Hello everyone,
So i am now on the last part of my gap year with BMS. I am going around 8 different churches over the next 2 months telling them about what i have been doing, what God is doing and what we have learnt about God over the last 6 months. This is an amazing privilege for all us on the team.
SO we are in Ashby just now, and it is Friday meaning we have just 2 full days left here before we head off to the next stop. We all feel that the work here has gone well. We have helped out at a holiday bible club for children between 5-11 and have led a communion service as well as going out with the youth, and later on today we shall be doing some pastoral visits. So it is all go for us here.
I hope that where ever you are, you are having a very good Good Friday!
Blessings,
B
Friday, 22 April 2011
Monday, 4 April 2011
England... It's cold!
Hello Everyone,
So as you may have heard from other sources of information, i am now back in England, and i have been for about a week... well at 5.35pm today it will have been exactly a week since my plane landed in Heathrow.
What is it like? Well the first thought of England to me is "Man alive it's cold here!" but after that you start to see little things that you haven't seen in 6 months, things that are a tiny bit different, like flowers at the side of the road, or houses made from standard brick, that stand tall and proud on their own, the fact there are no holes in the road, and that everyone sticks to their own lanes! and that was the first 45 minutes! So yes, things are odd coming back to England from Brazil, another major one has been that people here are much whiter than out there, and they all speak English (i know, i am clever aren't I) but yes there are differences.
So i have just enjoyed one week off, seeing friends and family and catching up on the news that i have missed, now tomorrow morning at 11am ish, i shall be heading to the train station laden with stuff to catch a train to Birmingham where i shall be training for 10 days on the next part of my year!
Thank you for all your continuing prayers and thoughts!
God Bless,
Deus te abençoe!
B
So as you may have heard from other sources of information, i am now back in England, and i have been for about a week... well at 5.35pm today it will have been exactly a week since my plane landed in Heathrow.
What is it like? Well the first thought of England to me is "Man alive it's cold here!" but after that you start to see little things that you haven't seen in 6 months, things that are a tiny bit different, like flowers at the side of the road, or houses made from standard brick, that stand tall and proud on their own, the fact there are no holes in the road, and that everyone sticks to their own lanes! and that was the first 45 minutes! So yes, things are odd coming back to England from Brazil, another major one has been that people here are much whiter than out there, and they all speak English (i know, i am clever aren't I) but yes there are differences.
So i have just enjoyed one week off, seeing friends and family and catching up on the news that i have missed, now tomorrow morning at 11am ish, i shall be heading to the train station laden with stuff to catch a train to Birmingham where i shall be training for 10 days on the next part of my year!
Thank you for all your continuing prayers and thoughts!
God Bless,
Deus te abençoe!
B
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Helllooooooo
Hello, and welcom to my last full week here in Brazil, as in one weeks tomorrow i shall be heading off to the aiport and starting my 24 hour journey back to the UK, where upon arrival i shall be being whisked back to the cold little town of Horsham!
So what have i been doing recently? Well, it has been BUSY!
about 3 weeks ago now, all three of us felt a little ill, we had varying sypmtoms, and a variety of things wrong with us, mine however sounds pathetic, but hurt alot... i had an aching back and had absolutely no energy what so ever ... yes i know your thinking i am an old man now... but i am not even 19 yet! Sophie had a soar throat, and couldn't swallow, and her medicine was in tablet form, for those of you who know Sophie will know that she is not good with tablets, and did not enjoy this medicine. Tim however had a cough, and was very tired, but was still able to go to PEPE one day out of the week we were off... ish. After about a week of resting, popping pills, and going to the circus that is in town, we were getting ready to go off on Retreat with the church (basically just a church weekend away) on this morning i had gone off with one of our friends, Willy, to help deliver a bed, i eceived a phone call from Tim who told me that Sophie had had an alergic reation to her, medication and was going to the doctors with a full body rash. That was all sorted the rash went down a bit, and we went off to the weekend. There we enjoyed doing lots of things with the youth, like playing games int he mud, making water slides, having worship and devotional sessions, and gernerally relaxing, and sleeping in tents!
When we arrived home from the retreat, we had two joyous nights of sleep before we were whisked off by the family to Mata Roma which is in the interior, to the Granny's farm, which was an amazing weekend of swimming in rivers, and walking through the jungle, and seeing sand dunes, and all the great things that come witht he jungle, such as tarrantulas in bedrooms. This was an amazing time for us, we got to spend a few days solidly with the family before going back to the UK, and it was good to just relax with them.
