Wherever you are, be all there...enjoying our last week in Spain

Maybe in my mind, I thought this semester would last forever--or at least a bit longer than it has! Sometime during the first month of our trip, I decided to embrace this phrase, and it was surprisingly easy to be “all” in Spain. A six hour difference pretty much cut off my every-day ties between the US, Perú, and myself which definitely forced my mind to be “here” more than normal. I went all out, got really involved in church, made some great friends both here in Sevilla as well as connected with an amazing christian group in Barcelona. I found myself embracing more and more cultural things, and now I even speak Spanish with the “lisp” everyone laughs at. Now, with vey little time left in this beautiful country, I’m confronted with the reality of having to leave it all for who knows how long. My friends are talking about all the things that they are looking forward to when they get home, counting down the days and making summer plans & all I can think about is how sorry I am to be leaving. I see God working in so many ways in the young people of this country. I’ve met so many people who are truly seeking after Him and are so passionate about seeing an awaking in their city. I am sure it is coming. Honestly, I don’t want to miss it, nor do I want to leave the incredible group of believers that I was blessed to be thrown into at my school, church, and in Barcelona. Some days, I can’t help but think of how tired I am of leaving my heart all around the world. But as I prepare to say goodbye, I want to have my heart hidden in Christ--as my roommate keeps patiently reminding me--so no matter where I go, I will be fully satisfied. Now it is my turn to bring home the valuable things I have learned in Spain and share them with the people who I have in my life now. Perhaps someday, God will bring me back to Spain, but until then I will be working on living in the present and wasting my life on Christ, exactly where I am now.

God is doing too much...I can't write it all down!!

Our God is incredible. What more can I say? 

This month has been full of learning for me. For the longest time, I feel like I've had plenty of head knowledge of God and his Word, and yet I was so distant from truly experiencing the real thing! You can be the biggest fan of a sports star, know every little fact about him, and yet meeting the person, and even more--really getting to know him is something completely different. My time with Bible College students seems to be paying off, because this weekend, I learned the greek word "ginosko" which means to get to know someone, intimacy, the deepest level that you could know a person. This is the level of knowledge, the level of intimacy, that God seeks with us. In fact in Matthew 7, when it talks about the final judgement, the verse says:

 ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you..'

This is the word that it uses right there. Knowing God intimately. Do you really know God like that?

That's what I want!!

And I think I've wanted it for awhile. I've wanted to have a close relationship with God, but it was always so hard, reading the Bible for any length of time was almost even boring.

God is NOT boring! The Word of God is NOT boring! 

I can't really remember asking God to show me his love or to reveal to me who I am in him and what he thinks about me. James says, 

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. "

How many times have I asked God for something without being expectant? How many times have I asked God for something, and yet in my heart, kept on doubting that he would do anything about it.

When you expectantly ask God to show up, he does.

I love how much he loves me. I love how he's finally allowed me to realize how much he loves me! I love the huger he has placed in my heart. I can't get enough of what he is teaching me through his word.

This past weekend I was in Barcelona, and I really see God starting to work on my heart. I've always cared a lot about what others think of me. I want people to see the things I do and for them to accept me and think well of me and who I am. I was reading in Galatians, and in the first chapter, Paul says,

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Wow. If I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ? That's HUGE for me. My fear of others, their opinions their thoughts, are keeping me back from sharing the love of the One who loves me more that anyone else could? That's crazy! 

Little by little, as I see my identity more and more in Christ, I hope this is changing.

God has also been challenging me as far as where my joy is. So often, my joy is in what God has given me and not in Him! I think that is why I have clung so closely to Perú. I love the relationships with the people that I know there, and I have gotten so much of my identity from who I am there, that when God wants to change my plans for me there, I am torn apart. As I learn to put my joy in Christ, the desires of my heart will aline with his, and my trust will be in him, rather than my ability to control my circumstances. He is my identity! He is my joy!

Continue to pray for the kids we teach English to at the Convent. Its a hard job as most days they want to do anything but learn English, but day by day, the relationships are being made and Christ's love is being shown. Thanks for your prayers!

God is working here :)

I'm so happy that I'm studying art here in Spain and not back in a classroom at Asbury! We've already been on one amazing field trip to see a huge mosque/cathedral that has all the art that we are studying...we just took a test on it today. I can promise I'll remember this stuff so much better than I would have if I had taken it back home! :)

My art teacher is actually one of only two teachers I have here in Spain. She teaches both my art and grammar classes. I've been praying for about a week now that God would give me or someone else the opportunity to talk with her and share with her the love of Christ.

Carmen (the teacher) just gave us an assignment for our grammar class to work on past tense: A Change in My Life. Please please pray that God can use my simple words to somehow touch her heart and give me an opportunity to talk with her.

