revisiting the top 10 list

A couple weeks before I left for Portugal I compiled a list of my top desires and fears. I thought now, since my time is coming to an end, I should revisit that list.....

Top 10 Desires

1. Working with youth cross culturally
1. Although, I haven’t been able to work with youth as much as I would desire, I have  been able to work with them and last week I was given the opportunity to speak to them. It was a real blessing to be able to share with them and also to grow closer to the youth in northern Portugal.
2. Living with nationals
1. When I first arrived in Portugal I was living at the Portuguese Bible Institute. It is a great place to stay for someone who is coming with a team to study a language but for me I wanted to be with Portuguese people. At the institute I wasn’t able to get the kind of close relationship that I wanted with Portuguese people but then it all changed. For the past 2 months I have been able to live with the most amazing Portuguese grandmother, my avó. Through living with her I have had to really push myself to pick up the Portuguese language and now I can understand quite a bit more then I can speak. 
3. Traveling!
1. I haven’t done alot of traveling but I have been able to go into Lisboa tons of times on my own and I did just get back from a week long trip to the northern part of Portugal, which is the most beautiful place I have seen! I can’t wait to move to Portugal and work permanently in the north! 
4. Delicious Coffee
1. I dearly miss my quad 24 oz white americano on the rox but I have been able to find somewhat of a replacement. May I introduce the galão escuro. It is basically a bica, or shot, mixed with warm milk and then steamed together. the “escuro” means dark so mine has a little more coffee and a little less milk.
5. Fado house
1. The fado house was amazing! The atmosphere was perfect! The singing was amazing! It was everything I ever hoped for in a fado house. My mental picture came together perfectly!
6. Seeing old world architecture
1. When I initially thought about this desire I was thinking maybe some old buildings that were a couple hundred years old and had great character to them, never in my wildest dreams did I think that this would include ancient Roman ruins! The contrast of old and new can be seen in so many ways throughout Portugal, especially in the big cities like Lisboa and Porto. Both of these cities have tiny little streets that one car could barely drive up and that is where the old trolleys come in. My first experience with trolleys were in San Francisco where you pay some crazy amount of money to ride the tourist trap through different areas, however, in Lisboa the trolleys are used seriously as a mode of transportation. You could be riding a trolley with elementary school students coming home from school and women with groceries.
7. Learning Portuguese
1. Have I learned Portuguese? Pois....which means sure.....I have been able to learn some Portuguese. I can ride the bus really well and order a galão escuro like a pro! Really though, I have been able to get some Portuguese down pretty well. I can understand alot more Portuguese then I can actually speak. The most important thing is that even when I fail at saying something I don’t quit trying to communicate. Just about every time I try and communicate something to my avó, she replies with, “Não compreendo,” but then I just start from the beginning and try and say it again...she probably thinks I sound like a really bad broken record but I am learning!
8. Eating Portuguese food other then Linguiça and sweet bread
1. Thanks to a cute little cafe at the bottom of my apartment complex I have been able to try lots of different everyday Portuguese meals. The cafe has some sort of lunch that they serve everyday and I usually try and go once a week to have lunch with them there. I have also been able to try many different types of fish dishes, which has been interesting because I am not a huge fish fan but this fish is so fresh it is amazingly delicious!
9. seeing the other Golden Gate Bridge
1. I have seen the bridge and I have even driven across the bridge but, unlike the bridge in San Francisco, you cannot walk across it. 
10. I will finally be in a country that pronounces my name correctly all the time and spells it correctly!!!
1. I thought before that I knew how to pronounce my last name correctly but it turns out that I didn’t know. I actually have become reluctant in telling people what my last name is because then they automatically know that I am Portuguese and then they usually look at me like why the heck don’t you speak Portuguese! I have even have people tell me that it is a disgrace and horrible that I don’t know Portuguese. Oh well! You can’t please them all and atleast I am trying to learn the language!

Top 10 Fears:

1. Doing youth ministry full time cross culturally
1. I think the more fearful and stressful thing is starting a youth ministry from nothing!  If I had known this before then that would have been here. Trying to help start something when I don’t even really have a grasp of the language is the most difficult thing to do. Even with these difficulties, I have been given different opportunities to speak with and help out youth in Portugal, which was super exciting for me.
2. Not fully knowing the language.
1. Legitimate fear! When you get stuck in some random village and you don’t have enough money to get back on the bus.....that is the moment that you feel extremely abandoned and alone mainly because you can’t communicate your problem. In the States if you get lost, and are a girl, then you are able to go up to anybody and ask for help because the majority of the time the person will understand you. The good thing in getting lost and not knowing the language is that you quickly learn the words you need to know like, “Passa por Vialonga?”
3. Living in a house with a pet snake or spider
1. God must really like me because I haven’t even seen any snakes anywhere and I have maybe seen two spiders that were way to small to actually do anything! No giant spiders here that like to jump on your back and hold on for dear life as you are screaming and freaking out!
4. Cultural differneces
1. The other day I was getting a loaf of bread from the bakery and I wanted it sliced but I didn’t know the word for cut, cortado, so instead I stuck out my left hand flat and took my right hand perpendicular and made an up and down cutting motion....unfortunately in Portuguese culture this means you are going to get a whooping....so basically I was telling the guy I want some bread and I am going to give you a whooping....my bad!
5. Not speaking up when I need to....
1. Yep....failed at this one! I am 100% a non confrontational person....unless I am pushed way to far and then I am very vocal about my discomforts or if you are not the person that is bothering me. 
6. Not being able to pronounce my own last name
1. More importantly not being able to speak the language that my last name and heritage is from!
7. Nobody getting my humor.....
1. I really don’t think anybody has really fully seen the real Diane, I mean the crazy, wild, and loves to laugh Diane. They might have seen momentary laps but almost all of the time they get the very quite and reserved Diane that many of you either have not seen or don’t remember seeing.
8. Being overseas on my own and not really knowing anybody that well
1. This has been a real difficulty for me because I am the type of person that functions with a very close group of friends that know me and can call me out on anything and to not have that close relationship except for an occasional skype conversation has been really depressing for me. It has also showed me that I really want to be married before I come back to Portugal.