Then as we were driving back from Mata Roma, I recieved a phone call from Julia (our in country supervisor) saying that the next morning we would be leaving sao luis for 2 days and going to visit some PEPEs, this was all well and good apart from we were leaving at 3am! i know early stuff! fbfut it was definitely worth it. We got the Barrarrinhas at about 7.30, and then had breakfast at a pastors house, and then proceeded on to Paulinho Neves at about 8.30 and arrived at 11, this was a 2 hour drive across the dunes and through some open land filled with wild and farm animals, an amazing sight even if it was still very early int he morning, we then, got to yet another pastors house where we were going to be sleeping, we put our stuff down all used the toilet, and got ready for lunch at about 12, after lunch we had a little 1 hour sleep to regain some energy, and then off to visit the PEPE, which was really nice to see how PEPEs in the interior are exactly the same as ones in the city, they put so much commitment in! Then as soon as the PEPE had finsihed it was a quick change of cothes and off to the dunes for about 2 hours to have a walk over them, and to swim in one of the natural water lakes! AMAZING, God really knew what he was doing when he created the earth! Then after dinner, we were taken off to pray for the PEPE leaderds Aunt and Uncle, who are both sick, we had rather a large group of us trooping round the town praying for these people.
Then on the Tuesday morning we set off again at about 5am abother 2 hours drive across the dunes, and back to the 1st pastors house, in which we had coffee and then set off on the road again for about 1.45 hours to see another PEPE again it was great to see how this one worked, and what the kids were learning about. After the PEPE we visited anoth PEPE leaders house and had some lunch, then off to visit that pepe, which was amazing, they had little chairs and desk for each student, after this we popped back to the car changed into swim wear and had a quick swim in the river, before getting back into the car and driving the 3 hours back to Sao Luis arriving home at about 5 o'clock.
Since then we have taken one day off, and then been at PEPE on thursday and friday. on Wednesday night we also had the oppurtunity of going tot he Theatre to see a performance run by a christian group, which was great to see the theatre, and the drama itself was fantastic! although getting home at 1am and going out at 6am isn't a good mis i discovered.
That bring us up to date. Over the next week we have saying our official goodbvye to the church planned for tomorrow night, a terrifyingly close thing! and then PEPE for 4 days, then PEPE training, and then our last Saturday in which we have no idea what is happening, and then on the sunday we leave the house at about 1pm and off we go!
I don't think any of us are actually ready to go home yet! we have become such a part of the youth group, and feel so at home here that it is going to be VERY hard for us to extract oursleves from life here in Brazil and go back in to life in England.
Hope this finds you all well,
God Bless,
Ben
So what have i been doing recently? Well, it has been BUSY!
about 3 weeks ago now, all three of us felt a little ill, we had varying sypmtoms, and a variety of things wrong with us, mine however sounds pathetic, but hurt alot... i had an aching back and had absolutely no energy what so ever ... yes i know your thinking i am an old man now... but i am not even 19 yet! Sophie had a soar throat, and couldn't swallow, and her medicine was in tablet form, for those of you who know Sophie will know that she is not good with tablets, and did not enjoy this medicine. Tim however had a cough, and was very tired, but was still able to go to PEPE one day out of the week we were off... ish. After about a week of resting, popping pills, and going to the circus that is in town, we were getting ready to go off on Retreat with the church (basically just a church weekend away) on this morning i had gone off with one of our friends, Willy, to help deliver a bed, i eceived a phone call from Tim who told me that Sophie had had an alergic reation to her, medication and was going to the doctors with a full body rash. That was all sorted the rash went down a bit, and we went off to the weekend. There we enjoyed doing lots of things with the youth, like playing games int he mud, making water slides, having worship and devotional sessions, and gernerally relaxing, and sleeping in tents!
When we arrived home from the retreat, we had two joyous nights of sleep before we were whisked off by the family to Mata Roma which is in the interior, to the Granny's farm, which was an amazing weekend of swimming in rivers, and walking through the jungle, and seeing sand dunes, and all the great things that come witht he jungle, such as tarrantulas in bedrooms. This was an amazing time for us, we got to spend a few days solidly with the family before going back to the UK, and it was good to just relax with them.
