Testimonios

We spent the day with Beate on Thursday.

Her husband, Jose, works at Camp and she is German but she's been here for around 14 years, and she and Jose have been married for about 5 years. She wanted to spend the day with us, show us around and put us to work :)

Bea manages the radio station in her town, and it's not a specific Christian station but she can play whatever she wants and so she's able to play a lot of Christian stuff.

Missionaries listen to this station, and so do people who are trying to learn English and so she has one hour of her program in all English every day. She wanted us three girls to come on her show and give our testimonies, and then talk about things that have helped us grow in our faith and relationship with Christ.

So she picked us up that morning and took us to Riogordo, her town, and to her radio station. She plopped us down and each of us gave our testimonies! It was really cool! And after we gave our testimony in English she translated it into Spanish for people listening who couldn't catch all of it, since they're still learning English.

Anna getting ready to go, and Bea selecting the next song :)

After we did our testimonies, Bea put us to work cleaning out the station! And oh man was it dirty! I had thought, okay we'll vacuum, dust, reorganize a bit, nothing too involved. Nope. We hard core cleaned, taking everything out of the room, cleaning, and then putting everything back in! Anna got to vacuum the rug....doesn't she look thrilled? :)

Yeah I got the super fun job of dusting out all of these egg cartons that serve as sound proofing in the room, and the dust was sticking to them, and the only way we could get it out was to brush them out with a broom. the dust was flying!

We quickly realized that vacuuming the rug was not going to get it clean, so Anna and Kim got to go outside and beat the rug. Look at that dust fly!

It was just a really cool day, getting to minister in so many ways! I felt so blessed that we were able to share our testimonies on the radio! Who knows how they're going to affect the people who heard them, but what a blessing to be able to share! And then to be able to share with people ways that we have grown in our faith and relationship with Christ. It was a great opportunity to challenge the people listening to get in their Bibles more, get involved in their church, become a mentor, all that stuff! Who knows what will come of it, but even if we just planted some seeds, what an amazing opportunity!

And then to be able to help Bea by cleaning out her office. What another great way to minister! She was so grateful for our help and it hadn't been cleaned in soooo long! If she would have done it by herself it would have taken her all day, but we were able to knock it off in a few hours between the four of us. It was an amazing day of ministering!

This Ain't Colorado....

So we climbed a mountain the other day. No big deal, it's just in our backyard, that's all :) There was a small group from California staying at camp for a couple of days and we decided to hike the mountain together.

There are three mountains in our backyard-ish area. La Hija (the daughter), La Madre (the mother) and El Abuelo (the grandfather) Their ages are synonymous with their sizes and we climbed the medium one, La Madre.

Oh and this isn't like Colorado and Pikes Peak where you have a nice little path carved out for you...nope. You make your own path, whatever way looks easier or whichever rock looks the most stable. It was great!

Glenn and Kim all decked out in their cute little hats :)

the first of the fences that we had to scale...

starting up the hills/rocks

the second fence we had to jump/climb....

the view on the way up

getting higher....

the grayish lump on the left is La Hija, the smallest mountain we could have climbed. It only takes like 2o minutes....what kind of hike is that?

higher still

it's getting steeper....

rest break in the shade, it was hoooot!

and now we're getting out of the trees and into the sheer rock...

Glenn's cute little Moroccan hat and canteen :)

and we finally reached the top! it was just a little ledge of rock and you could see over both sides of the mountain, it was amaaaaazing!

Glenn and his cute little hat :)

the view was incredible

and then Kim's hat blew off, so Glenn, the adventurer/mountain goat that he is ventured after it

look at him go! success!

so while we were waiting for Glenn, we thought it would be a good time for some pictures :)

So yeah, that's after we got back down, the mountain we climbed! There isn't very much perspective to show you how big it really is, but trust me, it's huge! It took us around three hours to go up and come back down total, and all those hours on the elliptical totally paid off!

Camp has just been one adventure after the other, and it keeps coming! God is definitely opening my eyes while I'm here. It's incredible to experience His world in this way.

