a few little thoughts

one, I love doing campus ministry in Spain. somehow it makes me come alive just being on campus, but even more so actually talking to students about things that matter, or being in their midst when this happens.

this week we're repeating an outreach we did last year called, "What do you see?" (although it sounds way better and catchier in Spanish.) basically we've advertised for a few weeks on campus with fotos and the phrase, "What do you see?" and we've also just put plain black or white flyers with the same phrase. this week we've had tables up on campus with 50 fotos that they can choose from to answer questions about life, the world, hope, brokenness, God,... they answer with pictures, which actually makes them more honest and more willing to answer deep, personal questions. they then have the option of telling us in words why, but either way it gets them thinking. and to me it seems obvious that a picture is worth a thousand words. somehow a picture sticks with you longer. so, i'm excited. it's been to hear students talking with their friends about deep things and it's been fun to see them come back and bring friends just to find out what they would have chosen and why. i've been in some of the conversations, but the majority i've just been a fly on the wall.

today in the midst of another long day, basically 6-7 hours standing up and interacting with people, i was looking around and remembering how much I love just being on campus. recently we've been organizing activities and getting things going, so while i've been with students, i haven't actually spent as much time on campus. it's been nice the past few days. it reminded me again why i love what i do.

it's very much a side note, but it's also been curious, or interesting, to see the huge change in fashion this year. the past few years there were quite a lot of dreads and hippies on campus and then just normal euro trends. this year we've taken a huge swing back to the 80s. big hair is in. the hippies are much more hard core in their dress, with dog collar bracelets and such. tons of heavy metal or hard core band shirts, tons of black, but all black. lots of bleached hair. lots of leggings and leather pants. lots of aviator glasses. i've been people watching and told tyler (a friend on the campus team) that i can picture people stepping out of back to the future, fame, flashdance, dirty dancing, family ties, etc., it's definitely euro-80s, with a bit more style than the US counterparts, but it's still 80s all the way.

i have some good reflecting i was going to blog, but i need to run out the door. so i'll have to do that another day.

happy times...

last night we had our first of the semester english night. (we have them about once a month.) unfortunately it coincided with the champion's league soccer match between real madrid and milán, so many of our regulars weren't here. (and double-ly unfortunately, madrid lost.) but we still had a nice little group and had a great time. it was also fun because a few study abroad students dropped by to lend us a hand, which was much appreciated.

and after we opened some lambrusco to celebrate bekah's recent engagement. it was fun hanging out for a bit and i felt loved. a peruvian friend of ours was over and she said that she wants to possibly move to canada after finishing here degree to get a master's in law somewhere else. it was late and i was tired, so i told her she needed to move to missouri, not canada, and of course proceeded to spout the greatnesses of missouri (which unbeknownst to many, who are very mistaken about our fine green state, are quite great). i mean the pure number of rivers to go canoeing on, the BEAUTIFUL green hills, good places to hike and explore, i could go on. granted we don't have a huge mountain range, but missouri is far from flat. granted we have no beaches, but we do have lakes and rivers and caves...

so, i'm in the room with dave who's from delaware, bekah from cali/colorado, chery who's from colorado, and zadith from peru. they start to tease me, which i think if done properly is one of the best ways to show love. somehow we then started to talk about bears and their abundance in canada (with a bit of exaggeration), the movie "grizzly bear," and other reasons why zadith would be much better not in canada (definitely very tongue in cheek). so, i don't fully remember the context (i mean this was somewhere around midnight on a wed night.) we begin to talk about rivers and such and i very matter-of-fact-ly state where the missouri river begins and ends (clearly in colorado) and that i thought i remembered learning that it flowed backward or something like that. they only half believe me and start to talk about how convincingly i can talk about just about anything i really have no idea about and how this is exactly the same way i try to twist the rules on games at times. (i think this was around the time that i said, "no, i'm pretty sure i am right. but i guess i really have no idea. (which i guess is a common phrase of mine.)" dave and bekah both then said, "yeah, we already knew that." so i then wanted to prove the validity of what i had just said so went to find the atlas someone randomly gave me for my birthday this past year. sure enough the missouri river starts right where i said (not too hard, since it's in st. louis, where i'm from) and goes west up between iowa and nebraska, turns west across nebraska, and then, oh.... somehow they continued to talk and all i said was, oh.... and then told them what i had been right about and then the BUT... :-) the missouri river actually ends in south dakota or around there, not in colorado (but close, right?).

