"It was a challenging first-time experience for some; for others it was extraordinary; but for us, it was a dream that we challenged people to join, and that we have been praying to see fulfilled. God had brought into our hearts what the project would be like, and as we shared, we saw the confirmation of God as He placed people and organizations by our side with the same feeling," said Team Leader João. "Even with so many people by our side, through prayer and participation, we were often afraid to imagine how this May outreach [to Fatima] would go."

The town of Fatima is to the Portuguese Catholic as Mecca is to the Muslim. This significance draws hundreds of thousands of individuals annually, who make the trek to Fatima to have their prayers answered by Mary. As this year marked the 100th anniversary of the supposed apparition of Mary to the small shepherd children, over 1 million people attended the celebrations: 1 million people all seeking answers.

Dreaming and planning this strategic outreach began over one year ago, as a core planning team identified key locations along the pilgrims' walk to Fatima. By God’s grace, we were able to see five locations established and mobilized (Porto-Cedofeita, Anadia, Águeda, Santarém and Benfica do Ribatejo). In each location, local churches of various denominations reached out to the pilgrims passing through. Various groups of Christians also chose to meet pilgrims on the way to camp with them and, through their time together, to share the gospel in whatever way they could.
While these outreaches began a couple of weeks before the main event (10-13 May 2017), the primary push took place at the actual pilgrimage destination, Fatima.

During these days, the outreach team was on the streets, trying to establish personal contact with the pilgrims, often by approaching individuals with a questionnaire. This simple tool opened doors for conversation and helped foster interaction. There were beautiful moments where prayers were offered, burdens and challenges shared, tears shed, hugs given, people asking for Bibles, others asking for further follow up and contact, and people who gave their lives to Jesus (we know of at least four). Even with the authorities and security services present, we had opportunities to share and pray. To God we give all the glory.

During the outreach we were able to distribute a variety of materials:
•    30,000 four point bracelets
•    25,900 DVDs
•    24,200 OM booklets (“Why Jesus Descended the Stairs”)
•    32,125 booklets (“Radical Love”)
•    1,000 New Testaments

To distribute this material, we had a team of 170 volunteers from different denominations (Assembly of God, Baptist Church, Wesleyan Methodist Church, Foursquare Church), areas of Portugal and countries (Brazil, Ireland, Germany, USA, Singapore). There was also great unity and co-operation amongst mission organizations. We praise God for such an amazing show of unity and support, the likes of which we have never seen to this extent in Portugal.
Each volunteer has stories to share of how they saw God working and moving and how people reacted to the plan of salvation. The fruit and outcome of the outreach can never be fully measured this side of heaven.

During the outreach, we had 53 requests to send Bibles, seven new requests for Bible correspondence courses (in addition to the 40 already involved in study) and five requests to continue with personal visits and follow up. We, as OM Portugal, have also continued to see the fruit of this outreach—since we finished, an additional 25 people have mailed in to ask for Bible courses, physical Bibles, visits or additional literature.

Most memorably, a couple of weeks after the outreach, I was enjoying a spontaneous evening bike ride with my wife. We had not planned to go a certain way or stop at a particular point, but when we did pause, there was a man wearing one of the bracelets that we had distributed in Fatima. We struck up a conversation, and the man asked, ‘I received this in Fatima, but I do not know what it means. Can you explain it to me?’ We shared the story of salvation with him, and after further conversation, he accepted Jesus as his Savior there and then.

OM Portugal plans to organise two outreaches to Fatima each year, in May and October. Please pray that the right people will join the short-term outreach teams, that the long-term team in Fatima will grow and that the local church will be mobilised to reach out to their community. Pray for the truth of Jesus’ saving power to be known in Fatima and throughout Portugal.

The first question I had as my husband and I sped away from the car rental office at the Porto airport was: "Why is Portugal part of Transform?"

According to its website, Transform focuses on 21 modern nations, most of which border the Mediterranean. Portugal, however, is separated from the iconic sea by Spain.

