'Twas the week before Easter...

I mentioned in previous posts that we were really busy the week before Easter. The installation of the video projection system required disassembling the podium in order to run the cables to the ceiling-mounted projector...that is, if we wanted to avoid unsightly wires running up the walls and across the ceiling. Disassembling the podium meant replacing the carpet, and it was when the carpet company said they had received our order and that they would come install the carpet, we said, "Wait! We're not ready!!" We didn't advance with the work until we knew the new carpet had arrived, and now suddenly we had to get everything in place.  On Saturday, a week before Easter, we pulled up the old carpet (on Palm Sunday, the podium was bare), and on Monday we started taking it apart. The carpet men were coming on Wednesday morning at 9:30 to lay the new carpet. (Everything closes on Thursday and Good Friday, so it had to be Wednesday.) I didn't get any pictures of the work in progress, but our church member Orlando did, and here are some of them:

Tuesday night, 10:30 p.m.

Less than 12 hours before the men are to come install the carpet! We had to have all the cables run and the podium reassembled, no matter how long it took. José Carlos came that night to give a hand, and it was 1:30 a.m. before we went home. We were ready.

"I could have sworn I had this figured out..."

The situation must not have been as bleak as it seemed

Marcia thought something was funny. From our point of view, though, time was running out. This could have been one of those reality show makeovers, where the whole house has to be rebuilt before the owners get back from the supermarket.

"I think I saw in the owner's manual that it also trims fingernails..."

Choir practice must go on

This was one of the last chances to rehearse the Easter cantata; the piano was displaced, but the choir members (l-r: Svetlana, Olga, Albert, and Marcia) faithfully practiced their parts, while the entire bass section (José Carlos and I) joined in with saw, hammer and drill. Our deadline was closer than theirs...they had until Sunday; we had until 9:30 the next morning.

In the photos in the previous post, you can see the new, blue carpet (the old one was green) and the projection on the wall. It was a long week and a long night, but we finished everything on time.

Easter Sundays

We had two Easter Sundays in our church this year. At the afternoon service in Portuguese on the 12th, our church choir sang an Easter cantata, Hallelujah, What a Savior!, which was translated into Portuguese. Abbie also included a couple of songs in English from another cantata in the middle of this one.

Then, last Sunday, we sang the same cantata again, but in the English service in the morning. It was Easter, again: on the Orthodox Church calendar and therefore in Russia and Ukraine, so Svetlana, who is from the Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, was especially glad to sing Easter songs that day. Although there weren't many present in the morning service, in the afternoon service the week before, the chairs were full and there were people standing outside.

Here are a few pictures of the recent services:

Our "International" Choir

In the above picture there are 6 Portuguese (1 born in Madeira, but who was raised in Zimbabwe (formerly, Rhodesia) and lived in Australia; 1 born in South Africa; 1 born in Angola; and 3 Madeirans); 4 Brazilians; 2 Americans; and 1 Russian.

Sunday morning, April 19

As some of the people in the English service would not understand the Portuguese portions of the cantata, English translations were projected during the cantata. This was only the 2nd Sunday we had the system up and operating. We had to take up the podium to run the cables, so we took advantage of the opportunity to put in a new carpet to match the chairs we got a little over a year ago.

Lord's Supper Celebration

José Carlos is assisting me in the Lord's Supper. He helps in many areas of the church ministry, including teaching and leading Bible studies. His wife, Marcia, had cancer a couple of years ago and had chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Doctors say there are no signs of cancer now.

The latest addition: an "orchestra"

Abbie has worked hard for years to encourage members to be involved in the music ministry. The church is currently paying the music studies for two of the young girls of the church. Sara is studying piano, and Vitoria is learning to play the violin. Because Vitoria's mother could not afford to buy a violin, the church decided to buy one for her to learn on. The arrival of Stephen and Allison from England has been an added boost. They both play the violin, and he also plays the flute. On this morning, they are playing violins; Sandra and Orlando, guitars; Sara and Susana, recorders; I, the harmonica; and Abbie is at the piano. Our first number as a group: Give Thanks with a Grateful Heart.  And we do.

Just call me "Michael"

Having finished the work on the church to get the video projection system installed, I returned to the work on the house. The current task is to re-ceil the attic bedroom and finish sealing it off to block the wind that comes through the tiles of the roof. We're putting up roll insulation (foam-aluminum foil combination) to seal out air currents and provide some acoustic insulation, and then tongue-and-groove panelling over that.

One thing you should know about me and any work project: whether it's true, or it only seems so, I manage to hurt myself in some way at least one time each day. Blisters, cuts, scrapes, bruises...some way or another I end up giving something of myself to the job. Blood is usually present to a lesser or greater degree, a sort of blood sacrifice.