Then as we were driving back from Mata Roma, I recieved a phone call from Julia (our in country supervisor) saying that the next morning we would be leaving sao luis for 2 days and going to visit some PEPEs, this was all well and good apart from we were leaving at 3am! i know early stuff! fbfut it was definitely worth it. We got the Barrarrinhas at about 7.30, and then had breakfast at a pastors house, and then proceeded on to Paulinho Neves at about 8.30 and arrived at 11, this was a 2 hour drive across the dunes and through some open land filled with wild and farm animals, an amazing sight even if it was still very early int he morning, we then, got to yet another pastors house where we were going to be sleeping, we put our stuff down all used the toilet, and got ready for lunch at about 12, after lunch we had a little 1 hour sleep to regain some energy, and then off to visit the PEPE, which was really nice to see how PEPEs in the interior are exactly the same as ones in the city, they put so much commitment in! Then as soon as the PEPE had finsihed it was a quick change of cothes and off to the dunes for about 2 hours to have a walk over them, and to swim in one of the natural water lakes! AMAZING, God really knew what he was doing when he created the earth! Then after dinner, we were taken off to pray for the PEPE leaderds Aunt and Uncle, who are both sick, we had rather a large group of us trooping round the town praying for these people.
Then on the Tuesday morning we set off again at about 5am abother 2 hours drive across the dunes, and back to the 1st pastors house, in which we had coffee and then set off on the road again for about 1.45 hours to see another PEPE again it was great to see how this one worked, and what the kids were learning about. After the PEPE we visited anoth PEPE leaders house and had some lunch, then off to visit that pepe, which was amazing, they had little chairs and desk for each student, after this we popped back to the car changed into swim wear and had a quick swim in the river, before getting back into the car and driving the 3 hours back to Sao Luis arriving home at about 5 o'clock.
Since then we have taken one day off, and then been at PEPE on thursday and friday. on Wednesday night we also had the oppurtunity of going tot he Theatre to see a performance run by a christian group, which was great to see the theatre, and the drama itself was fantastic! although getting home at 1am and going out at 6am isn't a good mis i discovered.
That bring us up to date. Over the next week we have saying our official goodbvye to the church planned for tomorrow night, a terrifyingly close thing! and then PEPE for 4 days, then PEPE training, and then our last Saturday in which we have no idea what is happening, and then on the sunday we leave the house at about 1pm and off we go!
I don't think any of us are actually ready to go home yet! we have become such a part of the youth group, and feel so at home here that it is going to be VERY hard for us to extract oursleves from life here in Brazil and go back in to life in England.
Hope this finds you all well,
God Bless,
Ben
Sunday, 27 February 2011
4 weeks left...
Hello everyone!
So today is the 4 week mark for us here in Brazil, in 4 weeks today we shall be saying our final goodbyes and making the last bit of packing before heading to the airport. It will be an emotional day, and one that we all have mixed feelings about, we don't want to leave behind all of the amzing friends that we have made here, and the way of life that we have just got used to over the last 4 and a half months. At the same time i think we are all excited for going back to England and seeing all the peopel that we left behind 4 and a half months ago! The thought of hot showers has finally got to us!!
SO what have we got coming up in the those last 4 weeks, well:
We have PEPE as many days as we can go, to make the most of working with the amazing kids that go there, and that we are seeing grow up and turn into students, slowly... but hey are making it.
We also have a visit to the interior planned, and so we shall be spending a week there, half of which we shall be spending time with our host family and enjoying spending some time with them, and the other half we shall be visiting a few PEPEs with Julia (our in country supervisor).
We are also planning to visit the prison here in Sao Luis, which could be quite a shock, but we are all very interested to see it.
We ahall be going on a retreat with our home Church, Getsemani! where we will get the oppurtunity to relax with the youth that have become very good friends, and we get to chill, and play football together, before going back home, there will also be storng worship sessions there, which we are all very excited about.
We are also planning on visiting another PEPE here in Sao Luis, and one of the other projects that church runs, which is a breakfast programme for homeless people in the city centre.
So we are going to have a pretty jam packed four weeks left, we are all very excited about the things that we still have left to do here in Brazil, and they should all be amazing oppurtunities for us.
hope this finds you well,
see you in 4 weeks!