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me. God has been teaching me and transforming me a lot these last couple days. I can definitely feel your prayers!

new day :)

my amazing new friend Amanda, who has been so there for me this past week :)

In Perú, one of the choreographies that the kids do is to a really fun song called "Locos Por Jesús" or "Crazy For Jesus". Without fail, my Peruvian mom Rosa always asks the group watching-How many of you are crazy for Jesus?!? There's usually a pretty good response. Then, she usually picks a person or two and asks them, "What is the craziest thing you have ever done for Jesus?"

It's at times like that that I am really glad that I'm translating. What would I respond? Let's see, something crazy I've done...for Jesus...um, yeah... Let's just say I wouldn't be anywhere close to passing in that category. 

Why haven't I done anything crazy for Jesus? What's holding me back from whole-hearted, sold-out living for Christ? 

People. 

Their opinions. 

Fear of rejection and abandonment. 

If I don't live within people's expectations, I will no longer be acceptable. 

If I don't live in a way that people think I'm a good person, I won't be loved. 


For so long I've been living with this fear of others-doing everything in my power to live in a way to make myself look good in front of them.  I can not bear the idea of someone I care about-some that I hardly even care about-thinking that I am crazy or finding out I'm not who I am trying so hard to portray that I am. 

I've been doing so much to "serve God" for so long, but in reality, I want others to know about it. See look, my relationship with God is great-look at the fruit in my life!  

But recently, it's been harder and harder to convince myself that. I feel myself serving selfishly and getting tired and frustrated. If God was the only one who would ever see my actions-would I still want to serve?

Pleasing other people was my idol. Appearing acceptable before people was more important than actually living acceptably before God. 

Last night, God changed my life. After so long of trying to keep up and live well all by myself, God finally got ahold of me and changed my heart. His love is amazing. I surrender my plans for my life, my deepest dreams, my control of my life, all of it...if God's radical irresistible love is what I get in exchange. The peace I have right now is hard to describe. I'm literally up for anything. I want to tell anyone that God gives me the opportunity to, about this amazing love that he has for them. Once you taste this kind of love, it's something that is worth giving up everything for. 

So I'm done living for others, and I'm definitely done living for myself. I'm gonna go do something crazy for Jesus. :)

más de ti, menos de mi.

[piccred:JulioMazara]

It´s funny how different my thinking is today than it was last week. Coming to Spain, I had heard that there wouldn´t be as many Christians, as people are much more closed to the gospel. Who would have know that I would be growing and learning so much more than I have before?

We have been talking a lot this weekend about evangelism and prayer. We watched a video during the service about how much time a normal christian spends with God a day (and consequently in their life), compared to other silly things like the time they take to get dressed...it was really sad. For months now, I've been frustrated with the fact that I don't know what God wants me to do. But in reality, how can I know what he has for me, how he wants to use me, what he wants me to do with myself-both today and the rest of my life if I'm only doing a quick morning devotional. I feel "good" about myself, because I've "spent my time with God" for the day. Honestly, this is really messed up. Jesus Christ saved my life...his love for me is overwhelming. Talking with him isn't some appointment that I go to and then check off my daily schedule. No, getting to talk with my God should be a pleasure-something I can't get enough of. For so long, I've been like Martha-I've been far away from Jesus, as busy as I can be, trying to do as many things as I can in order to figure out what God wants me to do MYSELF, instead of sitting at the feet of Jesus--learning from him, falling in love with him, being able to be so close to him, and having him tell me directly what it is that he wants me to do himself.

Prayer is essential in evangelism. How can I pretend to be sharing Christ's love when I am not being filled up by it myself? God has so much love for me, and when I receive it, I shouldn't be able to help overflowing this love and pouring it in to other people. We need to be praying for the people that we are reaching out to. If we don't spend time interceding in prayer for those who we are sharing with, how, apart from the mercy of God, are they supposed to respond. Sharing the gospel is not some simple indifferent "you need God" speech. Sharing the gospel is sharing the LOVE of Jesus Christ-hense, sharing the gospel is loving others and showing them that you truly care about them and what is going on in their life.

Saturday night, a group of us went to ENCUENTRO at a baptist church (where the german group was staying) in east Seville. This church is amazing. And probably not in the way you are thinking. Theres no cool lights or fancy band or even a modern-looking building. In fact, parts of the building are in pretty good need of repair. I'm pretty sure the doors of the Encuentro room are held together by paper and tape. However, God is using this church in major ways. There are about 140 members of this church...and they are FULLY supporting 80 different missionary in so many different parts of the world from tons of different denominations. They are truly supporting where it counts.

