Breaking a record

Seeing that my last post was in September, I think this is the longest I've been silent on this blog. That is a record which I guess I should say I'm setting rather than breaking. What I'm breaking is my silence.

The Annex for the church

That was the main point of the Sept. 30 post, and in that respect, there has really been no news to report until a couple of weeks ago. We still haven't received the reply to our letter to the city government, but José Carlos was able to find out from a clerk at city hall that the request had been favorably reviewed by the technicians, and the official reply is on the desk of the councilman awaiting his signature. It's been there for over a month.

When we do get the reply, then we can move to the next step: officially request a change of the use license for the property. This initial request was to see whether there would be any opposition to our using the property for our church activities, and there isn't. But...when we officially request the change, we have to include plans of the building as it currently stands, and that's when the city will realize that there has been a lot of unauthorized improvements. Legally, they could demand everything "extra" be torn down. In practice, that does not seem likely, since this "illegal" construction has been standing for 10 - 15 years or more, and no neighbors have complained (we, the church, being almost all the immediate neighbors). So, we move forward by waiting.

The 3 months of inner darkness

What was not said on Sept. 30 was that we had just begun remodelling work on our house. From the start of initial plans to getting the license from the village government took a year or so, and work began the last week of September. From that time until mid-December, Abbie could complain that she had too many men in her life, and they were right here in the house with her -- from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

I will spare you looking through the 1000+ photos I took as the work progressed, the basic rule of which was "what comes down doesn't go up". And a lot came down: ballustrades, interior walls, and yes, exterior walls, too. For two months or so, there was nothing between us and the outside world, but sheets of plastic and boards.

Here are some before and after views of the exterior. The inside story is another story. For another time.

BEFORE:   The front gate as seen from the street.

BEFORE: Entrance to house, seen from the street. The lower level is a separate apartment we sold
about ten years ago. We live in the street level apartment with space in the attic.

BEFORE: Seen from the opposite side, the lowest level apartment, which we mainly reserve for pastors and missionaries, can be seen, with the garage to the right. The project was to close in the upper veranda, because we were rarely able to use the space, due to the frequent windy conditions. Our house is completely exposed on all sides so we have always been at the mercy of the elements.

AFTER: The door was moved out to where a gate was originally located.

AFTER: View from the street. The windows continue around the corner to enclose the entire veranda.

AFTER: The finished garage terrace, with a water feature Abbie always wanted. I plan to use the remodelled, glassed-in, "garden room" (rotting out roof was replaced), as an extra study and library. I haven't had room to put all my books out on shelves for several years.

Now are you ready for the BEFORE-BEFORE pictures?

1977 - The house more or less as we bought it. By this time, I had already made some improvements to the house, mostly on the inside. In the mid-90's, the garage was built where the rock wall and old tin-roofed shed is on the right side of this picture.

1980(?)--A bit later, as we had already put in a new door. Notice that at that time, the upper veranda didn't exist. The lower floor in this picture is the apartment we sold, and we live on the upper floor and added a bedroom and bathroom in the attic space in the mid-90s. The hotel you see in the pictures now was built where the soccer field was. Sort of blocked our view of the village of Santa Cruz, but we still have a good view of the airport.

It took 37 years, but we finally feel like we've done all the fixing-up there is to do. But...

Does it ever end?
Work on the church building


We are fnally being able to relax around the house, and it's down to getting the closet spaces finished and everything put in its new location. But Monday (March 10), we have a rather major repair to do on the church building. The floor slab of the upstairs level (SS room, fellowship area) is sagging in the middle. It has for some years, but we thought perhaps the settling had stopped. But after a year of apparent stability, new cracks appeared in places that indicated we have to take action. A couple of 20' long, 20" steel beams (6m x 20 cm) will be placed under the slab, across the auditorium ceiling, and anchored to pillars in the side walls. We have a drop ceiling with inset light fixtures, so some of that has to be removed and then put back. Should take less than two weeks, but visitors to services on the 16th will likely notice something different in the auditorium. Hopefully by then, the work will be ready for the phase of replacing the ceiling and repainting.


The church at work

Not only is work being done on the physical plant of the church, God is working on the spiritual temple and the body is working, too.

Baptisms... Sorry, I didn't get any photos on February 2, when we baptized 3 persons. Two of them, Nataniel and Kayla, are children of church members, who have been raised in the church and Sunday School. We are seeing some fruit in the second generation. The 3rd person was Larisa, a Ukrainian who has been attending for a few years and who has played the violin for some of our cantatas. You'll find her in some of the photos of past cantatas. Baptism, in this case "re-baptism", was a real battle for her, as she was baptized by Adventists in Ukraine when she was 20 years old and it was only in the last week before the baptismal service that, in response to her prayer for direction from God, that she felt God speaking directly to her that she should be baptized. Another person has already mentioned in private that she believes she should be "re-baptized"; she was baptized "privately", as I would put it, by her father when she was a teen-ager, and she now understands baptism to be something more than that.

