EAB associate-missionaries, Ben & Miriam Price, have returned with their children from nearly 2 months in the UK, arriving at our house at 1.30am today. Liz and I have already had a good meeting with them discussing the work here and they are now heading back to Ibiara, 100 miles west of Patos, where they live and work.

Yesterday afternoon's Ministers' Fellowship meeting went well but numbers were down with only 11 leaders present. We discussed a Gospel Concert to be held on August 9th with Aline Barros and started discussions on the organization of the United Bible Day activities in December. We then went into discussions about the Benedict XVI effect on catholocism in our area. Aggressive opposition to evangelicals is on the increase and one church leader spoke of his church having been under a sort of "siege" by a catholic group that held meetings on the doorstep of their church for 10 days non-stop! Another spoke of the difficulty he was having getting access to sick church members in hospital and another spoke of a member who even died before he could get access. This is in stark contrast to priests and nuns who walk in and out as if they owned the place! We have decided to study these issues and fight for our constitutional rights.

This meeting was followed by a community meeting I had to go to about Special Needs children and then I got home to a church member who is part of a problematic disgruntled group. She came to give signs of repentance and express hopes of reconciliation. We must keep praying.

Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 09h53 AM
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Half of one on plane!

A church has kindly donated £250 to our travel fund so this means half of either Liz or I are now guaranteed on the plane. To be honest, as I am slightly larger, it guarantes 3/4 of Liz on the plane with me and a quarter of Liz swimming!  

I forgot to mention that I had to buy a new pair of black shoes for the Celebration last Saturday. As usual this was at Liz's insistence because of a hole in one of them! This to me was ridiculous as the other one was and is fine. Anyway I am still wearing the old comfy ones in the office but you'll see me in the posh ones in the UK in September/October/November.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 11h41 AM
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Better night

Praise God that Alice's fever has gone and we had a much better night's sleep as a consequence. She is as bright as a button this morning and has been hurtling round the house in her little chair on wheels bashing in to everyone and everything!  She still has a cough but is much better overall. Thanks for praying.

Ben & Miriam Price return from the UK today so we are sending the Kombi to meet them off the plane due to arrive at Natal airport at 7.15pm. They will sleep at house tonight so we will be able to have a chat to them in the morning and catch up with their news.

The monthly Patos interdenominational ministers' fellowship meeting will be held at our English school (as it always is) at 4pm today. Please pray for "peace to reign in Israel"!

Many thanks for a donation of £300 made by a couple to our travel fund. Thus 15% of us can now fly! The rest will have to try and swim!!  glug... glug... glug... glug

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 08h57 AM
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Moringa Tree

I have sent out more Moringa tree seeds to 3 states in Brazil today: Brasília, São Paulo and Espirito Santo. Our seed bank is constantly supplying seeds which provide food and water purifier to people far and wide. Thank you for contributing so as to keep the supply line flowing.

I have had a good meeting this afternoon with Pastor Wostenes who came into Patos from Green Pastures Farm where he is on holiday. We discussed a wide range of projects and church issues. Wostenes in the ACEV vice-chairman.

Alice is doing well and no fever has returned. PTL! Thank you for praying.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 08h43 PM
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Dr. Paula

Dr. Paula has visited Alice and checked her over and it would seem that we are now seeing our way out of the nightmare. Alice has not been medicated for fever for 14 hours and is still without fever. PTL!

Please pray for Louisa too, on holiday in João Pessoa, as she has further asthma problems.

I am busy working on communications with Tearfund.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 04h19 PM
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Special Prayer

All the family has just gathered for special prayer as one year old Alice is under attack from all sides. I am not exagerating when I say that she was very ill last night. It was an horrific experience. However by 3am her fever was brought down and this morning started fairly well...

However... Alice was in a hammock when the hammock fell and she hit her head on the stone floor. She screamed and cried an awful lot but is now calming down. Please pray for baby Alice.

 

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 09h51 AM
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Late night scramble

I was writing a late night email to Tearfund when I was called home to drive everyone to the hospital. I ran and we (Liz + Sacha + Lynn) were immediately belting it to the hospital with Alice. We were met there my Dr. Elizabeth and Dr. Paula and Deborah soon arrived too. Alice had got in to an allergic reaction to medication she had just been given and was very poorly indeed, grey in colour and with a very high temperature.

Anyway we are now home and things are a bit calmer but we are all nervous and tense. The doctors were great and we are praying Alice's 39.7ºC fever will soon lower. What a night!