God Bless,
Deus Abenço
B
So today is the 4 week mark for us here in Brazil, in 4 weeks today we shall be saying our final goodbyes and making the last bit of packing before heading to the airport. It will be an emotional day, and one that we all have mixed feelings about, we don't want to leave behind all of the amzing friends that we have made here, and the way of life that we have just got used to over the last 4 and a half months. At the same time i think we are all excited for going back to England and seeing all the peopel that we left behind 4 and a half months ago! The thought of hot showers has finally got to us!!
SO what have we got coming up in the those last 4 weeks, well:
We have PEPE as many days as we can go, to make the most of working with the amazing kids that go there, and that we are seeing grow up and turn into students, slowly... but hey are making it.
We also have a visit to the interior planned, and so we shall be spending a week there, half of which we shall be spending time with our host family and enjoying spending some time with them, and the other half we shall be visiting a few PEPEs with Julia (our in country supervisor).
We are also planning to visit the prison here in Sao Luis, which could be quite a shock, but we are all very interested to see it.
We ahall be going on a retreat with our home Church, Getsemani! where we will get the oppurtunity to relax with the youth that have become very good friends, and we get to chill, and play football together, before going back home, there will also be storng worship sessions there, which we are all very excited about.
We are also planning on visiting another PEPE here in Sao Luis, and one of the other projects that church runs, which is a breakfast programme for homeless people in the city centre.
So we are going to have a pretty jam packed four weeks left, we are all very excited about the things that we still have left to do here in Brazil, and they should all be amazing oppurtunities for us.
hope this finds you well,
see you in 4 weeks!
God Bless,
Deus Abenço
B
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
6.50am and i am wearing sunglasses
Hello Everyone,
SO yesterday i was walking through my PEPE area at 6.50am wearing shorts, t-shirts and sunglasses! It was a hot day, but it got me thinking. I haven't really written anything about PEPE yet, so here you are.
So for me PEPE started on the 7th Febuary, I am working in a PEPE in Aracangy, in a poorer area of Sao Luis in Marnahoa Brazil. I work with a women from my church named Rachael, who is definitely the most comitted women i know. One of the days it was raining so heavily that i couldn't sleep it kept me awake, and Rachael still went to PEPE to teach the 8 kids that turned up despite the weather! As she walks through the PEPE area everyone seems to know who she is, no matter what state the people there are in she will always say good morning, and smile at them, showing God's love in that place! She is an inspiration for all of us!
In our PEPE at the moment we have 16 kids most of whom are aged 4 years old, we have 2 that are 5, and one that is 6 (she has already completed PEPE once, but she doens't want to go to school so is doing it for a third year).
A usual day a PEPE will include:
5.55 Leave the house,
6.15 (ish) Get the bus,
6.45 Get of the bus,
7.00 Arrive at the PEPE,
7.05 having unlocked all the doors and windows we organise the room for the lesson, and prepare any activities that we are doing on that day.
7.30 The kids start to arrive, slowly but surely they all potter into the room, some more enthusiastic than others, we occassionally have a screaming child who doens't want to leave their mummy.
8.00 The PEPE starts, we sing some songs and make sure the kids are awake. And learn the day of the week for that day.
8.15 Drink of water, and toilet break.
8.25 The whole class sit round in a circle learning together as a class, as Rachael teaches them.
8.55 The kids go and sit down at their tables and get ready to do an individual activity.
9.00 We start the individual activity, usually involving colouring, or cutting and sticking.
9.45 We tidy up the room, and make sure that each child has their name on their work.
9.55.10 It is play time, so that the kids can release some of the energy that they have built up over the last 2 hours, and they get to run around, or play with tea sets.
10.20 The kids wash their hands, ready for lunch.
10.25 It is prayer time before lunch.
10.30 Lunch time
10.45 Brushing teeth.
10.50 quick notice from Rachael, and possibly and song.
11.00 Parents collect their Children.
11.15/30 Rachael and I leave the PEPE and get the bus home.
It is very tiring work that we do but it is very worth it and all of the children go home smiling and happy! It is amazing work. And bringing the message of God's love for the kids, at the same time as teaching them to read, write, and do maths, as well as hygeine. At the moment and theme for lessons is Indentinty, and so we are doing hand prints, heights, feet prints and other things like this to help the chrildren learn about them selves.
The kids might not come from Christian backgrounds and so might not know Jesus when they come into the church building, but we aim to teach them a little bit about Jesus each day. And we pray with them daily as well. The pastor of the church also does visits to the families of the PEPE children to talk to the parents about Jesus and his love for them. It is a hard ministry as the parents could potentially be involved in drugs, or alcohol, but they do an amazing job!
