Blue Grass and Ranch Dresing

Sometime a little bit of home feels really good. Today is one of those days. P's up visiting Nina. (Girls lunch date.) So the kids and I made Pork Chops on the grill.
I had recieved a package from my mom and Ish. It was some music CD's. One of which was Blue Grass Gospel. I don't usally listen to Gospel Blue Grass, but today is was comforting. Reminded me of being over at my dad's house on Sunday afternoons.
While I was cooking the pork chops, Eden reminded me that we had ranch dressing packets that her Nana had brought from the states. So we sat eatting pork chops, and green salad with ranch dressing, while we listened to Blue Grass musicfor lunch. Noah said it reminded him of when his Texas Grandma would visit. It was great.
I wasn't expecting it, but it sure was a nice little trip home for our ears and taste buds. If you'd like to take a little trip here in your mind, grill your self some fresh fish (leave the head on) and look at a picture of the Atlantic ocean. We'll leave a light on for ya;)

Just the Facts

I need to keep these things up-dated every other day or so because there is so much that happens in the course of a week that it become very hard not to write a novel when I blog. So here's a few high lights since I last wrote.
Maliki, Zac and Hill's little guy, had his second B-day last Sunday. I painted faces and the kids had a great time. Scott and Terri left for the states on Monday. We will miss them til they get home. The Uhler's returned home, from a family trip to Spain, before their kids go to Africa for the Summer. Eden and Noah went to the B-day party of Adian, a 9 year old boy they've met here. His dad and I sat and talk about Jesus and "spiritual"things the whole time. It was good. Yesterday we had a picnic in a park over looking Lisbon. There was lots of football playing (that's soccer for you Americans), and even more talking and making friends. Also KC, one of our interns that will be here for the Summer, arrived. Anything else...? No. I think that's the week in a nut shell.
P is working hard on her Serve the City project. It's really difficult to tell what it will look like in the end. We have lost some of the voluntaries we had and it's impossible to tell how may people will actually be involved from different churches and organizations here. Keep praying for this.
Our church service's are growing. With many new people visiting and a consistent showing from the normal people. It will be interesting to see what takes place over the Summer, as many people will be coming and going. My hope is that we are able to keep the momentum up so that when everyone returns in the Fall we can hit the ground running.
Well I think that covers the majority of the stuff. Might not be the most exciting post, but it's what's going on around here. Hope you all are well. We miss you and would love to pray for you specifically. If there is something we could be praying about please let us know. Blessings

It's all about the people

I am the worst at remembering birthday's, anniversaries, etc. Every year my buddy Joel sends me a greeting in one form or another on my birthday. So you would think that I would remember his birthday after 17 years of birthday wishes from him, but alas I am a flake.

This year I remembered. There is something about being so far removed from all the familiar. It changes your perspective about things.

What is important in life? It's not my money, or success, or even my level of comfort. It is people. People like Joel who are there for you. Year after year. Even when you let them down. People who when you pick up the phone after not having talked for weeks, sometimes months, are there for you, just as if no time has passed at all.

The world is so big and yet growing smaller everyday. My community, my people, those who I call friends are spread around the globe and the more I understand what it is that I am doing here on earth, the more I value them. Only took me 38 years to get a clue. So...

Happy Birthday Joel. You stood by me when I was down and I will always stand with you. I pray that today you are blessed, beyond what you could hope for. You are a great man, a wonderful husband and father, and one of the best people a guy could ever hope to have as a friend. It is my privilege to be your friend. Wish we could be there celebrating your birthday today. Be Blessed. Spence

Sleep Overs & Ice Cream Wars

As we keep leaning into missional living, we are blessed by how good God is to us. In the last three weeks we have had the opportunity to live in community for the majority of the time.
First our wonderful friend Maureen, who has lived in Italy with her family for the last 20 years came and stayed with us while she looked for an apartment. It was an awsome time visiting and sharing life with her.
Her whole clan will be moving here in August. They are great. They host a Christian rock festival in Italy every Summer called ROCK-ON-THE-ROCK. Triplet hooked-up with them a couple of years ago and they all really hit it off. Triplet will be touring with them this summer. It should be great. We're all praying for you Denny and Maureen.
After Maureens visit we had a couple days to our self before our friend Jochen and our new friend Julia, from Germany, came to visit and surf. Jochen was here with another young man, Miriam, back when we did our last 24/7 prayer room. They are passionate young men and women. Living their lives in Germany for the glory of Jesus.
Jochen and Julia were here until this Sunday and really loved on our Kids and the dog. One of our high lights was the Ice Cream War. Julia and Jochen had blessed us by making a wonderful dinner and afterward I ran up to the gas station to buy Ben and Jerrys ice cream. (A real treat.) When i brought home the four different flavors we all grabbed spoons and dug in.
From that point it became a free-for-all. Spoons were flying, and people laughing. Noah was the extreme ice cream eater and it became obvious that if anyone was going to get any Chocolate Chunk we were going to have to play keep away with Noah. It was a great time. Everyone was sticky and full.
We really enjoyed our time with our German friends and were sad to see them leave. It is a blessing to share our space with new and old friends. Maybe you could come stay for awhile. Be Blessed.

