MeEtInG tHe cHuRcH iN pOvOa dA AtALaiA...

There were 2 things I felt God told me before I came to this land...
One was to meet the church that gathers in that place, and the other was to meet the local authorities of the village, in this case, the Mayor, who in this case happens to be the one who sold the land to Yves and Regina ...
So, one sunday I went by myself to meet the church in a catholic building and participated in the mass... it's not realy my "style" of gathering as it is like a different language from mine, even though we are all christians... there are few things I don't really agree with, but I respect and the community seemed honest in their devotion... the message was ok... it's actually hard for me to participate in this kind of "institutional" settings, but I'm just obeying what God put in my heart, and I trust He will do something with it ... in the end I went to greet the priest and wanted to present myself, but he was too busy and in a hurry to go somewhere else, so I spoke with the only young girl there... she was glad to meet me I guess... actually, maybe 95% of the people on that building had more then 60 years old, and maybe 80% were widows...
I asked about the young people from the village, but she said they don't care much about "church"... it didn't surprise me !!! But she told me where they hang out, so, we can go meet them there, in "the club" ...
The week after that I met the Mayor as well, Sr. Rodrigues, because I wanted to tell him about us and about the track that is not good for our vans to pass... I really liked him and he seamed very interested in what we will do with the community... in the end he asked me if it was me who went to the mass on sunday and he appreciated it... he said he doesn't read the Bible, but He feels good when he goes to the mass...


Another sunday we went as a group... and it was really funny, because we took a "short cut" through the forest where we needed to take our shoes off to pass...
well, see the pictures.

Edi didn't want to take his shoes off, so he found another way 



And he proudly did it 

We thought there was only one "river" to cross...but we found out there was more ahead :-)

And more...

And more... well, it was also a great opportunity for Miri to win her fear of jumping :-) she did great !!!


After the mass we went to the cafe and spend some time speaking with old people, with each other, and playing some "kika"... For me, this sounds more like "church" ... 



After we met this guy, Bruno, who took us in his tractor to see his land, where he keeps his sheep and he also gave us some home made "Aguardente" (distilled from grapes)... we had a nice time with him as well... he took us also to "The club" where the young people hang out, and he's going to help us with his tractor to move things to the other land...
It was a really nice day of fellowship with the village...