Cultivating Christian Communities

Wow!  Two extremely busy months have passed since our last newsletter.  We decided to combine our June and July news since we have had such a whirlwind of a summer so far.  Summer has been the time for many visitors here in Lisbon.  We have been so pleased to have visited with friends, family, and some new faces as well.   In additon to spending a week with Kyle's brother Jared and his wife Catherine on their return trip from six months in Africa we have as a team also hosted many others as well.  Nathan Holland on a new mission team bound for Angola was here for two weeks to study a little portuguese and survey the Lisbon area for his future return here.  Fielden and Janet Alison, long-time missionaries to Kenya and parents of our teammate Martha Smith spent time here with the Smiths and our team while on their return trip to Kenya.  Also some future missionaries to Mozambique, the Beene family, paid our team a visit, and just today our team mentors Sam and Nancy Shewmaker flew back to Searcy, Arkansas after a nice visit with our team.  It has been fun to catch up with our loved ones but it also has made life quite full.  In addition to all of our guests, we have one new face to welcome to our team permanently as of Wednesday July 30^th.  Abigail Ruth Howell was born to Alan and Rachel.  We praise God for this new creation and sweet addition to our team.  We are glad to have Rachel's mother here in Lisbon as well spending time with her new grandaughter. 

 We have already begun our "second semester" in this intensive three semester portuguese crash course.  From where I am writing this letter, I can see the pile of flash cards which grows larger and larger by the week.  After four months of language study, both at our language school and out on the street, we are beginning to have small conversations with our fellow portuguese friends.  We have come to what linguists often call the 'language learning plateau.'  We now have the ability to "get by."   We can go shopping, we can order a café (coffee) at the local coffee house, we can understand simple directions when we are traveling through Lisbon, and we can read most advertisements and can get the basic gist in newspaper columns.  In other words, we can have acquired the basic survival skills we need to live in Portugal.  However, this aptitude is a long way from fluency.  Evidently, it can be difficult for langauge learners to move beyond the plateau.  We are now looking ahead with renewed goals.  Like what?  Well, we are striving to think portuguese and not think english- translating english sentences into portuguese.  We want to be able to pray spontaneously without having to write down the prayer beforehand, to be able to tell stories with good description, and to converse with people about abstract ideas.  Please continue to pray for us in our language studies.  Especially pray for this important stage of moving beyond the "survival plateau."  Also, please continue to pray for us as parents and langauge learners and how to balance those vocations.

Asher is continuing to get bigger and bigger.  When we first moved here, we had to role up the pant legs on his overralls so that they wouldn't be too long.  Of course, now we don't need to roll up his pant legs at all.  His favorite things right now include: chasing pigeons (still), eating "ithe" (ice), waving at people on the bus and making friends with them by trying to put his hand in their mouth, and going to our baker where he gets free cookies.  We have pictures of our parents and lately we have been trying to teach their names to him.  So currently he is working on saying Grammy, Nana, Papaw, and Grandad. 

Our team is doing well.  Everyone is progressing well with the portuguese.  Mika and Aaron, our teammates currently in the states, recently moved to their sponsoring congregation and are preparing to join us at the end of August in Lisbon.  (K&G H)

Dallas has the Cowboys, Boston has the Red Socks, while Arkansas has the Razorbacks.  A lot of imagery, consumer products, and loyalty are created from these local mascots in the states.  Typically, in America, we tend to have local mascots through sports such as basketball, football or baseball.  In Portugal, although there are soccer teams, each town has a different kind of mascot.  Instead of a sports team, for example, Lisbon's mascot is.St. Antonio.  That's right, a monk who lived a long, long time ago!  Evidently, this itinerant Franciscan monk was born in the Lisbon area in 1195.  Known for his zeal in preaching the Word and defending the faith against heresy, the ancient hagiography of St. Antonio tell of numerous miracles which protected people and were the cause of conversion for others.  Today in Lisbon, he is celebrated on June 12.  Associated with protecting young brides and a special connection with children, on June 12 the city financially sponsors hundreds of weddings (often for poorer couples).  They televise many of these weddings throughout the day on T.V.  The city pays for everything-dress, ceremony, reception, food, honeymoon-the works.  Another facet of this holiday is the parade on Avenida de Liberdade.  The neighborhoods or "barrios" of the city compete with each other in this costume march.  It was quite a fun and cultural experience watching this parade.  It reminded Ginger and me of Spring Sing at Harding-sorta?!?!?  Throughout the city, there are parties where neighbors grill sardines out on the street.  Children, traditionally, beg for coins for candles in honor of St. Antonio.  Although for many people the holiday has lost any religious significance, for many, it is a pedagogical holiday-time when values such as family, and generosity are taught through a colorful and fun holiday.  Though a monk is very different than a football team, with the advent of the 'science' of tourism, I'm sure you could find a t-shirt with St. Antonio on it!  (KH)

Over the past few months, we have both noticed a reoccurring theme in our lives.  God seems to be endowing us with numerous opportunities to cultivate patience.  As we struggle through this difficult language, we long for patience.  As we attempt to gently guide our precious and quite intense 16-month-old, we long for patience.  And as we are currently numbered with the majority of the world's population who travel at the mercy of public transportation, we long for patience.   As we endure the summer heat without air conditioning for the first time in our lives (this is probably old hat to some of you!), we long for patience.  As we stand in the grocery store trying to decide if we can avoid returning in two or three days (since we have to walk home with the contents on our backs and in our arms), we long for patience. You could say we are in the middle of a long transition that includes us becoming accustomed to waiting.  We recently encountered a new word in Portuguese that gives us a good perspective on this theme.  The Portuguese verb esperar means to wait.  We learned this word several weeks ago but just recently realized it also is translated as the verb meaning to hope.  If we instead were to describe our particular set of circumstances with such a slight change of meaning, how would this change affect our perspective or behavior?  Our waiting, or better yet our hope for God to instill within us the grace we so desperately need to accomplish the task before us, enables us to find meaning when it is difficult to see.  Paul describes how hope is cultivated..."Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."  May God continue to give each of his children the vision to turn our waiting into the endurance that leads us to acknowledge this great hope.    

Thanks for listening to our ramblings and experiences! (GH)

Blessings

TIMELINE:Travel to Nampula, Mozambique - December 2003

Email: kyleandginger@hotmail.com

By the tender mercy of our God,

The dawn from on high will break upon us,

To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of peace.

Luke 1:78-79

June/July 2003/Vol 2 No. 4