Highlights of the Month

Well most of the month of March was spent, in addition to our normal ministries and routine’s, planning and preparing for a youth retreat. Our team had the opportunity to be involved in the planning and running of a youth retreat for youth from three of the churches here. We spent a lot of time planning out teaching, worship, prayer, games, team building activities, and meals. It ended up being a wonderful time of refreshing and encouraging, and it was so cool to see people growing and challenged in their faith. Over the course of the retreat, we had time to spend alone with God. It was very encouraging, not only to have that personally, but also to hear about how that was encouraging others, and how God was speaking to them. I want to praise God for all the good work he did on this retreat - we certainly could not have pulled it off on our own, and he definitely gave us the strength we needed to make it through the busy weekend.

The day following the youth retreat was Easter Sunday (Happy Easter!), and we attended and did a DRIME in three different churches, and had meals/large evening snacks after two of them. All in all, it was a very crazy day ending a very crazy weekend! But it was wonderful - and busy or not, we loved it. This last week we had two of our friends visit, who have been working in Germany. It was very encouraging to us to have visitors who are doing something like what we are, just in another country. We spent three days with them as well as Joe and Paula Arrais (leaders here in Portugal) on our mid-term retreat, refreshing, refuelling, and enjoying each other’s company.

Which bring me to now . . . It’s hard for me to believe that I only have two months left here in Portugal. I’m excited to see what God is going to do in these next two months - we’re not done yet, and we want to go hard until the end and not slow down. Please continue to pray for us, that would push hard to the end and not grow weary. Ask God to continue to give us opportunities to serve, and to give us boldness as we encounter people who do not yet know him. Pray that he would give us fearlessness!

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13