Learning God's Language

Recently, I have been feeling a spiritual battle on all fronts. I am exhausted on so many levels and I have been battling stress and feelings of depression. This morning, I decided to take a morning to just be with God, to refocus and to remind myself of His presence with me. As I was clicking through music I came upon one of my new favourite songs, "No hay lugar más alto" (There is no place higher). It was such a needed song today so I have included the link as well as a translation. A tus pies arde mi corazón                          - At your feet my heart burns a tus pies, entrego lo que soy                        At your feet I surrender who I am Es el lugar, de mi seguridad                          It is the place of my security Donde nadie me puede señalar                     Where no one else can mark me. Me perdonaste                                               You forgave me Me acercaste a tu presencia                           And brought me to your prese

I don't know if you watch House Hunters International at all, but I definitely did when I lived in Canada. I loved seeing people explore new areas and begin new lives in a different country. I looked forward to the house hunt and since last December I have been anxiously anticipating when my house hunt could commence. Well my house hunt began the last week of August and 3 weeks into this journey I am getting tired. I am a little lost as to what I should do. The area I would LOVE to be in only has houses above my price range right now, and all of the houses I have liked, I haven't had peace about. I want so badly to be where God wants me to be, yet I feel I am coming up short. However, there is always a silver lining, and for me I'd say its how my Spanish has progressed. Reading advertisements, making phone calls and seeing houses (most of the time on my own) in Spanish has helped me to learn lots of new house lingo as well as have more confidence in going out to do things

I had been told on various occasions by my coworkers, "You think life is busy now? Just wait until summer!" Naive little me thought nothing of it and instead I decide to fill my summer with lots of activities and people not knowing what lay ahead. On the other side of the summer, finally getting a break that is longer than 3 days I can say the they were right! Don't get me wrong this summer was incredible and I was very blessed to be involved in lots of amazing things as well as explore a lot more of Spain and understand the culture better. However, I have been slowly trying to recover and I think I will need about a week of nothing before I can fully function again. This summer had lots of ups and downs. There were times I was so frustrated with the language or the spiritual opposition I just wanted to pack my bags and return to Canada. BUT God blessed me majorly by giving little victories within those hard times to help me grow and remember why it is that I am here

Hello again! As most of you know I have been working on getting my driver's license here in Spain. I began this whole process in November and I am happy to say that I finally passed my exam yesterday! However there is a story that goes with it, so I thought I would share it. My first exam went well more or less but I ended up failing. So this time I knew that no matter how I drove it was all up to the examiner and God. When we arrived, we saw our instructor (L) and the first group of four that had gone that morning. We found out that everyone in their group had failed and that we would be having the same examiner. Our group of four was split into two groups of two and Angela and I ended up going in the second group. When the first group got back we found out that neither of them had passed either. Out of Angela and I, I drove first. I was nervous but had peace and for that I was really thankful. I think I drove ok until I came to a stoplight that switch right at the worst mom

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."   James 1:27 "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the causes of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows."  Isaiah 1:17 How often do we hear these scriptures and do nothing about them? They always speak to me and I always determine I am going to do a better job, but then I walk away from my devotional time or church and forget to live out what I have read. Let me tell you about Moses. Not the Moses you have all read about and know very well. Mercadona Moses. Mercadona is the grocery store in my little town and Moses sits outside from open to close almost everyday its open. I don't know his full story but I know that he has applied for work and no one will hire him. Every time I pass by him he gives me scripture and blesses me. Moses is my brother, yet so often, I just walk by. Ever

About a week ago I received a letter from a gentleman in our church. He has a gift of prophesy, prayer and and encouragement. I found out that the 6 page letter that I received from him was only one of well over 20 letters he hands out to people in the church each month! When I first opened this letter, I was overwhelmed by all the Spanish and I put it on my desk in the "later" pile. I have quite a few things on that pile of things I either don't understand yet or I haven't yet completed on my very long "to do" list. Well, today I felt that I should at least try to read this letter. I was pleasantly surprised to find on the first page scripture that he had written in English, although half of it was cut off so I ended up pulling out my Spanish/English Bible and did my best to understand the passage in Spanish! I really enjoyed seeing how things were written in Spanish and how the translations differ in certain ways. The rest of the letter was poems and en

SAD... have you heard of it? Not the emotion but the Seasonal Affective Disorder. Although I have never been diagnosed, I do believe that I have this problem in my life. It affects me during the winter or even during grey days. Luckily I moved to Spain where there is a shorter winter, but each day was a lot harder due to culture shock and living in a new country. So... a couple of months ago my organization asked for our yearly goals. I struggled for a while with what do about this, but I just kept hearing health. Emotional, Physical, Mental and Spiritual. These past couple of months I have been seeking to improve on these things. Today I decided to go for a walk/hike through the hills around my little town. I had often noticed how beautiful it all was as I drove up the hill but I had never actually gone and explored. So, today was the day! I went for 1 1/2 hrs with the goal of 10 000 steps! I had my Spanish Christian music in hand and really truly experienced God in such a deep wa

On March 14 I wrote my final exam for last semester and I am so happy to say that I passed all my finals! Two days later I went on an amazing trip with two of my friends from school V and T. We went to Mallorca (Ma-yor-ca), for those that don't know, it is a Spanish Island located east of Spain in the Balearic Sea. We travelled most of the country in the 5 days we had (although we were called crazy for taking a bus 1 1/2 hrs each way!). It was a great trip and I enjoyed getting to know a new part of Spain and practice the Spanish that we had been working so hard on. I've learned it is one thing to be able to pass an exam, but it is a completely different story to be able to use proper language in daily life. After the trip we returned to Madrid and I have been enjoying a different pace to life. I was supposed to start language study with a tutor last week but due to a few circumstances, it has been postponed to next week. However, my biggest focus at this particular moment is

I have been attending a church in the city of San Fernando since I have arrived in Spain and it has been going through lots of challenges and changes. San Fernando is a daughter church that was planted 30 years ago. When I arrived this church was planning on reproducing and planting another church, however, since the summer it has been experiencing some problems. The pastor and his family had to leave the church due to some conflict and our church has dwindled to just 20-30 people instead of the 70 we had. This has been a hard time for the church and we as missionaries are trying to help without taking over so that the nationals will take ownership of their church and more responsibility.  Now a 30 year old church may seem "old" to some people, but to Spaniards this is just a teenager church who is going to through the typical struggles a teenager goes through. Youth is from 13-30+ in Spain and it is interesting how this is even reflected in the church.  Please pray for

Well it has been quite a while since I've written. 2 months actually. Oops! :) I'll try to give a short update of the last two months, but I'm sure this post will be a long one! December: I finished off my first semester of Spanish and passed my A1 exams (YAY!). Christmas was really good. I spent half of it with a Canadian family and the other half exploring Spain with the Guatemalan couple that I live with. It was an amazing time, even with the moments of homesickness here and there. Below are a few pictures of that time.                                                  Christmas Lights with Josue and Laura                                                         Christmas with the Sapelaks January: I began a new semester at Alcalingua in A2. This semester has been quite different from the last one. A lot more about grammar and a lot less of about new words. It has been exciting to see how I have been growing in the language, but I am also hitting the point o