Monday 26 March 2018

Big Problem facing Green Pastures

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.

In the service last night we had special prayer for Green Pastures which has suddenly come under threat from a high tension electricity cable project which we have just learned is planned to plough through Green Pastures and wreck it with bulldozers removing vegetation and massive pylons towering overhead. It would be the end of Green Pastures. We have started a campaign with the authorities requesting an alteration on the route so as to avoid us. Please pray.

Sunday 25 March 2018

Is this a Breakthrough?

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.

Thursday 22 March 2018

Blackout with bright spots!

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.

Tuesday 20 March 2018

Tarcisio nearly died of shock!

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!

Monday 19 March 2018

Special prayer for Liz please

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.

Sunday 18 March 2018

Oh my my my... what a service!

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!

Travels & Big Service tonight

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.

Wednesday 14 March 2018

Green Pastures Toilets

It's been 40 years since we acquired Green Pastures so it's not surprising that things need revamping! At the moment we are creating a special access toilet and shower for wheelchair users along with smooth pathways to get wheelchair users around the camp area. We are also rebuilding two other toilet/showers. 


Tuesday 13 March 2018

Escapee Armadillo

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.

EAB Website

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

Monday 12 March 2018

Sunday & Monday

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.

Saturday 10 March 2018

Drug Free Project

We have just ended 3 days of training for the expansion of the Drug Free Project which all went very well indeed though extremely intense and exhausting. In Patos it was 3 hours on Friday and 10 hours on Saturday. On Thursday it was in João Pessoa. In all 61 were trained. PTL!

Thursday 8 March 2018

Comings and Goings

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!

Saturday 3 March 2018

Jesus is the Door and the Shepherd

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.