My personal ad would look something like:

Single 25 yr old female missionary looking for older and taller missionary man who has a heart for Portugal and youth. Portuguese citizenship is a bonus!

I want to be married so that I know that I will have that close relationship that I so strongly miss. Now, I know that marriage is not always a beautiful thing but really no relationship is always a beautiful thing but it comes down to what you do during those times that can bring you closer or tear you apart. I want a partner in ministry that I can rely on and can bounce ideas off of. Also, if I marry a Portuguese man then I don’t have to worry about visas and all that annoying stuff! 

1. Not having netflix/not being able to take all of my movies
1. I love movies! I often watch a movie when I need to relax or need alone time. Unfortunately I brought about 10 movies with me and only two movies were movies that I actually watch frequently. I have a large movie collection of about 300, so to be cut back to only 10 movies was really super duper difficult for me!
2. My living situation
1. This is one area that I probably didn’t need to worry about at all! I LOVE living with my avó!!!! The other night she noticed that I was kind of cold so she took the heater and fully pointed it at me so she wasn’t getting any heat...I quickly changed it so we could both get heat. She has also surprised me and made me lunch or dinner. She makes sure that I watch Dr. Oz with her almost every night! Seriously, I have the most amazing avó ever!!! I am for sure going to miss her so much when I leave Portugal!

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!

meu amor, o norte

Before I headed to Portugal I had a mental picture of what Portugal would look like. I pictured myself waking up in the morning looking out my window and seeing grapevine covered hills and trees in foreground. Unfortunately when I got to Lisboa I saw none of this, I was kind of sad that my mental picture didn't come true because it was so beautiful. However, my mental picture was a picture of where I wanted to be in the first place, the north. Before I headed up to the north I was told that the north is very closed off to Christians. However, within the church they are the most welcoming and amazing people.

On Saturday I caught a train from Lisboa to Porto and then headed from the train station to the home of Nancy. Nancy is a GEM missionary who has been working in the north for about  25 years and lives right outside of Porto. We relaxed at her home for a couple hours and then we headed to an English bazaar. There is a nice group of English in the north and they have a club house where they were having a huge bazaar with tons of different things ranging from English specialties to Portuguese items. There were two little kids that were trying to sell little gold star stickers for .50 euros each. They were super cute and would not take no for an answer so eventually we just had to ignore them and walk away. After the bazaar we headed to a church in the area for a chestnut celebration. The pastor of the church is Samuel Paulo and he is good friends with the Wootens, who are retired missionaries and I met at Multnomah, and has also recently spoken at Multnomah. It was really great to meet him because I had heard so much about him from the Wootens and friends from school.

Also, at the church there was a large group of older youth who were very welcoming and open. I was very grateful that they were all willing to speak English with me. I would every once in a while try and say something in Portuguese and they would say, "See! She does know Portuguese!" One of the girls, Rita,  shared her testimony with me and then invited me into the kitchen where a group of youth were playing guitars and singing Fado songs. I, of course, quickly followed her into the kitchen because I LOVE fado!!! Rita's boyfriend was one of the guys playing and so when ever they were talking between songs she would tell him to speak English so that I could understand, she was very sweet! I also met at the church the main youth leader who invited me to their youth event on Friday and then asked me to share my testimony which I agreed to. So, now I will be sharing my testimony in front of a group of youth... I am just slightly nervous!

On Sunday we headed into the hills to visit a couple churches and some friends in the area. First we went to a church in Motim that is connected with an English school. The pastor of the church is Brazilian and his wife is English and I met their daughter when I went on the youth retreat a couple weeks ago. After being introduced to the entire congregation the pastor asked if I had anything I wanted to share with the congregation. Dr. Kopp, my fav prof at Multnomah, always told us in our intercultural studies class to always be prepared to share something when you are visiting a church especially in a cross cultural situation.....unfortunately I guess I didn't listen that well because when I was asked if I had anything I wanted to share I became very wide eyed and respectfully declined to speak at the church. I know I should have come up with something but I was so caught off guard by the invitation but I did spend the rest of the time at the church thinking about what I could have said and what I should have said.

 We were invited over to the pastor's home for lunch, which the wife made a huge feast for us. Roast pork with chestnuts and tons of side dishes. Following lunch we then had to have dessert and after that in traditional Portuguese fashion we had a cup of coffee. We talked about many different things such as my education, what I like about Portugal, and what I miss about the States. I couldn't really say that I missed too much about the states because my mom has sent me chocolate chips and peanut butter, but I guess the one thing that I am missing is my 24 oz. quad white americano on the rox from the cherrybean in Salinas. They were very shocked when I said that I drank something with so much caffeine in it but then when I told them that I would normally have two a day they were even more shocked! We talked about the youth in the area and how it can be quite difficult to get youth sometimes but then I told them that I was use to the idea of searching out youth because that was the same thing that happens in the Lisboa area.

