The beginning of this year seems to have flown by and my goal departure date seems to be rushing towards me! Last Saturday I had a great event at Cypress Community Church, where I got to share about God’s ministry in Portugal and how I will be a part of that. My time in Portugal has had a few large changes made! Normally when a missionary is starting out and need to learn a language they are placed in a location to learn the language and then they are moved to their actual ministry location. This is done for a couple of reasons but the most important is so that if the missionary makes any huge language mistakes, they will not follow them in their ministry. For example, a young missionary goes to a bakery in her small village and orders, “um pão cortado (sliced bread)” and makes a cutting movement with her hands, because she is nervous about her language skills, but actually threatens the baker with a spanking if they do not give her the bread (oh the joys of non-verbal communication!). Although this is a pretty mild story, it is an example of the language mistakes that can happen and follow a missionary as they minister to the people in their area if they study the language in their ministry area.
However, TEAM must have a little faith in my language learning skills because they are using me as a guinea pig to learning the language in the area that I will be ministering in. I am being made the guinea pig for a couple reasons. First, my main ministry focus at the church plant will be teaching English, which is definitely something I can do as I learn Portuguese. Second, the university that we will be focusing on has an excellent Portuguese program, and so it doesn’t make sense to study the language at a different university. Third, taking classes at the university will give me more opportunities to reach out to the university students and build more relationships. Lastly, since I will be attending the university I will be given the opportunity to live in the dorms for my first few months, which will again give me many great opportunities to build relationships with students at the university.
My language learning and living arrangement changes are huge game changers in my access to the university students and ability to reach out to them. I will be able to promote the ministries currently going on at Norte Verdadeiro, the church plant, and invite many new people. I will also be helping out at those ministries and my involvement in ministries will increase as my language comprehension increases. I will be starting out focusing much of my time on the English ministry, game nights and easy English, but as my language skills increase I will be able to lead Bible studies and speak at women’s events.
The current goal is for me to be in Portugal by the end of May or beginning of June. How do I get to Portugal? Through support, I currently need prayer and monthly financial support. The prayer support is the backbone to ministry overseas, and anywhere really. If you would like to join my prayer list please email me at serving.in.portugal@gmail.com. The other part is financial support. I am currently at ______ monthly support and I need to be at 60% by Tuesday, January 26, so that I can attend Pre-Departure Orientation, PDO, in February. By attending PDO in February I can leave for Portugal as soon as I hit 100% in monthly support. If I do not make it to PDO in February then I have to wait until the end of June to attend PDO and will not be able to leave for Portugal until after that. If you would like to become a monthly supporter, please email me at serving.in.portugal@gmail.com and I would love to share information with you about how to sign up.
What I need to reach my upcoming goal:
2 people to pledge $25/month
4 people to pledge $50/month
1 person to pledge $100/month
Could you take on one of these pledges? Is there a different amount you could support me at? Would you like more information? Please contact me at serving.in.portugal@gmail.com
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