And Sevilla followed us here!

This past weekend, Meredith and I (one of the other En Vivo exchange students), traveled to Andalusia. Andalusia is a province in the southern part of Spain. We went to Sevilla and Granada, two cities in the province. The whole province used to be occupied by Muslims until they were evicted by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. This makes for a really interesting mix of Moorish architecture and Christian symbolism along with symbols of the Catholic Kings (Isabel and Ferdinand). (I really love the geometric Muslim tilework that was in all of the palaces and churches that we visited).

The weather was beautiful and sunny and warm (like 22 degrees celsius!!), and there were orange trees everywhere. And there were old buildings, but they weren't all made of stone—a lot of them were painted bright colors, even! Now I understand why they say that people in the south of spain are much more cariñoso (that translates to carismatic, or open and kind-hearted) than those in the northern parts—because there's sun and warmth, and color in their world, and not just stone and cold wind. Don't get me wrong, I love Salamanca, but it's just a very different culture in the two different parts of the country.

It's great because this past week has been much sunnier and warmer than it has been the whole time we've been in Salamanca-- Sevilla came back with us!


This has also been a really good week to see the full circle of En Vivo! Last night at Bible Study, we were overflowing the space. What a great problem to have! Also, there were at least 5 students that came for the first time that we met through our English outreach events. This is exactally how En Vivo was designed to work, and it's beautiful to see it work right! Please keep praying over these students, that they will continue to learn from us and feel welcomed in this community!

En Vivo Blog

Also, check out our exchange student blog.

it's filenvivo.blogspot.com.

This is where you'll really be able to learn about ministry events and the team members. There will also be links to other team members' personal blogs that you can check out if you have a lot of free time!

Enjoy!

A little piece of home

To start this, I just want to say thanks to all of you who have given me any mail or other encouraging comment on facebook, etc. from home. That's an awesome piece of home-- just knowing that people care. To also go along with the title of this blog, I (well, all of the exchange students, I think) are starting to feel a little bit like Salamanca and En Vivo are home. Well, home until May, at least. Things are starting to become normal, and life's less and less unfamiliar. We now know that the grocery store has 2 floors, and even what we can buy on each floor. We even found a fresh market really close to our house that sells fresh meats, fruits, and veggies. We now know that our hot water heater cannot do 2 things at once, or even close after one another. We also know that it's not a good idea to leave clothes on the clothesline unattended-- even if it doesn't look like it will rain (because snow can and will come even when it looks sunny...). Today was actually the first time I have succeeded in drying my clothes on the clothesline, actually)

Before I came to Spain, I had always heard that Spaniards are generally reluctant to go out of their comfort zones-- mix social groups, try something new, etc. That's still what a lot of people say, I've heard it from my Spanish professors, former exchange students, and even some of the permanent En Vivo team. However, I feel like I've met quite a few people at the En Vivo campus house that came only because they saw a flyer in their residence hall or facultad building (school building divided up by major). These unexpected visitors are even some of my favorites to talk to! The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways!

As is traditional, here are some differences between my Spanish home and American home:

1. Yogurt is an acceptable dessert, especially for lunches.

2. When you go to the store to buy milk and eggs, neither are refrigerated. The milk is pasturized differently, and eggs don't actually have to be refrigerated for short periods of time. That's probably how they keep prices low-- by eliminating the refrigeration costs.

3. Sometimes, plane tickets are cheaper than a bus or train ticket to the same destination. Weird...

Are we human, or are we dancer?

This week was the first completely jam-packed week of En Vivo! Mondays, my job is to make cookies to give out to our first-time visitors at our Tuesday lunch called Tertulia. It's pretty exciting because one of the first timers to Tertulia returned to come to Café Inglés on Wednesday, and to En Vivo Bible study on Thursday night, and she's going to come by the house on Monday to help me make cookies for next week's first timers! It's so exciting to see that new people feel so welcome and loved in this place, and that we get the privilege to show them how much they are loved, both by us, and by Christ.

Bible Study was great this week, I loved worshiping in Spanish, and watching some of the students' reactions to worship and to the charla (literally, a talk or chat, but here it's like a sermon-like talk). My favorite student's reaction was a girl named Espe. Espe has been to every event at the ministry so far this semester, and has been involved for some time, I believe. On Thursday night, she had her digital camera out , and put it on video mode and recorded the entire night's activities—the worship, the funny skit, the charla, and the fun pop songs that get played at the beginning of he evening. Her earnest desire to remember everything that was said that night was amazing to me, and quite refreshing, really. Praise God for students like that!

Class this week was actually fun! We had a substitute one day, who is a lot more organized than our regular teacher, so I feel like I was actually able to learn a bit about the Subjunctive tense that day. And we played Scattegories in Spanish on Friday. My team almost won!!

More observations:

1-Hot chocolate is different here. The chocolate that you get with churros con chocolate is thick like brownie mix, and delicious. They also have something called Cola-Cao. It's more like American hot cocoa mix, but more delicous, and is always made with milk.

2- Siesta. This is a time of day, from about 2-5 where people generally go home for lunch with their family, take a short nap and relax. In theory, this is a great idea. However, in practice, it means that basically when I have free time, all the stores in town are closed (class in the morning and En Vivo activities almost every night). I do like the Spanish approach to life, though: live life slowly, and enjoy it!

the title of this blog is a line from one of the pop songs we sang thursday night at en vivo. no one actually knows what it means, but it's been stuck in my head all week