After lunch and the great conversation we headed to a second church near Fafe and again I was welcomed very warmly. After the service was over many women came up to talk to me but most of them didn't know very much English so they would go search out a younger person to come and translate for us. Nancy had a very close friend at the church that she calls her adopted daughter, Lily, and she kept going around to all of the youth in the church and told them to go talk to me because they knew English. I got to talk to some of the youth students and when I told them that I wanted to work with youth in the north they were all very quick in inviting me to come work with youth in their church. So, I guess I have a job once I get back to Portugal.

From the church visit we headed to dinner at Lily's mother's house and we got to eat dinner with Lily, her husband, and two super adorable children. We had another big meal of trying to get people to eat more and more food and try interesting little German treats. After dinner we headed to the castle of the first king of Portugal, Afonso I. We walked around the castle and the duke's palace, which Afonso actually built for one of his lovers. The grounds were pretty cool and the surrounding neighbor hood was also really pretty. There is an old Catholic church near the castle but they couldn't pay their taxes so it got turned into a hospital.

 This is a statue of Afonso and the Duke's Palace in the background.

This is the Castle with one of the entrances by the tree. 

This is the old Catholic church that is now a hospital.

After our walk in freezing cold weather we decided we needed to go warm up so we had a cup of tea at Lily's house. Her daughter, Sarai, who is about 4 or 5 wanted to talk to me all night and kept telling me something about painting so I watched her color a little picture from a McDonald's happy meal or something. Then she brought me a book to read and sat in on my lap and opened it up to the first page and then looked at me like ok you can read to me now. Her mom stepped in and told her that I didn't speak Portuguese but I don't think Sarai understood that someone wouldn't know how to speak Portuguese, so after a couple more times of trying to get me to read the book she then "read" the book to me.

All in all it was an eventful first day and a half and now I have 6 more days of exploring and sharing.

Peace out!

Adventures and mishaps....

Well, I have had many great adventures since my last posting. I have been to the aquarium, to a fado house, and now I am off to Porto. The aquarium was pretty awesome, although, it is quite a bit smaller then the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium was arranged by the different oceans and, kind of like Ikea, there were arrows on the ground and a certain pathway you are supposed to take. The aquarium was super dark also, so I barely got any pictures. For some reason they don’t allow you to use the flash...I don’t think they understand that if we can’t use flash then we need more light. However, I was able to find Nemo and Dori! I also got a some cool pictures of them both. One cool thing about the aquarium is that many of the tanks have tons of different fish in them. So they had a huge tropical reef tank with puffer fish and tons of other bright colored beautiful fish. 

We also had a youth event last weekend and we took the youth to Ikea for breakfast. We had four youth this time but it allowed us to have some really good conversations. The oldest Fairbanks’ daughter, Hannah, will be graduating from high school this Spring and is now having to go through the very challenging job of picking a university or atleast figure out what she wants to do. She is currently wanting to do a discipleship program with YWAM in New Zealand but is also contemplating what college she wants to go to. She has the option of choosing to either go to a university in Canada or Europe because she has dual Canadian and Portuguese citizenship. Dan, the main youth guy, and I had an awesome talk with her about seeking God’s guidance. I think we helped her in one sense but she still has a very hard decision ahead of her. After the conversation we then took a tour of Ikea, in which everybody had to test run every bed, faucet, and toilet.

A couple days ago, I had a girls outing with two girls that I use to live with when I was at PBI, Jordan and Regina. We went into one of the larger fado areas and found an awesome fado house! This place had the exact atmosphere that I had pictured for a fado house. It was dark inside with the only light coming from candles. The food was delicious and the  company even greater. After we started eating the fado singers started performing and it started with a young woman, who was probably around my age, and she had an amazing voice. The second performer was an older woman, probably in her 40s, and she also sang beautifully. She sang a song when translated says something like, “If you concentrate on your love to much you will forget about God. I did not forget about God.” I really liked the message this line was portraying because I think many times we can focus so much on finding love or the love that we have found that we forget about the most important thing to life. The third singer was a 70 year old man, who was also our waiter, He had black rimmed rectangular glasses and always had a shot of some sort of dark alcohol with him when he sang. These three singers would sing 3 songs and then they would switch. Once a full rotation happened they would take about a 15 minute break and then they would start again. They did the rotation about 3 times before we had to leave to catch the metro and a bus back home. The night was super perfect and was everything I dreamed of! The great thing about fado is that so much emotion is portrayed through the singing and instruments that it doesn’t really matter if you can understand them or not. I definitely believe that I need another dose of fado before I head back to the states and I for sure think that I need to see Manuel again, the 70 year old fado singer. 

Currently I am on a train heading to Porto. I bought my ticket ahead of time and was quite relaxed once I got to the train station this morning. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything without a slight failure involved....so.....I might have accidently bought my train ticket for the wrong day.....fortunately for me the guys working on the train were super phenomanazing and called the main office or something and got my ticket changed so that I could head to Porto today. So, here I am, riding on a train through the country side of Portugal and it is amazingly beautiful.

Well that is it for now!

Peace Out!

Minha Avó

I thought I would write a little blog about the sweetest little Portuguese lady I know, my adopted Portuguese grandmother. Every evening we watch a couple shows together. It usually starts with watching Cozinha de Nigella, which is an amazing little cooking show with this English woman who lives in the States but makes amazing food. I usually end up wanting to cook after I watch the show but I usually have eaten by the time the show starts because it is on at 8pm. We then flip through the channels and sometimes I will leave and go to my room or sometimes I will continue watching tv with her. Usually we will end the night watching Dr. Oz and Oprah. Tonight I decided that I would stop watching tv after the cooking show so I made myself a cup of tea and went to my room. Soon I heard Dona Merces calling for me, "Diana....Diana....Dr. Oz!" I thought it was so cute and so sweet that she wanted me to come watch tv with her.

