The Final Photo Call...

Some More Faces Of People Who Made Our Stay So, So Amazing!

Some Of The Faces Who Made Our Stay So, So Amazing!!!

United with my twin sons!

What an amazing two weeks this has been! I have so many memories to go home with and challenges to ruminate and apply in due course over the coming days, weeks, months, years. God has been gracious every step of the way, and although our team was by no means perfect, I would not have had it any other way, as this is what God had intended, and it was a privalige. I personally learnt a lot about the others in the team and about myself, and felt it has been a growing experience. The love shown by the Brazilian people has been mind blowing, along with the 2 tons of food I have eaten, and my prayer is that I can take just a tiny piece of this back to the uk. I have surprised myself in so many ways, from being able to cope with 2 weeks of 10-14 hour days, being around people this amount of time. This has been challenging but rewarding as I am someone who needs thier personal space and has had none. I found working with the children very rewarding, and strangely enjoyable, despite never really wishing to venture in this direction. I had an opportunity to do a short preach, visited lots of people, making me more confident in open prayer. I even found myself doing a little craft, finding my long lost twin sons, oops I mean making some SUNS for the Pepe room. I really dont want to go tomorrow, and wish I had more time to work here for God as there is so much left to do. That said I look forward to sleeping in my comfortable double bed, getting a full nights sleep, and doing mission in my every day life back home, hopefully with renewed vigour. I Praise God for all that has been done in this place, and hope one day to return!!

Neil and Nora discover they can be crafty.

Today we transformed the pepe classroom. Neil and Nora discovered that they could be crafty. After a long week of scrapping walls and painting, we felt a real joy today that we could give something back to the church, after they had showed us so much love and kindness over the 2 weeks. They especially loved the photo frame full of photos of the children from pepe. The day ended with us eating more food, after we went on 2 vists, both of which involved eating cake and crackers and drinking coke and coffee. These last 2 weeks have been an amazing experience and we come home with some lasting memories and personal challenges from God and an expanding waist line. Our team has eaten so much cake and crackers over these last 2 weeks.

Well here we are almost at the end of our time here in Brazil.
l do feel sad to be leaving as l have met some wonderfull people here through the Ebenezer Church and the BMS mission house.
I hope that l may come back one day.

I have learnt so much here, the people, the culture etc, but l guess for me personaly it has been my spiritual growth which actually started back when I felt God speaking to me to come to Brazil. What an amazing God he is.

Tonight (Friday) the Ebenezer Church are having a goodbye service for us, how thoughtfull and kind. They are just an amazing group of people. Most of them have very little or nothing
to give yet they are so rich in Gods love it just pours out from them and you can't help but become infected with it, wow. God loves me I know but I'm glad to be infected by their love for me.
They made us so welcome from the first moment they saw us, nothing was ever to much trouble.
So tonight will be a special night for us at Ebenezer Church and a few tears may be shed,
I know we will all miss them a lot

Thanks again for all your prayers it really has helped.
Please continue to pray for our safe journey home.

See you all soon
God Bless

Jacqui

Suddenly It´s Nearly Time To Come Home...!

Today Stella, Jacqui, Val and I have finished decorating the church yellow (!) and leading an assembly for ninety (!) 3-4 year olds! Both have gone extremely well!! The children from the Pepe sang a goodbye song to us and gave us some really nice cards! A really special day!

Tomorrow we have a fairly relaxing day until we share at a special service which the church are holding to say "farewell" to us. The last two weeks have been a wondeful experience which will take more than the flight home to process!

On Saturday various folk are coming from breakfast to say "farewell" before we leave the house at about 11.30am (3.30pm UK time) for the airport. Our plane lands at about 7am UK time, we will be on Hope Fm via phone at about 8.30am and should appear back in Bournemouth by about 11.30am...

Thank you so much for all the messages of support and enocuragement from the UK...God is good and we have seen His hand in so, so many ways during this trip!!

painting day part 1

It has been a long and arduous day, but also one that has seen much fruit, and has been truly rewarding. We spent a few hours scraping the walls and sand papering the walls, preparing them for painting. This was after spending almost an hour trying to get hold of the correct paint(they wanted to give us gloss for walls!)

We were blessed to have help all along the way and finished the first coat of paint before the day was out.

