Hi friends! This weeks Wednesday Wisdom comes to you from the beautiful Douro Valley in northern Portugal! We are here celebrating the Jones 10th wedding anniversary and the Hinton’s 12th. The last time we took a trip of this magnitude, Cape House was born. The purpose of this trip was not to dream up another business venture, but to unplug from our daily routines and create some margin. Easier said than done, but being in a beautiful place helps! We’ve spent the last several days touring through Lisbon and Porto, where there is an immense amount of history. We’ve walked through churches built in 1100AD. We’ve seen olive trees that were planted by the Romans 300 years BEFORE Christ was born. (And yes, they still produce olives.) We’ve seen an aqueduct that was built in the 1400’s that provided water to Lisbon all the way into the 1970’s. We’ve seen immaculate art, carvings, and architecture. My overwhelming feeling after viewing these things compared to home is, “You can’t fake character.” We can recreate the look of a lot of the things we’ve seen over here, but you can’t recreate the stories behind them, the burnished edges from 80 years of people gently running there hands across it. You can’t fake character. The same is true in our own lives. We can’t fake character. We can try to manage our reputation or other people’s perception of us, but we can’t “manage” our character. It’s who we are and what we stand on when we find adversity. It doesn’t happen quickly. Our character forms as God molds us and shapes us. My favorite quote on character comes from Billy Graham: “The greatest legacy one can pass on to the their children is not money or other material possessions, but rather a legacy of character and faith.” That’s my prayer for my family and yours. Hopefully we will find more wisdom while here in Portugal, but in the interim, check out some of these pics!