PEPE is now running in 15 countries and doing amazing work with the children who go there, the churches also run other projects that help the local community, for those who are homeless or can't afford food. It is an amazing ministry here in Brazil and in the other countries as well.
Thank you,
God Bless,
Deus Abenço
Ben
SO yesterday i was walking through my PEPE area at 6.50am wearing shorts, t-shirts and sunglasses! It was a hot day, but it got me thinking. I haven't really written anything about PEPE yet, so here you are.
So for me PEPE started on the 7th Febuary, I am working in a PEPE in Aracangy, in a poorer area of Sao Luis in Marnahoa Brazil. I work with a women from my church named Rachael, who is definitely the most comitted women i know. One of the days it was raining so heavily that i couldn't sleep it kept me awake, and Rachael still went to PEPE to teach the 8 kids that turned up despite the weather! As she walks through the PEPE area everyone seems to know who she is, no matter what state the people there are in she will always say good morning, and smile at them, showing God's love in that place! She is an inspiration for all of us!
In our PEPE at the moment we have 16 kids most of whom are aged 4 years old, we have 2 that are 5, and one that is 6 (she has already completed PEPE once, but she doens't want to go to school so is doing it for a third year).
A usual day a PEPE will include:
5.55 Leave the house,
6.15 (ish) Get the bus,
6.45 Get of the bus,
7.00 Arrive at the PEPE,
7.05 having unlocked all the doors and windows we organise the room for the lesson, and prepare any activities that we are doing on that day.
7.30 The kids start to arrive, slowly but surely they all potter into the room, some more enthusiastic than others, we occassionally have a screaming child who doens't want to leave their mummy.
8.00 The PEPE starts, we sing some songs and make sure the kids are awake. And learn the day of the week for that day.
8.15 Drink of water, and toilet break.
8.25 The whole class sit round in a circle learning together as a class, as Rachael teaches them.
8.55 The kids go and sit down at their tables and get ready to do an individual activity.
9.00 We start the individual activity, usually involving colouring, or cutting and sticking.
9.45 We tidy up the room, and make sure that each child has their name on their work.
9.55.10 It is play time, so that the kids can release some of the energy that they have built up over the last 2 hours, and they get to run around, or play with tea sets.
10.20 The kids wash their hands, ready for lunch.
10.25 It is prayer time before lunch.
10.30 Lunch time
10.45 Brushing teeth.
10.50 quick notice from Rachael, and possibly and song.
11.00 Parents collect their Children.
11.15/30 Rachael and I leave the PEPE and get the bus home.
It is very tiring work that we do but it is very worth it and all of the children go home smiling and happy! It is amazing work. And bringing the message of God's love for the kids, at the same time as teaching them to read, write, and do maths, as well as hygeine. At the moment and theme for lessons is Indentinty, and so we are doing hand prints, heights, feet prints and other things like this to help the chrildren learn about them selves.
The kids might not come from Christian backgrounds and so might not know Jesus when they come into the church building, but we aim to teach them a little bit about Jesus each day. And we pray with them daily as well. The pastor of the church also does visits to the families of the PEPE children to talk to the parents about Jesus and his love for them. It is a hard ministry as the parents could potentially be involved in drugs, or alcohol, but they do an amazing job!
PEPE is now running in 15 countries and doing amazing work with the children who go there, the churches also run other projects that help the local community, for those who are homeless or can't afford food. It is an amazing ministry here in Brazil and in the other countries as well.
Thank you,
God Bless,
Deus Abenço
Ben
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Christmas has gone ... the new year is here! (well it was a month ago!)
Christmas is an entirely different experience here in Brazil, everyhthing happens on the 24th of Dec, and then they just return to a normal ish life on the 25th. How ever they are usually very tired on the 25th as they party all the way through the night! I beleive that we retunred home at 5am on Christas day! it was a great night though and a great time of year to experience here!
New year is also celebrated very largely here, everything stops so that everyone can have a party! we went to the church from 7pm-1am, and then after that we went to a friend from churches house with all of the youth to party through the night, we didn´t get home until 12pm the next day, at which point it was time for sleep! So similiar to the UK then.