Dona Merces is a talker during tv shows and she will make little comments through out the show and I try and figure out what she is saying it is a great adventure sometimes. If I am feeling really brave I try and say something to her about what we are watching but she usually ends up saying, "não compreendo," and I usually try again and again to get my sentence across to her. It also happens the other way because I will get caught up on one word she says and then I get all confused and I usually nod my head in understanding but she calls me out on it.  I love living with her because if I want to say anything to her then I have to stumble through Portuguese. The best way to learn Portuguese is when you are forced right?

A little random fact about the words for grandparents are extremely similar. A grandpa is called, avô, and a grandma is called, avó. So to keep my self from getting confused by these I would much rather stick with avozinho and avozinha. I would much rather use the endearing versions of the word then have to struggle through the complex normal words.

Well that is all I've got about minha avó.

Peace out!

Amazingness on top of Amazingness!

This past week has been full of many awesome adventures and experiences! I was able to help put on a baby shower for my friend Rebecca, who is due with her second child in the next couple weeks. I was able to plan the games for the shower, which was totally awesome because I had like 80 year old women eating candy out of diapers trying to guess the what the mashed up candy was inside! The more amazing part was that some of the women said that they really had an awesome time taking part in the games! I guess you are never to old to eat strange looking things in strange situations!


At the baby shower I was talking with my friend, Sofia, and we were talking about the fact that through her husbands work she always gets free tickets to concerts but can never go because she has a young baby so she ends up giving the tickets away. She started naming off the tickets that she had given away.... Shakira, Lady Gaga, and other people that I didn't really care about but then she said....Michael Buble!! I quickly replied with, "Why did you give those away!?! We could have gone to the concert together!!" I was completely joking when I said this but a couple days later I got a phone call from her saying that her most amazing husband, Sam, had gotten two more tickets to Buble and wanted to know if I still wanted to go! Of course, I quickly said yes!!!! So we were off to see the most Beautiful Canadian then next day!!! Here is the deal...Michael Buble might be amazing on CD but times that by a million trillion and that isn't close to his amazingness in concert!


During the concert Michael told us about his new found love for Portugal and it was especially cool because we were attending his final concert on his tour! It was also very emotional for one of his band members who is Portuguese and still has family here in Portugal, it was like a homecoming for the musician and he was very emotional when the crowd erupted knowing that there was a Portuguese man on stage!


The next day, I decided that I would finally go get my bus pass. So, I fixed my hair put on an extra cute outfit and headed to Campo Grande to get my bus pass. I got there filled out the paperwork, took the ID picture and went and to turn in my paper work but, first, I was at the wrong station to get a fast tracked pass and second, I forgot my passport!! I seriously never forget my passport but I had been switching between bags so much this past week that I simply forgot my passport in one of them. I was so frustrated with myself but decided to continue into Lisbon anyways.


I finally got to go to the Fado museum! Which was super amazing! I got to learn about where Fado started and how it has transformed to what it is today. There was also a station where you could read bios of Fado greats and listen to some of their recorded music. You could also watch recorded performances of Fado singers. I went a little crazy in the gift shop and ended up buying three books. The first is called, The Soul of Fado and is about the history of Fado and it is in Portuguese and English, so I justified it by saying that it would help me with the language and the culture! The second, Fadária, is a book with many different Fado lyrics in it and a recording of some of the songs. The last book, Roteiro de Fado de Lisboa, is a book that gives a little info about Fado in Lisbon and also current locations of Fado houses and a price range for how much it is to eat at the houses.


My week was capped off with an amazing weekend at a retreat, Encontro de Jovens com Cristo, which simply translates into Youth Encounter. Basically all I can say was that the weekend was amazing and was a great evangelical tool to allow non-Christians to come into a non-threatening environment and learn about Jesus. I can't tell you what exactly happened during the weekend because if I did...I would have to kill you. Seriously, though, they do ask that we do not talk about what exactly happened during the weekend so to respect that I will not share anything with you even if you asked me in person...desculpe, sorry. I really want to try and do a youth encounter in the states but to do it I would have to have  a bunch of Portuguese people to come to the states to help put it on because, see, you can only help put it on if you have participated in it.


Tomorrow I am hopefully going to finally get my bus pass and hopefully go into Lisboa to the aquarium!


That is all I have for you now....
Peace out!

swimming........

last night at grupo familiar I was talking with one of the ladies about me wanting to go into Lisbon today and she told me that there was suppose to be a storm and that there was a yellow warning for the weather. But I thought, "Hey, a little storm can't be that bad...right..." I woke up early this morning and got ready and peaked out the window and I thought there were only grey clouds so I headed out. I had a pretty cute outfit on too! I was wearing brown khakis a cute top that I stole knowingly from a friend and brown close-toed shoes. Once I stepped out of the apartment building I realized that the grey clouds were also leaking moisture everywhere!.....as in raining...just in case you didn't get that! I had the little voice inside of me say, "maybe you should forget about this and just go back inside," but I decided that I could brave a little rain. Hello duh! I go to school in Oregon!

