Time keeps Ticking

I'm not sure where this last week and a half went since my last post. It's as though time seems to go faster the longer I am here. Funny how that works. Things here in Portugal continue to be amazing, despite the fact that in the last 2 weeks, everyone except 2 people on our team have been sick with the flu. This morning our apartment finally received a good clean and sterilization. It was long overdue, but hopefully now, this flu bug that has been looming around has gone.

We are still in major prep mode for the Vision Team from California, BC and Ontario coming in February, so we have been spending our time at the Loures church doing TONS of painting, fixing up, organizing and cleaning. I love to organize and clean, so it's been fun. We are now officially finished with the painting, but we still have some cleaning and organizing to do and we still have to do some things in the Massama church - that will be next week!
We are now into week 3 of ESL teaching. It's going well, but I continue to be affirmed that I am not a teacher. I am thankful I learned this lesson many years ago in my first year of University because I would be extremely unhappy had that been my job. Anyway, God is giving me incredible patience and joy despite my lack of natural ability in this area. I am teaching the Beginner's class with Donovan, while Heidi, Doug & Myra are leading a coffee and conversation class at the same time for intermediate/advanced people who want to practice their english. My class is made up of 8 students, ranging from 30-53 and they come from Russia, Bulgaria, Germany and Brazil. Talk about diversity. All but one of these students attend either the Russian or Mennonite church here in Loures, but one gentleman who lives in the neighbourhood, saw our sign in the window about the classes and just came in. That was pretty exciting. I'm really excited to see the relationships unfold between me and my students.
Rachael, Aleah and Jacob are involved in the Massama church, doing ESL lessons and tutoring 3 days a week, which is also going really well. Between our 2 churches, we have about 22-24 studetnts taking part in ESL. This is very exciting.



Our first ESL class - since then we have had 3 new people join!

The English coffee and conversation group.

Portuguese classes are still going well. We continue to have classes 2 days a week for an hour each. My Portuguese is not where I want it to be yet, but I continue to be challenged to do a little bit of studying everyday. I desire to be able to communicate more with the nationals here, so that is what is driving me to know more. We only have a few more weeks of classes left, so I'm hoping that once classes are over, I will have the drive and motivation to keep learning on my own. I am at a place where I can understand what people are saying or get the gist of what they are saying, but my trouble lies in my speaking. That needs work. I know I won't leave here in a few months fluent in Portuguese, but I hope to know and speak enough to converse a little.

Heidi, Donovan and I (Team Loures) are getting more and more involved with the youth in the Loures church. In fact, tommorrow, we are having our monthly Evangelical service, which is a time to encourage and equip the youth here to be bold in their faith, so they can tell their friends and families about what Jesus has done in their life. Faith is not easily talked about here. It's very much a personal thing, considering most of the country has grown up Catholic. Following this Evangelical evening, we are eating a spaghetti supper with the youth and then enjoying a movie and popcorn night with them. It should be a good time.

For the last 2 weeks, us girls have been taking part in a bible study with other missonaries from other churches and seminaries. We have studying "The Patriarchs, encountering the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob", by Beth Moore. So far it's been really neat and it's nice to get some spiritual filling by studying scripture together. And let's face it, it's also a time of good conversation and good food. There are some remarkable ladies in this group and I am blessed to get to know them.

God continues to be moving in this place and in people's lives. It's encouraging and exciting to see. Thank you for your continued prayers and support and words of encouragement. They are extremely appreciated.

Prayer Requests:

• For the leaders in the churches here - Otto & Marjorie, Jose & Paula, Christian & Camille, Marques.
• The Vision team from North America comes in a few weeks. This is a very important time for the leaders here. They need to present Portugal in such a way that encourages younger couples and families to consider serving here long term.
• The flu is hitting a lot of people hard here, even members of our own team. Please pray for health and energy as the activites and work do not stop when we are sick.
• For the church communities - The Amadora church, Loures Church and Massama. Please pray for the people in these communities - that they would grow in their faith and be passionate about discipling each other and new Christians. We need leaders to rise up in these churches.
• We praise God for continued growth in relationships between us and the nationals. It is our hope that some of these relationships will continue long term.



