Já está. Até proxima.

Pronto. My time in O Refúgio do Amanhecer is almost up. Tomorrow (sexta-feira), at 16.05 I will be speeding along the runway before the nose pulls up and the plane slowly rises off the ground, spins around, and points itself in the direction of London Heathrow. I've been here for about six months (in fact, my time has spanned 6 months - January, February, March, April, May and June - but hasn't quite been a six month duration) and it feels very weird to be leaving. This has become a home for me, in a way; in England I have nowhere to act as home since our house is being rented at the moment. It's an odd feeling to leave somewhere foreign that has so quickly become so familiar, to return to a place once so familiar which will now feel foreign... almost.

Thank you, here and now, from the bottom of my heart, to those who have read continuously, those who have prayed, those who have sent stuff, and just generally supported me. It's been really great. Muito obrigado!

From plunging my entire arm into gutters, to mowing the lawn with a glorified strimmer; from playing footy to running; from laying cement to laying flowers; from weeks of rain to weeks of scorching sun; from eating too much food to giving out food on the streets; from losing money to being given donations; moving along in faith and discipline with times of struggling in the middle, making new friends and family along the way; from England to Portugal, this has been a trip I will not forget. God has moved in me and spoken to me in a way I wasn't expecting. I have learnt a lot, read a lot, loved a lot, and been loved even more. I have focussed, I have become structured (or at the very least, more so than before), I have slipped up and I have had to face the consequences. I've got back up, I've continued. I have grown in my relationship with my beautiful girlfriend as well, and feel far closer to her now than ever before, despite being over 1700 miles away. I've even got myself a tasty tan, and have built my muscles, if I'm being utterly shallow.

Rubén and Loida threw a Barbie for me at their house last night. There was a lot of food (in honour of me, he said), and beer, and it was a lot of good fun. It was such a nice way to be thanked.

It's been fun, it's been hard. It's been relaxing, it's been tiring. It's been for me, it's been for them. Will I be back? You bet'cha!

Até já, todos. Vou a ter saudades por esta local, mas vou de voltar quando posso. É incrível.

Já está. Adeus.

Another Weekend

That's right. I spent another weekend over in Porto with Bill and Tina and Riverside Porto Church. We had a Barbeque on Saturday afternoon - luckily the sun came out for us despite having thrown down a lot of rain in the morning. Lots of absolutely splendid meats and salads and puddings on offer. Lots of great people - many faces I already knew, and many new people (especially people from the America Club). I even went for a swim in the pool! Until I got attacked by Caleb and Emily, two little kids. What is with that, eh? Sunday was nice and relaxing - late wake up, read some of 'The Shack' (but didn't manage to finish...), had comfort food in front of the Turkish Grand Prix (what's with Jason Button doing so well these days?) and then had a great meeting in the evening. Played the djembe again in the band, Bill gave another good message on Romans 7, and then Anna-Theresa and I were 'sent out' and prayed for at the end. She's going to Brazil for a couple of months to do some mission work with a youth charity out there, then going to Hiedelburg, Germany to study Law. Muito fixe. Being 'sent out' by Riverside was odd though - I was also prayed for by the Submerge community in Guildford back in January (thanks guys!) and now being sent back from a church I've barely been a part of. What a community!

On Monday I planned to go to Lisboa for the day with Sofia and her friend who had come up for the weekend and was going back that morning. Unfortunately, we arrived at Campanhã station at 10am to find the next train was at 10.52 arriving at Lisboa at 14.00. I thought it would be a bit of a waste, as I'd have had to get a train back at 4 or 5pm in order to be back at the Refuge not too late. So, instead, Sofia and I spent the morning in Porto. I found this really refreshing - it's been a while since I've walked around the place. We went to the Palacio de Crystal and walked around the gardens which were lovely, before walking down to Ribeira for lunch (cachorros especiais - like a francesinhas but in hotdog form). Seeing the run down houses and the dirty streets once again reminded me how much Porto has expanded beyond what it could manage well, and has left many poor people. I felt once more the feelings of excitment, pain, passion and care for the city - it was very refreshing. I feel more than ever that God wants me here - I don't know for how long, or when, but I've got an idea as to what. It's exciting.

Most incredible bookshop: Livrario Lello

The view across to Gaia from Palacio de Crystal€

I had a go at cutting the grass with the machine, finally. Got the hang of it after a while, so that was good. I didn't feel so useless. Then the lady came back, took over from me, and was so much quicker. I followed behind, raking and chucking the cut grass. Agora parece muito mais bonita :) I guess the biggest news now though, is that the men had laid the astroturf for the footy pitch! Não estou a brincar! Finalmente - é fantástico! All the gree grass, white lines and yellow basketball lines are out. The sand is being laid (well, not right now, because it's raining...) and then 'as balizas' (the goals) will be put in place. It's dead exciting! A new access ramp will be made up to the pitch, so I had to cut some of the vines that were in the way. Look out for photos on the way... Não posso esperar de jugar o primeiro jogo nesta campo.