I hopped on the bus got to the metro station and road into Lisbon and as I went up the stairs from the metro I realized that everyone was standing inside the building and nobody was leaving. When I got close enough to the rain I realized it wasn't just raining it was doing something 5,000,000x worse! I stood by the door for a while and realized it wasn't slowing down so I decided to brave the rain. Once I got to the street I realized that I had to cross a 4 ft. wide creek on each side of the street but I figured no big deal that will probably be my biggest problem and plus I really wanted to go to the Fado museum. In Lisbon there is a main street that is closed to all automobiles and is strictly a foot traffic street. This street was no longer walkable because it was now a rushing river! Once I saw the river in the street I decided I just needed to call it quits and head back home. I probably ended up walking about 75 yards away from the metro station before I decided to turn back. By the time I got back to the metro station my pants were soaked...actually my whole body was soaked! I had an umbrella but it was raining so hard that the umbrella didn't stop much of the rain.

I got back on the green line to head back to Campo Grande where I could catch a bus home but there are about 9 stops between where I was and my last stop. We were about three stops into the trip when I realized that we were sitting at this stop for quite a while! We sat in the metro for about 20 minutes before they told us to get off and then we sat outside of the metro for about another 10 minutes before they kicked us out of the metro station completely so we were back on the rainy street in the middle of Lisbon somewhere! All I could think was, "Passa por Vialonga?" I wanted to call the Fairbanks and tell them that I was stranded in Lisbon but I decided to figure it out on my own. So I started walking until I found a bus stop that might have taken me back into the downtown area of Lisbon. While standing and waiting forever for the next trolley or bus to come I saw a little old lady go down the metro station stairs and I waited to see if she would come back up but she never did! I was so excited I could actually make it home!! I was able to catch a metro and eventually got home!

By the time I got home I was starving and freezing! I changed and went down to the cafe and had some super delicious pork with beans and rice. Beans and rice in Portugal is very different then what we get at a mexican restaurant. The beans are usually cooked together and are usually on the saltier side. I think the main lady at the cafe is starting to like me and my abilities to fumble through Portuguese....or atleast she is always happy to help me. After lunch I hoped in bed and burled up in all of my blankets until I could get warm again. By the time I got warm I realized that it stopped raining and if stopped raining in Vialonga then it definitely stopped raining in Lisbon...yep that is how my brain works!

I got dressed again hopped on the bus got to the metro station and went to get my 24 hour pass that I had bought earlier out and realized that I left it at home! So I had to buy another 24 hour pass! By the time I got into Lisbon I decided to run to the shop I needed to go to before heading to the museum because they were suppose to be open till 9 or 10 pm. I walked to the museum and got lost on the way in typical Diane fashion and by the time I got to the museum it was 5:45 and they had already locked the place down because they were closing at 6 pm!

So with all those adventures I learned to listen to that little voice in the back of your mind that says, "maybe you shouldn't do this!" Because mine was definitely saying it every time I went somewhere today and I didn't listen once!

Well that was today.....hopefully tomorrow will be better and drier!

Peace Out!

Little update about my parents: Everyone is out of the hospital and they are all now at my house having a gimpy party everyday! Please pray for continuing recovery!

Prayer Request

I just wanted to write a quick note to everyone that may read this. On Saturday night my grandma Ruth and her friend Irene were flying back from a hiking trip in Utah. My parents went to pick them up at the airport and on the way home the car was in a three car accident. From what I have been told it sounds like my parents' car was t-boned by a large delivery truck and the truck by another car. The jaws of life were used to cut the doors off of the drivers side of the car and everyone was taken to the hospital. (If you live in Salinas and were watching KION 10pm news you may have seen a quick little blurb about the accident.) My mom and grandma were taken to Natividad hospital in north Salinas and my dad and Irene were taken to Memorial hospital which is about a couple blocks from my house in south Salinas. My mother was released from the hospital that night with a large bump above her eye and very colorful black eye. My dad is still in Memorial with 6 broken ribs and hooked up to a morphine drip, although the hospital is hoping to release my dad maybe today, Tuesday, or tomorrow. My grandma is still at Natividad but she is only being monitored for aches and pain because she is pain from the accident. I don't know currently what is going on with Irene but if I hear anything I will let all of you know.

It is difficult for me to be so far away from my family when something so scary happens at home but if I want to work on the mission field full time then I need to learn to trust God when it comes to these types of situations. I really feel like God is trying to teach me to rely on him during these situations because unlike when I am in the states I cannot run home at the drop of a hat.

Please pray for a quick recovery among my family and comfort for me and the rest of my family during this time.

American Invasion!

Thursday night I met a group of American college students that are doing basically a semester abroad program and Portugal was their first country on their multi country trip. There was about 20 students in total and there was a small group that I really connected with. The next day they were going to be going to Belém to have pastries and tour around the area and I was invited to join them. We enjoyed a nice breakfast of pasteis de Belém and coffee. Afterwards a group of us broke off and I became the tour guide of the water front for my small group of four students. Most tour guides in Portugal have some kind of random thing that they hold up in the air so that their group can follow them, usually an umbrella, fan, or fake flower. So, in tour guide fashion I had a starbucks bag, because I had bought a togo cup, that I walked around the water front holding it above my head whenever we were going to be continuing on in the journey or when we were passing another group. 

I took my group to the important monuments such as the Navigator monument and the tower of Belém. Because I had been to both locations before and have done some research on the monuments I was able to give cool facts like the Navigator has one female on the monument and the tower was actually built by Muslims and was used as a jail that held people like the King of Spain. It was really fun and I had a great time showing the group different things that I had learned about since being here in Portugal. I love it when you are given the opportunity to help other people and by doing so you realize just how much you have learned from the trip.