We then went to a persons house which was so unlike any we have seen, in a private street with their own private security. It was like something out of a movie set, akin to Edward Scissor Hands! The house was bright with its own garden, kids who spoke fluent english and a mother who was a wonderful cook. Truly surreal, nothing surprises me now!

What will the children say

First it was chewing gum, then it was drining coke and now Val´s become the coolest hoody wearer of her generation.

Jesus is my superhero, but Chris thinks he´s spiderman.

As ladders were in short supply Chris foudn a novel way to do the cutting in at the top of the wall.

...no more green or yellow paint!

Stella, Val, Jacqui and I have spent today painting two spaces in the church where we have been ministering. I have seen enough yellow and green paint to last me a lifetime! There is still more to be done on Thursday, but for now we have retired to the comfort of our temporary home here. Buying the paint was most amusing...language (or lack of it) is the funniest of things! A wonderful lady in the B&Q-type shop went out of her way to help us! She was amazing!! Her reward was a kiss from me...(that will teach her to be so nice)!

This evening we need to plan for a session we are doing on Thursday with 90 under fours! Please pray for us!!!

Below The Santander Tower, Sao Paulo City

We went to the very top!!! The most awesome view!

Clothing From Gospel Street, Sao Paulo

In Portuguesse 'chave' means 'key' just in case you are wondering!

New Choir Robes For West Cliff

These are the new choir robes that we have purchased for West Cliff. Richard´s is the one made out of the Brazilian flag....which one would the rest of you like...?

Day in Sau Paulo centre

well we saw some lovely sights today. The cathedral was not as gaudy as I thought it would be, in the main quite tasteful. The highlight of the day was by far going to the top of the Santander building to see one of the most amazing panoramic sights ever. The high rise buildings seemed to go on for miles! The trip to Gospel street was exciting and several people bought t shirts, and other bits and bobs all for a very cheap price. It was wierd and awesome to see so many shops dedicated to christianity and God, even if some of the merchandise was a little dodgy!

Now off to eat some more chocolate pizza with the team who left early to go to the mall down the road! Mmmmmmm salivating!!

What a hoot!

Hi, just had to share our church service last night. It was the most fun 3 hours of the trip by far. Yes West Cliff BC'ers, 3 hours long... but felt like 5 minutes. It was hilarious.

We sang in English, Portuguese, clapped, danced, shared with the church, ate of course, sang Happy Birthday to a 86 year old man for about 10 minutes. He must have felt like the most special person in the world... and at that moment, in that place.. He absolutely was!

Norah danced with some teenagers, we all did this dance routine, sort of a Three Degrees number.. for you oldies out there.....

Neil is now officially Pastor Neil as he preached his socks off...and of course sang beautifully.

Sorry I have no photos, Neil may have some, I dont have a camera, but I hope the description gives you an idea. HA! 3 hours long on a Sunday evening.... What do you think Richard? shall we go for it at West Cliff?

I will be the dance choreographer!! :-)

The Last Sunday In Brazil

Hello all,

This evening was our final Sunday with folk in Ebenezer which was quite emotional! We worshipped, shared testimony, celebrated two birthdays, preached from John15:1-17 and shared food! What a brilliant day!!

The photos are of the whole gathered church and of a dedication which happened for one of Stella´s babies (see previous blog entires).

God bless you world!

Chris

message from Val

A wet Sunday afternoon!
Chris and I were at the bus stop by 7.15 this morning, not knowing the bus times (which are erratic anyway) to go to the morning service which begins at 9 am. Since there was less traffic thatn a weekday we were there about 7.40 so we went for a walk around the area (good job Chris has a good sense of direction!). Ricardo, the local alcoholic, was still reclining by a wall but on our return he was just ´getting up´! Did not have long to wait before Zenaide arrived with a key and we could go in.
Seems like their Sunday morning service is a bit like West Cliff eveniong service, with a much smaller congregation. The pastor spoke for a while and then he and several others went off upstairs for the childrens woship time. Another lady preached on Job and we were invited to share something about our experience of God during difficult times (which was unexpected!)
The pastor then returned and we had a couple of songs and lengthy notices. We picked up from the notices on the screen that they are holding a special farewell service for us on Friday evening, which we feel is a great honour. Don´t know if we will have time to catch the plane home, we have a very full schedule next week with folk asking us to be at different places and knowing we have some redecoration to do at the church too.
When Chris and I returned dinner was ready, prepared by Iara; it was great to come back to a hot meal prepared by Iara. Elaine, Norah and I elected to reamin here (we did do the washing up!) while Iara took the others to a local market.
We will be going to our respective churches this evening so it will be another late night.
Chris is preaching at Ebeneezer church and Stella, Jaqui and I are to make contributions. Chris has decided we should sing Thank You Jesus, not one we have on CD so we won´t have any backing. We are hoping the music group might arrive early so we can have a run through; they might be able to pick up the melody.
It was super to be in touch with everyone at West Cliff this morning and made us feel a little homesick for a while. Having said that, within the space of one week we have become very attached to the Ebeneezer c hurch here and we will miss them when we return to England. Seems like we have been here ages!
God bless you all and thank you so very much for all your prayer support.