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 12h43 AM
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Gold Medal!

I have just put a photo of our grandson Lucas on my photo blog. It is an amazing photo. Check it out at: http://medcraft.fotoblog.uol.com.br

Have you heard the new recording by our P&W group "Tenda do Encontro"? Absolutely great! Check out the photos of the Celebration on the site too. www.eabrazil.com We hope to take their new DVD to the UK with us in September which will have English sub-titles.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 10h39 PM
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Lovely evening

Liz and I spent a lovely late afternoon and evening at Green Pastures Farm with Pr. Wostenes and family and Pr. Lindon Carlos and his wife. They are all there on holiday and it gives us the greatest of pleasure to see them so relaxed and being blessed at the farm. This was our vision which is being increasingly fulfilled.  Pr. Lindon Carlos is slowly recovering from his burn-out and they are clearly all having a great time.

We had a work discussion first as I needed to discuss a number of matters with both pastors. Then we had coffee and bread together and great fellowship and fun. We took Gleydice (Wostenes' wife) today's paper with her photo from the celebration.

We brought back Ben Price's car from the farm, as it has been parked in a shed there whilst he's been in the UK, so we can get it washed tomorrow and ready for his return on Friday with his family.

We got back to Alice no better but no worse. Please pray.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 10h22 PM
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Princesa Isabel Bible College

I have been working most of the morning on the second semester of EAB/ACEV's Princesa Isabel Bible College - sorting out which modules of the degree course will be given between August 2nd and December 6th and who will teach each module. A lot of negotiations and thinking has to go on. It's quite a juggling act!

Alice continues with a high fever which keeps returning despite strong medication. She is going to see a different paediatrician at 2pm.

There is a photo and report on Saturday's Celebration in the state-wide newspaper "Jornal da Paraíba" today. It can be seen on-line at: http://aics.classificadosjp.com.br/primeiro/padrao.php on page 8 of the "Cidades" section. Probably most will find it hard to find with the language barrier but the photo is of a blond woman singing (Pastor Wostenes wife - Gleydice) and the report is above the photo.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 12h35 PM
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Celebration photos on EAB & ACEV sites

If you go to the EAB site at: www.eabrazil.com and click on the photo gallery you will see the photos of Saturday's 70th anniversary celebration in the Patos Town Hall. As you watch you will here a song from the new CD/DVD by our Campina Grande P&W group which I think is absolutely beautiful. This is what the sound was like at the Celebration on Saturday. What a fantastic Celebration it was!

However if you are a bit more adventurous you can do the same on the Brazilian ACEV site at www.acaoevangelica.com.br because there you get a better introduction to the photos.

Alice is sleeping and seems to be OK at the moment. We are controlling her temperature with stronger medication and giving her plenty of liquids. Please keep praying for our little cherub. She now says "mamãe" (Mummy) and "eita" (which is an exclamation like wow) and the funny thing is that the one name she has learnt is of the new young pastor "Gersé". Every time she sees him she shouts out his name and he loves it!

Going back to the photos at the Celebration, please note the fabulous photo of our grandson Lucas on page 13 of the photos. He is like an oil painting! So perfect!

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 12h04 AM
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Alice far from well

We value your prayers very much for our one year old grandchild Alice who is in hospital...

hang on...

at this very minute Sacha, Liz, Deborah and Lynn have burst into my office with Alice, having discharged her themselves! Crumbs!

From what I can gather they could see no point in "torturing" Alice with a constant hunt for veins for the drip, which they could not find, and did not feel she was sufficiently ill to really make this necessary or worthwhile. After all, if the diagnosis is "virus", as it usually is nowadays, then what was the drip for anyway. The doctor said it was to hydrate but Alice had a wet nappy as the doctor spoke!

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 04h44 PM
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Alice in hospital

Our little grandaughter, Alice, is being admitted to hospital at this moment. Blood tests this morning have revealed a particularly agressive and strong viral infection which can easily develop into viral pneumonia as is happening with babies in Patos at the moment. Hence the paediatrician has opted for immediate intravenous medication and hydration in hospital. Please pray as we are naturally very concerned for this little bundle of treasure. Get well soon Alice!

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 01h23 PM
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Not bad for 85!