After we walked the water front we rejoined most of the group for lunch at a restaurant. Many restaurants have a huge outdoor seating area where you sit and eat your lunch, so we enjoyed our lunch under an outdoor tent. Just about everybody at my table ended up getting sardines even me! I am not usually a very big fishy person, except for sushi, but I have began to enjoy seafood more since being here. When you order sardines there are two basic ways that you can get them, the first being grilled and the second being sautéed. If you decide on the grilled sardines then you get about five 6” whole sardines and it is then your responsibility when you begin to eat them to remove the back bone and bones attached to it, the tail, and the head; usually you can do this all in one piece. The grilled sardines are then served with a couple small boiled potatoes.

 If you decide to get the sautéed sardines then you are going to get about 6 filets that have been breaded and then cooked and it is usually served with a very healthy serving of a beans and rice mixture. I decided to go with the grilled sardines because it was a go big or go home situation. Besides having to debone and see all the insides of the fish I actually really enjoyed it. It reminded me of tuna in flavor but not so much texture. Along with our fish we got a salad, olives, bread, a drink, and a dessert of our choosing. I chose a DELICIOUSSSSSS chocolate mousse. 

When we were done with lunch we decided to walk up a huge hill to the palace of the last King of Portugal. It was so amazing and so beautiful and I so wanted to take pictures of things but unfortunately they didn’t allow photography and their were people sitting in every room “to answer your questions” but I am pretty sure they were there just to make sure that we didn’t take any pictures. In one room we met a French woman who worked at the palace and wanted to so badly to answer our questions that we didn’t really have any to ask so instead she just started telling us random facts about the different room. One room she told us about was the banquet room on the next floor that is still in use to this day for presidential parties and President Obama is going to be there in November!  Booya! We were pretty excited to see a room that the president would be enjoying a dinner in next month! I guess I will be going to Belém everyday next month. Maybe I can give Obama a tour also!

At 3:30 we had to meet back up with the rest of the group because some people wanted to go back to their rooms because they were going to be leaving for London early the next day. However I had a group of three that wanted to go into Lisbon with me so we headed to Lisbon and I showed them the main free sites of Lisbon. We walked up a hill to the oldest church in Portugal and also to a cool shop that sells pieces of art made by artists in the area. We then walked around the main walking street and met a guy from Poland that was setting up to do his street mime show. He was a very interesting character and we wanted to see his performance but after about 15 minutes of watching him set up we decided to move on. We headed to the top of another hill to go to my favorite t-shirt shop and on the way we got a bag of freshly roasted chestnuts which were amazing! I think I might have talked about the t-shirt shop before but it is a shop of a different Lisbon shirts that have been designed by young artists. The shirts are really awesome and are not the usual tourist shirt.

 I helped my group of Americans by their train tickets and sent them on my way and I ran to another station to catch a metro to a different train station where I was heading to Cascais, which a beach town. I was meeting my group of youth from Vialonga there with a couple other leaders to have a beach day. The girls and I went and walked in the water a little bit and we went exploring for cool shells. There were tons of mussels along the rocks. We also had a fun game of 2 truths and a lie. Where most of the students made their lies so crazy that you could totally tell what the lie was or they totally forgot the lie altogether. 

By the time I got home I was exhausted and sore. I had left my home at about 7:30am and didn’t return home until 11:30pm. When I woke up on Saturday I was tight and sore and could tell that I had been walking up and down hills the entire day before. I am pretty sure Portugal means the land of trillions of hills!

My tour group from Lisboa!

5 down 8 to go....

I have been in Portugal for 5 weeks now! I am becoming more and more comfortable in my surroundings, although, my language is still lagging behind.  My love for Portugal is becoming stronger with each day I am here. I love the lifestyle here! People are so relaxed in a way and find relationships and community to be very important.  I love being able to walk to market and by fresh produce and bread that is right out of the oven. If something isn't within walking distance then public transportation is easy and always close to where you are.

Every Monday I have an evaluation with the Fairbanks and this week Ron asked me what I am thinking about Portugal. I told him that my love for the country is growing more and more everyday and he responded by asking if I thought that my call to Portugal was being solidified by being here. This made me think, I mean I love Portugal....I am pretty sure that I love Portugal more then a quad white americano on the rox from the Cherrybean! I love the culture, the mindset, and the people in general.  I am always confronted with the need for something for youth here and I am beginning to understand the difficulty in helping start a youth ministry. I can't wait to return to Portugal full time after I graduate and be able to dive into ministry full time here. However, currently I am working in the Lisbon area and although I love this area I don't think this is necessarily where God wants me to work full time. I have always felt that God has wanted me in the north. Many districts in the north have no evangelical presence and that to me is disturbing. The mindset to evangelical Christians in the north is very different then here in Lisbon. Here in Lisbon people are very open to what ever religion is being talked about for the most part but in north the Catholic church still has a very strong hold on the population. I have heard stories of the priests telling their congregations to ostracize an evangelical Christian and especially missionaries. I will get the chance to experience this closed door society in about a month when I spend a week in the north with a missionary there. While I am in the north I hope to get further conformation that Portugal is where God wants me to be.

well that is all I got now....

Peace out!

New Grandmother....

