Happy Birthday Nana

We have just returned from 4 days of camping near Setubal, a coastal area an hour from our house. After 6 weeks in the states, 2 teams from the states coming to serve for ServetheCity and a whole lot of preperation and travel in the midst of that, we needed a little family time alone.

Or camping trip was good for the soul. We swam in the freezing cold sea, collected shells, took a day trip to Evora (the old capital of Portugal), slept in tents, read books, and spent time filling up our families love tank. It's so easy to let yourself run on empty when you're doing this kind of work. We have a whole lot on the plate in front of us. The number one thing being the school that Paula will be teaching at next year. www.cornerstoneacademy.edu So it was important for us to take this time for ourselfs.

All that being said we were not around to celebrate a very special womans birthday. So, even though it's a little late, all four Wild Geese want to say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANA! We hope that it was a wonderful day for you. We all thought of you on your special day. Hope the next 29 are as good as the... last 29?

Happy Birthday all you August babies and Be Blessed

I Left You Hanging...Our Story (Part 7)

When I last blogged our story things were starting to look better for Paula and myself. Love was restored and our little lives seemed to be headed in a better direction. My job at the resturant was going well. And Paula was beautiful as she grew rounder with our baby.

I had build her a little wood alter for our living room and she had placed all of her magical nic-nacs there. It was during this time that we really started to get to know each other. Up to this point we were just functioning out of the experiances we had had together for the last 5 months or so. It was a special time where together we started to learn what it meant to not just live for ourselves, but for others as well.

My time at the resturant was a step in our journey to Jesus. Because at this resturant, "150 Grand Cafe" I met a wonderful lady named Terri Last. She was the wife of a pastor. Now if you know Terri you know she is a lover of people and it doesn't matter who you are, or how out there you might be, she just loves you. To be honest with you I didn't see her like that at the time. What I saw was based on my preconsieved idea of someone who was a Christian and not only that but the wife of a pastor too. I mean I had gone to church once in awhile as a kid, I knew what Christians were all about. She was very sweet but nieve. The poor lady hadn't really been exposed to all the scum and wildness of the world. (Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll) Even so she was super nice. You just couldn't help but like her. And when she listened to you she really seemed to be interested and not judgmental.I really liked her. So did Paula. Paula would come and pick me up after work (we only had one car) and the two of them would sit around and chat while I finished my shift. They hit it off too because they are very similar people. I've got to say it was a very sweet time in our lives.

Once in awhile I would get the chance to work the dinner shift. That's where the real money was. The cool, wild thing was that when the doors would close and the customer were gone, the resturant/bar would transform into philosophical forum. That's when the conversation would turn to faith, God and the spirtual rhelm. In the cool blue glow of the vacant resturant/bars lights, we would all grab an after shift beer or glass of wine. As we sat there refilling salt and pepper shakers and folding napkins or just hanging around, we would fill the air with a buzz of thoughts, questions, and wise self taught answers about what we believed or didn't belive. It was the real deal. A safe place. Where we were a family. Letting our masks down a little. We struggled through the high stress of waiting tables together day in and day out. And when night fell we laughed, loved and longed together. But still we were alone.

But I wasn't alone. I had a lovely lady who was going to give birth our off-spring. Paula continued to come pick me up after my lunch shift and it was growing very near the time for the baby to be born. Now even though I liked my job, the people and the hours, I wasn't making enough money to really make ends meet. So with the baby on the door step, and the bills mounting my dad offered me a 2nd chance to work in the Honey Bee buisness with him. (It was more like a 30th chance because I don't know how many times I had quit working for him through the years. The long suffering of a fathers love. Thanks dad.) I accepted his offer. In August we had a baby girl whom we named Eden Rose, instead of Pagan Presley (that's another story) and I went to work for my dad in his Honey Bee buisness. Oh man was she beautiful. We decided to get married in February and moved into a little white house (no picket fence), just down the road from my parents, and not knowing it, just down the road from Scott and Terri Last. That sweet lady from the resturant and her pastor husband. Oh how things were about to change in ways we would never have expected.

Barbarians at the Gate (Of the School)

WARNING: RIGHT NOW MY SPELL CHECK IS DOWN ON BLOGGER, SO MY SPELLING IS BARBERIC!

Barbarian is not usally a title that we hope to acheive. The picture of the barbaian in my head is the image of a brutal, dirty, uncivialized warrior. So why would anyone want to be a barbarian? Who would choose "The Barbarian Way?" Do we really want to stive to be barbarians? To call ourselves a barbarian tribe?

I have just finished Erwin McManus' book titled "The Barbarian Way, unleash the untamed faith within"
Quoteing from inside the front jacket,
"In The Barbarian Way, McManus calls you to return to the ancient, primal, and dangerous faith of Jesus and his early disciples. Let go of a sanitized Christianity and get back to the powerful, raw and ancient faith that chooses revolution over compromise, peril over saftey, and passion over lukewarm and watered-down religion. Christ's passion drove Him to the cross; the cross of Christ drives you to His passion. Take up the challenge of the 'barbarian way,' and your life will never be the same."

