"Do you live here or don't you?"

Well, a new chapter in our lives has begun. We’re innkeepers now. Only our inn is spread out over about twelve very undulating city blocks. There’s nowhere to park, so forget driving. Maybe we’ll get roller skates or skateboards. Then our neighbors would think us even stranger than they think us now, if that were possible. They do not understand at all what we are doing. Debbie tried explaining to two charming elderly sisters who live across the narrow street from Casas Travessa and Santana and it only frightened them. “So, do you live here or don’t you?” one asked. All they see is us walking around the neighborhood carrying all manner of household items and tools, coming and going from different buildings, picking up garbage and dog poop all over the place. I plan to get housepaint in various colors to match our neighbor’s houses so I can paint over the graffiti our guests must pass when they arrive. We’re wackos! We spent last weekend trundling about. Debbie’s been at this for weeks but it was my first taste of real action. All three places were full. There was a late Saturday checkin and an early Sunday checkout and a late Sunday checkin. Drex went to church with Austin and Vitor while Debbie and I worked. We love Sabbath-keeping, but we call this having our “ox in the ditch.”[1] Please pray we can keep our ox at liberty by scheduling checkins and checkouts on Saturdays.

One evening last week as I prepared dinner, Drex excavated in the back yard. He came across some worms. The discovery triggered a reaction in his brain and he asked if we could go fishing. He had not wanted to fish for almost a year, having lost patience with Portugal’s reticent trout. During this season of estrangement, when the boys at church have clamored for us to take them fishing as we have in the past, Drex has been unmoved. I didn’t want this smoldering reed of enthusiasm extinguished, but it was a school night, time for dinner, bath and bed. I knew the gear was a tangled mess. I asked Drex to give me a few minutes to think about it. During those few minutes, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the sort of childhood I’d like Drex to have; the things I’d like to come into his mind when he is old and looks back. I bundled up the tangled mess and off we went. We were on the Rio Cavado in eleven minutes. We fished about an hour, until dark. Drex, finally forsaking the instructions of his father which had availed him nothing, imitated the Portuguese who dangle their worms in the shallows for fingerlings and caught one. I didn't catch anything, but the winsome river and the clouds like great divine pastries baked by the setting sun to a brilliant orange pink beneath and set on a table of ice blue, made me wonder how I had stayed away so long. We fried Drex's fish for breakfast the following morning and he ate it in one bite, with exceeding relish. The next evening he caught three more. Maybe when we move to Lisbon and find all the good fishing spots around there we’ll include guided fishing trips on the list of VisitingPortugal.com amenities. Drex likes the idea of being a guide.

Please pray for thirteen-year-old Angelo. He used to be one of our most regular artists at Vivarte. He came almost every day to practice guitar, among other things. Lately he’s been in a slide, though, and we’ve seen less of him. His schoolwork has completely crashed. I think a big part of the problem may be his dad’s recent release from prison and subsequent reentrance into his life. His dad bought him new Nikes and a new cell phone, but they don’t seem to have given him either surer footing or improved communication. Angelo is off balance. His mom seems to be trying to control him, which only hardens his resolve to be free of her. Today he asked me if we could make a chair for his room. At Vivarte, we make a nice chair out of garbage. That is, from wood taken from pallets thrown out by the home and garden store. I jumped at the chance to make one with Angelo. When it comes to helping kids with their projects, I subscribe to a theory from Jeff VanVonderen’s book, Families Where Grace is in Place. He says the object of the game is to bring just enough of our own power to bear so the kids can succeed. I knew Angelo would need plenty of auxiliary power. He lasted about fifteen minutes before drifting away to a guitar. I figured if pressed he’d abandon the chair, so I finished cutting out the pieces myself. “Tomorrow we’ll put your chair together,” I said. Please ask God to put Angelo’s life together. His eleven-year-old sister, Cata, a joy who loves baseball, could use your prayers, too.

Thank you for praying with us and for us. In heaven you’ll see the effect of all this praying and it will be immeasurably beyond your imagining. Blessed week to you.

---

[1] Luke 14:5

Caught in a Vortex

One of the questions I had when I came to Portugal was whether it would be possible to have fellowship with Catholics as we have had in the United States; to leave aside, for the most part, our doctrinal differences, talk candidly about spiritual matters, pray together and encourage one another’s faith. The answer is yes. The early-morning peripatetic men’s group I’ve asked you to pray for has been having a spectacular time doing those very things. Each morning we read and discuss a verse or two from the Bible printed in Portuguese and English. They help me with the Portuguese. I help them with the English. Our most enthusiastic member, Senhor Araujo, says his life has changed completely as result of our discussions and prayers. He says he sometimes prays spontaneously with his family at home now, much to their surprise. He may be in the process of being born again. Please pray it would be so. Please also pray for the continuation of the group after my departure for Lisbon at the end of June. Finally, pray I can get another similar group started in Lisbon. By walking together and staying away from church we not only get good exercise, we avoid a lot of unnecessary conflict.

