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Category Archives: Spain
Electrocution
I was helping our landlord take out the fan above the kitchen stove. He was struggling with disconnecting the electricity from the fan, teaching me many new “Spanish” words in the process, when he finally got to a point where he grabbed a wire cutters and said, “I can fix this…”.
I stuttered “Do you think I should shut off the…” and then there was a crack, a brilliant flash of light, and 220 volts of electricity flowing through the air.
I am not exactly sure what happened next but I was a step back and he was off the ladder muttering, “no big deal. Nothing happened.”
When I flipped the breaker back on I swore to remember an important lesson, always let someone else deal with the electricity in your home…and know the number for emergency services.
Hike
We took a day hike from Ponferrada with friends to a reservoir above the city. It was probably about 9 miles round trip.
Our group
In the picture below you can see hill that contains an ancient sacrificial altar – supposedly human sacrifices (on the left) and a monastery (across the reservoir on the right).
Someone needed a rest
Hiking back to Ponferrada
Overlooking our city
I woke up and realized I was in Scotland
Walking the Camino
This past weekend a group of us walked the Camino Santiago from Thursday – Saturday. We did a total of about 50 miles. It was an excellent trip! Here were some of our objectives:
- Give our Conversational English group time to practice english
- Build relationships with our friends here in the valley
- Read through the Pilgrim’s Progress and discuss it
- Spent time with other friends from BMM here in Spain
- See the country side
- Walk ourselves into the ground
- Survive a couple nights in the albergues
We accomplished all of them! And I will post a few pictures below to prove it. If you want to see the full size photos and full album, click here.
Computer backgrounds and screen savers
I compiled 50 pictures from the past 6 months here in Spain for use as computer backgrounds or screen savers.
You can see all our photostream including the ones that didn’t make the cut here. Feel free to download the folder and use the photos where you want. It would be great if they reminded you to pray for us!
Download here: Spain Backgrounds
Peñalba de Santiago
We have been trying to visit the different pueblos around the El Bierzo region (for others, see Molina Seca, San Esteban de Valdueza, and Toral De Merayo.
We were recently able to visit Peñalba de Santiago, named as one of the most beautiful pueblos in Spain. It lived up to its designation!
My inner Jr. Higher
Me: I say the equivalent of “I broked” in Spanish
My Spanish tutor:
Gasp
¡La barbaridad!
Wheeze
¡Horrores!
Choke
My inner Jr. Higher: I think I may say that again just to see your reaction.
A Baby Shower in Spain
I received a text on Thursday from a friend which said, “El sábado por la tarde hacemos un baby shower. Estais invitados los tres.”
Saturday afternoon we are having a baby shower. You three are invited.
The fact that he used English words tells me how natural this is for Spanish culture.
We had a great time and were able to meet many new people. It was an honor to be invited to something like this and be brought along side other family and friends.
The only downside was that Tanzen broke their clothes hanger because she thought they were monkey bars. You can’t win them all…
What do you do on Sundays?
One of the frequent questions that we are asked, and for good reason, is “what do you do on Sundays?”
Here is the reasoning behind the question:
If we are trying to plant churches, that probably means there isn’t one that we are part of right now.
Not good.
This absence of a church leaves us with a few options.
1. We could ignore the idea of regularly meeting together with believers. Bad idea.
2. We could go to the Brethren church, or the Pentecostal church. We have attended services before, but this could cause confusion on various levels.
3. We could rent a building and start hosting services, inviting people to come to church. There are several problems with this approach.
- A building isn’t a church, it can only house the gathered body of believers which is the local church.
- We would just be duplicating our own little style of services that could be very unlike what a church gathering would end up looking like in our context, and nearly impossible to reduplicate without another person just like us.
- Inviting people to “church” in our context means, “would you like to go to Mass with us?” Not exactly the message we are trying to get across.
- Etc.
Here is the option we have chosen:
Sunday mornings we meet at alternating homes (between our home and the Templetons). Our desire is to feed our souls, encourage other believers in the gospel, and proclaim the gospel to those who have yet to believe it. In order to do that we:
- Read Scripture
- Sing Scripture
- Pray Scripture
Our normal gathering begins with prayer and a couple songs geared toward teaching verses and biblical truths to our girls. Then one of us walks through the chapter we are all studying (currently we are working through the book of Luke) in a way that the little girls can understand. After a few more songs (and handing out snacks to keep he little ones happy!) we read through the same chapter together. The discussion is led by either Jon or I, depending on whose home we are in that given Sunday. The main questions we discuss revolve around the context, observation, meaning, and application of that chapter. We end our time of study with more singing and prayer. This is done in both English and Spanish, depending on who is in attendance. We finish our morning by sharing a meal together, seeking to bridge the conversation over into our time around the table.
It may sound fairly static, but we are adapting as we go. Nearly each Sunday we change something, or ask the question, “How should we adjust our time?” As more people join us, the decoration will change, but the structure will not. We will continue to read Scripture, sing Scripture, and pray Scripture.