"pOrRidGe" pArTy iN tHe viLlaGe...

I'm not so inspired to write as I got so overwhelmed to answer so many e.mails...from 11.30 and it's now 5.30pm... it's exhausting to be so long at the computer...
So, I'm just going to do as I did last times and simply comment as I upload pictures...

I don't remember anymore when it was, but it was somewhere around mid January, when we went to celebrate the party of the village, Póvoa de Atalaia...the "Papas", which literally means "porridge"... Everyone was inviting us and of course we couldn't miss it...

The story goes that once there was such a big plague of grasshoppers that were destroying all the maize crops around the area...the people in Póvoa gathered and prayed to saint Sebastian... I don´t quite get the saints devotion, so you will have to excuse my ignorance... I guess all prayers go to God, right? and people have special connections with this or the other saint...
Well, the plague stopped anyway and they built a little chapel to Saint Sebastian in the place where all the grasshoppers came to die... Then they make this kind of Maize cake and some other fried things and they are blessed by the priest for everyone to be blessed... loads of people come to this event and anyone is welcome to share it and eat it... it's also a nice gesture from the village to share from their blessed crop... Each year, different families are responsible to plant the maize to make the cakes, and each year different people have the privilege to serve the cakes to everyone... it´s quite a thing...
the priest who directed the mass in front of the chapel was very good... he reminded people of who saint Sebastian was, and that we should follow his example and not worship him or pray to him...
The scriptures were read also, the part when Esdras reads the law to the people and they get so touched and immediately "repent from their sins" ( the collective and systemic sins of injustice, not looking after the vulnerable,etc)... The priest also encouraged the people to get to know, and above all, to practice the word that God gives to us.

He blessed the baskets of the porridge cake... and he also blessed the people, which are more important, he said...
I liked him, he was always encouraging people to live the faith and not just play on religion... but I wonder if even sound teaching changes the popular religion of a community...

In the end , God sees the heart and the intention of each one... Saints, Statues and even porridge cakes are simply symbols that connect us with God, the One with many names and faces, "in whom we live, and move, and have our being"





The guys didn't really like the cakes that much... Look at their faces... I didn't mind 




It was good and important that we went to the village and participated in their culture... we had nice conversations with some people and they just liked to see us around... 

tReE cAmPaIgN...

so my friends, we're launching a TREE CAMPAIGN in the land here in Portugal...
As you can see from the pictures below, we have a lot of layers in the land which need a lot of trees...
I always remember the words of Amal who lives in the "Tent of Nations" in Palestine : " everytime I plant a tree, I'm declaring HOPE for this land ", and that's actually the meaning of her name in Arabic, Hope... 

Planting a tree is an act of Hope and faith because it takes a while until it grows enough to give shade and until it bears fruits...


I Hope many things for this land, and that's the main reason why I want to plant trees...
I Hope this place will bear much fruits in the future... many kinds of fruits...
I Hope this place will be a resting place for many in the future...
I Hope many will find rest in the nice shade of the trees of this land...
I Hope many will enjoy eating its fruits too...

And I also hope many will take part of this...
I don't have much money to buy all the trees I'd like to plant, so this idea came to my mind...

I'm sharing this with you so you can participate if you'd like to...

I'm listing here the kinds of trees that we can grow and its prices by unit...
YOU CAN GIVE FROM 1.75EUROS (Vine) OR MORE, AS MUCH AS YOU WANT 
Then you just need to e.mail me or post a comment and say which tree or trees you'd like to see planted in the land...
I'll send you then my bank details for you to transfer your offer...

As I get responses I'll say how many trees we already have and which kinds we need to buy more ...just in case everyone wants the same kind of trees and we still have no trees of other kinds... I hope this makes sense...
We already have one Olive Tree by the way...
So, here's the list :


OLIVE TREE - 7.50 E
CHESTNUT TREE - 10 E
WALNUT TREE - 17 E
ALMOND TREE - 3.25 E
HAZELNUT TREE - 4 E
PLUM TREE - 3.25 E
APPLE TREE - 3.25 E
PEACH TREE - 3.25 E
"NESPERA" TREE (Luquot) - 4 E
CHERRY TREE - 4 E
LEMON TREE - 5 E
VINE TREE - 1.75 E

O.K, I'll wait for your feed back... feel free to share the idea with your friends... :-)
I'm excited about all this... this is fun!!!!

gOod bYe & bApTiSm iN tHe lAnD...

we had to say good-bye to Jo and Kathrin... Jo has been here since November and he gave so much to this place and to all of us... He's an amazing person...a real servant !!! Kathrin, His girlfriend also came to spend Christmas and New Year with us and rest a bit from her studies... It was so nice to see her again after meeting her on my trip in Germany and being one week in Taize with her...she's really special as well... I love them both !!!