“Because water flows in and out of the Mediterranean, and it does touch the southern cape of Portugal, we always considered [Portugal] part of the Mediterranean nations,” explained Troy (USA), one pastor of Surf Church in Matosinhos, a few days later. “We’ve always looked at the whole Iberian Peninsula as a place we’ve wanted to reach.”

As this year marked the sixth surf team to serve on Porto’s sandy (Atlantic) beach, and two additional teams went on outreach in the country, Transform participants no doubt agreed that Portugal was a truly viable place for ministry.

Day one

After a long day of travel on Saturday (extended for some Transform participants by a three-hour flight delay in Barcelona), Sunday marked the first full day of ministry for the surf team, the dance team and the church team.

Despite different focuses, the teams followed similar schedules on day one, and all participated in the service of at least one local church. In an interview at the conference site in Spain, Transform director Mpumi said that Transform sought to esteem local churches (a long-time OM value) by partnering with and supporting congregations in the various countries. For Daniel, one teenager at the Baptist Church Matosinhos, the Transform teams were always a highlight of the year, Portugal field leader Givas (Brazil) shared.

All three teams in Portugal worked closely with the host pastors to engage the cities where they were staying. “Not only do Transform teams bring people willing to go out into the community and share the Gospel, but they also motivate and remind the church itself to be constantly reaching out,” Troy said. “In this case, it’s brought a lot of the members of our church to go out on outreach with them, day after day, plus the leadership of the church, too.”

Day two

On Monday, my husband and I headed out around lunchtime, driving two hours south to meet the church team in Fátima, the Catholic centre of Portugal. Pastor Samuel, hosting the team, together with Pastor João took the three Transform participants on a tour of the religious sanctuary visited by millions of Catholic pilgrims each year.

Both pastors wanted the Transform participants to understand the deeply rooted belief system held by the majority of Portuguese people. Although the vast square in front of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima stood mostly empty, the team watched a handful of people slowly crawl on their knees from one end to the other. A few months earlier, in May, the city had been packed for the 100th anniversary of what Catholics recorded as an apparition of Mary to three children, Pastor João described. OM, along with other organisations and church groups, had held an outreach to correspond with the Catholic celebration.

For Transform participant Stephanie (USA), the outing was particularly personal. As an elementary teacher during the school year, she had spent the last few summers doing missions work. Of Portuguese heritage and with staunchly Catholic grandparents, she gained new understanding of her family’s cultural heritage through her outreach experience.

Day three

The next morning, after a prayer meeting at Assembly of God Marinha Grande, Pastor Samuel’s church, the Transform team stuffed their backpacks full of literature: contact information for the church and booklets from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association titled Radical Love (in Portuguese). Then they headed out. Whenever possible, the team handed booklets to people walking down the sidewalks. On emptier streets, they stuffed the literature into mailboxes.

After an hour and a half, the team’s backpacks were empty, and Pastor Samuel announced he was happy with how much literature had been distributed around the city. That afternoon, the team went to a nearby park to host an impromptu fair for neighbourhood children. Balloons, face paint and a parachute attracted at least 20 kids, who were invited to join in and have some fun. Through the invitation to the children, Pastor Samuel and Pastor João hoped to demonstrate the love of Jesus and build relationships between the church and community.

Day four

We stayed in Porto on Tuesday night, then drove an hour north to Fafe on Wednesday. The surf team and dance team were originally supposed to work together that morning: while the dancers would perform in the city marketplace, the surfers would walk around, handing out evangelical literature and invitations to the dance recital later in the week.

Unfortunately, by the time the surf team arrived at Brethren Church in Fafe, wet weather had prevented the performance. Undaunted by the rain, Pastor Miguel’s wife divided the two teams into smaller groups, loaded them up with tracts (the same Radical Love booklets the church team had distributed further south) plus flyers advertising the weekend dance recital. She then sent them out into the streets.

As Manuel (Australia) and Chris (Scotland) walked around in the rain handing out leaflets, they decided to stop into a beautician store, where a mother and daughter were working. They introduced themselves then started talking about what the daughter believed. The daughter, who grew up in the Catholic church, “didn’t think there’s a god, but wasn’t an atheist,” Manuel recalled.