The beginning...

Middle...

More middle...

And end of the footy pitch creation!

Tambem, foi Feira Medieval no sexta. Fantástico! Todos as escolas estavam ali. Amazing time. All the children of all ages (3 years old to 30 years old and more!) were dressed up in medieval clothes. There were monks, nuns, crusaders, knights, peasants, beggars, farmers, belly-dancers (no, I don't know either), jesters and clowns, and more. What a sight! We all collected in Termas, a nearby town, and then paraded from there to a school a couple of kilometres away, people lining the streets, cheering from the balconies and dancing alongside. It was amazing. At the school we were greeted with a huge maypole, and loads of medieval type stalls selling shoes, medicines, food, a Taberna and even live animals ! Great show.

The entrance to the school

An array of monks, nuns, crusaders, peasants, farmers, beggars and even belly dancers!

Typical cockerels for sale. Very Portuguese.

Foi o aniversário do Marcos no sexta passada. E porque fui no horário da noite, jugámos o jogo do chocolate, e o jogo com maçás na agua. Encantaram-o :) (It was Marcos's birthday last Friday. And because I was on shift for the night, we played the chocolate game and apple bobbing. They loved it :)) Agora, tem 10 anos.

Playing Pear Bobbing on Marcos' Birthday

Acho que tenho mais um blog que logo vou a compartilhar aqui. É uma pena; meu tempo quase acabou :(

(Também, I am horrified to hear the BNP got not only one, but TWO seats in the Euro Elections. Come on, chaps! What's going on?!)

Dia Mundial da Crianças

It's that time of year again, folks! Mar and I found out the other night that yesterday was International Children's Day! Very exciting. Mar had a brainwave - to decorate the house to surprise the children when they woke up! We started at about 9.30pm, finishing at 2am last night - I had no idea we'd spent so long! I made a big banner saying 'Feliz Dia das Crianças: Vocês são especiales!' with the kids names and various pictures. Mar and I printed out a bunch of 'Madagascar', 'Bolt', 'Cars' and general kid pictures and Mar mounted them and wrote little messages like, 'Somos um equipo FIXE!' ('We are a cool team!'), giving each of the characters a name of the children here. We then found some fabric markers and unused t-shirts and made them all a unique t-shirt with encouraging words like, 'Sou numero 1!', 'Sou muito fixe!', and 'Sou um rapaz estupendo!' They loved that. The rule is they had to wear it all day - they didn't mind. We then stumbled across a bunch of Disney character masks, so we gave those to them with their breakfast (which included sweets and chocolate). We also found a couple of wigs, which Mar and I wore and painted our faces before putting 'I like to move it move it!' at full volume on and waking the children up by dancing and jumping and singing and making a heck of a racket! Brilliant! The kids were blurry eyed and confused at first, but soon were beaming, grinning, dancing, singing, shouting, and being very kiddish. Enjoy these photos and video!

Our Efforts... My Banner! Joel...

Left to right (back rown, then middle, then front): Nelson; Dinora; Marcos; me; Jorge; Joel; Miguel; Paulo.

Fabio...chump :) I like to move it move it! Marcos tucking in.

Paulo is outrageously cute, though a crying machine.

Gobble gobble. Miguel Paulo

Here's us, dancing. Sorry about the lack of sound - I don't have the best camera...

Primavera e flors de Pascoa

This is very late, I know, but I've finally got photos up. Here's Angeles, an amazing woman from Mallorca who was here for about a month, doing a little leaving thing for the children before she left, back in April. We had a little Spring party where we all dressed up, and she talked about the Fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5 vv 22-26 if you like to read them). Above you can see Dinora writing one of the Fruits, on one of the fruits!

I also had to clean up around the footy pitch, making it look nicer. (Now, grass and a few weeds have grown, which is utterly demorilising, but it doesn't look too bad.) Here are a few wild flowers I found growing around the place. Isn't it amazing what grows on broken and disturbed ground? (I'm on deviantart.com, and having not been online for a while in April, I was greeted by an array and somewhat of an explosion of Spring flowers when I last went on - a thousand different colours, shades, shapes and sizes. All beautiful. All indivisually created. Lovely.


It's now well and truly summer; I hear the UK is getting some delightful weather, too! It makes work very, very hot indeed. Enjoy the beaches everyone!

xxx