Sven, our dear brother from Switzerland asked if he could be baptized here... well, why not?! he already made his choice in this life to follow Christ/Love and not the world/Capitalism, but he still felt he wanted to be baptized and specifically in the land here in Portugal... It was a really special moment for him and all of us ...
It was cold in our neighbour´s spring, but it was worth it 



It seems just like a religious ritual that one has to do to be a christian, but it´s so much more than that...

I remember my time in Angola when I was suggested to be baptized by my mentor...I was living and giving my first steps as a follower of Jesus in an ecumenical christian organization,in 1998 when the civil war was still devastating the country and the people... it took me a while to decide... I was quite suspicious of everything as I didn't want to do things just because I was told or because that´s what one does... I needed to meditate about it...me and God... so I did... in the end I got it... at least it made sense to me...

John the Baptist went to the river Jordan to baptize, away from Jerusalem, away from the man made Temple, not in religious purification baths, but in a River... a natural river, outside in the wilderness... the call was to "Repent from our sins" ... Two words that usually create a bad reaction in most people... me included... until I understood what they really meant for those people John and Jesus were speaking to... The greek word used for "repent" is "Metanoia", which is more like a complete change of mind, or consciousness, a complete change of lifestyle ... and "sin" is simply "missing the goal"... 

The preaching of John the Baptist was not necessarily to point out personal failures for people to be "washed off"... for that the jewish had lots of other purification baths and washing of hands and whatever else... John the Baptist would confront mainly the political and religious authorities and would speak mainly of collective or systemic sins... the sin of injustice, of not looking after the poor, of charging more debts than what was agreed, of not being welcoming to the stranger, of not looking after the orphans and widows... not much to do with "morality" as many christians preach today...

people were living under the Roman empire for quite a long time and most were already finding their ways to live within the currupt system and, in a direct or indirect way, to participate in it... This was the call to repentance, "Turn away from this evil imperial system, and don´t participate in its sins" ...

The baptism was a public declaration that they no longer served or supported the roman empire, and it was also, as I understood from my meditations, a declaration into the spiritual realms that we belong to the God of Light and Love, so we can remember when doubt and temptations come as it happened to Jesus after his own baptism...

I asked my mentor Romana, a Brazilian woman, an Angolan friend from our community and an Angolan local pastor to baptize me in the sea, and so they did.

 

& nEw yEaR...

we had several visitors at the land during this season...mostly from Germany of course, and Emma came from Irland as well...
I stayed in Porto until Emma arrived and we still spent one day in Porto to catch up... I love Emma and we really have a nice friendship...she's one of those persons I could share anything and know that she would still love me... We had nice times praying for each other as well... she's such an encouragement to me...
Then we went back to the land... there was a lot of new people...some I met before in Germany, others were friends of friends...

It was nice to get to meet them better, even though I was not in such a sociable mood and they were most of the times speaking in German...
Miri had organized a party with the young people from the village in a farm from one of the girls...I was expecting Ima and Thor, some rainbow friends and also my cousin Paulo from Castelo Branco and his friends... they all came on saturday which was cool to get to know each other better... It was quite a mix I tell you... punk-rockers, rainbows, "normals", younger and older... I love that !!!

On sunday morning most of us went to mass .. It's beautiful to see the mix as well... The "Freaks", some more colourful than others and the black dressed old women from the village ...



Our habitual fellowship time in the cafe...

Emma and Anna playing "Fussball" (whatever you call it )


We spend the day together...well, it basically gave us time to cook and eat together... In the night we gathered around the fire...It was a cool mix of people already,
maybe around 30, and we were all waiting for Bruno from the village who would pick us all up in his tractor... Yes, it's not a joke... It was definitely the high-light of the night... we took more then one hour to get to the farm... we sang all the way ... we had to cross the village as well... everything was kinda surreal and really funny...
Here are some pictures from the tractor trip... Happy Julia, Anna´s mum...

And Anna , already ready to sleep... or wondering " What are all this grownups doing on a tractor´s trailer on a freezing night like this?"

My cousin's friends...

Tabea and Emma...

A toast with the girls...it was slow enough to able us to drink...well, when it was not too bumpy :-)

Ari always smiling...

