It has been a while since I last posted. I hate when I do this…..take so long to write
a blog post. Then I get overwhelmed and
just …..I don’t know. I don’t think it
turns out a good.
It’s crazy to think that it has already been over a month, and at the same time, it’s
crazy that it hasn’t been longer. Let me
explain….Thinking back, it doesn’t feel like a twelfth of the year has already
happened here in Spain. How could a
month already be done? We have so much
more to do! But on the other hand, life
here feels so normal. Walking down the
street to Mr. P and Mrs. J’s house feels SO normal. And now we have finally adjusted to normal
Spaniard life in the way they eat and sleep I would say. We stay up later and get up later. And who eats lunch before 230 anyway? So, now you understand the battle going on in
my head over it being January already.
Now, since I have quite a bit of ground to cover in what we
have done here recently, I will TRY and be brief in describing it, but let’s be
honest…...it’s me we are talking about….the rambler. And some of the things that will be
significant for me won’t seem as necessary to include to some of you all, but
that’s ok. You don’t have to read this
:p
So back to the past two weeks or so…..
A couple of Sundays ago was SO good for me. You see, we attend church in the evening and
the message was on Isaiah 61, which is very near to my heart. The whole
service was just so Spirit led. And
we also talked to more people than we ever have before there, so that was just
really encouraging to me, since it has been sort of a slow start to
relationships there. Also, my 8-year-old
friend Favor, who has gotten a pretty tight grasp on my heart since we met a
week ago, sat on my lap throughout the service until she went to her
class. Needless to say, her grasp got
tighter from that. Then, after church,
we took grilled cheese materials over to Mr. P and Mrs. J’s house and had some
dinner and then watched Pride and Prejudice and Becoming Jane with Mrs. J until
3 in the morning. And Mrs. J was totally
cool with it and suggested it. I
informed her that she was already cool, but that she went up like 3008 points
on my cool meter for that.
I already told you about New Year’s Eve, so I won’t go into
that…
New Year’s Day was a great day filled with LOTS of food. We went over to Mr. P and Mrs. J’s house for
lunch. We used this little grill type
thing that you set on the table. There
are trays to melt cheese below, and space on the top to fry veggies and meat
and things. It was SO good! And, since the machine itself is not super
huge (made for 2 to 4 people), we ate slowly, just a few things at a time, so
it was nice for conversation and for not eating too much :] Then afterwards we
went with them to a friend’s house. Her
name is Cristina and she is an AMAZING cook.
She made us empanadas and 2 cakes….apple and lemon. They were ridiculous in deliciousness. MMMMM.
And we just had a time of singing and worship together along with
another family. It was so awesome to do
that and just thank God for all He’s done and what more He is going to do in
this next year.
Thursday the 2nd was a very special day for us as
a team. You see, Latte’s birthday is July
2nd, which we won’t be together for.
So, the rest of us girls decided to surprise her and celebrate her half
birthday! The bummer part of the deal is
that she remembered that it was her half birthday, and we had to pretend like
we didn’t know it. Lol oh well. So, that afternoon, we headed over the Mr. P
and Mrs. J’s house “on the way to lifegroup” and we surprised her by allowing
her to help back her favorite kind of cookie….Peanut Butter Blossoms. Those are the ones that normally have Hershey
Kisses in them, but they don’t have those here.
So we had to upgrade to using Trufas, a delicious truffle that is
dangerously cheap for how good they are.
Best decision ever. They were SO
good! We will definitely need to make
more and share them with our friends here as a thing for merienda. But anyway, after surprising her with that,
we went back home to play some games, and then at about 8 we headed back
downtown to go out to eat. Mrs. J told
us about this Italian place with good pizza, and lemme tell ya….she was
right. I asked the waiter how big the
pizzas were, and he showed us a picture and said that they were a little bit
bigger than the picture. Well, I knew
that Latte wanted pasta and I thought, ehhhh.
We will just take some left overs if we need to. Yeah……we ended up looking like HUGE
pigs. The pizzas that Briana and I got
were big…..like 8 normal slices of pizza big.
We had a good laugh about that.
And Nicky got a HUGE calzone, which made us think of Tina and her Herman
the worm story telling. So, we did bring
home leftovers, and we left very happy.
That place is definitely going to be returned to. So Thursday was just a great, and I’m glad we
could add a little pizazz to Latte’s day.
Oh, but before I forget.
That day was also really comical.