(these pics aren't mine...they're from the leader's camera...just borrowing them for the blog! Julio, if you're reading this, i hope thats ok! jaja gracias!)

After the service, they announced that there was an opportunity to go with the german group to tell people about Jesus. Generally speaking, I never been that crazy about street evangelism-or at least not for me. Why? I could probably give a couple half-way good excuses about follow up and knowing whether or not you will get real conversions or some other barely-supported idea I might have. The real reason? I'm scared to death. I have no training or any idea where to start, what to say, and boldness. at all. I'm not prepared. However for some crazy reason, I knew I had to go. Literally. I tried to convince myself to go home and I couldn't. So, really nervous, yet somehow really excited I went out with the group. I got paired up with one of my friends from the program and another friend from the german group (see pic above) and we headed out to the street where there are a ton of bars, clubs, discotecas, etc., praying the whole way. One thing led to another, and I ended up talking to someone for a while. The approach is different than I always assumed it would be. We didn't have some speech prepared or anything. We just went and got to know people...what they were doing, what was going on in their lives--their problems and their hopes and dreams. We ended up praying together, and talked about the differences between Catholic prayer and how we had just prayed...not just reciting a memorized prayer was something completely different.

Although it was just a short time, my heart has completely been changed about reaching out to people like this. We talked to several people that night, and I was so surprised how open the young people are to hear about Christ. I honestly was expecting open rejection, but we never got it (not saying it won't happen!!). We really just spent a bunch of time getting to know people, and asking later how we could pray for them. I feel like a lot of seeds were planted that night.

The next morning we went to church...we were challenged more and more about truly living for Christ. God has really placed on my heart to truly invest in, care about, and show love for the people who are in my life now--especially those who don't know my Jesus. My biggest prayer is for boldness. How is it I can be so scared about rejection, loss of friendship, etc. when it comes to the most important thing on earth?

Hanging out with the Spanish and German youth at church on Sunday

[again, not my pic]

Here's the thing. EVERYONE who knows me, knows I love Perú. I can't help but talk about it. It comes up in all my conversations without me even realizing it [yes, i do know this--sorry guys! jaja]. But how much do I talk about Christ?? What he has done for me? What he IS doing in me now?? not much. I'm ashamed of that. I want to love him more than anything. So much that I can't help talking about him. I want to be filled so much with his light and love that people don't even see me anymore. I want them to see him. This is my prayer: menos de mi, más de ti. more of you, less of me.

My focus has changed as I have been so challenged this weekend by my church and the german group who came--but mostly by God. I'm learning how to listen to him, how to show his love, and how to actually live for him---and not justify or pass my living for me as living for him.

Two nights ago was the Germans' last night here in Seville. My friend from the school Amanda and I went with them to play soccer with some Spaniards in east Seville not far from the church. It was really fun to play some fútbol again...it was a great game! My favorite part was having to jump the wall and fence to get in to the field...good times :)

If I haven't adequately mentioned how much this group has inspired me this week, hopefully my next story will. On the way back from the game to go EAT DINNER at the church, we passed an area (just around the corner from the church) where there was a pretty good sized group of young people. Two girls from the back seat of the van called out, "Hey look, there's some people! Let's go tell them about Jesus!" We stopped the van and got out. After praying together for awhile, we decided that since there seemed to be very few girls, my friend Annette (from the german group) and I (being a spanish-speaker) would go talk to the girls, and Julio (the leader) and two of the german guys would go talk to the others.


We prayed, and Annette felt like she had something special to share with the girls. We went and the girls were really open to what we had to say. We had the opportunity to pray with both of them. The group's leader was talking to the guys (who were all smoking all kinds of wonderful things Im sure :P ) and really challenged them in several areas of their life. To make a long story short, one guy in particular was really listening to what was being said. He ended up accepting Jesus Christ as his Savior!!  He wanted to be clean. After we were done talking, we went back to the church where much of the rest of the group had been praying and told them the good news. The joy that broke out was amazing! We went back with a Bible shortly after, Julio put a bookmark at the start of John and told him to start reading from there and explained several things to him. He said he would start that night! Julio told him about the church and exchanged contact information...he ended up contacting him even later that night!

Please pray for Dani...I'm really hoping to see him at church on Saturday or Sunday!

God is doing amazing things in this city through those who truly love him. I want to be a part of this more than anything. God has been touching my heart this week more than I can explain, and I know that sharing the good news and love of Christ is something that will be on my heart forever. I don't ever want to go back to an "adequate" way of living. I want to change my course and truly WASTE MY LIFE on Jesus. Spain has a huge need for the amazing love of Christ--My prayer is to be used--to not waste any more opportunities that I am given. Just because someone wanted to share the love of Christ that night, one more person is now a child of God!

