First week!

Hello friends and supporters! thanks again for continuing to pray for us. We are really settling in on this first week, and learning a lot! Portugal is deeply rooted in its history, and we have been fed with lots of history from our wonderful host Jose! (below) It's been extremely beneficial to get to know the background of this culture and then starting to assist in the ministry that is already going on here as opposed to starting a ministry with no familiarity with life here. We thank God for an opportunity to learn so much!

After a meeting with Otto and Marjorie Ekk, the missionary couple that has been here for 23 years, about what we would be doing while we are here, today we jumped into cleaning and organizing the Espaco (one of the churches here in Lisbon). What we thought would be a day of sorting turned out to be a day filled with playing! Nearly as soon as we opened the doors to the church, kids started arriving! By the end of the day, we had over ten kids hanging out with us. We did accomplish some sorting, but playing games, drawing with chalk, and listening to the kids was the majority of our day. All of us felt like this day was really joyful and definitely felt like both the organizing and relational parts of our day was what we were called to be doing, but the language barrier was a little frustrating. Thankfully Kara (top photo, far right) knows a little Portuguese, and some of the kids knew English. Pray that we can reach the kids even with that language barrier!

Also pray:

-for the Massama area of Lisbon. This is where we will be doing the majority of our work, especially with the church. We would love to see it be a place of joy and hope in Christ. 

-for our team! We are definitely getting over jet lag, but please pray that we would keep up our energy! Much of our time will be spent with the kids in these next few weeks.

Thanks so much for supporting us!