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Portugal

I learned a lot about the importance of God's name. Sometimes He taught me through the meaning of His name in Portuguese. He showed me the word, "the buckler," which basically comes from the root word to buckle, which is our safety belt. A buckler is someone who shields. So when I learned that He was my shield, I was trying to find a more poetic way to express that. I was writing a story about the archer and I wanted the opposite of the archer and found the buckler–it's a person who is a shield. I claimed God as that in my life. A shield is a very important thing to the Portuguese. It's the word they use for their national money and it's on their flag. You see it everywhere you go. He just really used that bit of their culture to reveal Himself in part of my life.

Then as I left, He revealed Himself as the Alpha and Omega. He was my beginning and my end. I was at an end there in Portugal, but I was coming to a new beginning. I felt like I could've been sad that everything was coming to an end in Portugal, but He reminded me that He's not just the Omega. He is always going to be the Alpha as well. It gave me a great hope to come back to America.

–Nikki Chandler–Portugal