Have a look at veteran EAB missionary, Ivy Dyer, at the Celebration on Saturday: http://medcraft.fotoblog.uol.com.br

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 09h40 AM
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Alice quite poorly

Our almost one year old grandaughter, Alice, whose birthday is on the 31st, had a very rough night with high fever and much coughing and nasal congestion. She has had a blood test done this morning as fever is getting worse. Her chest X-ray was confusing as the clinic dated it incorrectly with the same date as her previous chest X-ray 4 months ago. However we could see the X-rays are different so can see it was a digitation error and we are glad she does not have pneumonia. Please pray for Alice.

Talking about illness, it was great to have Pastor Francinaldo from Manaíra at the Celebration on Saturday. It was the first time we had seen him since his awful ordeal with surgery messups and all that. He looks fine. PTL!

I have received the ACEV Celebration photos so hope to get them on the EAB & ACEV sites today. Watch this space!

I am now trying to catch up on a backlog of work put on hold by all the work which surrounded the weekend's celebration.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 09h28 AM
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Celebration Photo

I have just placed the first Celebration photo on my photo blog. Please view it by clicking on: http://medcraft.fotoblog.uol.com.br

It was lovely at the event to have messages of greetings from Tearfund, EAB and a Brazilian Christian organization called Juvep. Philip read these during the Celebration.

Alice is not well at all and has gone for a chest X-ray. Please pray. She will be one on July 31st.

Ben & Miriam Price and family will be returning to Brazil from the UK this Friday.

 

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 06h09 PM
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Special Moments

A special moment in the Celebration on Saturday in the Town Hall was when the speaker turned to the Mayor, who was on stage, and preached part of the sermon directly and specifically to him! It was powerful, tactful and rocked the Mayor visibly. It was done with much respect and taste but at the same time with much anointing and grace.

Then on Sunday morning Liz spoke with an amazing anointing to the church at an unexpected moment. Suddenly everyone realized at once that we were hearing a prophetic word from God and as she closed everyone errupted in applause which went on and on for a long period of time.

The weekend celebrations were about remembering and thanking, but they were also about hearing God's Word in a very powerful way. Thank you Lord!

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 01h28 PM
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What a weekend!

As Liz put it a moment ago: "The weekend could not have gone better"! Last night's service brought to a close a fantastic weekend of celebrations of ACEV/EAB's 70th anniversary. The church was packed out, the P&W excellent, and the sermon brilliant! PTL!  God is so good and we thank all of you that prayed for this weekend. It really was great!

Philip has a week's holiday so has just taken the family to João Pessoa and taken the Celebration's preacher, Fernando Bochio, to the Campina Grande airport on the way. However, before lunch Fernando and I had an entire morning to discuss the work of the Mission further which was inspiring. Wonderful stuff.

Thanks to all readers of the blog for now taking us past the 36,000 mark.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 01h13 PM
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Celebrations wonderful!

Praise God the celebration last night was simple fantastic with 520 seated and about 200 standing. The atmosphere was wonderful and the whole spirit of the thanksgiving service was tremendous. The Mayor came with his wife and stayed right through the three and a half hour service which was electric from start to finish!

The event started bang on time with the formal entrance of the leadership team and visiting preacher. Then followed the Brazilian flag (carried in by a grandson of a founder member of the Patos church - Marcus Vinicius), the Paraíba flag next (carried by the great-grandaughter of EAB's founder - Susan Mundy), the Patos flag (carried by our grandson - Felipe), and the ACEV flag (carried by our grandaughter - Louisa). Everyone then sang the national anthem.

The service itself then took off with great P&W, the laying on of hands of 4 new pastors and a woman minister, the presentation on the big screen of 100 photos with the history of ACEV, and then Pastor Fernando Bochio preached with great annointing. At the end everyone totally surprised Liz and I with a special PowerPoint presentation in our honour. It was very sweet of everyone and quite moving.

It was a great night with a snackbar set up to serve food and drinks for all afterwards and much great fellowship was enjoyed. We got to bed at 2.30am but made it for the 9.30am service this morning which went very well indeed too. We look to God for a great final 70 year celebration service this evening.

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 12h41 PM
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Celebration was great

Hi everyone! This is Sacha. Dad has gone to the 2nd meeting of the celebration and asked to write a quick note here about yesterday!

It was a great meeting, with 700 people present! We made a surprise presentation for mum and dad to thank them for their love for Brazil and for all the work they're doing here.

As soon as Dad's back, he's going to write more details!

 Escrito por John Philip Medcraft às 09h49 AM
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