At the speed of light

Wow! Where has the year gone? Here it is, June already. That means that we have been here almost 9 months. I didn't expect it to be so crazy, nor so wonderful. Summer is trying to break through, but we are still having many cool weather days. Today is very warm though. Saturday the family went into Lisboa, with the Klebber family, to the first annual Cherry Festival. A good time was had by all, except for when Eden got a monster heat headache.

Noah has just received his summer mohawk. The traditional summer hair cut of Noah. I like it better than the summer buzz cut I would get as a kid. Plus it really looks good on him.

We talked with the International Christian School in Cascais about registering the kids for next year. More expensive than public school, but allot cheaper than all the other private school options. Plus a good school as well.

P is cranking along with Serve the City and has started running again. She is happier with the warmer weather coming. This longer Winter is not her first choice.

Other than that life is about staying on top of the little things. As we do what we do.

What are we up to?

Well it has been a busy few weeks. P was in Holland for Amsterdam's Serve the City event, so she could she how STC worked up close and personal. She returned home inspired and very tired. They had over 200 volunteers and she said that it went well. She is in full swing trying to get things in order for our Serve the City Lisbon, in late July. At this point she is overwhelmed with the response. We have close to 400 at this point and we haven't even kicked off the volunteer part yet.

Our Matrix is growing here in Portugal. We been have seeing positive response to Jesus in our surf community. How could we not, with the wonderful surf families that we have on our team. Scott and Terri (Lastcalleurope.org), Zac and Hillary (see the Sawyer Family link), Marty and Carrie all have given so much to the surf community. We have just had John Carper, a well respected surf board shaper, with us recently. He spoke to our Christian Surfers community last Friday night. I was told that we had a good turn out and discussion of faith. Cool stuff.

Also there are many new families moving to Portugal in the near future. It feels like God is massing people here for something. People from America, Australia, and Italy. All of them with a heart to see Gods Kingdom spread. Wonder what the future holds?

Speaking of the Kingdom, some of our community rock the under ground scene in the name of God. Triplet, a Portuguese punk rock band, are kicking off their album release this Friday night, with a big concert. We are praying for a really big turn out. (Check out the Triplet link) There is great need in the youth community to see the Spirit of God move. So we are behind them 100%. They will be doing a tour of Europe this summer.

As for me I am in a time of pruning and seeking what it is God want from me. It is so easy to get wrapped up in all of the ideas that I have, but what is it that God is calling me to? What does it mean to disciple people? How much is to much? If we are going to give leadership away, and people have these busy lives, how do we do that? I have more ideas than answers at this point. For now we have moved out of my house and are meeting in Lisbon for our community time. I'm hopeing that this will allow for us to enter into relationship with people on the organic level. We will see.

I think that's about it. Be Blessed

Thoughts on being a disciple

So what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? That's the question that i'm asking myself lately. Of course there are all the pat answers. A disciple is a student of her teacher. A disciple follows the teacher. A disciple is dedicated to the teachers teaching.

All that is true. I feel it in my bones. But as a father of two. As a husband. What does it look like for me? How do I take this teaching of Jesus's and make it live and breath so that I am a disciple maker.

One of the things that has been bouncing around in my head is the idea that Jesus never calls us to an easy way. He does say that His yoke is light, but there are so many times when He expects His disciples to have this crazy faith in the power He offers and take these extreme steps of action.

Do I live like that? Am I to tired, to comfortable, to scared, to--- you fill in the blank. Do I take the calling of being a disciple to the point where I am willing to lay down my life. Am I a servent to those around me? Do I worry about what God will think of my actions first and what men will think of them secondly? Am I scared of looking crazy to the world?

I wonder if I have been polarized in my faith. On one hand wanting to be open to those I am bringing the Kingdom of God to. Wanting to not sound fanatical. Yet on the other hand wanting to see God work in radical ways, seeing people give up this world for the Kingdom of God.

As we expand the Kingdom of God here in Portugal, we must find the truth of this statement, "What does it look like in my life to be a disciple. And how do we make disciples." I wonder if we don't need to be strong with our statements of Love in Christs name and let God do the heart work.