For about 45 minutes, “we just started going through the whole gospel—how it’s not about religion, and it’s not about what other people tell you. You [have to] look into the Word of God yourself and what the Word says about God,” Manuel said.

Before Manuel and Chris left, they asked the girl if she wanted to give her heart to Jesus. “She was on the edge [of saying yes],” Manuel described, “but we didn’t want to pressure her. We wanted her to make a commitment that was truly heartfelt, so we gave her the details of the local church.”

During the entire conversation, the mother, who didn’t speak English, continued working. “It was really good, really encouraging,” Chris stated. “Hopefully some seeds were planted.”

That evening, the rain stopped. Although the surfers had already headed back to Matosinhos, the dance team rallied for their open-air evening performance as planned. Before the programme began, Kaitlin (USA), who studies dance, chatted with us about her passion for the art form and teaching people to engage their imagination. She explained how well the technical side of dance worked together with the ministry side.

Warona (Botswana), part of the Transform troupe, wrote a poem that he recited from memory, while the team performed a dance to an instrumental version of the song 'It is Well.' When team leader Martha (Canada), a dance teacher from Toronto, took the microphone afterwards, she told the people gathered in the town square that the dancers had come to Portugal from three different continents because “we believe in sharing the hope we have in Jesus Christ.”

Day five

On our last day in Portugal, my husband and I went back to the beach to hang out with the surf team. The group had scheduled surfing lessons for themselves as well as paid for extra participants so they could invite people on the beach to join them.

“Because the weather wasn’t great for surfing, it was harder to find people,” Troy explained. A few people accepted the invitation, though, including a Canadian guy staying in Porto for a month. He’d been looking for something to do that day, and through surfing together, "we got to share quite a bit more about what we’re doing here, who we serve and why we serve Him,” Troy continued.  “Real seeds have been planted, real relationship [started]… That’s exactly what we’re trying to do with the surf outreaches.”

We left Portugal before the teams finished their outreaches, before all the stories from the week had come together. Undoubtedly, the Transform participants had more encouraging encounters with the people they met in the churches and the communities. The churches, too, benefitted from the additional burst of energy and outreach activities.

This kind of collaboration is foundational to Transform, Mpumi shared: “We believe it is impossible to reach this continent of Europe and the Mediterranean world with the gospel if we’re doing it alone. Would you join us?”

*Name changed for security

Nicole James is an international writer for OM, passionate about publishing stories of God’s work among the nations and telling people about the wonderful things He is doing around the world.

The surfers

The full schedule included a lot of surf/skate/beach activities as a way of sharing the gospel. Each morning, team members helped little kids on the beach catch their first wave on a surfboard, giving many opportunities to also share the reasons why they were doing it. These kids ended the first week with their hearts full of joy and filled with gratitude.

Afternoons were set aside for bible studies and each team member got opportunity to share their faith and relationship with God with the others, a good way to increase their knowledge of the Bible.

Sundays the team became part of Surf Church Porto, starting with surfing on the beach, meeting a variety of people, resulting in friendships and in some cases, invitations to the Surf Church evening service.

The Baptist church had Sunday morning sessions and Bible studies where the team participated and learnt more about the Portuguese culture and church. Walking in downtown Porto, sightseeing and doing extreme and fun activities, such as jumping into the Douro River was really enjoyable and provided an amazing time to share the gospel with locals.

“Transform really did transformation in our own lives,” shared a team member, “it was an exhausting but super rewarding time with friends, church family and, above all, God.”

The dancers

In Evora, the Dancelink team worked with an International Church and gave dance workshops to local young people; aiming to build bridges through culture.

