THE WEATHER here may be much wetter and the national sport may be played with an oval ball rather than a round one, but a Brazilian churchman made his home in Gwent.

Reverend Flavio Azambuja has swapped the hot and humid climes of tropical central Brazil for the grey skies of Newbridge where he is a minister at the Tabernacle Baptist Church.

The 33-year-old arrived in Wales in 1998 with his wife Arlene and after living in Rogerstone, Tenby and Cardiff, settled within the close-knit community of Newbridge.

Rev Azambuja decided to come to Wales after meeting Newport-bred John Pullen, who is a minister and lectures at the Baptist college in his small home-town of Cambro Grande, on the edge of a huge water forest in the central west part of Brazil.

He is now studying for a PhD in the theology of the New Testament but still finds time to conduct services, weddings and funerals at the Tabernacle church in Newbridge.

Rev Azambuja, who has two children - four-year-old Samela Betsan and two-year-old Daniel Rhys - said: "I love Newbridge because when I was in Cardiff I was living in a central part of the city and I was missing the local church relationship that I had in Brazil.

"I was missing the more intimate relationship with the congregation until we came to Newbridge and here we are two-and-a-half years later. "I soon became very much at home here."

He even insists that the weather and the nation's obsession with rugby has grown on him.

"I love the weather here," he said. "I suffer with the hot weather back home where it can get as hot as 42C in the summer. People think I have a screw loose when it is raining and I say to people at the church 'what a lovely day it is..'

"I find it cool and refreshing and anyway, Wales wouldn't be Wales without the rain and rugby.

"When I first saw a game of rugby in Rogerstone I thought it was a group of inmates beating each other up but I love the game now and if I had a choice of what to watch on the television now I would choose rugby over football because I find it much more exciting."