What time is it?

Time means something completely different to Spaniards that it does to Americans. They don't follow schedules, they don't know what time it is, they just kind of meander through, taking their sweet time.....

That drives me crazy! I love schedules. I love my planner. I need a plan. I need to stick to the plan. I loooove plans! Spaniards could care less. It's not all bad though.

I love being disconnected from things. I love that most of the day I don’t know what time it is. I love that my cell phone isn’t always beeping at me. We live in a society that always has to be plugged in, connected to our electronic devices. And don’t get me wrong, I love my cell phone and the internet and television, but it’s really nice to have a break from those things. And as much as I love plans, it's nice to have a break from the harried hustle and bustle of the states. We’re always rushing to be on time (and we still end up being late) and we’re constantly worried about staying in the loop. Spain is a very different lifestyle from the US. They are much more laid back about things.

Está bien. It’s good.

Life in Spain is good.

Trabajando (Working)

Wednesday June 15, 2011

Well I am exhausted. I don’t know if I’m just having trouble adjusting to the time change or whatever or if it’s just because we’re working so hard everyday, but man I am beat!

The past three days we have been hard core cleaning. We just had a camp leave and so we’re doing intense summer cleaning. There are three sets of rooms, a girls dorm with eight rooms, a boys dorm with 8 rooms and el cortijo which is a set of 8 rooms for anyone. There are at least 5 five beds in each room, giving us a total of around 120 beds.

We had to go through every room an strip the mattress covers off each bed and pillow cases off each pillow. It wouldn’t be too terrible except you have to take every mattress off the bed because the mattress covers are like pillow cases in that that they cover the whole mattress, top and bottom and are zipped close. So it’s not as simple as just stripping the sheets.

Then we had to wash everything, and with only one washer and no dryer, we are still washing, three days later. But as they are getting cleaned then we put them back on the mattresses.

(el cortijo)

We had to sweep and mop out all the rooms and clean all the bathrooms, which are toilets, sinks, mirrors, counters, showers, sweep and mop and replace toilet paper and paper towels.

(Anna working hard)

Then we had to clean the dining hall, and conference hall and water all the plants. Each one of us girls picked one and I ended up with the dining hall. I had to wipe down all 14 tables and then stack the chairs on top. Then I had to sweep the whole hall and mop it. It took a good two hours. And through all of this we’re STILL doing laundry! I never want to see another mattress cover as long as I live!

So it’s been a very busy several days, but tomorrow we’re going to do some sight seeing in a town called Córdoba, so that should be a fun day. And then Friday we have a new camp coming and we’ll be working in the kitchen again! Life is never dull here that’s for sure! I can’t wait to see how God will continue to use this camp to reach people as the summer goes on.

Camp Life

Writer's Note: The internet is really really spotty here right now. Our internet is dependent on the wind, it's like a wind generator, and so if there's no wind there's no internet, and there has been no wind since Sunday! So I've just been writing blog posts in Word and am now going to copy them over all at once, so I didn't actually write all of these today, they're just being posted today)

Monday June 13th

I’m sitting on the front porch of the little house that I share with the two other girls, shaded from the sun and with a lovely breeze coming off the sea. It’s the hottest day we’ve had so far and apparently it gets hotter so I need to enjoy the coolness while it lasts. I can’t believe how amazing it is to be here. I am so blessed that I am able to be here! God just continues to bless me, no matter how badly I’ve screwed up.

We had church this morning, which consisted of orange juice and muffins served in Glenn and Sue’s courtyard where we talked about our hopes and expectations for our summer here and any prayer requests that we have. We prayed and then talked about the tentative schedule for the rest of the summer and it’s going to be so amazing.

