The Beginning of Goodbyes

Last night we said the first of many goodbyes. The Vander Heiden family are en route to Washington D.C to visit some family before making their final destination for 4 months to Australia. We, as a Trek team are going to be missing this particular family a whole bunch. 

In only 5 months, we have become close with this family. We came here to serve them and to bless them, but I think I came away from our time with them, feeling more blessed. I have experienced so much joy serving this family - babysitting their awesome 3 kids, cooking and cleaning and just hanging out with them as a whole. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in numbers - the number of people you don't see coming to know Christ, but I am learning that if I have the opportunity to bless, encourage and help energize the long term missionaries here so that they can better serve and do what they have been called here to do, then that is awesome. That brings me joy.


As a farewell, we got together for a delicious pizza dinner at Otto and Marjorie's. I'm not gonna lie though, saying goodbye to these guys was hard. Thankfully we live in an age of technology where skype and facebook rule.

Man, I'm gonna miss these kids!

Picture Time with the Trekkers!

With the Mieka, Sofia and Josh, being gone for the next 4 months, Sunday School at the Loures church is over. Heidi and I had a lot of fun with these 3 kids. Now we just have to pray for more families with young children to start attending the church so that Heidi and I can have our "job" back and so that when these 3 kids return to Portugal in August, they can have some friends in their class to join them. This continues to be our prayer anyway.

Travel safe Matt and Kiri. May you return to Portugal, refreshed and energized and ready to hit the ground running again. Enjoy your time with friends and family as well. We love you lots!