Conventional wisdom advises much caution if not a firm prohibition on talking about politics and religion when travelling abroad. Avoiding such topics is one of the top ten reminders when preparing folks for international mission trips.
I’ll get back to violating the forbidden topics conversation rule, but first a very quick summary of our past two weeks: Great!!! Becky and I arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on Thursday morning, April 4, and left just after noon on Wednesday, April 17. Yes, two glorious weeks. For those who enjoy Google Maps, our itinerary took us to Lisbon, Sintra, Evora, Monsaraz, Redondo, Evoramonte, Porto, Aveiro, Peneda-Geres National Park, Ponte de Lima, and even a brief foray into Galicia, Spain. I’ve posted a few photos in the gallery below.
But back to those conversations against which conventional wisdom cautions. We found a tour guide to take us from Porto to Aveiro (the Venice of Portugal) and liked him so much we asked him to show us Peneda-Geres National Park another day. The sojourn into Spain was a bonus during our national park tour. One of the first things our guide told us on the drive from Porto south to Aveiro is that he doesn’t think Aveiro is at all like Venice, despite the gondola-like salt boats they use for tours through the canals of the city. I liked that honesty, and I think he is right about the comparison with Venice.
As the day in Aveiro continued and we visited a cathedral and a monastery, our guide, who by then knew Becky and I are Protestant Christians, and I am a retired pastor, asked if we could talk about Catholicism and Protestantism and what we believe. A one-time altar boy and faithful Catholic, our 30-something guide still values his baptism – he’s soon to become a godfather for his best friend’s child – but wonders if, really, the purpose of life and God’s purpose for all of us is that we seek to be good people. Certainly, he seeks to be a good person and he seems to be succeeding at it.
And then he turned to us. “What do you think? What is God’s purpose for our lives?” How would you have answered our new friend? In my response I tried to rephrase the answer to the first question of the Shorter Catechism – what is the chief end of man? (to glorify God and enjoy him forever) – in a way that might make sense to him. Good conversation followed.
On the trip to the national park, we talked a lot about politics and some of his dreams for the future.
My guess is that we broke a few tourist and guide rules in our conversations in Aveiro and Peneda-Geres. But we also made a friend and we agreed to stay in touch with each other – those dreams for the future and those questions about life.
Our two weeks in Portugal were wonderful and it will be impossible to limit our highlights to even ten – but one of them will be the new friend we made and our against the rules conversation we had with him.