Last Thursday I moved from PBI in Tojal to an apartment with a grandmother in Vialonga. She is an 87 year old great-grandmother and her grandson with his two daughters live in an apartment on the second floor. This apartment building is basically perfect! I have a coffee shop right outside the entrance to the complex where I go every morning and get tosta mista and galao escuro, which is a panini style ham and cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee with milk. I am also now in walking distance to the Fairbanks house and the Chaveiro house so I no longer have to ride the bus everyday! Basically, our houses are laid out like this....there are three little hills and a deep ravine between each hill and we each live at the top of the hills. I am the first hill and then the Chaveiros and lastly the Fairbanks. Dan Chaveiro is Dalia Fairbanks' brother and he is married to Rebecca and they have a daughter and a baby boy on the way. When I am working with the youth in Vialonga and Povoa, I am working with the Chaveiros.

Also near my new home is a gypsy market. They sell everything at this gypsy market and it is all "the real thing"! They gypsies set up their market in this big empty parking lot every saturday and they have everything from underwear to gucci purses. Shopping here is very overwhelming though because if you look to long at something or touch something then they try and get you to buy it by yelling at you. There are also the gypsies that just yell at everyone passing by "1 euro!" or there was even a guy who was yelling, "I am sleeping with the boss' wife! Because I am the boss!" When you walk out of this market there is another indoor market but this one is produce, bread, and fresh fish. This market is way better because you don't have people yelling at you about who they are sleeping with or how much products are. Also, in Portuguese fashion, there is a cafe attached with this indoor market. I think there are more cafes in the small village of Vialonga then there are in Portland!

well that is all I have for this post....

Peace out!

The recipes

Caldo Verde


2 lbs potatoes
1 package Chouriço de carne (Portuguese Chouriço)
2 Onions
3 Cloves of garlic
2 Bay leaves
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp. Salt
250 g kale


Peel and chop potatoes and onions, place in a large pot of water with about 2 knuckles above the potatoes. Also place in the pot the garlic, the bay leaves, the Chouriço with the casing removed, the olive oil, and salt. Bring to a boil and let boil for 15 minutes. While the pot is boiling take your kale and slice it into thin strips (in Portugal you can buy this already done but I doubt you can buy it like that in the states). When the pot has boiled for 15 minutes and the potatoes are soft remove the bay leaves and the Chouriço. Puree the potatoes and the onions in the water making sure that there are no chunks left. slice the Chouriço in about 1/4-1/2 in. rounds. Add the Chouriço and the bay leaves back to the potatoes. Also add your sliced kale at this time. Simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.


This is a really simple soup and it is the kind of soup that is better the next day because the flavors of the Chouriço are able to mix more into the soup.


Bacalhau com Natas
Salt Cod in cream sauce


2 lbs Potatoes
500 g. Bacalhau*
1 large onion
Olive oil
grated Mozzarella


White sauce:
2 wooden spoons of butter (about 1/2-1 cup)
2 wooden spoons of flour (about 1/2-1 cup)
2 cups milk
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup cream




*The Bacalhau will need to be soaked over night with the water changed a couple times to remove all of the salt from the cod. In Portugal you can buy the fish frozen with the salt already removed and I am not sure if it is available in the same way in the States. You might also need to remove skin and bones from the fish depending on the bacalhau.


Peel and chop the potatoes into about 1/2 in. cubes. Place in water and boil for 5-10 min. You are not needing to cook the potatoes all the way but you do want them on the softer side. In a seperate pot boil the bacalhau in water for 5-10 minutes. Drain the bacalhau and the potatoes and set aside but do not mix the two ingredients. 


Slice the onions into small pieces. In a saute pan add the olive oil and the onions and cook until the onions are translucent. Add the Bacalhau and incorporate the onions with the Bacalhau. Set aside.


Making the sauce:


In a sauce pan melt the butter and mix with the flour, allow it to cook a little bit. Add the milk to the butter and flour and continuously whisk to get rid of any lumps. Add the cream and whisk again. Put the garlic through a garlic press and add to the sauce. Let the sauce simmer and thicken about 5 minutes. You may need to add more milk to the sauce to thin it out a little bit, you want the sauce to be thin like the thickness of cream. 


Assembling the dish:
In a 13x9 pan put all of the potatoes on the bottom. Then spread the bacalhau and onion mixture on top of the potatoes. Pour the cream sauce evenly over the bacalhau and potatoes. Take the grated mozzarella and sprinkle it over the dish. Bake the dish for 20 minutes at about 375, the cheese should be browned. 

certifiably marriage material

I have been taking my lessons on cooking, the culture, and the language. I have learned to make very key
dishes such as caldo verde, which is a soup made with potatoes and kale, and also bacalhau com natas, which is my first salt cod dish (bacalhau) in a cream sauce. The Fairbanks family have had to eat...or choke down....everything that i have made. Fortunately I have been told that both of my dishes were amazing and a common saying in Portugal when someone cooks something that tastes good is to say that the person is ready to be married. So, I am now ready to be married! All I have to do now is find the guy.....

I also remade caldo verde on my own and served it to the people who are also living her at the Portuguese Bible Institute and one of the Portuguese guys turned to me and said, "you are now ready to get married." I thought it was awesome to get that kind of a compliment from someone who ate the same soup made by their mother for lunch that same day!

if you want the recipes let me know and I will post them in a separate blog.

the writers block.....

So, the writer's block has hit me....I have done things this past week but nothing seems grand enough or exciting enough to write about....

I mean I have gone to Belem and I have tasted their amazingness but my camera died as soon as I got there and we ended up not being able to go inside any of the monuments. We walked by the Navigators monument and we walked by the Tower of Belem but I guess it was to expensive to go inside but really it was probably good that I didn't go inside of them because I didn't have a camera.

