No Proposal

Back in 2006, I went with Len Renfer and a group of about 25 other people to India. We were up in the northeast corner, Nagaland, in a village that I am sure has a name but I can’t remember it. While there we did medical and children outreaches in surrounding villages and at the place we were staying we had a college age conference. On one day during the conference about half of the team took a hike up a mountain to visit a church plant and also do some medical outreach but I decided to stay back and ended up helping with the conference. After lunch the university students would usually play some sort of game or activity but since Joe, who was in charge of this time, had gone on the hike they asked me if I would share my testimony and then have a Q&A time. I of course said yes and so that afternoon I shared my testimony with a bunch of Indian students who I am not completely understood what I was saying. During the Q&A time students were allowed to write out their questions on a piece of paper and hand them in. I started out with getting really good questions like, “What is it like being a Christian in the States?” and, “What is it like being the only Christian in your family?” but then......I got a couple of questions that I really didn’t want to answer but was told I needed to by the Kim Renfer, they were, “ If God gave you a Nepali man as your life partner, would you be ok with that?” and then a few questions after that I got, “How are you attracted to guys?”  I answered these questions in the best most sweetest way I could possibly think of... “If that is what God has for me then I am ok with that but I am not looking for a husband right now,” and, “Most importantly the guy would need to be a Christian.” So, for the rest of the time there all the girls on the team were trying to figure out who this mystery guy was...and then we found out...atleast we think it was him because he was the only guy to ask to take a picture with just me while I was standing with the group of other American girls. 

Last week while I was in Porto I was asked to share my testimony with the youth and of course said yes. Now, you need to remember that youth in Portugal is a very broad term, you can be 50 and still considered a youth if you are single. You also need to remember that even though you are asked to do something sometimes it is forgotten and you end up not doing what you were requested to do. So, when I started preparing for my testimony I had this horrible feeling that at the very last minute I was not going to be speaking to the youth and I had suffered through the anxiety of preparing to speak for nothing, luckily it did happen. The youth event was a new tradition that they were starting where they would have a Thanksgiving meal, except no turkey because they took to long to cook, but instead chicken. Many of the youth at this church were very talkative and very welcoming and were willing to speak English with me. The pastor’s two sons that I met were also very amazing boys. The oldest of the two actually got the grand opportunity of translating for me as I spoke. Now I don’t know how many of you have spoke while being translated but it is super duper difficult. You can only say one maybe two sentences at a time before you have to stop to allow the person to speak the translated version. All the pauses also give you just the right amount of time to forget your train of thought or your next point, so notes are heavily needed. The talk ended up going really well even though after every time João translated something I would look at him and say, “Sim” and then would wait for him to say something more and he would look at me to continue. The leader said that she enjoyed my talk and thought that I brought a good message to the youth about us depending on God because he knows who we are and what we are to become. I might have taken the verse and the idea from one of my professors at Multnomah but isn’t that why they are teaching us?

 Anyways, the night was really awesome and just helped me continue in my falling in love of the area. The only thing I didn’t like about the area was the 5 degree weather, ok so that is in celsius but it is only 5 degrees away from freezing! Plus, I didn’t bring any cold weather clothes to Portugal so I only have two sweaters to wear and that is only because I have bought them since the temperature has dropped. It really sucks because I have warm coats and tons of cute sweaters but since I was told that the weather would be warm and beautiful I didn’t pack any of them! Oh well! Sad/happy news....I have less then two weeks left in Portugal!

Peace out!