When I was eighteen, a month after I graduated from high school, I and a team of three other ladies moved to Massamá, Portugal to work with the Espaço Vida Nova Church there. We were there ten months, living, learning and serving. I think I must have had some idea when I left my California hometown that this "trip" was something special, but in a lot of ways I feel that I am still discovering just how instrumental those ten months of my life were.
During our time there, I spent a lot of time hanging out with kids. I came with several years of experience working with kids in a variety of settings, so it was just a natural fit. There were three kids in particular that I spent time with: Joe, Mary and Harvey*. These were my three faithful attendees of any and everything that I did at Espaço. Sunday school, Saturday kids' club, changing the window display, sweeping the floor, you name it. If we were there, they were there.
When I work with kids, I sometimes wonder how much they're really taking in. Are they really listening to this story or are they just interested in the awesome flannelgraph? Are they memorizing a Bible verse or just coloring a photocopied page? Are they learning what it means to live and love as a community or just concerned with winning the wacky relay race? (Present day me would like to just answer "Yes!" to all of the questions above by the way...) In all honesty, I felt this way, this doubt and uncertainty, for a large portion of my time in Massamá.
Did it matter? Was anything I was doing going to make a difference? Would these kids even consider anything I said in my broken, limited Portugese to be true?
Then, one Sunday near the end of our time there, all of those doubts and worries were silenced by an overheard conversation.
That Sunday, Marjorie taught her class (really just the table of the older kids that was next to mine of the younger) about Heaven. They talked about what it was like and that it was where Jesus was. After the service, while I was cleaning up, I saw that Marjorie was talking with Harvey. I continued to pick up the scraps of paper and stray crayons from my lesson while I watched them pray together. After they prayed Marjorie asked Harvey,
"So, do you know where Jesus is now?"
He looked at her with this incredulous look expressing a sort of "DUH!" as he replied,
"We just talked about that today, He lives in Heaven, remember?"
Marjorie waited for a moment, and then I saw it. His little face lit up and a giant smile spread across his face and he pointed to his heart,
"HERE! He is lives here now too!"
And that's when I knew. I was brought to Portugal not solely to plan lessons and relay races and create window displays, but to spend ten months with these three kids, to overhear that conversation and to see that expression of pure, genuine joy.
As I said before, I don't think I fully knew what ten months in Portugal would mean for me when I left, and I'm still finding ways that it has impacted my life that I didn't see before. But without a doubt, I came to Portugal and fell in love. I fell in love with a culture that values family and traditions and history. I fell lin love with the beautiful parks and old castles and cafes at every corner. And I fell in love with the people who live there. I may not know everything about Portugal, I'm still learning and have much more to learn, but I love Portugal. I think that's a good place to start.
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