Message from Norah

Hi everyone,

So happy to be here, and meet these wonderful, kind friendly people. We have had so much love from them, that it can make you feel inadequate, but they make us feel so special.

Weather is awful and cold, and today it is raining. The forecast is better over the next few days, but we are still happy while serving others.

I have been able to cut hair for the people of the favelas yesterday, and I will go back to the island Wednesday and cut hair there. My heart went out to an old lady called Margarida, she looked 78 but was only 58. She was thin, hungry, depressed, and lived in a dirty little room.

We spent time with her, sang to her and prayed. Then she agreed to come to church in the evening, so I went to pick her up and she had done her hair, changed her clothes and put some perfume on to come to church. The ladies from the church said she had never let anyone in her little shack before.. but she let us in and shared so much with us. She was outside waiting to go to church later that day. How cool is that!

The service was packed with kids teenagers, and the poorest of people who came because we had visited them earlier and showed them love.

God bless you all,
Love
Norah x

Well, what a day we had yesterday, truly amazing. For me personaly it just added to my spiritual growth with God. l have been so blown away this week by what I have seen and heard
from these lovely people. This has only been possible because of Gods grace.
Despite the cold (it was freezing) we all felt, l felt warmed by the joy in the childrens faces after they had their faces painted, or they made a necklace / bracelet or just giving them a pencil.

On Thursday we went to a Chreche where we held Devotions for the staff, the children were having their afternoon sleep.
We each did something, my part was to start the prayers towards the end of the service then others prayed and then I finished with a prayer.

I was only able to do this because of God, I prayed for confidence to be able to speak about Gods
overwhelming love for us and he answered my prayers.
What an awesome God we have. I cannot speak for the others but God has truly worked wonders in me and this is only the first week.
Can't wait to see what the 2nd week will bring.

God bless you all at home
Thank you for all your prayers

Jacqui

God's Workmanship

Ephesians 2:10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Just reading some words from Rick Warren and he reminded me that what matters is not the duration of our life, but the donation of it.

This very unpredictable place where each of us are finding gifts and courage that we didn't know we had, just to serve the need of the day. The sense of working together for a common goal is so strong here, not because we are all connected as humans, but because we are all connected as children of God created to do his work.

We set off yesterday tired and weary, but within hours were loving these kids and seeing their joy, we were all lifted so high. God is so faithful. Chris did a devotional that encouraged us to just give our availability to Him yesterday, we did, and it worked!!

I feel like an alien here at times, the environment is like another planet in places, but when in the presence of God, I feel at home.

Anyway that is my boring ramble of the day. Glad you all got to connect with some of the team this morning.

God bless you all
Elaine

Call no man worthless who is made in the image of God

Who would have thought some face painting and some craft activites would bring such joy to people.

Today just reminded me of that worship song "Jesus I stand in awe of you, and I´m so in love with you"

We serve a God who gives extravagantly

Impact day and beyond

Impact day was great! There were so many children that turned up to have thier faces painted and necklaces made. It was lovely to see the smiles on so many faces. Some of us went out with an interpreter to evangalise on the streets which was challenging, but was bowled over with how much more receptive people are over there to here Gods word. I came home frozen to the bone, but it was so worth it!

Was great to here the support of the church family this morning, and am now going to prepare for the service tonight where I will be singing and sharing a little of Gods word.

