morning saw our usual church breakfast at 8am to which a large crowd gathered. Breakfast was followed by a time of worship and a short word which I brought to the church. Then on Sunday night we had our fantastic resurrection celebration with the church packed out and in a wonderful spirit. Philip preached extremely well and no less than 12 people made decisions to follow Christ! PTL! During the service Philip also baptized 2 people, there was a moving song of worship done by the deaf, there was a choreography and an Easter play. Quite a programme - and all transmitted live on the Internet with thousands of watchers!

We thus praise God for a lovely blessed and fruitful Easter.

Now it's back to a routine week (no Easter Monday bank holiday in Brazil) with an annual check up by the Eye Doctor today (I reckon he's called Isaiah!) followed by minor surgery to remove a few blibs and blobs from my skin this afternoon. Nothing sinister, but I am told it's better to remove them.

Desert Flower Project participant's son murdered

Our sad news this morning is that the 15 year old son of a woman who is part of the EAB/ACEV Project 'Desert Flower' died this morning as a result of multiple stabbings a few weeks ago. We had bought him a special mattress to relieve bedsores as the hospital didn't have one, but all that was in vain. Now that he has died his mother has gone berserk and the community is very tense because the killers are from the same place. We value your prayers.

Liz and I have just got back from routine blood tests for glucose, cholesterol etc. My right arm is light and half empty!

It was for you!

Philip led the Patos church youth in a lovely presentation of the Easter message ("It was for you"!) last night in the Patos town centre. They also distributed free sandwiches & juice to the poor. Happy Easter!

Great Easter Service at our Patos School

A wonderful Easter service was held this afternoon at EAB's Pastor Frank Dyer School. The service was led by Philip and received the support of a large number of youth and others from the church. It was a rich time of blessing.

At Green Pastures another almost half an inch of rain fell this afternoon taking us up to a total this rainy season of 31 inches.

No less than 108 MPs have been announced by the High Court as being investigated for corruption tonight. Absolutely abominable! Every single one of them has already said they are innocent! The current president is only not being investigated because he can't be, according to law here, because he is President! Lord have mercy on this country!

I have done a lot of work on Action Child Schools today. I have also prepared my Easter Sunday morning message. Philip will be preaching at night. I have also worked on the Field Conference to be held at the end of next month in João Pessoa.

New Green Pastures Photos

Above you can see a baby Pied-billed Grebe, a Crane Hawk flying near its nest in a tall tree and fields of native wild flowers which are everywhere at this time.

Excelent Sunday Service

We had a great service last night in Patos. It was a full house as always and it truly is wonderful to see God bringing in more and more new people to hear the Gospel. Last night was no exception with one spiritist asking for prayer at the end. In fact after the service Liz and I were very busy for a long time as we spoke to and ministered to an almost endless queue of folk. We praise God for this.

Our normal live broadcast of the service can be seen at https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil/ . Even if you can't speak Portuguese you can watch a few minutes just to get a feel of the service. Last night the live broadcast was watched by people in a variety of countries and from widespread places all over Brazil. PTL!

Philip brought a word last night about Easter and he will speak at next week's Resurrection Sunday service. We wish everyone a very happy Easter! We had lunch yesterday at Philip & Gylmara's house.

Returned from João Pessoa

Liz and I went to João Pessoa on Thursday and returned to Patos today. We visited an elderly couple, Cesário e Euda, who used to be members of our church in Patos. He is 89 and she is 86. It was a lovely time of fellowship.

I also did some follow-up visits to doctors and all was well. I have arranged to have a hernia fixed in June after the Field Conference. 

The youth are leading an outreach service tonight in a very rough area of town bless their hearts. I have just heard that the service went very well with many gathered to hear the Gospel. This is the start of our Easter build up. There will be different special services and events this coming week.

My sermon for this Sunday is ready to roll. However I am a little apprehensive as in our hotel room last night in João Pessoa I said to Liz that I would run through the points of my sermon for her to hear and give me her thoughts. I went through everything from my laptop with my back to the bed where Liz was "listening". When I finished I asked Liz what she thought and got no reply. When I turned round she was fast asleep and confessed afterwards she hadn't even heard the title! So I figure that if if it had this effect on my wife then I can't imagine how it will go with all the church!

Anyway the sermon is entitled: "He had to go through Samaria" and is on John 4:1-19.  I value your prayers! This is sermon 15 in my John's Gospel series. 

We will be having our usual Easter family break this coming week - starting on Wednesday night and running through to Saturday night. On Sunday we will have the annual Easter Sunday church fellowship breakfast in the morning and the Resurrection celebration at night with praise, drama, baptism and the preaching of the Gospel. A Happy Easter to one and all!

Great Service & Lovely Rain!

This Sunday saw another two inches of rain fall at Green Pastures in the afternoon! PTL! This takes us up to 30 inches of rain this rainy season. Fantastic! However the problem is that the majority of places are not getting this rain and the situation is really desperate for them. Please pray.

The Sunday Celebration service with communion went great. You can see it on the EAB Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/eabrazil  

The praise & worship was lovely, the communion service great and the sermon went wonderfully well. What was terrifically moving was the fact that a very elderly sister, who is near her homecall to glory, watched the whole service from start to finish alongside her son where she now lives in João Pessoa on the coast. They requested that we sang her favourite hymn at the end - "Great is thy faithfulness" - and we did. The transmission of our Sunday services sure are being great blessings to say many people all over Brazil and around the world.

I have changed my internet provider to the same one we use at church and the link is much faster than the previous one with 50 Mbps download and 25 Mbps upload. After a few teething problems all is running smoothly. What a difference from EAB's early days when a letter took months to cross the seas!

Walks & Talks

I did two walks and talks with school children this week at Green Pastures - the second of which was particularly gratifying as it was with the kids of our own school there and a neighbouring school. All was so worthwhile and very nice.

I have prepared my sermon for tomorrow, which will complete John 3 in my series in that Gospel, with this being sermon Nº 14. The title for tomorrow is "He who believes on the Son has eternal life". John 3:31-36 is certainly a passage which exalts Christ but whether the Apostle John composed these words or John the Baptist I am not sure. I will discuss issues like what happens to people who believe and then go away from God? i.e. Do they have and then not have eternal life? I also will address the other sign of the coin. i.e. not have eternal life in Christ but rather eternal death. How do we conceive this? After all spirits don't burn!

I have also returned to my book on the history of ACEV in Portuguese and have now completed chapter 11. It's a big job but I need to do it!

I have been holding a good healthy discussion on social media today as to why it rains in some places but not in others? This is a serious problem we are facing here so at the top of people's minds. At Green Pastures we are way above average rainfall but in so many other places way below average and in water supply collapse.

I have also had discussions on the awful killing of an adolescent in Rio shot by stray police bullets inside her school! Outrageous!