Wow! That's just what I want. That touched a place in my heart. In a nut shell it is what God is saying to me right now. As you know we are in the process of getting this school, Corner Stone Academy, going by September 15th. Now if we were living a safe domesticated faith we would have said no way. This school thing is way to big of a beast to take on. It's unrealistic. But evertime we would try to walk away from it God would put it back in our laps, so we took it on. We went to the river, picked out 5 smooth stones and took on this giant of a task. In human terms it is a ridiculus task, impossible, but who would have guessed that little David would win. Or that when Moses pointed his staff at the waters the sea would part and the captives would cross through to dry land. Who would have even thought that Moses could have gotten Pharo to set the people free. Or that God would get His holy hands dirty by becoming human like us, and then sacrifice Himself for a bunch of dorks like us. And that through that barbaric sacrifice He would take care of all our junk. The most foolish actions, paying out the most amazing results.

We are barbarians at the school gates, making foolish choices in the eye's of the world. We have been working out our salvation through the development of this school, pursuing the barbarian way. As McManus says, "The land of promiss was not a land free from dangers. The milk and honey they were promised awaited them amid a land of giants." For the last few weeks I have been feeling that exact thing. When 12 spies were sent into the promised land to check it out, 10 of them reported back there were giants in the land, but 2 of them said sure there are giants, but the fruit in enourmouse. The land of promise was not a land free from danger. (They should have listened to the 2 not the 10 becuase they didn't trust God and ended up spending the next 40 years in the desert. )

So what shall I do? I want to live by faith not sight. I want to choose to "follow the One whose barbarian path lead Him to the brutality of the Cross." I want to face the giants in the land and see the enourmous fruit. I want to let go of a sanitized Christianity and get back to the powerful, raw, and ancient faith. I want to dance like David with all my might, half naked, before the Lord our God. I want to never be the same again. I want to live the Barbarian Way. Be Barbaric and Be Blessed

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

What a beautiful girl. I have been so blessed to be the father of this young lady. Today she turned 12 years old and she is well on her way to growing-up. (To fast) She is smart, kind, pretty and full of life, just to name a few of her awesome traits.
She spent the morning working at Casa Sol, the house for orphans with HIV, helping Serve the City clean, paint and do what ever was needed. (Check her out welding a few blogs back) Tonight we will have a small party for her. Princess I pray that the next 12 years will be as wonderful for you as the first 12 were. Be Blessed Sweetheart and you all Be Blessed too

You've Gotta be Kidding Me

Why do things like, the car not starting on the one day you're supposed to take your friends around Lisbon and sight see happen. It just seems so unfair. I walk out this morning to get the car ready to go to the city with our volunteers and the key will not go all the way into the ignition, no matter how hard I try. So what choice do I have, I have to stay home and fix the dang car because we need it the rest of the week. (No, that is not my car. It a car I took a picture of while back in the states, but I would like it to be my car)

So I stand there thinking, I don't have the money to pay for a mechanic to fix this thing. Just looking at the car cost who knows how much and I'll have to pay to get it towed to the mechanic. So what to do? Bright idea! I will try and fix it myself. I figure all I need to do is pull the ignition out and go get a new one, which will probably cost me 20 euro to do, but I figure I can swing that.

But car stuff is never as easy as that. First I had to remove the cover around the steering column. Not to bad. A little tight but do-able. Then I had to figure out a way to remove the ignition. That became a problem. I have no idea how you remove an ignition from a 1991 Peugeot 505 station wagon. They're like little tanks. So after a whole lot of deep breathing and a lot of struggle, I come to a halt, but I can't give up. I have to get the car running and it's going to be today because I do not have any other time to do this. So that's it. It's decided, I'm going to figure out a way to hot wire this sucker.

When I was in high school I had to hot wire my orange, tiger stripped, 1972 Datsun pick-up because I lost the key. So I have hot wiring experience but this time it has to be better than the last time. Last time I used a hair pin to hold the wires together and every time I went around a sharp curve it would fall off and the truck would start to stall out if I didn't reach under the dash and grab the wires to hold them together until I could get the hair pin back on. Go figure.

So this time I spend some time trying to figure out how to hot wire the old Peugeot and I succeed. You just shove all the wires together and it start, but then you have to remove the hot one that goes to the starter or it keeps cranking over even after the thing has started. Once I had that solved I had to go buy some switches to turn the thing on and off. I will not bore you with the adventure of looking all over Cascais for something that would work for switches. I would have liked to have gotten some toggle switches, but I couldn't find any. So I settled for these lamp switches that I thought would work. As long as they aren't to light and don't melt on me. We will see.

