quatro semana em Lisboa, Portugal

February 22nd – February 27th

Once again… This is a late post, but oh well. Can you believe I have been in Portugal a WHOLE MONTH? Crazy.

This week was full of amazing God stories and a lot of fun!

On Tuesday, we had our first IMB team meeting. It was where the entire IMB team in Lisbon got together at Bethany and Jonathan’s for lunch and discussed the changes within the IMB. I learned a lot about the IMB and how teams, clusters, and regions work within Europe. A lot of IMB missionaries have taken the voluntary retirement and the HRO (hand raising opportunity) and are leaving the field. Europe is losing a lot of missionary families, but God is faithful and will provide for His people here. I am excited to see what the IMB has in store for the future!

Wednesday I got to share Soularium with a girl, Inês (Ee-Nesh). Inês sat down beside me outside the university while I was journaling and I felt the Spirit prompt me to talk to her. I began talking to her and going through Soularium. I found out that Inês is Catholic and had just returned from a mission trip in a local village in Portugal, she said that it was there that God really got ahold of her attention and she realized she needed to worship Him only. While I was going through Soularium, Inês told me her entire journey with Christ, all of her ups and downs, and asked me if I would hold her accountable for studying her Bible by studying with her (PRAISE THE LORD, because that just doesn’t happen). To top it al off, she wants to bring her friends to study as well. Her main concern was that all of her friends were believers and she feels the need to create relationships with nonbelievers to be able to share her faith and really feels that she can do that through a Bible study! It’s so awesome to see how God is working in her life and how He brought us together. Be praying that I can learn more about her testimony to confirm that she has a genuine relationship with Christ, and not just the Catholic viewpoint.

Thursday, Callie and I had our first Bible study with Cristiane and it went great! We presented the story of the sinful woman who cleaned Jesus’s feet with her tears and hair and poured perfume on them as well. Cristiane really identified with the sinful woman and began to tell us a story of how her father was very sick. He couldn’t control his bowl movements and Cristiane was the only one who was not disgusted enough to clean him, which is an amazing parallel with how Christ cleans us and we used that to share the Gospel on a deeper level. Pray that Cristiane will come to a knowledge of salvation within these Bible studies and will accept Christ as her Savior, she is so close and so eager for something more in her life.

Friday was a very relaxed day. We picked up Ben Armacost from the airport, Ben is a trainer on small groups and was leading many trainings in Lisbon this weekend. We got to go to a Brazilian steakhouse, which was amazing! Then got Starbucks, went home and watched Midnight in Paris before a dinner with many of the people that Bethany and Jonathan are coaching and investing in.

That’s it for this week! I hope you all are having an amazing time back at home. I love and miss you all so very much! But I will see you all very soon! Only 12 weeks left… Wow!

Love,

Ashton

Praises:

-Meeting Inês, a person of peace

-Our first Bible study with Cristiane being a huge success

Prayer Requests:

-Language barriers to continue to be broken down

-That Callie and I become more connected with students and make friends

-That we can successfully and quickly start a small group

-That many will come to know the Lord in our time here, many seeds will be planted

-The other 14 HandsOn students around Europe, that their ministry will flourish

-For Madison and Anna (2 HandsOn girls) that will be moving to Spain this week

-Joao (Cristiane’s fiancé) to have a softened heart towards God and the Gospel

-Our bible study with Cristiane, that we will be able to speak clearly and boldly, that she will come to know the Lord

-Inês, that I can pour into her and help her grow closer to Christ, that she has time to meet within her busy schedule