A January Beach Day

Beach days in January are absolutely wonderful.
Monday happened to be a day off for us and it also happened to be Heidi's 25th birthday, so we took the opportunity to spend the day at the beach. It's not often that a girl from the mid-west gets to spend her birthday at the ocean.

Because we usually don't go to bed before midnight, us girls got to sing Happy Birthday to Heidi and found some left over birthday cake from Marjorie's birthday the night before to share.



Being that it was Heidi's 25th birthday, we decided to make it a little extra special. The theme of the day was obviously 25. Sunday night, Rachael, Aleah and I blew up 25 balloons and wrote intersting facts about January 17, the year 1986, quotes, etc on each of the balloons.

After breakfast we headed out to the beach. We are fortunate enough to live only a 25 minutes away from the ocean. The bus ride was a little intense. Imagine a very narrow 2 lane road - a rock wall on one side and a steep drop off on the other. Now imagine 2 buses trying to pass each other on that road at the same time. They must have their most experienced drivers on those buses because that manuvering of those 2 buses was done to perfection with literally an inch of room to spare.

We safely made it to the train station where we took a beautiful, but short train ride along the ocean.

Eventually we arrived at Carcavelos Beach, very excited to be at the ocean.

We found these awesome bathing suits at the Bazar last weekend. We couldn't pass them up, so we took them for this very special occasion :)

Me and the birthday girl....Love you Heidi!

Eventually, Rachael, Heidi and Donovan had the courage to actually swim in the ocean. I could not muster up the courage to follow.

So, instead of swimming, I enjoyed a yummy meia de leite on the boardwalk while I journalled and listened to the crashing waves. It was pure perfection!

It was a perfect day. I can't wait until we can do this more often when it gets a lot hotter out.

The Latest Going-ons.

I'm nearing the end of day 2 of the flu. Talk about an unexpected twist to the week. This flu is not very much and I'm not enjoying this all-encompassing feeling of grossness running full speed through my body. Right now, my teammates are out enjoying a lovely dinner at our friends Christian & Camile, while I am here, laying on the couch under blankets watching Grey's Anatomy. Don't get me wrong, I usually love the moments in life that allow me to lay on the couch watching TV when I have nowhere else to go, but feeling like complete trash does not make this usual enjoyable experience very fun.

Up until Tuesday night, it was shaping up to be a very good week. Monday we spent the day in Loures where we sanded down the walls and re-painted the upstairs of the church. There was so much dust present in that building, by the end of day, my hands, my face, my hair and my clothing were a stark shade of white. I bet people didn't think my skin could get much whiter than it is right now, but Monday I proved that it could. We had a lot of fun painting though. I believe next week we get to do some more painting when we tackle the sunday school rooms.

Tuesday morning we headed out bright and early for language class. Language classes resumed this week. Horray!!! It had been a month of no classes, so it was nice to feel like we were making progress in the language department again.Unfortunately, due to being sick, I had to miss out on our second class this week, but hopefully next week I can hit the ground running again. After language class, we headed back over to the Loures church to finish up the second coat of painting. Tuesday evening, 4 of us went to play basketball with one of the youth, Celcu. I forgot how much fun it was to play basketball. We're hoping to make this basketball playing a more regular thing, which would be extremely awesome.
Then Tuesday night happened and I got sick. Boo.

This weekend is a busy one. Tomorrow is a free day, which is nice. Hopefully one more day of resting in bed will do the trick so that I can feel 100% by Saturday. Although, since it is a free day tomorrow, my original plan was to head over to Starbucks for some Heavenly goodness in a cup while doing some journalling and reading. We'll see if I can't still make that happen.
Saturday we have our bazar again in the Loures church. It's going to be a long, busy day, but we get to end it off by celebrating Marjorie's birthday over dinner. I really want to be feeling 100% better by then.

Prayer Requests:

1. Health. Being sick is clearly no fun, but it also means I have to miss out on team stuff and ministry opportunities. Please pray for healing over my body.

2. The Bazar in Loures this weekend. We hope that as people enter the church, they feel loved and cared for. Pray for interactions to happen between people in the church and people in the commnunity. This is a fabulous way for our church to reach the needs of the community.

