Encontro Cristão

(Celebrating our ninth year of living in Portugal!)

An utterly brilliant event tonight in Sintra, with leaders from evangelical, Catholic, Salvation Army, Orthodox (both Russian and Ukrainian), and other expressions of Christianity (a very long list was read out) all saying that what unites us is greater than our differences.

Mike is on that platform somewhere, and it’s the Russian Patriarch on the right, praying for peace and unity; the Ukrainian patriarch also prayed, especially for an end to war.

The president of Portugal was there and spoke (very well), will put a photo of him tomorrow.

Will try to write more tomorrow (well, technically well into tomorrow already).
...

Here's the more (though will keep the phone photo, and add photos of president tomorrow):

A very long day after a very short night, beginning with having to arrive early at our organisation's meeting in Lisbon, in order to translate, which I then continued to do the rest of the morning and over lunch. I enjoy it, but it's definitely brain work. Plus, a few fairly tricky conversations.

Then over to Sintra, to the home of very good friends who we've known now for forty years. They had invited us to this event (that they helped organise), which began with drinks with the leaders of the different churches, then a (rather chaotic) dinner, and then through the artists' door and into a huge venue, which was packed out. The programme was truly impressive - creative, professional, varied, and all on the theme of, though we are different, we can be united - there was drama, dance, music, interviews, story telling, magic tricks. Then the President of Portugal was invited onstage, spoke humbly about his Christian faith and how we see Christ in each person we meet, and we all prayed the Lord's Prayer together. During the final song, light sticks were handed out, which we all waved in time to the lights. All in all, very moving, inspiring, encouraging that this sort of goodness does exist, still.

Gratefuls:
- being a part of this encounter
- our friends, Quim and Lena
- a sneaky nap between the two events