nEw yEaR...

It's been a while since I last wrote... I've been quite busy hosting people who came over, and that's a good reason to be offline...

I'm in Porto again at the moment. I came to bring Juran with Amelie (his dog), to get a tent that was offered to us and also to take care of some papers from the car... I can't wait to come back already, there's so much stuff to do now at the land... we're buying some trees to plant from a place that is going to shut down and they're selling all the trees really cheap... it's also time to prune some other trees and prepare the fields for the Spring... Finally the rain came and that's perfect for the trees we'll plant soon...

I have a lot of good  news to share... This 9 meter bus you see on the picture was one of the Christmas presents for the land....

"it came from Heaven" Willi says... he just doesn't want me to say that he was the one who brought it all the way from Germany... He got it fixed a while ago and wanted to give it to a friend, but she said it was too big for her to move around, then he offered it to the Jesus Freak Community in Cologne, but they also said the same thing... "so I offered it to Jesus" , Willi said, "I'm going to take it to the land in Portugal"... This is Willi... an amazing guy with an amazing heart... 

When he was 120 Km from the land, the big bus broke down , in Spain... Willi knew Jo was also on his way from Cologne, Germany, and asked him to bring the piece that he needed to fix the bus and drive it to the land... It didn't arrive on Christmas as he planned, but he was determined... 

Willi never gives up, and for him, a broken car is in itself a present...he loves fixing things, and he's simply a genious... have you heard about "Macgiver", the Tv series? He was just like Mcgiver to us ... 

There´s a sad part of his story, but he is able to turn it into a blessing in his life...

After working 30 years for "Mercedes Benz", he got fired for over working, can you believe that? They took him to court and made him go to a doctor who said he is not able to tie his own shoes anymore...  That didn´t bother him, as now he gets a good pension both from Mercedes and the State, and he can have all the time to fix his friend´s vans and travel... Everytime we thanked him for fixing something he replied in a joking way ,"That was nothing, I can´t even tie my shoes you know?"

Going back to the big bus story, it only took him 2 days to get it fixed and he drove happily to the land to deliver the "gift from Heaven"... now we have a "land hotel"... 

God is very generous and uses very generous people...

There was another amazing present, of sorts, which actually came inside of the big bus... I say of sorts because it is a very old machine that takes a lot of strength and patience to get it to work, and I´m not really sure we will need it that much... but I was very grateful of course... Local farmers use this kind of rotavator a lot (newer versions of course), and some even have them attached to a trailer and use it as their main transport...

we'll be able to make a bigger vegetable garden this year...

I also got a volunteer to take care and work with it, Lukas (in the picture lighting a cigarette)...
Lukas is another amazing guy that came to the land... He's a young punk rocker kid, maybe 17 years old, nephew of Jonathan and Anne... they asked me a month ago if he could come to the land as he was expelled from school, and this was the way they presented to the school as his "punishment"... interesting isn't it? Of course I loved the idea and said he could obviously come...I also got excited about it... 

Jonathan wrote to his school and presented the project of  "Mount of Oaks" community asking them if Lukas could finish his year here, as a volunteer in this social project... they accepted !!!

It has been so nice to have Lukas around... the school disapproves of him as a good student, but the truth is that he's so willing to learn so many things... he's enjoying so much to be on the land... he's always with Willi and wants to learn all about mechanics...  he loved the rotavator too, that's why I asked him to be responsible for it...I thought he needed a specific responsibility of his own...and I'm glad he's excited about it...

It's interesting to see how our society labels people and simply discards them as they please, according to their standards and requirements...
Willi is considered as mentally invalid, but in reality he´s a genius...
Lukas is considered a bad student, a loser and not approved to fit in the system, but he has such an amazing heart, he really wants to learn things and he's good at what he does... for me he has all to be a winner, not a loser...

How many people in this world live thinking they are losers, or end up becoming criminals, addicts or homeless, just because our society doesn't know how to affirm them in their real identity... society is so limited in the options of life it presents... if we don't fit, if we are a bit different, if we just don't understand it, don't agree with it or don't believe in it, we are stamped as losers, crazy, lunatics, dangerous ,etc...what an illusion !

In the same picture, on the other side of the table is Ton, a Dutch man who was living for 10 years in Delhi, India (here is his new home on the land).
He founded and ran the Sewa Ashram, a community of the poor and destitute... But now he has come back to Europe and he needs some time and space to get adapted to our occidental culture again, to process all that he learnt in India, to write down his thoughts (and he has good ones), and to rest... He needs to simply BE and I guess he found a place for that on the land...he loved Portugal and our people as soon as he came... I'm glad about that...I've been hearing about him and his work for almost three years, and now he's here...so cool !!!

Many others came together with 2 buses from Germany: Lyna and David who are about to have their child and they wanted to be here, Maren and Edy who were already here last year...Jo also came after the new year and will go back with Willi this coming week...

We also had a guy coming from Sweden, Emmanuel, who heard about the land from different Jesus Freaks and from Emma in the UK... It was really nice to get to know him as well, and I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures he took here...
There was also 2 german girls, Gloria and Marielouise, who are travelling and volunteering in different organic farms through the wwoof program...

Emma also came, of course, and she brought an old friend of hers, Cathy, a really nice person as well...
For the New Year I also got special friends coming from Lisbon, Denny, Maureen,
Alana and Isaac Hurst, Ben and his girlfriend Martyna, Ruben and Marcia...
Marcia is a special one as well... We've been friends for some years already and the last few years we've been getting to know more of each other... I love Marcia, and I love her desire to get closer to God...she just decided to quit her job, sell her house and give her time to be with God...well, it was not "just like that", she wisely took the steps she needed to take...some were surprised, some thought she was crazy, but some also encouraged her... I'm really happy that she wants to stay in the land for a while, and I hope to get even closer to her... I'm sure God will do great things in her life, because that´s what happens when we "give up our lives" to be at service...

Here are some pictures of the New Year party...

David, Lyna and Chimerre (Lyna's dog)...Emmanuel taking a picture...

Nuno, our friend from Alcaria, a village after Fundão...

Isaac, Maureen, Martyna, Marcia, Ruben and Alana...

Martyna, Ben (hiding), Maureen (running away), Marcia (with her beautiful smile), Ruben and Alana...
 Edy celebrated the coming of the New Year with his party trick...opening a beer bottle with a chainsaw... everyone got surprised and amazed of course...the highlight of the night for sure !!!

Nobody could believe it... even Willi came to take a closer look !!!

Gloria, Marielouise, Emma, Nuno, Jared, Wili, Lyna, Cathy and Lukas... what a mix of different people... I love that...

We also got a new look in our Kitchen...we changed the hang out space and the kitchen space,,, we got a firewood oven from my aunt in Castelo Branco... it's much more comfortable now

This is our "swet lodge", or sauna if you prefer, that Juran and Lukas so carefully built... unfortunately it was always too rainy to try it out...but soon we'll prepare it... It´s right next to the big pond, so we can just jump in the water after coming out from the hot steam... a luxury I would say...