So...this blog has def. not been used a lot.  I created it a few years ago, thinking that it would be the best way to update friends and family on our travels and life overseas but facebook ended up being a better and more efficient way to do that, as we were so overwhelmed at first with language school, etc, etc. and by the time we had adjusted, a facebook group had taken off and there wasn't a need for this blog. But, now... I have decided to try and give this page a facelift and to start blogging more about our lives now that we're back stateside and figuring out how all that looks.  It feels a bit like we're starting over and in many ways we are...new home, buying new cars, new jobs, new purpose, etc.  Life as we knew it before in the US is over and we are totally different people now too so...here we go, I hope you enjoy!

--Rachel 

Portugal One Month...

Rachel and I arrived in Portugal a month ago today. We have been so blessed with the opportunity to settle in to our apartment and have orientation time with our team and we started full-time language this week. From the first day we arrived, we have had a non-stop whirlwind of touring the city, spending time with our teammates, and figuring out the metro/busses. Each day for the first two weeks was planned with getting our cell phones, tax ID numbers, bank accounts, and even doing a Hop On/Hop Off bus tour to get us oriented.Our team is wonderful and they have been extremely helpful with getting us to IKEA and helping us find where to shop and where to find some American products when we need them. We have a total of 9 units including us on 2 different teams in and near our city.

Our apartment is on the 13th floor in the Park of the Nations/Expo area of Lisbon. This area is where Lisbon held the 1998 World Expo and they built this area of the city for the expo. We can see the Teju (Tagus in English) river from our balcony and the train runs right by our apartment which can be loud. We are a short walk from the Aquarium and a beautiful boardwalk type area that has many restaurants and shops near the river. We also have a mall down the street with a very large grocery store in the basement. Across from the mall is a large bus,metro, and train station that can take us almost anywhere in the city and the trains can even take you to other cities in Portugal. This is great because we do not have a car and depend on public transportation to get mostly everywhere.

Our apartment is more spacious than we expected. It is two bedrooms, two bathrooms, with a spacious living room and kitchen and lots of closet space. We have a balcony that is not for the faint of heart (again 13th floor) off both the living room and the guest bedroom. We don't have heat or air conditioning and even with space heaters it still can be chilly. It was very sparsely furnished (we are ISC) but we couldn't live with the ugly orange couch that was here. With a few trips to IKEA, a used furniture store, (I got a great old brown leather man chair) and some other hardware type stores, our apartment is finally feeling like a home.

One funny-finnicky thing about our apartment is that our electricity can't handle more than one thing on at a time. If we run a heater and our stove at the same time, we blow our fuse box. If we turn on our washer and our condenser (sort-of dryer) we blow the fuse box. If Rachel runs her hair dryer and anything else...well, you get the picture. So we've blown the fuse box about 50 times. We're hoping to talk to the people about bumping up the electricity as soon as we speak enough Portuguese.

We have been surprised by how hard it is to get around without knowing Portuguese. We can sometimes ask if people know English, but sometimes, especially when you really need them to, they don't know what you're talking about. Even mailing a letter was a difficult ordeal. This does cause us to have frustrating days (we call them "I don't like Portugal days") and does make us pray to have supernatural ability to learn the language. We will be studying at the University 4 days a week for 4 hours a day starting next Monday.

The Portuguese are horrible drivers, and they do things much slower and less efficient than we Americans would like. We opened a bank account 4 weeks ago and when I asked about our debit cards today they said "Maybe next week." We are experiencing the typical response and nonchalance of Portuguese non-customer service.

We do hope to get involved in a Portuguese Baptist church, but the one we like is an hour and half away by metro and train. We will be helping choreograph a dance number for Easter and I will be speaking/giving my testimony for a men's ministry meeting this Friday. It is all in Portuguese so we don't know exactly what is going on, but they did sing a Portuguese version of "Shout to the Lord" and we just felt so blessed to be worshipping with these precious believers.

We were surprised at how turned off some Portuguese are to the gospel or even the name of Jesus. We did an Amazing-Race Lisbon challenge that our team set up for us where we had to go all over the city and accomplish different tasks. One thing that we had to do was give our testimony and try to hand out three Portuguese New Testaments. I was surprised by how many people told me no and closed me off immediately when I asked them if I could tell them about how I came to Jesus. It seemed like there was an instant wall that went up. I was able to have a profitable conversation with some college students and when I gave one of the guys a New Testament he was like "This is the stuff!" So we are praying for more open opportunities like that.

Will post more later!

November Update

"But the purpose/goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart." I Timothy 1:5 (NAS) This is our passion that we would love people the way Christ loved them and that we would want to preach the gospel as Peter did in Acts 4. "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

We are loving our time here at our Orientation at the International Learning Center. It is great to have this buffer time here in the states to adjust to not going to our churches, and to begin to understand what life will be like overseas. We have house church each Sunday and we worship with our small groups 4 other mornings as well. We are learning different ways to lead small groups and to story through the Bible. It is so good to be here with people who have the same passion of seeing people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

We ask for prayer for our Visas, we have sent everything to the Portuguese embassy, and now we wait. We have even sent our passports which we will definitely need for our flight date. (January 5)

Please pray for our time as we finish Orientation that we will soak up all that God has for us here.

Please pray for this coming Friday as our whole training group descends on Washington DC. We are going to do some cultural exploration of our people groups, and we will be seeking to have conversations that would lead to a presentation of the gospel.

We hope to see many of you in December before we go... we will be in Baltimore at Fort Howard Community on December 12th, and at New Covenant Church in Clyde, NC on January 2nd.

Pursuing our calling...
CJ and Rachel

ILC

ILC (International Learning Center)

Just a short update: We arrived at ILC on the 11th of October. We will be here until the middle of December. During our time here, we are taking classes, learning about church planting, missions, health, etc, etc, etc. It has been a great time so far learning about life overseas and how we can best fulfill the mission that God has placed before us. It's very awesome being here with so many other people that have the same heart for missions that we do. We are making so many great friendships and enjoying getting to know people. We live in small apartments that have a large main room in the middle. Our campus is set on a beautiful piece of land that is so peaceful. We're having a great time, learning and being in the middle of God's plan for us. Please be praying for us as we prepare. We want all that God has for us during this time, it's already changed our lives! Will update more later...

Praise!!

We have been given our final medical clearance! This was the last step in completing our paperwork with the board and now we are set for October training in Richmond. Praise God!!

I'm gonna do more with this blog when I have the time. I promise. :)

Just a quick update...

So...a week or so ago, we got our final 'approval' to go with our company to Portugal. We have one more requirement to pass our medical clearance and we have to have our medical clearance by late Summer at the latest. CJ and I both need to loose some weight, they have lowered their BMI/weight requirement a huge amount. We don't have a lot of weight to loose but any weight to loose causes a change in lifestyle so, we've started with a low carb diet and so far I've lost 12 lbs. (in 17 days) and CJ has lost about 9-10 lbs. We're well on our way and should be at our goals at the latest by the end of this semester.
We have a job description written for us for our job in Lisbon, Portugal and are in process of discussing departure dates, etc. The plan for now is to go to a 2 month training in Richmond, VA starting in Oct. 2010 and then to leave for Portugal after the holidays and time with family and friends the first of Jan. 2011.
We are excited about all that God has planned for us and are anticipating the change that is coming soon to our lives.
Please keep us in your prayers as we plan for this change in all areas of our lives, spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally. Also, please pray for our families as they prepare for us to leave as well.