While working on the church last week, I was putting away tools and let a steel framing square fall---right down the front of my left shin, and it peeled off that fine layer of skin that looks to be about the thickness of an onion skin. A superficial wound to be sure, but boy, did it sting! It eventually turned into a big, beautiful scab, an inch or so in diameter. The last of the scab fell off yesterday.

Today, I was the one who fell off. A step ladder I was using to put up the ceiling paneling folded under me and my right leg got caught in the works as the ladder collapsed...I could feel the "onion skin" coming off the shin.  I knew I didn't want to raise the leg of my jeans to see it, but when I did about a minute later, there was a 6-inch long "skid mark" down my shin and the whole area had swelled about an inch high. I was able to continue working, but had to work in shorts, as the contact with the leg of my jeans was unbearable.

I thought of a song Abbie said she loved to sing as a little girl. There are many verses relating the misfortunes of an "old man named Michael Finnegan", but one verse, in particular, always struck me as especially funny...until today:

There was an old man called Michael Finnegan
Climbed a tree and barked his shin again
Took off several yards of skin again
Poor old Michael Finnegan....Begin again.

And like poor old Michael Finnegan, tomorrow I get to...

Begin again.

What??, January!!

I knew it had been a while since I posted anything, but January?! I was sure hadn't posted in March, but I thought I had surely posted something in February. I was apparently more occupied than I felt I was. A lot of things did go on, some of which (in no particular chronological order) were:

A visit to Madeira by the American ambassador---of course, the four days he and his family were here were totally taken up with his schedule. That doesn't count the days and weeks of preparation before he arrived, either.

Further travel: at some point in these two months, Abbie and I went to Lisbon, where I had a couple of days of meetings at the embassy.

Other visitors: One of the missionaries our church supports, Bro. Neilson Amorim and his family, plus another family from their church in the Algarve (southern Portugal), spent a week here with us.

Other work outside the church: It was sometime in March when I finally got all the backlog of translations finished, some of which dated back to October, when I was away in the States. The director of the language school that I do a lot of work for (especially court documents) told me when I got back that I would regret ever having gone on vacation. As I was making the final push to complete the court files in March, the director told me that I was in danger of going to jail: there were several judges upset that the translations of their files hadn't been delivered. She was just giving me a hard time, though...or so I thought. Later that morning at the office, I was served with a court injunction, "sign here please," and all that. I recalled the director's words and wondered if she knew something I didn't. But I was relieved to see that the paper was merely a court order demanding payment of €18,000 (over $24,000) in phone bills going back 5 or 6 years. What a relief! I had reasons for being relieved: 1) the injunction was for the Consulate; 2) the phone company sent us the bill that was really meant for the Embassy in Lisbon; 3) I could pass it on to the legal department in the Consular Section and not worry about it. 

Work in the church: Abbie has been working steadily since just after Christmas to get the cantata ready for Easter, and get us ready to sing it. We are now a little over a week away, and maybe, just maybe, it will all come together on the day. Somehow over all these years and dozens of cantatas, the Lord has always blessed at the end, but even in the last rehearsals there are times when it seems we won't get it right this time.

Profession of faith: Inês came forward two weeks ago, saying she had accepted Jesus as her Savior and that she wants to be baptized. She was bubbling with joy. We are praying for a couple of others who have been "almost" ready, that they will come to a firm decision.

In the prison: I only have two prisoners in the meetings at the moment, both of whom are Ukrainian. This is an advantage, as we can speak in Portuguese or Russian, whichever is more expedient, whereas, if others were in the group, there would be a limitation on using Russian. God is working in both Alex and Nikolai...

Alex's father was in the Soviet Army, so the whole family were atheists, of course. In time, as an adult Alex knew there was a Higher Power, but it has been in the Bible studies that he has learned about the God the Bible reveals and His Son, Jesus. Last week, Alex said that when he spoke to his mother on the phone, he sensed an emptiness in her life. Now a widow, and recently losing her job, she is seeking for something to fill her life. He encouraged her to read the Bible, and she said she probably would. He's evangelizing his mother!

Nikolai is more recent to the studies, but he has begun to read the Bible daily and each week he always has a question about some passage he's read. This week he turned to Rom. 6:21-23 and read: 

21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I waited for the question. He didn't have a question; he made an affirmation. He said that as he read those verses, he saw his own life being described. He has said before that the life he used to live was a complete disaster; he lived without rules. Evidence of that was when I asked Alex and Nikolai if they had pictures of themselves, so I could post them on the church bulletin board and help the members pray for them. Alex brought a couple of photos; Nikolai had none. That is, none he wanted to show. All the good pictures had been sent back to his family in Ukraine, and the only photos left are ones showing him living his "former life." "They are not suitable for posting in the church," he said. They are the "things he is now ashamed of." But God has changed that image, and Nikolai today would be right at home in the church. Maybe in a few years, he'll be able to get there.