Towards the end of their outreach, the locals as well as the team were looking forward to the performance by the team and their young students in the town square. “It was epic!” exclaimed team member Justin as he explained what had happened:

“During the contemporary 'Spirit Break Out' performance there was violence and commotion going on next to the stage, along with some initial sound and song difficulties, but we were determined not to let that stop us! In fact, it gave us the perfect opportunity to explain to the audience why we’re dancing and what the meaning of the song was, to bring heaven on earth. The audience responded with applause and was eager to hear more!”

It turned out that almost everyone who stopped to watch stayed for the whole show. The students who had been participating in the daily workshops performed boldly. Testimonies were powerful and resulted in friendships and connections with the church. Afterwards they celebrated with ice cream and got involved with conversations with the audience about their faith and about dancing, with someone saying: "It's great that the church is relating to young people like this!"

Please pray that the seeds sown through the Transform outreach will bear much fruit. Pray for the ongoing ministry of OM Portugal, the Surf Church in Porto and the International Church in Evira.

Richard is an Englishman who has worked with OM for decades. He was a missionary in India, and in leadership on board various OM ships. Life was a struggle for him as he grew up, but when God got hold of his life, a new adventure began for him. Richard’s dream is to mobilise the young generation for God to do extraordinary things for Him. He wants to get people talking about Jesus.

"If you could wish for one thing from God for you, what would you wish for?" he asks his audience at Transform, pointing his finger towards the ceiling and then directly at the individuals sitting in front of him. He is serious: “What would you wish for?”

Richard has asked that same question many times. His finger has pointed toward strangers, people sitting next to him at airports, and hundreds of Christians who want to learn how to talk about God in a postmodern world. A simple question seems to be all it takes.

A couple of days later, during Transform’s surfing outreach in Portugal, Meri sits in a Portuguese cafe taking a break from surfing. She is seated across the table from a Swiss man who has come to Portugal to chase some waves.

Meri decides then to give Richard's idea a go. "If you could wish for one thing from God for you, what would you wish for?" she asks the man with a smile on her face. The man says he's not very religious, but would like to wish for big waves, of course.

"What would you wish for?" he asks Meri. Surprised that she is asked the same question, Meri decides to share her most significant prayer request.

Now it's the Swiss man's turn to look surprised. "Now that you told me something that personal, I'd like to wish for..." – and he begins his story.

And just like that two strangers share a piece of life with each other. Meri gets permission to pray for what the man has wished for. Her own vulnerability has opened a door from meaningless to meaningful. Richard was right; all you need is a simple question.

*name changed

In 1985, when João was just 16, an OM team visited his home church.

“I remember João coming with us every day as we went out to do evangelism,” said Neil Mason, the OM Portugal director. “João and I have been friends ever since.”

For the past years João has been a pastor, but he and his family felt God calling them to take the gospel out onto the streets in Fátima. João has also served on the OM Portugal board for several years. After spending a week at OM’s Lifehope ministry in Birmingham, UK, around Easter, João and Natalia took a step of faith and moved to Fátima to begin the Fátima outreach.

Fátima is a place of Roman Catholic pilgrimage because of the apparitions of Mary in 1917. In 1640 the Portuguese king, John IV, placed his crown at the feet of a statue of Mary in Fátima and called her “the true queen of Portugal”. The area remains resistant to the gospel, and anyone beginning a ministry there is admired for their courage.

“Last week when we were on the street [in Fátima], I gave a New Testament to a man who was passing by,” said João. “He took it, looked at it, then proceeded to rip it to pieces and throw the pages on the ground.

“I was going to collect the pieces when I saw another man pick up a page and start to read. Then he picked up another and another. I went to talk to him and offered him a booklet like I had given the previous man. He was so happy! We talked a while and have arranged to meet and talk about the Scriptures.”

One of the biggest challenges for João and Natalia is financial support. OM Portugal has struggled for years financially, and although they are very happy to start this new project, they need to see God’s provision. Their hope is that God will raise up partners to give to João and Natalia’s ministry.

Despite the challenges, João and Natalia are faithfully responding to God’s call to share the gospel in Fátima.

Please pray for financial support for this new outreach in Fátima and open hearts to receive the good news. In December OM Portugal will receive a Transit Challenge team for 10 days of outreach in Fátima and Leiria. Please pray this time will be fruitful as well.

