an actual update on me

I would like to give you a run down of the first three weeks of my adventure in Lisbon since all you have received up until now are my thoughts about what has happened.
Well, as you can probably tell from my other journal entries, I was dealing with homesickness from the moment I left. That is how much I miss all of you. Consider yourself greatly loved. The homesickness lingers in my thoughts occasionally, but I’ve been too busy to feel sad lately and I truly am doing lots better.
After the initial adjustment days, Ron started Rachel and I on an intensive internship orientation study. We are working through the book of John, a manual that goes with The Survival Kit for Overseas Living, and a text called The Church on the Worlds Turf. These studies cover the three basic focuses of Ron’s orientation into ministering to international students. These focuses include the biblical, cultural, and methodological perspectives. In other words, to thrive in a foreign setting while trying to serve others from foreign settings we need to strengthen our ability to observe differences in cultural behavior as to not offend or alienate individuals, to understand effective and ineffective strategies for ministry, and to steady our aim at what brings us to Lisbon. The study has been a good tool for keeping my ever-analytical mind running and learning more about how to cope with cultural differences.
As for life in Lisbon, transportation is quite efficient. I live within a few minutes of a metro and bus station. The orientation is at Rachel’s most mornings and I have pretty much perfected the timing of getting up at the latest moment and still making it there by 9. One thing that has really helped the transportation process is getting a transportation card that will allow us to us the public transportation inside the city without having to buy a ticket every time. It’s kind of like a toll tag for the Causeway. Also, since it is good for thirty days, it frees up some money and hassle in going and exploring parts of the city.
The city itself is a beautiful place. Sure there is plenty of construction here, but Lisbon has a great blend of old and new. I have yet to check out some of the older sites, like a castle that overlooks the river, or the inside of the monastery I send pictures of. (They were closed the day we traveled over there.) However, the coolest site I’ve seen is Caba da Roca. It is the westernmost point of continental Europe. I think you would call it a cape and it overlooks the Atlantic. I saw it the first day I was here, and I felt like I was looking back at all of you.
Although school does not start until the 28th of February, we have been blessed with some opportunities to build relationships with students already. While we were at the monastery at Belem, we met a German businessman named Nils. He came to Lisbon on his vacation from work to study Portuguese so that he would be able to better relate to some of his colleagues. He was very nice and I admire His desire to learn and help others. He helped us out a great bit in showing us some of the tourist sites in Lisbon on our day off. We had some good conversations about relationships and the biblical versus scientific perspective. It was challenging and encouraging, and I am glad that the One who is in control placed him in our path. God is good.
Another person I met just this week, name Daniel, is an American from Connecticut, but has duel citizenship in Portugal and the U.S. He has a post-modern relative worldview that is tolerant of my beliefs and even curious, however he is so self-sufficient that I think he believes he doesn’t need a God. That puts to many limits on his lifestyle. He has had plenty of spiritual experiences without the rules and regulations that religion holds. It’s definitely interesting that both Nils and Daniel are highly skeptical of the religious. They should be. Look at what the world has done in the name of religion. If religion were on the scale of good and evil, I would tend to say that evil would outweigh the good. But my life is not about a religion; it is about an unconditioned love that permeates from having a relationship with the Creator. Jesus broke our lives down to two rules not 500: love God and love people, and He provided us the tools to accomplish both. I pray that my life is an example of these two and nothing more.
Oh, by the way, Daniel and I are going to a UEFA cup match this evening: my first European football experience. Love you.