From Here to Eternity

A year ago we could hardly function. A day might go something like, what are we going to do today? Do we have food? Better go to Jumbo. You want to go? Let's all go. The kids reply, we don't want to go. Ok let's go. No let's just get frango. (Roasted chicken) No we need toilet paper, let's just go to Jumbo and get it over with. OK let's go.
After three hours of wandering around Jumbo dazed and confused we finally check out and head home with our two little bags of groceries. After walking in the door we realize we have no toilet paper and didn't purchase anything that we can make a full meal out of. So I go and buy chicken.
One year later. Today we...
*Took the kids to school.
*Took care of the rental contract.
*Worked with the AIDS orphanage.
*Helped George with his painting job.
*Went to Aki and bought supplies for Casa Sol.
*Call the consulate in Spain.
*Went grocery shopping.
*Made dinner for our German friends.
*Taught theatre to 5th and 6th graders.
*Put mins. on our cell phone.
*Went to the post office.
*Did home work with the kids.
*Did laundry. Wash, line dried and folded.
*Cleaned the kitchen.
*Wrote the blog.
So as you can see, a year can really make a difference. wish we were always this productive.
Be blessed.

Stories of Life

So awhile ago I promised you I would try and put the Monkey story on my blog. I'm sorry it took so long but here it is. This dates back to our service day in Vienna, on August the 12th. I will try to capture the essence of the story as told to me by my wife, daughter and one Mr. Troy Cady.
It was a warm, muggy summers day in the city of Vienna and About 300 people from Christian Associates were heading out in my different direction to do service project for ServetheCity, Vienna. My son and I were part of the street performance team which I was heading up while my wife and daughter had been slotted to help clean up and animal shelter.
Their trip started off with a nice long walk to the shelter, a nice long walk in which they proceeded to get really lost. It was a good thing that Eric Folbrect, who was our CAI point man, had set up ways to contact people if we ended up lost or needing advice on any situation. They were finally able to get to the shelter and proceed with the animal shelter clean up.
Now I don't know about y0u, but for some reason, when I hear that someone is working at the animal shelter I figure they will be working with animals. Wrong. With kids in tow they were shown the road around the shelter and were put to work preparing it for re-paving. Hot, hard, dirty, physical work. But being the spiritual giants they are, they just jumped right in and started cleaning with out a word of complaint. (I have no idea if that true. I just thought it sounded good.) Anyhow they did the work that was needed and then were shown around the shelter. What pops into your mind when I say animal shelter? Puppies or kitties? What about tigers or giant chimpanzies? Well if you said dogs and cats you'd be wrong.
So here comes the monkey part. They see the tiger that is only kept from them by chain link fence, then are shown the giant chimpanze. This chimp stands about five feet tall and was once a lab chimp. He looks like a giant monkey on steroids. Not only that but he is very aggressive. As they watch him in his cage he starts swaying back and forth, then suddenly he picks up this boot that is in the enclosure and throws it at the plexiglass. Big scream from the crowd. AAAAHHHH! Then he leaps at the glass but misses and falls into the pit in front of the glass. No one could believe it and they all watched as he scrambled back out of the pit to go watch them from the little hill in the enclosure.
My daughter was really glad there was glass there because he didn't look like a friendly monkey. But now he was acting weird again. Standing at the back of the enclosure he starts hopping up and down getting higher and higher, banging the steel door of his enclosure as he does. Screaming Tarzan like monkey screams. Higher and higher. Then suddenly he launches him self from the back of the enclosure, across the pit right into the glass in front of them. BAM! Just like one of those George of the Jungle, hitting the tree moments and slides down into the pit. Everyone screamed like a girl;)
Now even though chimpzilla was poorly behaved, you have to understand he had not had such a great life, being a scientific experiment chimp and all. So in the end they really felt sad for the poor fellow. And anyhow they had a great story to share with the rest of us that night at the b-b-q. If any of you know Terri Last you should ask her to tell you her pig in the subway story.
All right that's about it. Hope I did the monkey story justice. Be Blessed and watch out for monkeys on steroids.

Back to School

Top three things I like about the kids going back to school...

1. The kids are happy.

2. I am happy.

3. P is happy.

The kids are loving school so much. I wish I had some pictures to show you, but alas no luck. Eden is making lots of friends and Noah seems to be enjoying school as well. Even though Noah never seems to be hot on "boring" studies, he's ready for his spelling test tomorrow and doesn't seem to really mind getting up at 7:00 am. He was getting up at around 10:30 over the summer. It's a new school year and we are starting a new season of life. Were just glad that we were graded on a curve this last year. Be Blessed and I'll meet you at the monkey bars at lunch.