I hurried home with my treasure and got right to work and after a few hour I had a 91 Peugeot with 3 lamp switches installed under the steering column that will do everything you need to start your car, make the radio work, run the lights and turn the wipers on and off. And all for under 10 euro. If I don't fry the electrical system in the car I will be very happy and proud of my hack auto mechanics. Gentlemen, (And ladies too) start your engines. Be Blessed

Watching the Sparks Fly

Here are a few picture of our service day for Serve the City. We were out at Casa Sol, the orphans home for kids with HIV in Lisbon, doing more repairs and fixing a few things up. Check out all the chicks working those power tools. I just love the shot of Eden welding while all the dads watch with grins on their faces. There is just something about an 11 year old girl welding that brings a smile to your face. Serve with a passion and Be Blessed

Arrivals and Departures

When your living life as a Wild Goose on the field, you start to realise that the migration of people you love will become a natural part of the rhythm of your life, a painful reality. You also realise that you can't say good-bye over and over and over again or pretty soon you will have given your heart away bit by bit in little pieces, and so you don't say good-bye. You say see you soon.

But this time I couldn't help it. I had given a piece of my heart away to the Gregg family and they have taken it with them to Morocco. I am sure that this is the right move for them and yet it is still painful. They were such a joy to have around day to day here in Portugal. Their hopefulness was contagious. Their joy was inspirational. Linda Gregg is a beautiful, warm woman with a heart as big as Europe. She was an important part of seeing this school getting started even as she prepared to launch into the unknown. Jason Gregg is a rock, steady and cool in every situation. Leading his family with a tender warriors heart. The Lisboa Matrix will miss them, all 6 of them. They are the Jesus Gypsy's. Check out their blog on my blog roll to the right. I had to put this wonderful picture of Ezra up for you to see. That smile is what all of their hearts are like. Ezzy, Elisa, Sophia, and Elianah (sorry if I spelled her name wrong Linda) we will miss you dearly.

And so I am off with the teams that have arrived from the states, to serve the city of Lisbon with a little hole in my heart that is shaped like the Gregg family. Be Blessed Gregg's and we will be blessed too. See you soon.

We Serve

On Sunday we had two teams from EFCC, our sending church in California, arrive here in Portugal to do service project with us. The Sun Deo team is made up of 10 lovely ladies and a wonderful young man. Then there is the Post-college team, 7 women and 3 men who all slept in my living room Sunday night. Can you say slumber party?

This picture is of the Sun Deo team after a long day of cleaning, trash removal, weed pulling, and brush clearing. These gals put their hearts and souls into working all morning to prepair the surrounding area to get painted on Wed., then they headed off to do pampering projects ( hair cutting, nail painting, eye brow plucking, you get the picture ) for some Portuguese women. A very productive first day I would say.

Yesterday we headed into Lisbon to prayer walk. We spent the morning walking through Parque das Nacoes, ( Park of the Nations ) praying for an area where some friends of ours are doing out reach. It was a good time of prayer and bonding. From there we headed over to old Lisbon, had a traditional Portuguese lunch, talked about the spiritual dynamic of the area we were in and finished our day with a prayer walk through the city.

And now today we have just finished painting the afore mentioned wall. Plus they did two more pampering project. I'm only mentioning the Sun Deo team because they have been the team I have been working with. Paula, on the other hand, has been out at a camp for Aldiea SOS orphans at the beach with the Post-college team. They have been watching the Jesus video, doing crafts and having an over all wonderful time it sounds like. At least that is the evening report I have been getting from P each night as we have a quick meal and then fall into bed.

Oh and did you notice that the exchange rate has dropped some? I did. I was down to 1.48 today. What a blessing for us. You Be Blessed too.

Blogging at CONNECT

This is my friend Nelly. She is a wonderful woman and an awesome blogger. (Hello said Jenelle to the right) It was her job to put together a blog for our Christian Associates CONNECT conference.

I had the privilege of being one of the blogger's for the week. (You'll find my stuff near the bottom) If you would like to get a taste of what was going on in Hungry this last week and the journey we were on, you can go to this link, http://caiconnect.wordpress.com and take a look. There are some blog high lights, a few simple videos and and all the audio files from the speakers. Take a peek and enjoy. Maybe it will speak to your heart. It did mine.

Be Blessed

So finally we are home. (Actually we returned just over two weeks ago, but I flew to Hungry right away so I feel like I just returned home, after two months.)

The weather here in Portugal is warmand sunny. I wish I could just kick back and enjoy it, but there are about 5000 things we have to do.

Here are the top 10 things we have on our plate.

10. Pay bills

9. Go to the market and get food.

8. Fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen.

7. Clean the car out and check all the fluids.

6. Get the house ready for the team from the states that will be staying here Sunday night.

5. Wrapping up all the details for Serve the City.

4 . Work on all the details for our new school, Corner Stone Academy.

3. Write Thank You notes to everyone who helped us out or hosted us while in the states.

2. Blog (I get to check this one off)

1. Not freak out!

I want to blog about this last week at out Christian Associates conference, CONNECT, but I think I will just have you check out the Christian Associates website. I know we are going to have reports from bloggers there in the very near future. (I happen to be one of the bloggers that got to give their view point) So as soon as it there I will let you know. Ok, I have to go grab a couch for the new school right now, and put some minutes on our phones, so I have to run. Pray for us, please. I can feel the stress level eating me all ready. Be Blessed and Enjoy Life