Latte was juggling her tomato soup on top of the cracker container and
somehow the crackers went all over the floor and the tomato soup on the table
and my Bible. But its ok. The Bible was fine (note to self: tomato soup
spilling is way better than water spilling when it comes to paper) and Nicky
ate the crackers off the floor. Nothing
was ruined, and nothing went to waste!
:]
We had the opportunity to help with food distribution at our
church one day, and that was great! Went
really smoothly too which was a huge praise.
We also like spring cleaned the house of some of our friends that were
returning from the states after 6 months of being gone. I say our friends because we have met them
now since we have been back, and I know that we are going to be friends :] But yeah it was really nice to be able to
bless them like that. Then after that,
Bri and I had enough energy left in us to take Favor to see the movie
Frozen. It was in Spanish, and I
realized just how good it was for me to watch a movie in Spanish! I didn’t get every sentence, but I can tell
you one thing…..I loved the movie. Right
up my alley in animated goodness. Bri
says it’s not Tangled quality, but its close (and we couldn’t understand
everything perfectly, so I would recommend it :])
And last Saturday was a fantastic day! We went to Fe Y Vida’s (our youth group that
meets Friday nights and worships Jesus with so much passion and love) sports
day. Seriously, it is such a cool
group. I can’t wait to get to know them
even better now. We played volleyball
and this really fun dodgeball game, and then I attempted to play basketball
with a bunch of the guys. We played olds
vs. young and us youngsters got our butts kicked BAD. It was so much fun though. And then we played more basketball and
volleyball and a game kinda like tether ball, but with a tennis ball on the
string and paddles to hit it with. Latte
and I tried playing that, and it was pretty much a complete fail. I realized that anytime I screw up I make
really dumb noises, so pretty much the whole time I was squealing and grunting,
and Latte was all normal and just laughing.
We looked ridiculous, but it was fun.
And we got to know people better.
I love how they joke around with us, but then they also just really love
each other. It’s a big group that meets,
and not just youth but also young married couples with kids. And they are so friendly and just have a good
time together. I feel like we are going
to have a lot of fun with them over the next 4 months, and this really excites
me.
Sunday we attended the 3 King’s Day parade. It’s a pretty big deal here for kids. We waited for the parade to come through at
our spot for quite a long time before it did, but that was fun because we were
with people from our church. Glad we got
to go with them. When the parade did
start coming through our area, I realized how intense this thing was. You know in the states, when you go to a
parade the kids toss candy out at you and you run and pick it up from the
ground and things? NO. Not the case in Spain. The kids on the floats enjoy CHUCKING the
candy at you in the crowd. And the candy
they throw out is small, hard candy. And
then, after the candy bounces off your head and you yelp “ouch”, it hits the
ground, and before you get a chance to pick up the piece that is in front of
you, someone BEHIND you reaches through your legs and grabs that painful piece
of artificially colored sugar. O
man. It was a great time though. I just wanted to give you the dramatic
version of the story :] And after that, we went and got Nutella ice cream. And they put hot caramel sauce on it for
free. WHAT?! Catch up, America.
3 King’s Day was Monday.
So good! We went to Mr. P and
Mrs. J’s house with our friends Sarah, Becca and Gaby. They are super cool, and it was awesome to
get to know them better. We ate and then
went on a nice stroll around the city before delving into the Roscón, the 3
King’s Day cake. These things are sold
everywhere, and EVERYONE eats them on 3 King’s Day. Inside there is a little king figurine and
also a little bean. So the host cuts up
the big donut shaped cake, and then if you get the piece with the king inside,
you get to be the king for the day :]
There is a little paper crown and everything. And then, if you get the bean, you have to
buy the roscón the next year. And who do
you think got those two things this year?
Poor Nicky got the bean (HAHA), and obviously I was the king for the day
:] Really, I got it. I said, figures. I would win at a food game :] Good stuff though.
I went to a café with Judi the next day. And I just really love that lady. Honestly probably the highlight of my
week. She’s so great to talk to and then
in turn listen to and learn from.
Spanish classes have started again! I am seriously so pumped for them! Normally we will have them twice a week, but
this month we are doing three times a week.
So on Mondays, I have class from 9-1040 with Adela, my previous teacher
and Lisa and another lady named Samantha.
This is more of a conversational class.
Then on Wednesdays and Thursdays (for this month) from 1-2 I have a
1-on-1 class with Cristina to work on whatever I want to basically. I had my first class with her on Wednesday,
and I am really excited for them. We are
going over grammar things to start with, and right now I am trying to get my
head around which past tense verb I should use in different situations. All I can say is BRING IT ON, SPANISH. I’m ready for ya…… Anywho. The other girls have class Monday, Tuesday
(for this month) and Wednesday from 1-2.