anyway, i share all this to say, they then talked about the many dawn-isms that exist and i relished in the fact that it's true that they know me well and that they appreciate the little things that make me me (and definitely are things very opposite from both dave & bekah).

i guess it's just nice to feel known and loved. :-)

"Thou God of all grace,
Thou hast given me a Saviour,
produce in me a faith to live by him,
to make him all my desire,
all my hope,
all my glory.

May I enter him as my refuge,
build on him as my foundation,
walk in him as my way,
follow him as my guide,
conform to him as my example,
receive his instructions as my prophet,
rely on his intercession as my high priest,
obey him as my king.

May I never be ashamed o f him or his words,
but joyfully bear his reproach,
never displease him by unholy or imprudent conduct,
never count it a glory if I take it patiently
when buffeted for a fault,
never make the multitude my model,
never delay when thy Word invites me to advance.

May thy dear Son preserve me from this present evil world,
so that its smiles never allure,
nor its frowns terrify,
nor its vices defile,
nor its errors delude me.

May I feel that I am a stranger and a pilgrim on earth,
declaring plainly that I seek a country,
my title to it becoming daily more clear,
my meetness for it more perfect,
my foretastes of it more abundant;
and whatsoever I do may it be done in the Saviour's name."

from The Valley of Vision

tunes

I've been wanting some new music to add to my itunes and pulled out some stuff i listened to at my brother's. I've been loving the Dark Was the Night compilation as well as some of the artists featured on it such as Grizzly Bear, Beirut, Sufjan Stevens, Tune-Yards and some others of whom I'm forgetting the names.

twins, part 2

Ironically after that last post Teo woke up crying and this time wasn't soothed by laying him back on his tummy, finding his chupete/binkie, and patting his back. He was screaming, so I picked him up and took him in the other room to rock him a bit. I laid him down and Tomás soon after starts to scream and then the both start in together. Teo was awake, but only whimpering and Tomás was full out crying. And of course then both pacifiers fall on the ground (in the dark, mind you). So I turn on the hall light to get some softer light into the room, find the pacifiers, start to sing to them and alternate back and forth until both are sleeping soundly. whoo... I go back into the living room and getting some work done, some letters written. And this happens two or three more times, although the last time it almost seemed that Teo's crying was merely supportive or empathetic crying for Tomás. Poor little sick babies. They are super congested and almost wheezing when they breathe. They are coughing and yuck, their head is filled with congestion and mucous. I'm sure the feel horrible and I hate when I have a cold and can't breathe and thus can't sleep. Poor little guys. All in all they are super sweet little guys and even in crying and such are really easy kiddos. So, just after the last crying duo, the babies are sound asleep and I start back to the project I was working on, 1am, and the parents get home. They had a nice time out and I am just praying they get some sleep tonight (unlike last night). I then had my 45 minute drive home and then the search for a parking spot, but it was nice (other than being a little tired). Sweet dreams little mellizos.

twins

I´m presently babysitting. And while I love to do so, I´m realizing that two sick five month old twins can be a little bit of a handful. They are sleeping but every now and then one of them will cry and I´m supposed to then go running as fast as I can to soothe him, find his binkie and reposition him so he´ll go back to sleep and not wake up the other one. This is a little more complicated when it´s dark and they are already not sleeping too well because of all the congestion.

Now, after having written this, I´m not quite sure why I´m posting this other than I think it´s crazy that I go running as soon as one of them cries. I remember some other friends of mine who have twins (who are now about 6 or 7 yrs old) and I think I remember that they were of the philosophy that it was better to let kids cry a bit so that they learn to soothe themselves back to sleep. Somehow I´m liking that philosophy right about now. As for now, just thankful that both haven´t yet woken up at the same time.