To see what else God is doing through OM Portugal, visit their news page.

“Every part needs each other,” said Mpumi Maweni, co-leader of the Transit team. “We needed Dancelink to go before. It felt so real. When it comes to the results and the fruit of God, we saw it. And we pray for God to continue to work.”

Every part needs each other," said Mpumi Maweni, co-leader of the Transit team. “We needed Dancelink to go before. It felt so real. When it comes to the results and the fruit of God, we saw it. And we pray for God to continue to work.

The Dancelink team spent a day in Mondim, doing street performance outreaches and putting on a dance show in the cultural centre that evening. During the show, which many non-Christian members of the community attended, members of the Dancelink team shared the Gospel and their personal faith stories.

In this staunchly Catholic area, many times a true understanding of the Gospel message is quickly plucked away from potential believers by resistance from family and community.

After the show, OM Portugal director Neil Mason said he felt the dance performance “cleared the birds” and opened doors for the Gospel in Mondim.

Fast forward four months, and the Transform 2012 Transit team has come to town. The five-member Transit team—so named for the vehicle in which members travel around Europe for five months, ministering to communities along the way—spent a week in Mondim, passing out Christmas Gospel pamphlets, doing prayer walks and sharing their faith stories at local schools.

In partnership with a local church, the Transit team also hosted an international night, which around 30 people attended, including several students from the schools.

“The purpose of Transit is to esteem the local church and partner with the local church,” Mpumi said. “This is a wonderful way to engage people about Jesus Christ.”

During the one-hour programme for international night, members of the Transit team did an ice breaker activity, provided a time of worship music, shared their faith story, and prayed—everyone doing their part. At the end of the programme, a woman came to the Transit team member who had shared her testimony and said she felt God was speaking to her through the team member.

After the programme, the Transit team showed a short Gospel allegory film called The Father-Son Bridge.

“That clip is very powerful,” Mpumi said. “When I stood up (to speak), tying in what everyone was saying, I said, ‘It doesn’t end there. Jesus died for our sins, and wants to give us eternal life with the Father.”

God definitely did something in the hearts of the people there that night, Helcio, pastor of the small evangelical host church in Mondim, said. Many people were profoundly moved, and around 10 teenagers indicated decisions to accept Christ as their Saviour that night.

“I even surprised myself,” Mpumi said. “I was so overwhelmed. A bunch of the boys put their hands up; this girl was just in tears. We rejoiced, and looked at this moment, and everyone did their role.”

One of the boys who made a decision for Christ came up, along with a non-Christian friend, and thanked the Transit team for sharing the message because they had never had the story of Christ explained to them before.

“There is a tremendous amount of darkness in this part of the world, demonic strongholds that darken the understanding and create a lot of fear,” said Helcio. “The battle for souls is very intense in this small and very set way of life. But you are praying, and we are praying, that there will be a harvest of people for the Lord Jesus Christ here in Mondim.”

To get involved in the Transform 2013 outreaches, including the Dancelink and Transit outreaches, see here. To see what God is doing through OM Portugal, click here. 

Pastor Samuel Santos, of Centro Evangélico O Caminho church in Porto, invited OMer Richard Sharp to do training on evangelism for local pastors and leaders, as well as teach at a youth camp 10-11 February.

Givas José, with OM Lifehope in the UK, led the youth camp devotions each morning. Richard spoke to the church Saturday morning and to the youth group that afternoon, before he and the participants went for a prayer walk at the local shopping centre, and to meet people to share their faith in town near the local train station.

“I really enjoyed being with Richard, knowing him better and hearing his personal testimony and experiences,” said Daniel, a Portuguese young man who belongs to the youth group. “It was very inspiring to hear those amazing stories of evangelism. I realised, in those stories and experiences, that he uses a different type of evangelism that I was unaware of. I found it very interesting and current in our time.”

