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! :)

Something that needs to be hammered into my head....love it.

THE STATION
By Robert J. Hastings

TUCKED AWAY in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision in which we see ourselves on a long journey that spans an entire continent. We're traveling by train and, from the windows, we drink in the passing scenes of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at crossings, of cattle grazing in distant pastures, of smoke pouring from power plants, of row upon row upon row of cotton and corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our conscious minds is our final destination--for at a certain hour and on a given day, our train will finally pull into the station with bells ringing, flags waving, and bands playing. And once that day comes, so many wonderful dreams will come true. So restlessly, we pace the aisles and count the miles, peering ahead, waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

"Yes, when we reach the station, that will be it!" we promise ourselves. "When we're eighteen. . . win that promotion. . . put the last kid through college. . . buy that 450SL Mercedes-Benz. . . have a nest egg for retirement!"


From that day on we will all live happily ever after.


Sooner or later, however, we must realize there is no station in this life, no one earthly place to arrive at once and for all. The journey is the joy. The station is an illusion--it constantly outdistances us. Yesterday's a memory, tomorrow's a dream. Yesterday belongs to a history, tomorrow belongs to God. Yesterday's a fading sunset, tomorrow's a faint sunrise. Only today is there light enough to love and live.

So, gently close the door on yesterday and throw the key away. It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad, but rather regret over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.

"Relish the moment" is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, swim more rivers, climb more mountains, kiss more babies, count more stars. Laugh more and cry less. Go barefoot oftener. Eat more ice cream. Ride more merry-go-rounds. Watch more sunsets. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.