3. ESL. We are starting ESL classes Tuesday nights from 8-10pm in Loures. Please pray that people would come and that this would be a neat ministry to get people into the church. Heidi, Donovan and I have never done anything like this, so we are a little nervous. Our first class is Tuesday, January 18.

4. Pray for both the Massama and Loures churches. Neat things are happening in the lives of the people there. We continue to pray for boldness for these people to share their faith with friends and family and also that the people in the churches would be stretched and challenged in their faith so that they can grow to be leaders in the church one day.

A Heart for Portugal

It has been exactly 2 months today that I arrived in Portugal. It's incredible to think how fast these 2 months have gone. In the time that I have been here, I have been blown away at how much God has been working in me and also in the lives of people around me. God is moving.

Over the course of these past 2 months, I have been praying that God would break my heart for this country, this city of Lisbon and for the people who live here. Last week, our team split up into groups of 3 and we did a prayer walk around Massama, where we live. As we prayed, I was amazed at what God put on my heart. He opened my eyes to see the people walking down the street like He sees them. We prayed for broken homes, for broken marriages, for businesses, schools, parks and churches. 
God is stretching my heart in all sorts of directions and this prayer walk left me with a yearning to pray more for these people and this community. God has incredible things planned for this place - in His perfect timing. In the meantime, I desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this community, whatever that may look like and see the church rise up in this place.

As we walked and prayed the other day around Massama, I had this song playing through my head. I thought I would share it with you. This song is my hope and my prayer for this place.

Feliz Anos Novo

Happy New Year!!!

It's hard to believe that 2011 is upon us. Where did this last year go? 2010 was jammed pack with so many good things that I guess it just made the time pass right by. 2010 held a few important ladies being born - India & Shae. It held the wedding of Kevin & Dominika, which means I got a new sister (for the record Dominika has felt like a sister for a long time already - the wedding just made it official). Derek and Courtney got engaged in October. There were lots of good times spent with friends I love - too many good memories to even start to count. I opened a massage clinic with some pretty great people and I guess the big even this year was that I began the TREK program and I have been able to live in Europe (which has been a dream of mine for a LONG time). Looking back, it's been a pretty incredible year and I am blessed.
I have high hopes for 2011. God is doing incredible things in my life and as He continues to transform me and stretch me, I am excited to see the person I will be at the end of this coming year. I know that I am not the same person I was at the beginning of 2010. I have learned so much this year. My knowledge of God has grown and I have changed so much - emotionally and spiritually.


I am not typically one for huge New Years celebrations, but considering I am living in Europe right now I figured it was the perfect time to take in some of the culture and head into downtown Lisbon with some people from our team to see the fireworks show and hear some concerts.
The crowds were ridiculous. I remember why this is something I don't do on a regular basis. Just trying to get off the subway was challenging as we literally pushed people out of way to get off. Everyone seemed to be in downtown Lisbon.



On the train into Lisbon

Happy 2011!

 

The concerts were much to be desired. I can't say the Portuguese music industry has won me over, but the fireworks display redeemed the concert.

Here is the video of the fireworks



Wishing you all the best God has to offer you in 2011.

A Day Trip to Mafra

New Years Eve, we all headed outside of Lisbon about 20 minutes to a town called Mafra. Mafra is known for its old palace and monastery, which is now being occupied by the military and the country. There is so much history in this country, I am always amazed to learn something new about this place everyday.



 

 One of the many relics we saw.

the centre court grounds

The ceilings and the artwork were incredible.

The Librairy - the monks here used to bind all of these books themselves.

For lunch, we headed to Ericeira, which is about 10 min away from Mafra. The beautiful part of being in Ericeira was being able to be at the ocean. I have been waiting to visit the ocean here since the day we arrived and 2 days ago it came true! It was not beach weather, but that did not stop me from going in. The socks and shoes came off, the jeans were rolled up as high as I could get them and I enjoyed the water. The Atlantic ocean is not exactly warm this time of year, but it was not too bad. I have endured colder water temperatures at the cottage in the spring and fall in comparison to here.

Seeing as we were by the ocean, us girls took the opportunity to do a mini-photoshoot together. My pants ended up being quite wet due to the waves, but it was SO worth it. I would do it again in a heartbeat.