Richard uses a simple method of sharing the Gospel that begins with asking people what their “one wish” might be. Saturday afternoon he taught how to use this method for both sharing on the street and in everyday life, before sending participants out in pairs to talk to people in the street and at the local train station.

Daniel and Helder, another participant, were able to pray for two men. Daniel said at the beginning of the conversation with one man, he started to reject them in their approach and said he was an atheist. But, in the end, he allowed Daniel to pray for him.

This weekend of training at the youth camp was definitely a time God chose to teach him and speak to his heart, Daniel said, adding that he’s very thankful for the time with the two OMers.

“This way of evangelism is much more personal and, in a certain way, not so forced—more intrinsic and usable in our daily life,” Daniel said. “The way I look to evangelise changed, and my way of evangelising will never be the same. Richard showed me that the message of the Gospel is simple, so sharing this message should be simple and easy to do.”

“I wanted to see the power of the Lord displayed through the anointing of the Spirit,” says Troy, team leader for Surflink: Portugal. “To preach the good news, to restore sight to the blind, to bind up the broken hearted and to set the imprisoned free.”

Participating on a surfing outreach in Portugal, Troy and his teammates saw this power dramatically displayed in a way they hadn’t expected.

At a church service Bible study, a woman came who had been visiting the church for a couple of months. She had a history of engagement with witchcraft.

“A demon inside of her threw her into crazy convulsions and shrieks,” says Troy. “It went on in the room just next to us for around five minutes.”

The team went into action, praying hard as the demonic activity continued for the demon to leave her by the power and authority of the Name above all names, Troy said. Finally, the demon came out of her.

“She was left in her right mind, but she was exhausted,” Troy said. “However, she stayed at the church service and worshipped the Lord!”

Pray for this woman and others like her who have been delivered from demonic influence, that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in the light of Jesus’ love.

Interested in participating in this year’s Transform 2013 Surflink team? Visit transform.om.org/outreach/surfing for a video and further information. 

Photographer and journalist Katie Morford joined Transform’s Dancelink outreach in Portugal last summer. She returns to Transform 2013 as communications manager for the conference and outreaches.

Worshipping through dance “clears the birds” as Dancelink director Linda Wells would say, referring to the birds plucking away the seeds in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower.

This was clearly visible during Dancelink’s Portugal outreach last summer as teens wandered into church, crowds gathered in a public park to hear the team of dancers share about their relationship with God, and hurting hearts received love and prayer.

“This missions trip was so blessed, and making life-long friends is hard to beat,” said Hannah (UK), a Dancelink: Portugal dancer. “Each one of [them] taught and inspired me in different ways, and I'm so excited to see how God will use us and our new experiences in our own lives back home.”

Workshops

The Dancelink team hosted dance workshops in hip-hop and contemporary styles for local children and teens. Dance gave the team and members of Dancelink’s host church opportunities to connect with people from their community. The workshops also provided encouragement and training to the dance ministry of the host church, Centro Evangélico O Caminho.

“Our time in Portugal was filled with lots of learning,” said Sarah (USA), a Dancelink: Portugal dancer. “My highlight was teaching that first day at the workshop and looking out and having my words not matter, but seeing they could learn by watching. What an honour to teach kids so eager, and to not even be able to speak to them in words—dance is universal.”

Several teenagers from a local Christian foster home came to the hip-hop workshop. One teen caught my attention, a pretty girl with bright pink shoes and a guarded expression. She sat to the side, watching the workshop and resisting invitations to participate.

I spoke to her through my Portuguese-speaking teammate, Debii (Switzerland), sharing my story of coming to Portugal as a journalist and learning hip-hop dance with no dance experience. With further encouragement, she joined the class and learnt the dance routine. Debii spoke with the girl after the workshop, telling her story of rebellion and finding hope in Jesus.

The girl didn’t return to the workshop, but during the night of our last show, I saw her in the front row. I hugged her, and she gave me a genuine smile, which transformed her face. I prayed for her and her future. When I finished praying, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed both cheeks in classic Portuguese fashion, beaming.