IMPACT Evangelism Day

Today all 8 of us were involved in the IMPACT evangelism day at Ebenezer Baptist Church. We made necklaces, cut hair, painted 100´s faces and travelled around the favella sharing tracts and the Gospel with hundreds of folk. There was a very warm response, some really postive conversations and a good number of people came to view an evangelistic video which was shown in the church at 7pm.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we have a busy day with a radio interview, connecting with West Cliff during the morning service, joining morning worship and evening worship in our churches. Please pray especailly for the evening services because both teams have very significant input to them...please pray that we will be an encouragemewnt and a blessing to those we minister too.

Nervous but excited

Well today is impact day, and it has been a week since we got here, hard to believe. fIt has been such a challenging week in so many ways, but already I just know that I will not go home unchanged.

I feel nervous today as I am going into a new unnown challenge, slightly emotionally drained, and a little tired. Just as well God is gives the strength at these times, and I know he is with us all at all times, especially when we are feeling at our most vulnerable. Perhaps being vulnerable is appropriate seeing as that is how the people in the favelas must feel most of the time.

Please pray that many would come along to the service this evening and many would come to Christ.

God be praised for what has been, what is and what will be!

Neil

Its not helpful being a health and safety manager in Brazil

One week down, one to go!

Thank you Richard for your thoughtful devotional. You hit the nail on the head. Here is a more boring serious blog entry from me... not full of thrill and excitement of the day. But very real.

Read at your peril!!

The last week has been very full to say the least. I have never known a week take so long, I think it has been the proverbeal "week and a half". Tee hee... Normally a slow week is down to boredom, but not this last one.

We all came here at different places, and I expect today we are all at different places still after this last week, but probably all agree that we are tired, and have had a unique week.

I miss home, I miss my family, and I miss toilet paper that can flush, I miss my hair being nicely done, I miss SPACE!!! The days have a hint of me being faithful and obedient for me at the moment and carrying on, not so much of the exciting amazing thrill that we started with. But hey! what do I know.. about what the next week holds... I have never predicted a day here even remotely... I am sure th enext week will surprise me still.

God's Love is still flowing, the smiles are still everywhere we go though, so the challenge is still full of daily blessings back to us. I was a little sad one day, not smiling so much,and a little boy out of the blue walked up to me and gave me his biscuit from his lunchbox.

So West Cliff friends, please pray for our strength physically and mentally to make the next week even better than the first one. Feeling shorter would be good though :-)

Do you know what is the most important bit though.... we came to share a smile, share Jesus, and make someone's day a little lighter, and that is exactly what has happened every single day.Toilet paper that flushes is just not important it seems.....

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, thanks for your prayers.
Elaine

The Joy Of Living Together...!!!!

...more babies!

Stella finds another baby (4 weeks old) to cuddle!

"I have come to proclaim freedom to the poor"

'A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.'

Albert Camus

What An Honour...!

Today Stella, Val, Jacqui & I led staff devotions for a crèche of about 90 children. We reminded them of God's faithfulness before speaking from Acts 17 where we encouraged them to know that every hug, kiss, lunch served, lesson taught, etc. is an expression of God's love through them. God's presence was so, so evident as we praised him together...

Wow!

The Team Led Devotions With The Children...

the day before yeterday we went to the home of Zenaide in a favella. She also took us briefly to introduce us to her sisters and brother who all live very close together. Her brother is a sick man; he is an alcoholic and has other addictions; he had a stroke a while ago. He spends his days sitting on his bed in an basement room with no natural light and mould all over the walls. I cannot get this poor man out of my mind; please pray for him that he will come to accept the peace of Christ in his heart and that he will know Gods love for him.
On our daily bus journey I have met two young school boys going home from school. I cannot converse with them but they have been delighted to receive a wrist band saying Jesus ama me (which should be Jesus me ama! trust the /brits to get it wrong!) Jesus loves me. And I am thrilled to get a wave from them as we leave the bus!!!
There has been heavy rain during the night again and its quite chilly today. So much for the factor 50 sun cream, a must have with you !!
thank you so much for your prayers and texts, we really value your support. Val

"If every single person is made in the image and likeness of God, then every single person can tell me something about God that nobody else can. That makes me very anxious to listen to everybody, because they may be saying something that only they can say." Cardinal Basil Hulme

Chris has finally met his match

Today we experienced the ´Tesco Finest´ of Brazilian favella hospitality...it really is a knife! Look at her face...!! Arggghhh!!!