Films...

Wow! While this week has been packed, I managed to find some time this evening to watch a couple of the movies in the running for our Film Discussion Night this fall. A friend of mine from high school suggested both "The Diving Bell and Butterfly" (a french film originally entitled Le scaphandre et le papillon) and "The Orphanage" (a Spanish film originally entitled El Orfanato) are both amazing films and definitely both film night worth, both in terms of quality of the film and in terms of being something good for discussion. Wow! I just watched the latter of the two and was very pleasantly surprised. I don't tend to love Spanish films nor do I love thrillers, but this was both and should definitely get some awards (maybe it has, I'm just not too up on that stuff). So here are two movies to put on your list when you have time and want a good film.

the prodigal God

I'm about halfway through this book and am loving it, so thought I'd pass on the suggestion. As usual it's a bit cheaper on Amazon.

What I love is that Tim Keller talks about the heart of the Gospel and of Christianity. He talks about the fact that the Gospel is just as much for people who are super-religious and have it all together, as for those who are a mess and know it. The latter group tend to get their need or God and the former tend to see themselves as self-sufficient, but are equally in desperate need of God. He talks about both being forms of making ourselves our own "savior," our own "god," and thus are rebelling from God, whether we seem to have it all together or not, whether we are "good" people or not. Anyway, the long short, good book! Really good book!

Oh, and as for the title, Keller points out two things: (1) "prodigal" actually means "recklessly extravagant; having spent everything", not wayward, and (2) the parable of the prodigal son, as it is often called (from Luke 18), is actually about TWO sons and is more about the Father's extravagant love than just the wayward son. I like it - God is definitely EXTRAVAGANT in loving us with what seems like pure recklessness.

my brief US trip...

So... let's see...I arrived back from 2 weeks in the States which was VERY brief.

First, a brief synopsis of the trip... Yolanda, a friend and I caught a plane in Madrid and headed to Brussels, Belgium. It occurred to me as we boarded the plane that this made NO sense; we were backtracking, but anyway. We arrived to Brussels and ran (at times literally) through the airport to our next gate, only very briefly glancing over our shoulders the yummy selections of chocolate. We literally ran to the gate only to have them ask us the million and one questions that are asked if you are headed to the US - about if anyone has given you anything, where your bags have been, etc., Yolanda struggled through this, with some translation on my part, since it was all in English and the people in Belgium don't tend to speak Spanish. She tried to get them to speak in Spanish, but no.

We board the plane only to quickly find that we are the minority. We are on Jet Airways and about 90% of the plane is Indian, as is the airline and the commercials. They speak English and Hindi, the food was Indian (yum), and we had a huge selection of Hollywood or Bollywood movies and a couple foreign films (one french, one arabic, and one chinese). Fun! A brief jaunt to another culture. The airline was great! Tons of leg room, they let you watch movies, play games, or listen to music from the time you boarded to the time you left the plane, and I didn't even feel the take off or landing (REALLY!). It took a smooth ride to a whole new level. Yolanda wasn't a huge fan of the food since it was quite spicy, but it was some of the best airline food I've ever had.

We arrived in New York City, took the train and then metro to Manhattan to the Meat Packing District, where my vegetarian sister was staying on work - at the Standard. We dropped off our stuff there, walked around a bit (along the river, through a cool market close by,...), and waited until my sister got off work. Yolanda kept saying, "It looks just like the movies!" "Everything is BIG!" (the streets, the cars, the houses,...) She was flipando. We found Sesame Street cupcakes, a store full of cookies, went into a European market and an Italian market, saw some cool art,... Then we headed back to the hotel to wait for my sister, who it was GREAT to see. Then off to dinner. We ate at this place called Olive & something. It was a fusion of European food, which was good (particularly after the Indian airplane) - something more normal for Yolanda's palate.