It looks as if this house may be turned into a foster home for kids under the care of the Bomfim Foundation, the foundation affiliated with our church, the same foundation that operates Vivarte. Our landlords met here today with Anabela Pereira, the Executive Director of Bomfim and my co-Sunday school teacher, and Carla Pego, Austin’s sister-in-law and the person responsible for the operations of the foster homes. Everyone was very enthusiastic. The next step is to get the house approved by the authorities and make a few minor modifications. The foster home that may move here might be that of Alvaro Azevedo, former Habitat for Humanity construction assistant, and his wife, who care for seven foster children who often play in the street where they live now. What a blessing it would be for them to have this big back yard and the neighborhood soccer court a stone’s throw away.

Please pray for Drex. When one is accustomed to the clever, delicately balanced repartee of a household such as our own, having one parent 366 kilometers away can be disorienting. Translation: He's tired of his father harping at him all the time. "Are you having bad days, Dad? You seem angry," he said this evening. And I thought I was doing great today! I was Mr. Patient! I was feeling real spiritual. What must he have been thinking last week when I was dragging a little? Maybe Drex isn't the only one for whom you should be praying. Whether it is a manifestation of these stresses or deeper relational issues between him and his teacher, Drex is finding it difficult to face his professora day after day. He says she criticizes him. Here, Drex is caught in a vortex. At home, he receives the standard American lavish positive reinforcement treatment. About the harshest criticism he hears for anything other than deliberate disobedience is, “Good try!” But positive reinforcement has not yet arrived in Portugal. When a math problem is incorrect, it is “bad.” When a tree is not green, or a sun is not yellow, they are bad, too. What is a nine-year-old to think? One good thing that has already come of the conflict is that it has made Drex more a man of prayer. Please pray he would be increasingly so and that God would transform his relationship with his teacher.

God bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you this week. Thank you very much for your prayers.

A Duck

A duck is just an idea

so powerful

it exerts a specific gravitational force,

bringing matter together

in a ducky way.

Same with that chair,

the world,

you.

If God stopped thinking of you

for a moment

you’d blow apart

into a bijillion pieces.

Roosters for Seagulls

I’m writing from the living room corner of Casa Santana, one of the two new apartments now available at VisitingPortugal.com. Spread beneath the window before me is the Rossio, which is literally the “Boardwalk” of the Portuguese version of Monopoly you may play when you stay here. In the night distance the black Tagus flows between a string of lights on its far shore and the illuminated triumphal arch, the gateway to Lisbon, in the Praça do Comércio, on its near shore. If I want to know the time I turn and look out the window to my right at the clock atop the late 19th century Moorish inspired Rossio train station.


Moon set over the Rossio station.
Find the clock.

Debbie has done another spectacular job doing everything to get these places on the map. Her decorating is charming, her negotiating culturally-sensitive yet ever-so-slightly hard-nosed. Of all the days she’s spent shopping one stood out. As she recounted the way she felt born along and directed by the Holy Spirit that day she caught herself and issued the old disclaimer one hears applied to little choices everywhere: “As if God cares about my shopping.” “As if God cares about what tie/dress I wear,” is its simplest form, but the idea grows like a B movie monster, until you hear Christians saying things like “As if God cares about what house I buy,” or “which job I choose.” Let’s settle this thing once and for all right now. Bring to mind a friend who loves you and loves to be with you. Imagine their delight when you find something really cute for your house, or the pleasure they take when you look really great. And not just really great, but really great for the occasion at hand. Not just any tie will do. This friend knows who else will be at the meeting and doesn’t want you reminding him of the tie he threw up on at his senior prom or the way his old boss used to dress. This friend delights in you. “You are IT!” this friend says when you’ve made up your mind. God cares more. You are the apple of His eye.

They took some getting used to, but one thing I’ll miss when we leave Braga is the roosters. We probably have at least half a dozen roosters within shouting distance of our house, including three or four living next door in different directions. Depending on the time of year they pretty reliably begin announcing the day between 3 and 4 a.m. I wear earplugs to take the edge off but I have become genuinely fond of their cacophonous accompaniment to my dreams. It has come to represent northern Portugal for me, which is fitting, since one of their number from a nearby town called Barcelos, rose from the dead many years ago to prove the innocence of a falsely accused man and thereby became the symbol of the region for everyone else. I’ll be trading in the Barcelos roosters for Lisbon’s seagulls, which are symbolic of plenty themselves. Their ancestors tricked about the rigging of Vasco de Gama and Ferdinand Magellan. Friends of theirs frequent Seattle. The roosters are rural and agrarian and quaint. The gulls are of the wind and the open ocean and all the places around its perimeter. I will miss the roosters, but it’s a trade I’m happy to make.

