Why Portugal?
You might be surprised to know that we were the very first people to ask this question! We have always felt a pull towards Europe, but had assumed it would be someplace we could speak English, or German, or even really broken French - Portugal was not even on our radar. Then one day we came across TEAM's plans for an intercultural member care center on their website. The description sounded eerily familiar. We met with TEAM, and were introduced to their Portugal team leaders who just "happened" to be in Portland on home assignment. Their vision and our vision were clearly from the same source, and things started to come together from there.
Portugal, as it turns out, is a really great home for a member care ministry. It is a beautiful country to visit, and it is easily and affordably reached from all over Europe as well as northern and western Africa. It has a very temperate climate, similar to the Mediterranean, that is generally nice year round. So no matter where a person is coming from, or what time of year they visit, it is typically not too hot or too cold, and rarely has any kind of severe weather that could impede restful and restorative activities.