A little love, a smile, a hug, and a simple prayer melted even this hurting, hardened soul.

Outreaches

Few things attract a crowd better than a dozen dancers performing hip-hop on a public street. Traditional open-air outreaches tend to be ineffective in secularised Europe, the Dancelink: Portugal team repeatedly saw dance open doors for spiritual conversations and invitations to shows, workshops and events where the Gospel would be shared.

Debii, who specialised in hip-hop and freestyle, saw this first-hand. She approached a group of teenage boys after an outreach to invite them to our show the following night. They welcomed her with enthusiasm, having seen her showcase her dance moves, and listened attentively when she shared her testimony.

The seed took root. These boys came to the Dancelink show the next night—where they heard other team members share their stories of faith—and to two other Dancelink shows as well. They brought friends and stayed late to talk with the Dancelink team after the performance.

These boys are not unique in their response. One Sunday morning three nervous teenage boys wandered into the church service at Centro Evangélico O Caminho, after meeting the Dancelink team at a show the previous night. It is likely it was the first time they set foot in an Evangelical church.

Dance created a rapport that allowed the love and gospel of Jesus to be shared with young men who could not be reached any other way.

“Even through culture shock, homesickness and exhaustion,” said Dancelink: Portugal dancer Tori (USA), “the Lord showed up and ministered in my heart and in the hearts of everyone we encountered.”

Shows

Several times the Dancelink team performed alongside workshop attendees at local churches or public venues, with pieces incorporating aspects of team members’ personal faith stories, which they shared before the piece.

Team member Ariana, along with our Portuguese leader, Daniel, performed a moving piece telling her story of leaving an abusive relationship. Word reached us later that several women, after seeing the piece, realised they needed to take action to protect themselves in an abusive relationship.

God also used a Dancelink performance to give a small, struggling church in a spiritually-resistant area favour in the eyes of a key community leader. The director of a local cultural museum was impressed by a Dancelink team street performance and came to the show that night; he later said he enjoyed the performance. This connection could open many doors for future outreaches in this community.

“That last presentation in Ermesinde during warm up,” Sarah said, “I was looking around and just blown away by where we were about to dance and what we were about to do for His kingdom—just awestruck how God was going to use this to plant seeds, water seeds or rejuvenate even the boldest and best Christ followers!”

The stories keep rolling in, including non-believing co-workers and neighbours attending their first church event in years. But perhaps one Portuguese lady, who receives food aid from Centro Evangélico O Caminho and has not yet accepted the Gospel, said it best: “There is magic when these young people dance.”

To find out how you can pray and get involved in the Transform 2013 Dancelink outreach to Portugal, check out transform.om.org.

In preparation for a public show in the open-air amphitheatre of a neighbouring town, members of the local church in Ermesinde, Portugal, learnt seven dance routines within five days. With a portable microphone in hand, team members held impromptu performances on the streets, attracting large crowds. David (U.S./Turkey) and Helena (Finland) spoke about what dance means to them and how that relates to faith and God.

With a portable microphone in hand, team members held impromptu performances on the streets, attracting large crowds.

The following week, the DanceLink team travelled to Vizela, a small town in northern Portugal to support a small church plant through dance. Pedro, 21, had many opportunities to speak about Jesus over the microphone that week—something he had never done before.

“Vizela is a small, Catholic town,” said Pedro. “If someone hears you talking about Jesus, everyone will know! Although I was nervous at first, I soon got the hang of it. We have such a good message to share—speaking to one person at a time is not enough. I want to declare it to the whole world!”

The two-week DanceLink outreach ended with a performance on the streets of Lisbon, where 50-60 people gathered to watch the show. A “Love makes a difference” graffiti had been sprayed in the skate park at the Parque dos Nacões to advertise the Transform Lisbon events, and members of the local church handed out pocket-sized copies of the Gospel of Matthew.

“We want to see dance ministry growing in the local churches here in Portugal,” says Neil, leader of OM Portugal, “and we are excited about the potential of DanceLink in Europe!”

For more information, contact info.pt@om.org.