Restoration... About that same time, Daniela and Leandro came forward, asking to be forgiven by the church for their neglect. They "disappeared" from services for almost 4 years, but in recent months had started attending again. They haven't missed any services since their confession before the church and demonstrate a real desire to make the rest of their lives count.

Discipline... There have also been a couple of cases that have required action by the church to affirm the seriousness and true meaning of being a member of the church. Such cases require wisdom and discernment on the part of the leadership and the body as a whole. It isn't easy for the church, but it is necessary, if the order, peace and fellowship of the body is to be maintained.

Leadership... For the past several years, I have sensed that José Carlos is being prepared by God to lead the church. We have no plans to leave, but we also know that none of us remains here on earth forever. José Carlos is the architect who designed our church building and did the project for our house remodelling. In the last year or so, his interest and opportunities in his profession have been steadily dwindling. The severe economic crisis of Portugal has brought new construction to a virtual halt. But his interest in teaching Sunday School and in the well-being of the church have increased in inverse proportion to his architectural activities.
The church has officially recognized him as my assistant in the ministry. Although I have consulted him for years in regard to ministry issues, we now do pastoral visits together, and this has been especially important in the disciplinary cases mentioned above.

Personal news

Health-wise, there's good news: Abbie's blood pressure is better than ever (the doctor seems to have hit on the right combination of medications) and my eyesight is as bad as ever. As bad as my eyes are (macular pucker in left eye--with 70% vision-- and very large floater in right eye), there's been little change since these problems appeared, practically simultaneously, 2 years ago. So that's good news. About 2 months ago, I fell and cracked a rib, but I seem to have recovered from that. What I don't know is whether I can use that as an excuse to not hang any more curtains.

We do plan to travel this summer. In 37 years in Madeira, I think the total accumulated time we've spent in the US cannot have been more than 2 years. For many years, I was teaching English in a school, or we had a Christian bookshop, or I was the US consular agent. Now, finally, we are free of all those responsibilities. Two grandchildren (Rachel's son, Brody, and Rick's daughter, Gabby) will be graduating from high school in May. In August, Mom will be 98. She wrote an e-mail the other day saying how much she's looking forward to our being at her birthday party and she's really looking forward to being there herself! The 50th reunion of my high school graduating class will be held about that same time, so we'll be away for 4 months, Lord willing. God is raising up men to lead the work in our absence: José Carlos in Portuguese, and Roy in English. Aurélio, a brother we've known for over 25 years, who's been doing missionary work in Africa (Senegal), is bi-lingual and will be here for the summer, helping out in both languages. None of them have volunteered to do the Russian meeting, however. :)

Our Ukrainian brethren

Svetlana and her mother, Olga, originally from St. Petersburg, usually attend the English service in the morning. After Petro and Lidiia returned to Kiev last summer after 12 years in Madeira, the Russian-speaking congregation is usually just Nadezhda. (We have had surprise visits from tourists a time or two.)
It gives me a chance to improve my Russian, while discussing the Bible text with this sister, and we have the opportunity to sing in Russian and Ukrainian. (Abbie has learned to play the piano well in Russian...and yes, there is a difference! Just ask her.)

Just before Christmas, Oleksiy (Alex) was released from prison and returned to Ukraine. In my 14 years of prison ministry, he was in the meetings longer than any other: 8 years. His fiancée, Katrina, came from Ukraine and spent part of the summer in our lower apartment, and she and Abbie developed a close relationship. Alex and Katrina are to be married shortly in Ukraine, but we are not in a position to attend their wedding, unfortunately. That's right about the time we'll be going to the US.

And speaking of Ukraine, as we watched the images from Kiev and from Freedom Square (Maidan), I recalled being in that very square myself on several occasions in 2003 and with Abbie in 2005. The various brothers and sisters we have met are well and have not been directly affected by the disturbances, as far as we know, but we are naturally in prayer for that country and the thousands of God's people living and serving Him there.

Pictures of Maidan in more peaceful times, 2003 and 2005:

Backdrop for the scenes of the recent classes, a central area for leisurely strolls in Kiev.

Maidan is a popular place for festivals...this one in 2005 with booths of European countries. Our brother Petro (in dark glasses) was proud to stand in front of Portugal's booth.

This marker in Maidan gives the distances to cities around the world. Some shown here:
5627 km - Mogadishu
2135 km - Monaco
6797 km - Monrovia
7326 km - Montevideo
1277 km - Moroni
1736 km - Moscow....too close for comfort?
.

Hopefully the pace of life and work will slow down enough to allow me to be in more regular contact. People always warned me that they're busier than ever after retiring. Having left the consulate in June, I should have expected it.