Community

(This is a “real time” post and not a reflection back on Texas)

Recently Mg and I had to write our goals for the year (for our company).   One night we crawled into bed and just started talking about what we feel our goals should reflect and we both lean heavily on community.  We had the BEST time just nick-naming some of the people in our neighborhood and laughing over Mg’s perfect impersonation of our upstairs neighbor, but mostly, we loved reflecting on the goodness of God in giving us relationships with so many people.  We remember the first six months we were in Coimbra and it seemed not a soul spoke to us.  Now, we almost always run into someone we at least recognize and can say hello to wherever we go!  I honestly believe that the way we can best love on our Portuguese friends is to be a PART of their community and to somehow help BETTER their community.  That is one of our main goals.  The thing for me though, it’s not a goal because I am trying to meet some quota for work…it’s become a goal because I genuinely care about our neighbors.  If I may…several songs have been running through my head during this process and I thought they might help shed some light.  Remember this theme song…

Don’t judge because it takes place in a bar   I remember this was the favorite show of my youth minister growing up.  And admit it…you were probably singing along.  This song is so great.  It’s true that we all long for a place where we’re known and where people are genuinely glad to see us.  I know that was one of the hardest things about moving here for me…I wondered if I’d ever feel like I belonged!  Now, we are grateful for that sense of belonging and what we hope to offer people in return is an open door policy to our home…where we definitely don’t have beer on tap, but we always have coffee on hand.  We hope our friends know that any time they step into our home we’ll “know their name and be glad they came…”

I’m not sure what happened since the “Cheers” days, but I feel like communal living has been on the decline around the world.  And it shows.  I think it’s made for a lot of isolated and sad people.  I think more and more people back in the states are starting to realize the importance of bringing back community though.  Remember me saying I loved reading Jen Hatmaker’s books?  Here is a quote of her’s I love:

The key to introducing Jesus is relationships. Real people, living real life, in real relationships. People want to know: do you love them or if they are just a project. -Jen Hatmaker

 

Jen and her family have invited neighbors to Texas hold-em poker nights, family potlucks, etc.  Hanging out with genuine, fun people is contagious.  They’ve seen people come to know the Lord through them being real and fun with them.  I feel I’ve stumbled across several blogs and stories lately where people have stressed the importance of sharing a dinner table with others.  Several people who would never step foot inside a church building became Christians by sharing meals with believers.  And this makes perfect sense if we look at the book of Acts.  That is how the church got started, by simply living life together, by sharing meals and I can only imagine, game nights   There were no buildings to go too, just families that opened up their homes.  That is what we hope to do here…see peoples lives changed while they sit around our dinner table.  We’re thrilled just when we know a little girl comes over and receives a type of “royal treatment” that she’s not used to.  When students come over and say, “wow, I really hope when I get married and have kids it looks like you guys’ family”.  When our friends come and help themselves to drinks and coffee (meaning, they’ve been here enough to know where things are and be comfortable enough to help themselves).  When people come here and de-stress by getting into a game of “just dance” and when they just smile…we feel like that’s a great day!  Another song that’s been floating around my head is 525,600 minutes from the musical RENT.  Before Mg and I had kids (you know…that first year of our marriage), we went to NYC and landed front row seats to see this musical.  It might be a little too risky for many, but I left crying because what I took away from it was that people just want to be unconditionally loved.  I got chills sitting front row when they lined the front of the stage and sang this…

Love.  The song says the best way to measure your year is by who and how you loved.  If you loved well, then it was a good year.  I couldn’t agree more.    Isn’t that Jesus’ greatest commandment to us anyway?  He desires that we love God and love our neighbors.  He encourages us throughout the New Testament to love…love our enemies, love our spouses, love Him, love our neighbors, love…  I laugh when in the song it mentions counting your year by cups of coffee.  Man…that would be a fun challenge to do in this culture.  It’s too late for this year…we’ve already lost track.  Just today I’ve already had two and am scheduled for a third in a couple hours.  The fun part for me would be counting how many cups of coffee we drank while sitting with a friend.  For me, that’d be two of my three today.  That’s love.  Especially in Portugal.  Sitting and having a café with people here expresses love to them.  So for me…if we drank over a thousand cups of coffee in a year…that’d be a great year…full of love for our neighbors!  Speaking of neighbors, here is the last song that’s been stuck in my head for a while…

Ha.  I never realized how many times that poor man had to sing that song until I tried searching for it.  There are a LOT of versions…it’s hilarious to see the old clothes and there was one where he was even flirting with one of the puppets…kind of creepy, but funny none the less.  I apologize for the long blog today, but I’ve really been contemplating community and it’s something I’m very passionate about currently.  If you’ll remember WAY at the beginning of this entry I was saying that Mg and I have really studied the people in our community.  Hopefully we’re not creepers (like the sesame street guy was in some of the videos ) but here are a few of the people we’ve noticed in our community…

1. the guy that drives all over town in his wheelchair (on a death mission?!)

2. “sunshine”…the cranky waiter at one of our favorite cafés

3. the mustache lady who sells chestnuts…Mg is a loyal customer

4. the man who is really speaking Spanish, not Portuguese

5. the “slow cashier” at our grocery store (we’re really thrown for a loop when we see her outside her work clothes)

6. the poor guy with elephantiasis of the neck…who Mg believes has slimmed down since we’ve been gone

7. the guy that always sits and eats his lunch in the rotunda outside the hospital (an employee just wanting some fresh air?)

8. the grandpa that always picks his granddaughter up at the same time as we get Lily…we see him everywhere

9.  the adorable, handicapped waiter at one of my favorite cafés…I know he can’t write our order down so I always do it for him

10.  many of our local postmen…we get to know them thanks to my mom and her packages

These are just a sampling of the people we have gotten to “know” just from constantly trying to be out in our community.  They also recognize us and probably refer to us as the crazy American family with three kids.  Who knows, but I’ll take it if that means we’ve found our place here in Coimbra.  These are just people we recognize, but we’ve also worked REALLY hard to actually get to know families from our kids’ schools, their teachers, families from basketball, students, our neighbors, the lady at the bank, etc.  I used to have to keep a list of everyone’s names because there are so many that are similar it was hard to keep up!  I’ve finally learned to keep up with everyone’s names though. Why?  Because they are worth knowing.  I love them all enough to learn their name.

I’m not really sure how to end this post, or even if it really went anywhere, but I guess just know that I am excited about our community here in Coimbra.  No doubt it is something that we all long for in our basic human nature.  In this post alone I shared examples of how it is ingrained in both the church and the secular world (the three songs).  So, I don’t know…what do you think?  I would love to hear what you all think about the value of community.

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