Some pretty incredible things are happening here. Pray that God will use us to touch the people around us with the love of God.

first real week...

Have you ever met one of those people who is so in love with Christ, that they cant help talking about him all the time? The kind of people who have received so much love and joy from God, that they just automatically pour out into other people’s lives? This week, we met a whole group of them.

Every Wednesday night, the SIS (semester in Spain) group gets together to have our own worship time together. We talked about being God’s Ambassadors in every moment. When the American Ambassador to China is there, he can’t decide that on the weekends he just doesn’t feel like being the Ambassador-No! He’s representing the US at every moment-when he’s in a taxi, at his hotel, when he goes out at night-he never stops being the Ambassador.

In the same way, we are called to represent Christ at all times. This is something I’ve always known, but I’ve never truly lived it. I seem to live my life thinking, Well, as long as I don’t do anything wrong I’m not actually misrepresenting Jesus. This is so off! In the same way that we shouldn’t live not to sin-but to live in order to bring God glory, we need to stop living acceptably, and truly LOVE every person we see.

Here in Spain, people are really closed off to the gospel. Christianity is thought of as a cult, and discussing their personal lives and belief s is not a cultural norm like it is in the States. I was really surprised to learn that not a single director, receptionist, or teacher here in the program is a Christian. The lady who is so graciously letting us stay in her house and giving us food three (very different!) times a day has been hosting girls for 14 years. She is not a Christian either.

At the end of our service on Wednesday, a group of Germans and their leader from the Dominican Republic came and shared with us about the work that they are doing. For four months they are traveling around Spain, supporting different churches in their work, brining different churches together with different projects, going out into the streets and talking to people about Jesus, etc. I can’t remember when I’ve met people so in love with Christ. Three girls in the group came with us during our “Noche de Chicas” (Girls’ Night) and we had the most amazing conversation about God’s plans for our lives and how to be a light to this city.

I can’t really explain what’s happened this week, but I do know that something’s changed. When I got here two weeks ago, I was excited about the opportunity to better my Spanish. Now, our focus has changed. We’re here to be God’s Ambassadors here in Spain. We’re here to show God’s love to as many people in Spain, even if it doesn’t mean “fitting in” with the culture. If you want to pray for us, please join us in asking God for opportunities to talk to Amparo and José (the couple who host us), as well as our teachers, and the other people who we come into contact to.

Thanks for your prayers.

May God be lifted high here in Spain!

Hello Sevilla...

 Um. Wow.
I'm not even sure if I can explain just how beautiful this place is. I'd seen pictures, but literally walking through every street is like walking through a storybook. Basically I am in love with the cobblestone roads, the tiny streets, and the beautiful Cathedrals that are everywhere here.

We ended up meeting up with Katie, the Student Activities Coordinator in the Chicago Airport, which was such a help. She has made this whole process a whole lot easier. Thanks to her, Allison and I found our taxi, got to our hotel (where we promptly took way too long of a nap!), came to help us take a shuttle back to the airport to pick up Jonathan, Allison's brother, who somehow had gotten a later flight to Seville. We picked up some groceries, had our first meal in Seville...Burger King (lame, but cheap...ish ;] haha...we've done better since then, don't worry!)

Today, we got to explore around the city, see a lot of beautiful places, and stop by our school that Katie showed us yesterday. We met everyone in the office and some of the teachers--everyone seems so nice! We got to see the classrooms, library, computer lab, etc. so we are getting pretty excited about where we are going to be studying (the yellow/white building in the picture ahead). It really is a beautiful building--it is right next to the river, and on/or right near one of the main plazas of the city.

Right now, we are just enjoying this down time before classes start--coming early was definitely the thing to do! I'm happy we can have time to relax, adjust to the time difference, explore the city, and rest some more before we get into all the craziness of classes. Estámos felices!

I can't believe we get to live here for the next four months! I already love it here, and am excited to get to meet more people, and see all that there is to see here! Thank you to those who have been praying for me. Our flight was great, and we're in a nice hotel here in a beautiful part of the city. Everything has gone so smoothly so far, and I KNOW that this is because of you all who are praying for me. Thank you.

If you want to see more of what we're up to here, please check my Facebook--I'll be uploading all my pictures there.

ALSO!

Please check our my roommate/amazing friend/fellow volleyball player's blog at:
allisoninspain2012.blogspot.com


and Jonathan's blog at: jrehnerinspain.blogspot.com

Almost that time again :)

I don't think it has even sunk in for me that I will be leaving the country in a week. 

If you'd like to keep up with me as I study in Spain for a semester, I will be trying to publish some updates here.

Stay tuned! :)