Nothing Profound, Just Life.

The vision team has departed as of Saturday. We enjoyed a really good week with them - getting to know them, showing them Portugal and being encouraged by them. Despite the good week we enjoyed with them, we were all pretty tired by the end of it. But, I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Today is our day off. The change of pace for the day is welcomed. So, to celebrate this day off, I did something I have hardly done since being here in Portugal. I baked! I was in my happy place. Rascal Flatts and Lady Antebellum filled the room and I baked to my hearts content. I made Apple Cinnamon Muffins and Chocolate Chip Cookies.Yum!

I love days like today. It's an opportunity for me to take time for myself - to do things that bring me joy (like baking), but it's also a day for me to spend time catching up on emails, blogs and journalling. Today in my journalling I came across this passage out of Ephesions and it was so good that I wanted to share it.

"I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources, he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him.
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love really is.
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen"

~ Ephesions 3:16-21

Verse 20 is our team's theme verse, but I really like what comes before it too. I am choosing to meditate on these verses and allow them to soak into my heart on this beautiful day off!

The 3 City Tour

One of the benefits of living and exploring Europe, is that everything is close together. I wish we would have time to go venture into other countries, but that is not for this trip. So, we are trying to fill up our time exploring Portugal and trying to gain a better understanding of what this country is all about.

On Monday, 23 people set out in 3 vans to tour the cities of Fatima, Alcobaca and Obidos. The sun was out off and on (mostly off), which was too bad, but I'm just glad it didn't rain too much. You really need to see these places with the sun - pictures turn out so much nicer.

First Stop: Fatima

Fatima is an interesting place. In the Catholic faith, Fatima is a place of pilgramage. This is where a lot of Catholic believers journey to at least once in their lifetime. It is most well known for the religous visions that reportedly took place there in 1917.
Fátima is famous for the shrine called the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary, built to commemorate the events of 1917 when three peasant shepherd children claimed to have seen the "Virgin of the Rosary", Our Lady of Fatima. When the children asked for her name, she said "I am The Lady of The Rosary".
The Marian shrine in Fátima attracts a large number of Catholics, and every year pilgrims fill the country road that leads to the shrine with crowds that approach one million on May 13 and October 13, the significant dates of Fatima apparitions

People will often go on their knees for about 270m until they come to the Chapel of Apparations. There, they can purchase candles and they will be burned as a prayer offering.

The bigger the candle, the better. The longer a candle burns, the more a person's prayers are heard by God. You can also purchase candles in the shape of every imaginable body part. You would do this if there was a certain body part that was ailing you. If you burn that candle/body part, you may be healed of your condition.

The church is amazingly beautiful. It doesn't matter how many churches you visit here, each one makes me stop and admire the architecture and the incredible detail of the carvings.

In this church, 2 of the peasant shepherd children are buried - a boy and a girl.

On our way to the next little city, we passed this incredible castle in Batalha and stopped for a few minutes to take some pictures.

 

 Second stop: Alcobaca

Here we enjoyed a delicious lunch and part of the afternoon. In Alcobaca, there is an old monastery, which we visited.

In this church, the famous Ines and Pedro are buried - a Portuguese King and Queen. They are buried on opposite sides of the church, facing each other, so that when they get to Heaven, they rise and they are what each other sees first.

Team photo

Third and final stop: the walled city of Obidos.

Us Trekkers had been here before in January, but it was fun to go back. Us girls decided to have some fun and do an impromptu little photo shoot.

And we enjoyed the yummiest hot chocolate I have ever had. It was the perfect balance of creamy and chocolaty and it wasn't overly sweet. I thought it was perfect!

We returned back to the Bible College, completely exhausted but ended off the evening on a incredibly encouraging note as we all gathered together to encourage Otto and Marjorie in the work they are doing here in Portugal. 

They have arrived...

It's been 6 weeks of planning and preperations and the day has finally come and gone. The Vision Team has arrived. This team consists of MB pastors and church leaders from California and Ontario. Their purpose in being here in Portugal is to offer support and encouragement to Otto and Marjorie. It is also our hope and prayer that this team will return to their respected churches and tell them what is happening in Portugal. We need churches to have a renewed vision for Portugal and we need workers to be here for the long haul.
So, this week we are helping Otto & Marjorie out by hosting this team of 12. Us as a Trek team are doing all of the cooking. We are currently residing at PBI (Portuguese Bible Institute), which is located in the Tojal area just outside of Lisbon and we will be here until February 26th. So far we are enjoying ourselves and enjoying meeting with and getting to know the vision team members, even if our room does reak of moth balls :)


Saturday during the day, we headed over to the Amadora church to take part in a Leadership in the Church seminar that the vision team put on. It was a neat day full of interacting with great people and seeing people from the different churches interacting and dialoging with each other about leadership. It was encouraging to see and hear as this is not necessarily a common occurance.

I have neglected my camera as of late, so I have been trying to get more shutter-happy these last few days. Enjoy the pictures!

A typical Sunday includes Heidi and I singing on the worship team at the Loures church. We unfortunately are unable to look up from our sheet of music often due to the language thing. We're working on it though and actually today we had the opportunity to sing the Revelation Song in english for the vision team. It was a nice treat.

We also teach the sunday school class, which is made up of 3 extremely awesome kids: Mieka, Sofia and Josh.

On Friday we had the opportunity to take some time to explore the town of Tojal.

Like I said, on Saturday, we had the opportunity to attend a leadership workshop put on by members of the vision team. The event required a lot of translating between Portuguese and English. We have some extremely gifted leaders here with us who did a phenomenal job.

Today we attended all 3 church services. I always love going to the Amadora church. The community and the music is phenomenal.

Plus, they serve deep-fried dough balls after every service. I LOVE deep fried dough. I mean, what's not to love???

These are a few of the kids in the Massama church. They are a neat bunch of kids. Most of the kids attend church weekly without their parents. Their parents are not part of the church, but these kids are some of our most faithful attenders each week. It's neat to see the joy on their faces when they enter the church.

I apologize for the scatteredness of this post. Please continue to keep our team and the vision team here with us in your prayers this week. It is our prayer that this would be a really neat week of encouragement and renewed vision for the global church and what is going on here in Portugal.

Please also continue to pray for the people in our churches. I hope that they feel supported and encouraged by the vision team and also by us this week in particular. We want to see them grow in their faith and have boldness to lead in their churches.

Thanks!