We learned how to make Tortilla Espanola this week as
well! Our good friends Omar and Patry
invited us over for lunch to show us how to make it. And lemme just say….they were delicious! Mom, you would have been so proud of me the
past couple of days. But don’t get too
excited…..still not a fan of it. Lol I
am trying though.
Churros…..so you know how we have limited ourselves to only
getting churros once every other week here?
Well, we got some on Thursday because it had been exactly two weeks
since the last time we had them. SO
GOOD. But then, last night when we were
out for tapas with Mr. P, Mrs. J, Becca, and Gaby, we got more churros! EEEEK.
I only had one though, so I am deciding that it was ok. Yeah.
Also, fun fact: there is a Chinese restaurant here that has
really big tapas! YUM.
On a more serious note, I found this talk by Francis Chan on
Youtube the other day. Many thanks to my
aunt for helping me find it without even knowing it. Seriously, if I could meet anyone in the
world, I would choose him. He is just so
legit. Anywho. So I was intrigued by the title of this one
video, and I watched the 51 minutes of it by myself. I was so inspired by it, that I had to tell
people about it. And we watched it
together as a team with Mrs. J. I just
love it! The title of the video is
called BIBLE STUDY: If Jesus were the pastor of your church, you probably
wouldn’t go there. Here is the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWSmcR4Dxdg
I highly encourage you to watch it. It gets me SO pumped up about living life for
Him, and it also pointed out a lot of things that I NEVER put together
before. Crazy. Please watch it.
So I know I said I was going to talk about the book Speaking
of Jesus in my next post. And I also
wanted to recount the story of my Angel happenings with you all in this
post. But it is already so long, and I
feel that it would be best if my heart was into it more. This is what I get for trying to plan
something. Story of my life…..Kirsten
says she is going to do something and then it doesn’t end up happening. Sorry.
But, I will indeed talk about these things. I want to read Speaking Of Jesus again before
I write about it, so in the next month or two that will happen. And as I talk about my Faith and Angel
encounter, I think that will be a post all to its own, having nothing to do
with Spain really. And I want to do that
soon. No promises of when though. So, its coming, just not this post yet
again. Sorry!
I hope you enjoyed this account of the last little bit of
our lives though. Kinda detail-oriented
and not as much thought as I normally like.
That’s what happens when I get overwhelmed. Next time I am going to write more throughout
the week so I don’t have this really long post to whip up in one sitting. That will help. But thank you all for your support. Please keep us in your prayers. We love Jesus and just really want to share
Him with our friends around here. When
He returns and separates the sheep from the goats, I want to be a sheep! We just went over Matthew 25 in our devotions
together and it brought back Kevin’s session where he read a paraphrase off of
the last part of that passage by Richard Sterns. It goes like this: “For I was hungry, while
you had all you need. I was thirsty, but
you drank bottled water. I was a
stranger, and you wanted me deported. I
needed clothes, but you wanted more clothes.
I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my
sickness. I was in prison, and you said
I was getting what I deserved.” …..think
about that. Really think about
that. Is that Love? Not at all.
But is that what your life speaks to those around you? Hard question? I don’t want Jesus to ever look at me and say
that. I want to give it all for
Him. This life isn’t about me. Read over that again. Pray about it. Watch that video I was talking about. And then answer honestly……am I really giving
all I can to His kingdom causes? That’s
what we want to be about as a team. So
please keep us in your prayers. Pray
that He strips us of ourselves more and more each day. And that we keep building each other up in
love, but also challenging each other to go deeper.
Love you guys. Thanks
for reading! Challenge yourself this
week. And be blessed!
Oh, one more thing.
Kind of a PS. It has been over a
month since my parents sent me us a Christmas box. And it has almost been a month since it has
been in Spain. Honestly, probably the
most frustrating thing that has happened here so far is this package
ordeal. I appreciate the kindness and
thought so much, and I am very excited for the box to get here, but I beg
you. If you really love us, please just
send us your prayers. And if you want to
do more, then hit me up with an email or letter or something. I beg you, please don’t send any more
packages. It is quite a headache
here. And, it is costing me almost as
much to get it out of customs in Madrid as it did to send the box here. So, really.
We appreciate the thought, and I am seriously so excited to get the box
and eat the stale goodies inside of it, but it’s a huge ordeal to receive a
package from the States here. Ok. I’m done ranting. Have a great week, everyone!
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