Shootout in Recife

Whilst I was in the gym I saw an incident on the TV of a police chase involving a shootout with two guys who robbed a lottery house. Someone alerted the police during the incident and they ran off with the money in the direction of the office block where my wife works. Katia later told me that she and her colleagues heard gun shots fired in the street and ran to the window to see, by this time one of thieves escaped and the other jumped into the river trying to escape. The police embarked a fisherman’s boat in pursuit of the thief and caught him, he surrender at gun point. This served as a reminded of how dangerous it can be here in Recife, also several people have been robbed at gun point recently on our street by two guys on a bike and yesterday night we heard a gun shot around the corner from where we live.
It’s not that surprising considering the state of Pernambuco has the second highest rate of murder of young people in Brazil and Recife has the highest rate for a city in Brazil beating even Rio de Janeiro.
Do remember to keep us in your prayers.

The Latest in Brazil

The last couple of weeks we have had an interesting time, a week ago Friday we had our biggest turn out for the English course we had 20 students come. But also on that day just before the lesson started the power was cut whilst I was doing some photocopying. The power cut was due to a misunderstanding with the electricity supplier and resulted in them coming out to cut the power. It was a bit dim to the lesson inside also it was to hot to do the lesson without a fan, so we ended up doing the lesson outside in the shade. At the end we had one of the students, who’s a Christian give a testimony of how she was delivered from an arm robbery that week and share a proverb from the bible, which led to some off us sharing testimony as well and to talk about God.
Last Saturday, We had a youth advent ‘O Caminho’ after some worship Katia spoke. Afterwards we watch a DVD ‘ The Chronicles of Narnia’ whilst eating popcorn.
For December we’re trying to do a mission in the local school, there’s a holiday on the 8th so we will try and do a football competition, perhaps volley ball or dance for the girls with an evangelistic celebration that evening. Keep that in your prayers.