When we walked from Pasteis de Belem to the waterfront where all of the monuments were we took a little underground tunnel to walk underneath the street. This little tunnel had great acoustics and there was a man there that was singing some Fado songs. I am not sure what song he was singing or what he was singing about but it was beautiful and it was only his voice, no instruments to help him out. Which reminds me that I still really want to go to Fado house and listen to some live Fado singers while sipping some wine. Doesn't that just sound delightful!?! I just need to find a group to go with me!

I was thinking I would also give you some cultural information.....

In my Portuguese culture lessons I learned many things about the Portuguese, such as, no does not always mean no. When ever you go to someone's house and they offer you something you are first supposed to refuse and then after many times of them asking you if you want some then you can say yes. Here is how it would look:

"Would you like some coffee?"

"No, thank you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I don't want to be a bother."

"It is no problem. Are you sure you don't want any?"

"No, it is ok."

"Are you sure? It really isn't a bother I already have some made."

"Oh ok. I would like some."

Basically, the Portuguese will not give up until you take whatever they are offering you. Also, when you are eating at someone's house and you are getting full or just don't want anymore food make sure you leave a little bit of food on your plate because if you don't the host will continuously try and put more food on your plate. You need that little bit of food on your plate so when they offer you more food you can politely say, "No, thank you. I couldn't even finish all of my food because I am full." If you say this then you are automatically off the hook of having to eat more food.

When you are wanting to cross a street and you are at a cross walk do not just walk into the street because the car will not stop for you. You might think that because you are in a cross walk you have the right of way but your wrong. The car always has the right of way. Even though it is a huge fine for the driver if they hit a person in a cross walk, it is super difficult to prove that you were in the cross walk when you got hit because you usually fly through the air and land some distance away. So, when you want to cross the street just make sure that you wait for traffic to stop before you venture out into the road.

well that is it for this blog.

Peace out!

I might be biased

In the movie, "What I like about you", there is a scene where Amanda Bynes go on this wonderful date with Oliver James, a hot singer she meets at her hostel. The two of them escape for the day and wonder around London and go see and do everything they could in one day. That was basically my day minus the hottie guy and plus a girl I live with and her aunt!

There is a group of students that live at the Bible institute with me and they are all studying Portuguese because they are planning to go to Angola in the Spring to do some church planting. Part of the Portuguese classes is that they go on a field trip once a month and today was the day. Their field trip this month was to Lisboa to look at some Roman ruins.....accept these weren't the normal Roman ruins. To get to these Roman ruins we basically needed to go into the sewer in a sense. Once a year Lisboa drains an underground creek that flows among these underground Roman ruins. So, once a year, usually, a guided free tour is given to people of the ruins.

The ruins were super cool and it was especially cool that we got to go underground in the middle of the road to get to them. 

After we got done with the ruins we decided that we needed a little coffee before we conquered our second sets of ruins! Bring on the amazing deliciousness that is Portuguese coffee!

See the awesome thing about coffee here is that even though it might look small it carries quite a heavy punch! You can also not get a cup of coffee to go! Everywhere you go you have to drink your coffee there and I think it really adds to the coffee!

So, once we were reenergized and had a little bite to eat we went to a bank that also had Roman ruins underneath it. These Roman ruins were from an old sardine paste factory! Can you say YUM?!? Me neither!

Both tours were really awesome but they were both fully in Portugal. It was really exhausting to go on the tours because the whole tour you are trying to figure out what exactly the tour guide is trying to say. All in all, it was an awesome free tour!

After the tours with the Portuguese class my friend, her aunt, and I decided that we would do some more Lisboa exploring before we went home. The first thing we did was to take an elevator up to another street and little shopping area.

The elevator was constructed in 1902 and allows people to go to the top of a hill via a bridge at the top instead of walking up the hill. It was really beautiful and a bonus of the elevator is that it gives you a beautiful view of all of Lisboa! Right off of the bridge is an old Catholic church that is now used to hold different artifacts from all over Portugal.

In 1749, there was a huge earthquake in Lisboa and many buildings collapsed and it also brought down the power that Portugal had in sailing and exploring. During this earthquake the roof of a huge Catholic church collapsed and killed everyone inside and also started a fire in the church. Portugal decided not to fix the church but instead to keep the church as somewhat of a memorial of the earthquake and also a museum of other artifacts from all over Portugal. 

It was really amazing to see things from so long ago! If you walk straight down the path in the picture you come to rooms with more artifacts and on the walls in Portuguese tile work is a pictorial depiction of life of Jesus Christ. 

We visited many other places and shops but at the end of the day I fell more in love with Portugal. The architecture and feel of the city is beautiful! The colors and patterns on the tiles that are on just about every building are eye catching. I seriously think that a fabric designer should come design fabrics according to Portuguese tiles! I am pretty sure it would sell out instantly! The prices for everything were also amazing! We got to ride the subway, the trolley cars, and the elevator as much as we wanted for 24 hours for less then 4 euros and the tour of the Church was 2 euros for a student and 3 euros for general public, this means that everything was about 7 euros which is less then $10! Try and do that anywhere else!

Seriously, if you have never had Portugal on your radar to travel to I definitely think you need to put it on there! Just walking around the city is amazing! So, go book your ticket and I will see you here next week!

Peace out!

P.S. if you would like to see more pictures from my adventures please check them out on facebook. I will have them posted so anybody can see them.....

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=551694&id=556530252

Also, I was on national news because of the ruins....supposedly they did a sweep of the crowd waiting to go underground and I was in that sweep!