After this we then had a few things on we had a camp at the churhc for 3 days preparing us for mission, it was amazing to see the youth of the church all come together with their passion and to then go envangelising on the streets of Sao Luis inviting everyone to come to the church for a massive worship session, it was amazing.
We then went on a mission trip and then holiday and the PEPE trainign for the teachers... here is how that went:
So we have now finished galavanting around Maranhao, for the time being, and are now officially back at home in Sao Luis. Starting on Tuesday Tim and Sophie will be going back to PEPE and I don´t know what I will be doing... maybe have a sleep or something very exciting, however my PEPE will start the week after i think and so i will be joing the other two in the early morning to make it to the bus station for 6am . As of yet i don´t know what exactly i will be doing there... Julia is hoping to get me teaching English to the children, which could be quite a difficult thing to do, given that i am now the only person there that speaks any English at all.
We had a great time on the mission trip with the church, there were about 150 people there, and over the 4 days there were 300 conversions to Christ, which is absoloutley fantastic. We did activities like walking through the streets and praying for the city, and then going around the same streets knocking on the doors of the houses and asking the peopel if we could talk to them about Jesus. Everybody here is so accepting and we only had one or two people that wouldn´t let us talk to them. We also did street theatre, which is where we were mainly involved we performed in many different dramas, all of which told of the story of Gods unfailing love for us! according to Samily, the people who were watyching were very moved, and especially the children who we built up friendships with, it was amazing to see the work being done! We also had events called "louvão" which means "big worship" which is exactly what it says, and the passion of the people there is amazing, you experience nothing like it in England ... soul survivor comes close... but not massively. The prayer here is another thing that has inspired all of us, they pray for everything and anything, and the passion that they put behind that prayer is astounding!
We then went on holiday which was nice and relaxing, we didn´t really do alot, we just sat by the pool and relaxed and wrote our journals and a few letters. We did go on two trips out. One was on a boat where we went down this river and saw flying fish, and amazing landscape, totally covered in jungle apart fromt he stretch of water that rolls out infront of the boat! absoloutley amazing! The other was walking through perfectly crystal clear lakes, so clear you can see your toes dissappear into the sand beneath. Although it it did rain for 4 of the 5 days we were there, this was very welcome it reduced the heat down and so we felt slightly more comfortable, and a little bit more like England! We had 1 day of brilliant sun,which we made the most of, and turned a nice shade of red, which on all of us has now changed nicely into brown!
We then had the PEPE training 3 days which was good to go to, we saw lots of the teachers of pepe from all over maranhao. Although we weren´t actually doing any of the teaching we were still really involved with helping with the kids and and playing music for them and then they had a question session with us on one night, which was all really fun. I even had the oppurtunity to do some first aid, as Tim managed to cut his foot in the swimming pool "Silly Tim!".
So that has been my life here for the last 21 days! We are now looking forward to what is going to happen in the near future.
I hope this finds all of the you well and safe!
God Bless,
Ben
New year is also celebrated very largely here, everything stops so that everyone can have a party! we went to the church from 7pm-1am, and then after that we went to a friend from churches house with all of the youth to party through the night, we didn´t get home until 12pm the next day, at which point it was time for sleep! So similiar to the UK then.
After this we then had a few things on we had a camp at the churhc for 3 days preparing us for mission, it was amazing to see the youth of the church all come together with their passion and to then go envangelising on the streets of Sao Luis inviting everyone to come to the church for a massive worship session, it was amazing.
We then went on a mission trip and then holiday and the PEPE trainign for the teachers... here is how that went:
So we have now finished galavanting around Maranhao, for the time being, and are now officially back at home in Sao Luis. Starting on Tuesday Tim and Sophie will be going back to PEPE and I don´t know what I will be doing... maybe have a sleep or something very exciting, however my PEPE will start the week after i think and so i will be joing the other two in the early morning to make it to the bus station for 6am . As of yet i don´t know what exactly i will be doing there... Julia is hoping to get me teaching English to the children, which could be quite a difficult thing to do, given that i am now the only person there that speaks any English at all.
