TAIL of the Tale, MIRACLES behold.

I returned to the Electricity Company to see Mr Joseph.

I wasn’t getting anywhere with the Borough Council.....plenty of promises for clearing the road, but unfortunately ‘talk is cheap’ and doesn’t get much done. I had explained to them that the electrical company would put in telegraph poles bringing electricity to the Rescue Project but that they had asked that the Borough Council clear the ‘track’ first, allowing their machines to do their job.

I explained to Mr Joseph that I had asked the ‘works’ department to ‘level’ the track but that nothing had been done nor possibly would be. It just so happened that the guy responsible for the team who was in the city putting in telegraph poles had just dropped in to the Electricity Company’s Office.

Mr Joseph spoke briefly with him and they decided to go and have a look at the service..... after another brief discussion it was decided that the ground was hard enough to support their lorry/crane and that the only time the team had free was the next day! I couldn’t believe it, I had asked for a basic two cable format taking electricity to the Rescue Project, Mr Joseph said there was no point in doing the job by half measures, best the full works, 4 cables!

The next day the team that had come to replace telegraph poles around the city were digging, placing and installing five new telegraph poles and all the necessary cables and fixtures to take electricity to the front door of the Rescue Project, on THEIR DAY OFF.

GOD is good, ALWAYS. 

First Telegraph Pole

Along the 'track' to the RESCUE PROJECT

FIVE telegraph poles later, electricity to the Rescue Project

A SHAGGY DOG Story

This week, I went to the electric board to ask them to install electric at the Rescue Project. I was asked to submit documents which I did, but was told that the main problem was that there was no road going to the Project just a ‘track’.

‘Ok’ I thought, I’ll go to the people in the borough council responsible for opening roads. Unfortunately the head boss wasn’t there so I was directed to the roads engineer, who basically said it wasn’t his responsibility and the guy who wasn’t there was the guy to sort it out.

I passed by with my brother-in-law Tinho who said the problem wasn’t a road but the fact that there wasn’t a road, road.........better understood as the road ended 50m away and they won’t put telegraph poles in the middle of the jungle so to speak. I had to get the track recognised as a road.

So off I went to the Borough Council to ask what their slant was! Yes, I had to get the track recognised as a road, when it is declared a road then the electric company have to bring an electric supply to the houses on it to fulfil the ‘rights’ of the citizens. But to get a track recognised as a road I have to get it passed by the borough council by a vote of its members and only its members can purpose what to put forward to be voted on!

Now I needed a council member........I know one (the one that put Rebeca’s name forward to be recognised as an exceptional woman in the city for 2012 in the area of education). I rang him.......no one answer.....(they rarely answer). I remembered that he or one of his employees would be picking up his son from school......off to school then!

I met with the borough council member who said he would put forward the request and asked me to write a document to that effect. I don’t write documents in Portuguese......but Rebeca was at the Living Word School so I grabbed her to write the document for me. When I went to write that I wanted that the track which was a natural extension of the road Lionel Alves recognised, Rebeca stopped and turned to me and said “I’m sure it isn’t an extension, I saw on a land document somewhere that it has a name”. “Where is the document I asked”? We looked and looked and then we came up with the idea of going to the land records office to see if we could get the document in question.

One of the parents of a student at the school works in the records office and was not only able to put her hand on the file but gave it to us to make a copy and return to her. On the document it said that the land which the Rescue Project is on borders with the Road known as Lionel Alves. This was valuable information.....the track was a road...it doesn’t matter what state it is in, the track is a road!

I was delighted. I marked a meeting with the head of the Electric company in Maues. They had sent me away at the start of the day......not wanting to put in electricity to the area.....and technically put in as many barriers as possible. Now after a day of running about and tremendous favour everywhere I turned I was sat in the main office with the documents in hand proving that my track was a road. I also brought my laptop and some valuable photos of the progression of the work so far. The head of the electric company was so shocked and impressed that he accepted an invitation to take him personally to see the Rescue Project the next day.