I was really struggling with the ways that I would be helping at camp this summer. When I told people where I was going and what I was doing, I could tell they were thinking “You’re just going to be working in the kitchen and cleaning bathrooms? What kind of ministry is that? You aren’t going to be a counselor and working with kids?” It very much made me feel like what I was going to be doing wouldn’t be very important. Well I’ve only been here one full day so far and already I know that that’s completely wrong. The work that Anna and Kimberly and I are doing is very important, and a ministry of its own. Just because we’re not working directly with the campers doesn’t mean we can’t minister to them. We can serve their food with a smile and clean their dishes with a smile and we can struggle with our limited Spanish to converse with them. Just because we aren’t leading Bible studies doesn’t mean we aren’t ministering to these people. If the three of us girls weren’t in the kitchen doing what we are doing, the meals would not get served, the dishes would not get cleaned and then where we be?

And this group of campers at least are really appreciative and helpful. They smile and say thank you and a lot of them even clean off their tables so we don’t have to! While we were cleaning bathrooms yesterday, a lady was talking to us about where we were from and why are here and she smiled and talked about how we’ll have crowns in heaven for our work here. It was so sweet that she was so grateful and it’s nice to know our work is appreciated. And no matter whether this gets me crowns in heaven or not, it is a pleasure to be able to serve in this way, and I no longer feel like my work is unnecessary.

Of course it isn’t all peaches and cream. Cleaning toilets is not one of my favorite things, nor is picking hair out of shower drains. And people’s used dishes can get pretty nasty sometimes. And the campers aren’t always smiley and friendly, and sometimes they spray you with water when they’re having a water fight and you’re just passing by minding your own business but you get completely soaked. That happened today J They were joking that since I work in the kitchen I have to be clean, and apparently I didn’t look clean? I don’t know, but they thought it was hilarious to completely soak me with the hose. I was not amused :P. But such is camp life, and I want to have a servant’s heart. I can definitely see God teaching me in this way.

Home Sweet Camp

After 24 hours of traveling, I am officially in Spain! Traveling wasn’t bad, until our last flight from New York City to Spain….we didn’t end up boarding until we were scheduled to take off, and then we sat on the runway for two hours before we were able to take off because of thunder and lightning and we were 30^th in line for takeoff….so by the time we landed in Málaga, Anna and I had spent 8 hours on that plane…urgh….

But now we’re here and it’s amazing! The camp is beautiful. We’re in a valley with mountains all around us, literally on our doorstep. They aren’t high enough to have snow on them so they’re just covered with trees, olive orchards, and cows. I can hear their cowbells ringing through my window as they wander the hills around us. It’s amazing.

The weather is amazing as well. It probably doesn’t get any hotter than 80 during the day at this point, and there’s a cool breeze off the Mediterranean that keeps you from really breaking a sweat. It’s been sunny so far, and there are no mosquitoes! Alleluia! There are a lot of flies but I’ll take them over mosquitoes ANY day J

I live in a little house a ways a bit from the camp with Anna and a girl named Kimberly from Wisconsin.

She’s been in Spain since January so her Spanish puts me to shame! I knew I wasn’t fluent, but being around all this Spanish makes me feel slightly stupid some times. It’s just going to take time, and already I’m getting better than I was yesterday. What Spanish I have is coming more easily, I don’t have to think about it quite as hard, but it’s going to be a while before I can converse without thinking.

We’ve started learning our chores and duties around camp, which includes setting up and cleaning up before and after every meal for the campers, cleaning the bathrooms, emptying trash cans around camp, and running the little candy store that’s open for an hour a day when there’s a camp. And that’s crazy, but a lot of fun! It’s a great way to practice speaking and learning to understand the Spaniards. It’s really hard to understand them because they leave off the ends of a lot of their words and lisp some of the “s” sounds….so that makes it really hard to understand them, plus they speak incredibly fast! But hopefully I’ll get there!

There’s just so much to learn, I can’t believe I’m going to be here for two months! It’s going to go so fast, I know, and I can’t wait to see what God wants to teach me while I’m here!

Internet is kind of spotty here so I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to post. Apparently their internet is powered off of some kind of wind turbine up on the mountain, and if there’s not wind for three-ish days in a row it will die and ergo no internet. But I’ll keep you updated as best I can! Keep tuning in for more posts and pictures!