American Day/Portuguese Day

The evangelical church in Portugal is small, and an attendance of 200 is a “mega” church by Portuguese standards. Most church growth here is among Brazilian and African immigrants, not the indigenous Portuguese population. We have had the opportunity to participate in services at two local churches in the Lisboa area on our weekends here. Below we describe one of those events.

Last Saturday, our group was invited by a local church to plan activities for a one-day youth retreat.  They wanted it to have an American theme.  In a Portuguese setting, how does one make things seem American, other than just showing up and “being” who we are?   Americans tend to give themselves away when traveling abroad, even when they try not to.   So at least on this occasion, we had the permission to share some positive aspects of American culture.  Having been forewarned back in the U.S., we had packed some Mexican seasonings and tortillas (do you seen the irony?) as well as some brownie mixes. Here in Lisbon, we attempted to go to the “Chinese” store (like a dollar store) to buy some red-white-and-blue decorations, though without success.   On the day of our retreat, several girls of our team, together with some Portuguese young women, shared a bonding experience in the church kitchen, baking brownies and preparing our taco meal.  When the meal was ready, the American and Portuguese young people all took turns introducing themselves in a mixture of the two languages, each group happy to have a chance to practice a “foreign” language.  Most Portuguese foods are eaten with forks and knives, so a demonstration (and permission) was given by the Americans on how to eat tacos.  They were declared delicious!

Following the meal, the young people all headed to a nearby park to play games, led by our NWC team.  The favorite hit was the American game, “signs”, which lasted for two hours before anyone suggested it was time to do something else.   American football was also a hit.

We then returned to the church, where members of our team led music, drama, and shared testimonies and a message from the Bible.  One of the pluses on our team is having two MKs who grew up in Brazil, who have filled in as translators in settings like this one. 

At the end of the evening, each young person from that church stood up and shared how special the “American” day had been for them, and lots of cheek-to-cheek “air” kisses (Portuguese style) and hugs were given.  For everyone on our American team, we felt like it had been a perfect “Portuguese” day.