I took Mr Joseph the Head of the electric company to see the Rescue Project, he was deeply moved by the work and reassured me that  he would do all he can to get electricity into the Project as soon as possible. So now we have been promised that the electricity company will put in the posts and cables and transformers needed. Let’s not lose hope, let’s not get complacent but keep on keeping on!

Before the electrical company will put in the posts I have now to get the road company to improve the road to permit the electricity lorry to get in and out........ and the story continues.

Video Clip

This video clip was made by one of the guys in the church. It is being passed around from mobile to mobile via bluetooth. Please pray that as we seek the partnership of the city of Maues in this Project that many will be moved by the Holy Spirit and support at this stage by giving bags of cement to help the plastering!!!

Your Oil.......will not run out!

Do remember that story of the widow who gave her last to the prophet.....

The TEXAS flag

1 Kings 17:12 So she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13 And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.  14 "For thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.'" (NKJV)

We had literally nothing left in the pot when I received a phone call from our friend in Texas. He and his family were ringing to say that they were wiring money in support of the Rescue Project. God is good! All the time! It is fantastic to see how HE moves the hearts of men in HIS perfect timing.

Their kind outrageous offering means that we have the finances to cover the roofing of the School, yes! All 57X8m of it! We had hoped to receive support from the Borough Council in the form of steal rafters that came from the old hospital but unfortunately this proved a dead end.

The wood for the rafters has been cut and work has already start on putting the structure in place......I will get some photos as soon as possible.

Wood for the rafters

Rachel's Report

Rachel, who visited us recently from the U.K.

I think one of the most profound experiences I had when learning what life’s like for someone out here was whilst helping carry out research in the new district with the youth of the church. It was here I was really able to get an insight, first hand of what life is like for many in Maues. I was particularly moved and struck by one man in particular. His name was Philipi and he welcomed us into his yard, pulling up a bench for us to sit with him. Next to him lay his sick wife in a hammock, unable to get up and walk but for whom the doctors had no answers. Intermittently, he would stretch his arm so as to comfort her with a gentle swing. He spoke of his life, that eight people lived in his house (by comparison to many I spoke with – that was quite a low figure) unable to find work, that he moved here in search of education for his children, that his neighbourhood was full of violence, drugs, and how he’s done what he can to teach his children a good way to live. Then the final blow came when he described how he watched his own son murdered in front of his house and the police do nothing. I was horrified.

But it was at this point that I began to get excited.  I don’t mean that in an awful way and so as one to disregard this poor man’s tragedy, but I began to get excited about the fact that God WILL be glorified in all this. Philipi has been disappointed by many people, by false promises made my different political parties, disappointed by the police who don’t seem to intervene on behalf of the weak, doctors who seem to have no cures.  But I began to realise that the raising of the new school/ community centre that God’s put on the heart of Marty is a promise to these people that WILL be fulfilled. And in that, it can only speak hope, and of a God who will not forsake you. This man still seemed to find it hard to believe that the school was going to materialise, even as we showed him the pictures of its foundations. But I’m excited for him and that in the not too distant future his life and that of his family WILL be transformed by the expression of God’s love – shown through Marty and the church who seem to be tirelessly doing all they can to advance the Kingdom of God, reaching the poor and defending the weak.

Philipi and his wife!

CATCHING the FIRE

Work is progressing steadily at the Rescue Project in the New District. The Living Word Church is located in the centre of Maues and to help get the church fully behind us in the vision that God has planted in our hearts we asked the youth of the church to carry out door to door surveys in the New District area. Many of the youth have never been in this area of Maues before because of its location (being on the far side of town so to speak) and its ‘fame’. This gave them an opportunity to relate to the people in the area, providing an opportunity to understand more completely the vision behind the Rescue Project and also see where they fit in.

It has been a great time for the youth, they have gone around the doors for three weekends consecutively and have had plenty of opportunities to share Jesus with the people of the area.

There has been a real ownership of the vision, with an expectancy rising in them as to what God is going to do in this area which they have in turn passed to the residents......... ‘it is like breathing HOPE into their hearts”.

Abigail (youth leader) speaks to one of the residents in the New District