Night and Day

For the past week we have been up to our necks painting and repairing Casa Sol. Start to Share a volunteer organization from Holland came down to fix up the inside of the place while the kids were away for holiday. The pictures to the right show the before and after work that was done.
Once again we built amazing relationships with some amazing people. This was Start to Shares first event and Serve the City, Lisboa was privledged to get to partner with them. Our community here in Lisbon really poured themselves out to get this thing done. There was more work than people and yet somehow it got done. The pay off was seeing the faces of these kids when they walked into their home and saw it all fixed up. so yes I am tired and sore but who am I to complain. I live in a nice home,with my little family and don't have AIDS. Now to find ways to connect with these kids in relational ways. More than stuff and fixing up their home, what they need is love. One on one love from people who are part of their lives. People who know them.
In other news...The kids start school on Monday. They are very excited and so are we. Also I will be starting to teach drama to the k-4th graders once a week and the 7-8th graders once a week. God rocks! Not only do I get to do something I love and use my gifting, but it will help bring down the cost of school tuition for the kids.
So that's a brief up date and idea of life here. P is busy with ServetheCity and our community is continuing to grow. Be Blessed and remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

To Do Today

1. Finish painting Casa Sol before the kids get home on Friday. (The place looks so much better all ready. Check out how moldy all the ceilings were in this place. Not good for kids with AIDS.)

2. Say good bye to the Hurst before they head back to Italy. (We will miss them till they move back here in October.)

3. Mail in our rental contract for this next year. (Wow, one year almost.)

4. Work on school stuff. (Kids go back to school on Monday and I start teaching theatre classes there the next week.)

Ok so I had better get running if i'm going to get anything done today. Be Blessed

Catching Up

Well we are back from our week long conference in Hungry and a short holiday in the mountains of central Portugal. There is to much news to tell you everything, but here are some highlights...

* We were really inspired to go deeper with God because of the teaching from Philippians at "Connect". Our speaker, the pastor of Cross Roads Amsterdam, was amazing.We looked at our suffering with Jesus and God not being done with the church here in Europe. Plus many other things. You might want to look at Philip. 3:12-14. Good stuff.

*Our first day at "Connect" we went into Vienna and did a one day ServetheCity event. Paula and Eden helped clean up an animal shelter. Noah and I worked with a group of people doing street theatre. Once again amazing things happened. I'll see if I can get some info up about the giant monkey that was out of his head crazy at the shelter and our encounter with the police doing street theatre.

*The kids had a wonderful time at the "Connect"/conference. They swam, made new friends from places like Romania, France, and Holland, enjoyed kids camp and over all wore themselves out.

*Eden celebrated her 11th birthday in the airport of Vienna. Poor things b-day fell on our big travel day. The down side was it was not a birthday party b-day. The up side was getting to hang out at the Starbucks in the airport all day. Plus she got almost anything she asked for that day, due to the guilt of no being able to really celebrate her special day.

*Our camping trip to central Portugal was much needed. We re-grouped as a family. Had fun together. Read books, went swimming in the river, jumped on the trampoline, laughed alot and saw some amazing Roman ruins on our way back home.

So that a little idea of the last few weeks. Like I said there's so much more I could tell you about. I'll try to get a couple of stories on in the next few day. Probably Tuesday, because I'm going to be out at Casa Sol painting tomorrow. Hope you have all had a great summer. Miss ya and can't wait to talk to you. Be Blessed

Learning to PLAY

When I was a kid I used to play. One of my favorite things to do was to go ride bikes with my friend Billy. Billy was a half Greek and Half Spanish boy with a smile to charm old Scratch himself. I loved hanging out with him. He was my best friend and we did everything together. Swim, bike, find old chewing tobacco in the high school baseball dug out and chew it. Walk old news papers down to the recycling in the 100 degree heat for cash, after chewing the tobacco. Buy lunch with the money we got from the newspapers. Then puke all over the front of the restaurant from the tobacco and the heat. It was great. We played. We played all the time.

So what happened? When did I forget how to play? I don't know. I look around and I see all these people who like to go out and play. The bikers. The surfers. The musicians. The campers. They know how to play and I don't. Something in me wants to play, but something else says "Nah". But that is all changing.

I am discovering my inner child. The one who wanted to go fishing and ride his bike and go to the beach. I am learning to play guitar. Well actually I am practicing guitar. I stink but that's ok. It's part of the process and the process in getting to something is the biggest part of the thing it's self. I am also learning to surf. Yes I know your saying, "You've lived in Portugal, one of the best surfing spot, and you haven't tried to surf?" Well I can say that I was able to get up the other day on my learner board. It was great. I spent the whole day wearing my self out surfing.

So I am learning to play again. I am learning to let myself relax a little. I am finding that little Spence and taking him to the beach. Want to come out and play?