Heading for 3 months of quarentine, it seems the restrictions are beginning to be relaxed, although the rules weren´t really observed here anyway. The local markets were bustling every single day of the extreme lockdown which was “enforced” for around 2 weeks. I appreciate that imposing lockdown is virtually impossible in developing areas. Many people simply will not eat if they don´t work every day and will only be able to buy food on a daily basis, as and when they have money. The majority here cannnot stock pile from a supermarket for a month and home delivery is something I still dream of! Actually that´s not quite true, some local corner shops deliver your shopping for free; one of the staff drops it off by bicycle!
It does worry me that Brazil is already beginning to reduce the restrictions. Brazil has over 36000 deaths reported and over 1000 here in Maranhao. However, as with most media and reporting here, I doubt these figures highly. Covid tests were slow to come through here and are only really available to the rich. Daniel had aches in his body and lost his sense of taste and smell for a few days. He tried to have the test done, as did several family and friends but the medical staff blatently lied to him about to whom it was available. The cases reported here are highest in the richest areas…unsurprisingly. We know many people who had only these symptoms and sadly we personally know people from or connected to our church who have lost their lives. 1000 just seems far too low.
Despite the challenges of covid, and having to shutdown the workshop, the ministry team continues to be busy finishing off internal tasks, including our own bed and a dining table for the Engrenar team, within the health and safety recommendations! Filling in holes on the road, creating a speed bump, painting, and demolishing some houses have been amongst the many other tasks accomplished.
It has been important and helpful to keep the guys who stay with us full-time busy and they have not disappointed in their effort and enthusiasm. On a less encouraging note, our support house was broken into a couple of times in the past few weeks. Nothing much of great value was taken and we have upped security so it should not happen again. The thief is known to us and despite Daniel´s efforts with a few acquaintances over at the local drug den, we were not able to recover what was taken. It sometimes is helpful that Daniel´s family are well known. Daniel´s Dad was a cousin of Lampiao (a famous bandit leader who is said to be something of a Brazilian Robin Hood). The story is worth a read though, understandably, Daniel´s Dad didn´t like to talk about it much. My mother-in-law, however, does have some great stories.
Antonio and Stephanie are generally coping well with the lack of normal structure but we look forward to getting out and about more soon. Antonio loved his castle bed made at Engrenar for his 6th birthday last week.
A particular privilege we have here in Brazil is to witness fairly close-hand the spread of the gospel amongst unreached people. In this state of Brazil alone, there are many people groups who do not have the bible in their own language. Our church supports a few missionaries who work with indiginous people and one of these, Pastor Zico who works in the surrounding area of Barra do Corda, sent a few photos this week of some encouraging news items. A couple close in his local area became Christians and a different couple travelled 6km in the heat of the day to ask Zico to pray for them as they wanted to become Christians. These locations are far from infrastucture and there are a lack of churches and workers. We pray God would raise up more people to work with these needy people groups.
We are also so grateful for our supports who have not waived in their commitment to funding our mission here. In tough times, our supporters have continued to give faithfully and self-sacrificially. We trust God will bless you all.
Daniel and Linsey 