"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..