Casa Santana and Casa Travessa are within 10 meters of one another. Casa Joaquina is 500 meters uphill to the north. Walking between them half a dozen times yesterday, your VisitingPortugal.com handyman began to feel a camaraderie with the other working people of the neighbourhood; hoteliers, restaurateurs, grocers. In the years to come I hope to get to know these people and share the love of God with them. We all need it. Pleas pray it would be so.

Living with Behçet’s disease is like living in Kansas. When clouds begin to gather on the horizon you can’t help wondering whether they’ll blow over and be nothing or boil up into a twister. Both Austin and Drex have little health clouds right now. Please ask God to make them completely well.

Thank you for praying for us. The Lord bless you this week.

Stand We Will

Please pray for our family. We are a house divided. I know I mentioned in a previous Prayer and Praise Update that Debbie would be spending a lot of time in Lisbon taking care of VisitingPortugal.com business, but knowing it was coming doesn’t make it less disorienting for everyone. Debbie has been in Braga about twenty-four hours during the last two weeks. Drex seems to be holding up O.K. under the erosive effects of instability. Pray we all find our stability in Christ. Drex and I plan to drive to Lisbon with a load of furniture right after school today and stay until Sunday afternoon, which will afford us the rare opportunity of being in church together as a family, albeit an unfamiliar church. While you're praying for us, would you also ask God to direct us in choosing a Lisbon church home?
Thanks for hanging in there with us and praying for us. The Lord bless you this week.

A Wedding Story

I’d like to tell you a story that sounds like a fairy tale, but is not a fairy tale. In fairy tales things happen by magic. In this story things happen by the power of God.

What do we call it when something happens by the power of God? We don’t call it magic. What word do we use? It’s another “m” word. That’s right, miracle. We call it a miracle.

In this story a miracle happens. But miracles can be easy to miss, so you need to pay close attention to see if you can find the miracle. Here’s the story:

Once upon a time a young peasant girl watched over her grandparents’ sheep.

Here are the sheep. Here is a common wayside flower and some very small rocks.

As she watched the sheep and explored the woods and listened to her Aunt’s stories and read hundreds of articles mailed to her by her other grandparents and went about the business of being a modern young peasant girl, God spoke to her. God said, “You must leave your home and follow Me. If you do, I will bless you and keep you; I will make My face shine upon you, and I will be gracious to you; I will lift up My countenance upon you, and give you peace.”[1]

That seemed like a good deal to her, so she sold bread to raise money for her trip, mounted her noble horse Falada, and set out.

Here she is on her noble horse, Falada. You can see she is wearing armor and carrying a banner, because she was always very theatrical. The armor happens to be made of paper, but that’s another story.

God was unclear about exactly what she was supposed to do after leaving home. She interpreted that to mean she should do something unclear, so she decided to study economics.

At the same time, in a land far away, there lived a king. His was a small kingdom, but his subjects loved him because he cared for them and he was just.

Here are his subjects asking him questions. This one would like to know whether light is a particle or a wave. This one would like to know how to discover the will of God. This one would like to go to the restroom. The king will help them all. He was a good king.

From this picture, however, you may notice something interesting about the king. Can you see what it is? He doesn’t have a crown. Usually, kings have crowns. This king did not. That was O.K. with him, though. He knew he could be a good king without a crown. Sometimes the king’s friends would say, “Highness, you gotta getchoeseff a crown!” But he was content.

One day the young peasant girl, who had grown into a lovely young maiden, arrived in the kingdom. She had sold Falada to buy economics textbooks. Before she sold him, however, she discovered in his saddlebag a crown. She carried the crown in her backpack along with her books.

The king liked what he saw. He had never taken much interest in economics, but gradually he became more and more interested.

One day God said to the king, “I’d like to give you a crown.”

“Maybe a crown wouldn’t be such a bad idea,” said the king.

“I want to give you a crown,” repeated God, “but to receive this crown you must give up everything, even your very life, and become a servant, and wait upon Me.”

“I’d like to think that over,” said the king.

“Do you not know?” asked God. “Have you not heard? My judgments are unsearchable and My ways are beyond finding out.” [2]

The maiden placed the crown upon the king’s head.[3] In that instant both of them disappeared. Where they had been there appeared an eagle. The eagle spread his wings and cried for joy. Then he rose upon the wind that rolled beneath him and he was off. [4]

Did anyone notice the miracle? What happened at the end of the story? That’s right, the king and the maiden turned into an eagle and soared off into the sky.[5] Very good, you didn’t miss the miracle. Now I want you to pay close attention to everything else you see today, so you notice any other miracles as well.

[1] Numbers 6:24-26
[2] Isaiah 40:28, Romans 11:33
[3] An excellent wife is the crown of her husband. Proverbs 12:4.
[4] The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
[5] The two shall become one. Matthew 19:5. Those who wait upon the Lord . . . will mount up with wings like eagles. Isaiah 40:31.