We had a great time on the mission trip with the church, there were about 150 people there, and over the 4 days there were 300 conversions to Christ, which is absoloutley fantastic. We did activities like walking through the streets and praying for the city, and then going around the same streets knocking on the doors of the houses and asking the peopel if we could talk to them about Jesus. Everybody here is so accepting and we only had one or two people that wouldn´t let us talk to them. We also did street theatre, which is where we were mainly involved we performed in many different dramas, all of which told of the story of Gods unfailing love for us! according to Samily, the people who were watyching were very moved, and especially the children who we built up friendships with, it was amazing to see the work being done! We also had events called "louvão" which means "big worship" which is exactly what it says, and the passion of the people there is amazing, you experience nothing like it in England ... soul survivor comes close... but not massively. The prayer here is another thing that has inspired all of us, they pray for everything and anything, and the passion that they put behind that prayer is astounding!
We then went on holiday which was nice and relaxing, we didn´t really do alot, we just sat by the pool and relaxed and wrote our journals and a few letters. We did go on two trips out. One was on a boat where we went down this river and saw flying fish, and amazing landscape, totally covered in jungle apart fromt he stretch of water that rolls out infront of the boat! absoloutley amazing! The other was walking through perfectly crystal clear lakes, so clear you can see your toes dissappear into the sand beneath. Although it it did rain for 4 of the 5 days we were there, this was very welcome it reduced the heat down and so we felt slightly more comfortable, and a little bit more like England! We had 1 day of brilliant sun,which we made the most of, and turned a nice shade of red, which on all of us has now changed nicely into brown!
We then had the PEPE training 3 days which was good to go to, we saw lots of the teachers of pepe from all over maranhao. Although we weren´t actually doing any of the teaching we were still really involved with helping with the kids and and playing music for them and then they had a question session with us on one night, which was all really fun. I even had the oppurtunity to do some first aid, as Tim managed to cut his foot in the swimming pool "Silly Tim!".
So that has been my life here for the last 21 days! We are now looking forward to what is going to happen in the near future.
I hope this finds all of the you well and safe!
God Bless,
Ben
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Well that´s a change in situation.
Hi everyone,
So since i last posted on here a lot has changed, the first thing to change is that all the people on the team are well and healthy and everything is running smoothly at PEPE and everything is hunky dory.
Next we had an order from BMS to move house (this is me and Tim) as it will be better for the relationships of the team if we are all together, so we have moved into the same house as the girls, and everything was working there really well, apart from not having beds for a couple of days, although sleeping in hammocks is actually soooo nice!
We had a really good week then, filled with PEPE and PEPE parties which was really fun, we then finished PEPE for the christmas holidays.
Then we got a big shock. Anna decided it was time to go back home. This was for no reason to do with Brazil and purely her own choice which we all decided was best for the team for her. Obviously those fo us out here in Brazil and still really upet by this, but we are working together with God to keep going on the path that he has laid down for us.
Thankfully it has really felt like God has been with us these last few weeks, he has answered prayers and seems to have been working out situations so that we Anna could go home and not leave sophie on her own in a family of Brazilians. And we are so thankfull to God for all he has shown us and taught us over the past 7/8 weeks that we have been here. Our prayer is that we are still used for the glory of his name and that we can ajust to the new situation of only have the 3 of us, and that we will be able to keep plodding forward in spreading the message of Jesus love to those who need it.
I hope that this finds all of you well and that where ever you are around world that life is good.
God Bless.
B
So since i last posted on here a lot has changed, the first thing to change is that all the people on the team are well and healthy and everything is running smoothly at PEPE and everything is hunky dory.
Next we had an order from BMS to move house (this is me and Tim) as it will be better for the relationships of the team if we are all together, so we have moved into the same house as the girls, and everything was working there really well, apart from not having beds for a couple of days, although sleeping in hammocks is actually soooo nice!
We had a really good week then, filled with PEPE and PEPE parties which was really fun, we then finished PEPE for the christmas holidays.
Then we got a big shock. Anna decided it was time to go back home. This was for no reason to do with Brazil and purely her own choice which we all decided was best for the team for her. Obviously those fo us out here in Brazil and still really upet by this, but we are working together with God to keep going on the path that he has laid down for us.
Thankfully it has really felt like God has been with us these last few weeks, he has answered prayers and seems to have been working out situations so that we Anna could go home and not leave sophie on her own in a family of Brazilians. And we are so thankfull to God for all he has shown us and taught us over the past 7/8 weeks that we have been here. Our prayer is that we are still used for the glory of his name and that we can ajust to the new situation of only have the 3 of us, and that we will be able to keep plodding forward in spreading the message of Jesus love to those who need it.
I hope that this finds all of you well and that where ever you are around world that life is good.
God Bless.
B
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