Backing up a bit... on the metro we met this guy who spent most of the trip there with us showing us pictures from his iPhone and my translating back and forth. He had somehow found a deal to pay something crazy like 500-800 dollars for 3 months of as much travel as he liked ANYWHERE in the world. So he had been to basically every continent and to lots of fun places in the past couple months. He had begun this after having traveled across the US in motorbike, or dirt-bike or something, from coast to coast, and then taken a van from California down to El Salvador, which he was only halfway there when he took off on this worldwide tour. He had a million and one stories to tell and we spent about an hour on the metro, so we were all ears. I'm guessing he just got out of college, or is in some type of transition, but was a little too tired to ask too many questions.

So, returning to above, after we got done with dinner (which we ordered WAY too much food at), we headed to catch the Megabus to Philly. We got there with plenty of time, boarded the bus in the last row so we could recline ALL the way - seriously it was flat, and went to sleep. The conductors were full of energy so they explained all the fun features of the bus - including wifi - and we were off. At some point some guy asked if I minded if they turned the sound for the movie on overhead. I did, but said no (realizing I'd probably sleep anyway), and went to sleep. Except for a few loud parts in the movie, I woke up as we arrived to Philly to the first stop. We stopped, I tried to pull up my seat for those passing by, but was too out of it to do so in a timely manner. We continued to the second stop, I woke up Yolanda, we got off the bus, we grabbed our luggage, and I hear, "Dawn!" I turn around and by God's grace my brother had gotten off work and realized, that while we would have made it to his place, I would hugely appreciate him showing up to help us. He took Yolanda's stuff since she was completely out of it by this time (probably close to 40 hours awake) and delirious and dealing with hearing a language she's still learning. It was SOOO great to see him. We took the trolley and then the metro and then walked to his place. It was raining a bit, but felt good.

We crashed and then woke up WIDE AWAKE bright and early. My brother and us headed to the historical part of town and we all saw the liberty bell, met up with my friend Cherith, and then to Independence Hall. My brother took off for work and we headed out for Philly Cheesesteaks, which Cherith continued to say were disgusting, but when in Rome do as the Romans. They were super yummy!

From there we went in search of coffee for me, tradition in Spain after lunch, and when you're jetlagged it becomes a necessity. We ended up walking all the way across Philly - stopping in a cool market, Chinatown, then heading to some cool statues (the famous LOVE statue, statues of board games and such), past some fountains, and the street with all the flags on it, down to the Philadelphia Art Museum (and Rocky statue), down to the Boathouses, and over to Fishtown (where Cherith and her husband live; and my brother does to). We saw the progress they're making on refurbing their house (right before leaving for Spain for a few years) and Cherith drove us to West Philly where a dear friend of mine lives. We had dinner with Carrie and fam, yummy vegan chili. And then about 8 or 9pm we became pumpkins and went back home to my brother's place. Of course I stayed up late both nights with my brother and his girlfriend to make the most of our little time together. One of the two nights we had delicious mojitos, which when made well is up there on my list of drinks.

We slept and got up bright and early for Drew to take us to the airport. On to St. Louis....

So we arrive to St. Louis late morning and are met by my mom who is full of tears and happy to see me. Sweet mom. We head out to the St. Louis Bread Company for lunch and then I convince her to take us home instead of us starting a tour of St. Louis. I am beat from all the running around, so we say hi to my dad (who has his office at home) and take off or Old Town St. Charles and to get some groceries. We came home and I worked, making calls & prepping for the week and for Sunday. That was Friday. I think we might have eaten in with some DELICIOUS, homemade cherry pie!

St. Louis is kind of a blur. Lots of meeting with people, speaking at churches, trying to be a good tour guide for yolanda, trying to spend quality time with my mom, sad because it was short and there are only 24h in a day and my dad had to leave monday morning for NH for work.

Saturday we went to the St. Louis Botanical Garden (aka Shaw Gardens), had some yummy Vietnamese food, and I think came home early so I could make some phone calls and prep for Sunday.

Sunday was church and sharing a bit there and lunch with people and then speaking at youth group (which unfortunately we were hugely jetlagged for; it was still fun I was just a bit delirious). A VERY full day.

Monday we saw my friend Catha, spoke at 5 spanish classes at a Christian high school a friend of mine is a spanish teacher at, and then came home.