And Maren also came straight from the airport to the party...we still picked her up from the train station with the tractor on the way to the party ...

Kathrin in the tractor after we arrived 


The party was fun... there was fire outside...

a table full of food inside...
a room with fun music (not really our style, but fun)...


And we kept the tradition as apparently they do every year...at 3am they bring coffe&milk with croissants... a funny combination after so much beer and wine...

Monike, Emma and Marcia (she came from Lisbon...I was so glad)

The stylish Tim and his pipe...and Simone in the back...

The day after... my rainbow friends arrived, Ima and Thor...and it was a nice sunny day !!!

One more time Anna...oh, I miss her...It was nice to have a kid around...Ich liebe dich Anna

bAcK 2 XrIsTmas...

O.K, I missed some things in my posts... and the main reason is that I haven't been able to get on line so frequently and this was a busy season for me to be inspired enough to write...
so, I went out from the land for a while around Christmas... First I went to Lisbon to paint my flat and finish the contract for good :-)...
Then I went to Porto to spend Christmas with Edna, my sister, my brother-in-law,Paulo, and his family... Nico too of course, he is part of the family, and Simone and Peter, 2 of the Germans who are at the land also joined us...Look how beautiful my sister is pregnant...she has twins, 2 boys maybe :-)
It was fun and nice to know Paulo's family better... we ate a lot as well :-)...
here's Nico...

Edna opening the baby presents... she was all excited as this is something new for her :-)

Simone and Peter...

LiTtLe mIsTakE …

just to correct my little mistake on my last post...
We don't go to the "mess" but to the "mass" on sundays :-)...
but it does sound the same to me :-)...
sorry guys..and thank you Lisa... I always like when you correct my english, even though you say you like the way I speak things wrong...

"tHeY cAmE 2 bRiNg uS jOy"

"They came to bring us Joy" , these were the words the young people from the "Club" of Povoa da Atalaia wrote about us... They made a board with different pictures from the Year with funny, subtittles, but when it came to our picture that's what they wrote... We felt really honoured ...

Miri, Edi and Juran have been the most regulars in the "Club", the place where young people from Póvoa hang out. They were building friendships and drinking beer as one does ... When we had our visitors during Christmas and New Year, everybody wanted to go to the Club... well, there's not much going on for young people besides that anyway...
It's not a big surprise for us that we are the lattest attraction in this area, and everybody has their own rumour about who we are supposed to be..."Who are these "different" young people, with studies and families, who came to our village instead of going to big cities as our young people do? Why they want to live in a field without a house, without electricity, without Tv, sleeping in tents and caravans? And how come they go to mass on sunday mornings?!!"... These were possible questions runing through their minds...


This last friday we (mainly Miri) organized a party for our friends in the Club... the girls made really cool decorations out of recycled stuff, some practiced some songs to present, there was a fire show with Poe-Poe being prepared and then we'd dance all night with Dominike mixing some music...
I arrived at the party right on time because I went out for the day and came on the last train... Miri asked me to bring the Dvd of "The Vision" in portuguese so we could presented in the beginning... (it´s a poem with nice graphics about young people rising to pray for their lands, families and nations)

As I came into the Club I was really amazed... It was packed with people, not only from Póvoa da Atalaia, but also from other villages around...people we never saw before, but who already heard about us... they were all waiting in anticipation for the "presentation"... we were all amazed and didn't know what to think... there were young people, old people, families and people who never put their feet on the "Club" before...


So we started to present ourselves...
It was powerful, even though "the vision" is such a big text to grasp it all at the first time...
After that we presented a few songs with guitars and a drum and then we took everyone outside to see the fire show... they all liked it...
The night went on and on with dance and all sorts of music... there was a little girl who didn't want to stop dancing, and also a cute old man, Sr. António, maybe around his 60's, who started to observe how we were dancing and then joined us... he was the show of the night... he didn't stop until 3am, and he was not drinking anything, he stopped many years ago he said... he was just full of Joy and having fun together with those "different" young people... he was even jumping to punk/ska music... simply amazing !!! No words to describe !!!


Where the Spirit of God is , there is FREEDOM ... and JOY !!!

Sr. Antonio lives out of the village as well in his farm with his goats... he was fired from his job in a glass factory and he was given 2 months to live because of a lung infection...he said he possibly got it when working in the mines... well, this was 20 years ago... who says he's not alive ?!!! More than all those who were at the party :-)





I will still write about the new year party that we were invited to go to by the local young people... but only next time..