The rest of the week was seeing some friends (some dear dear friends), seeing some ministry partners (many of whom are friends too), speaking as a few small groups that meet in homes (some smaller than others), hanging out with my mom, seeing St. Louis & St. Peters, some shopping, more sightseeing and meeting with people,...

The next weekend was similar to the last and then Tuesday morning we did the reverse. We flew to Philly, were met by my sweet friend Cherith who picked us up and took us to a Mediterranean restaurant and then to an incredibly delicious gelato place and then to catch our bus to NYC. We caught the bus, although this time our bus driver didn't speak English so we had some communication complications. I checked my e-mail and enjoyed the ride (sleeping some and just relaxing the rest). A guy on the bus said we might be 30-60 min late due to rush hour, so I sent a message to my friends who were there to meet us. We ended up at a different stop, in part to the communication problems, so walked several blocks and eventually found my friends who were in a bar waiting for us. It was SOOO SOOO good to see them - one a friend who came to visit last year and another a dear friend who just recently moved to NYC. We headed back to the apt we were going to stay at and then out for dinner. We ended up at an odd Spanish/Morroccan/Latin restaurant. I was not hungry at all, so just got something to drink and we caught up while I translated. I guess from the travel I was really tired again, so we went back early, talked through the next day and went online on this crazy high tech setup my friend has in his place. Karen went home and we went to sleep.

The next day Yolanda and I got up early and had the most delicious cappichino at City Girl Café, got a tad bit turned around, and headed to Battery Park to see Lady Liberty, then through Wall Street, past Ground Zero, walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, almost had some crazy good NY Italian food, but instead went to Central Park, to the John Lennon memorial, took a million and one pictures, and grabbed gyros on the street. While we were waiting for our food we met 10+ spaniards doing the same. We met up with Karen in Washington Square Park, got a quick tour of NYC and the oldest unchanged street in NYC, got a cappichino at one of the oldest places in Greenwich Village, tried to see Soho and the Village but got turned around a few times, so just took a lot of pictures and saw a few random things. We then met up with my friend Jonathan for dinner at a Mexican place and then to a chic coctail place. Again we went to bed tired.

The next morning we made sure our stuff was packed and that we knew how to get there okay, met up with Karen for brunch after seeing her digs in Harlem and getting a brief tour of the area, and then did the whirlwind tour - Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Fifth Avenue, NBA Store (for t-shirts for a friend of yolanda), coffee, Empire States Building (which unfortunately we didn't have time to go up in - yolanda was really sad), and then off to the airport in train and then another train. We boarded the plane and did the reverse, arriving home to Madrid a day later (Friday AM).

That is the brief outline of the trip. I have some observations and thoughts I was going to blog, but another day.

Four days later I had to jump on another plan to Barcelona for some meetings, which was FULL not to mention with jetlag on this side of the pond. Time in Barcelona I also want to blog about, as it was fun as always to stay and work with friends there.

la aventura de ser una single

"I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord - death can't and life can't, the angels can't and the demons can't, our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell, whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation." Romans 8:38-39

Yesterday I met with a pastor from a suburb of Madrid to talk about the youth group at his church and how I could lend them a hand and also to just catch up a bit after the summer. We talked about that and then he asked (as it seems has come up quite frequently in conversations with married couples) if I was single by choice or why.

I guess the positive side is that there is not a screamingly obvious reason why I haven't found the right guy. And, as is also been true quite frequently as of late (I think several times this past week), he asked if I was closed to the idea of people helping. I said no but that I also was both content where I am and desirous of being married and having kids (if it's God's will and in His timing to the right guy, of course). He then said that I had a hard road - that I had chosen the hard road, with its benefits of course, but not without its troubles. I appreciated his sympathizing and even affirming my chosen road to live as a missionary in a foreign land. But he also was right - choosing to follow Jesus doesn't mean the road will necessarily be easy, in fact often that isn't the case. But I wouldn't change roads, even if that is the case. The benefits of following Christ FAR out way the cost, both in this life and in the next. And while I do desire to marry, the Lord is fully sufficient. He does without fail provide, protect, encourage, sustain,...