daily life!

"Who out there has a lust for life? Can't wait for each day to come upon beauty?" ~ ps 34:11 msg.

I love this verse because I identify with the feeling of being so excited for each new day to start. I love mornings! I love sunrises. I think I find something so big and unpredictable in these times. I see a new page, a new day for anything to be written, anything to happen! Sometimes I like to read back over my prayers from the day exactly a year ago and a few days ago I read from April 19, 2006 this is what I said:

"I praise you for walking me through this journey. God, where are we going!? I don't even know! But I know it is with you and I know you know, that's all I need.... Suprise me! :) You have purpose in all you do. Even as Jesus was bleeding, dying, taking insult, being mocked, falling and crying out, you had purpose, you were bringing life and salvation though no one understood... you did... he did... so I am okay with not knowing..."

After I read this I thought... well God you certainly suprised me! At that point going to Spain was not even a thought yet. So a year later I'm sitting here and thinking wow God you did this! You really did this and have purpose in it! And I wake up in the mornings and I'm like "ok God what are you going to do today!?" Sometimes when I am walking I am sure he is leading my steps and I feel honored and thankful that he cares enough to be involved with my moments and details. Here are some of those moments:

Last thursday I went to the park to meet up with this girl Emma (from Holland) to work on our Spanish homework together. Out of no where religion comes up. She said I didn't seem like the kind of person who would go to church or believe in God. I told her I do and that God is the most important part of my life. We began to talk about Jesus and the cross and eternity. It was so much harder for me to talk about my faith in English than in Spanish... in Spanish its just simpler! She told me that she didn't believe in God but the past 2 days other people have talked to her about Jesus, so if there is a God maybe he is trying to get her attention! I said, I know he is!

On Friday afternoon me and some of my classmates met up to get tapas (a small potion of food that comes with a drink) at this little frech crepe place in one of the plazas. There was a moment when I was sitting there and I was kind of in awe of everything around me. I was thinking, "this is such a gift to sit here now and to find connection with these people from around the world." We were talking about our cultures and the girls from England were making fun of me for using words like "ya'll". They said they thought that word was only in cheesy American books... haha.

Sat night I was walking home and I ran into some of my roommates friends. Even though my roommates were out of town they invited me to go get tapas with them. So I went and hung out and really enjoyed my time with those girls. We were talking about camping, so I saw that as an opportune time to share my story about the time I went camping and fell in the fire! hahah I told them, "camping and molly - no amigos!" Then as I was leaving them I thanked them for inviting me to come with them. One of the girls I was walking away with locked her arm with mine and said, "molly, you are our friend now, you don't need to thank us for inviting you." It was really a sweet moment and it would've never happend if my path didn't cross theirs in the moment it did.

Last night my roommates and I all sat down for dinner together and I said, " aww its like family dinner!" Then I remembered how in college it would take my roommates and I a month or two in advance to find a time when we could all sit down and eat together. I told them this and they thought it was so crazy because here we eat lunch together at 2:30 every day and dinner together at 10:00 each night. I remembered how often I ate alone this summer and so many times in college. In that moment I found such appreciation in the slower pace of life here and the value placed on being together, eating slow and enjoying one another.

"worship God if you want the best, worship opens doors to all his goodness" ~ Psalms 34:9 msg It is sooooo true!

a grandmother, a muslim and spanish night life

(this is my Spanish class: 3 girls from Holland, one guy from France, one girl from Lithuania, and me and Mike.)

So when I was in Loja one day I went over to one of my roommates house with a bunch of their friends. We were all hanging out with her grandmother. Her grandmother is soo old, she was sitting at the table in a rocking chair all covered up with blankets. When they introduced me to her they said, "this is molly" (the way they pronounce my name sounds like "moo-lly"). The grandmother was like "what?" and they said, "moo-lly!" and I was saying, "molly, molly" (the correct pronunciation... although I've started introducing myself as "moo-ly" now because everyone always says what? and then the person introducing me says, "moo-ly" and the person I'm meeting says, "aaahhh moo-ly!" ) The grandmother could not understand how to say my name and kept saying "what?" and everyone kept saying my name louder. So I said, "un momento" and I wrote my name down on a napkin and held it up right in front of her face. And everyone busted out laughing and they said, "Molly, she's blind!"

The other day I was sitting in the park and this guy walked up to me and said in Spanish, "are you English?" and I said, "yes! I'm from America" hahaha I understood do you speak English... Anyways he said he just moved here from Jordan and was anxious to meet friends. He told me he was a Muslim and I told him I was really interested to learn more about Islam and he said he was interested to learn more about Christianity. He ended up coming to an English worship service we were having that night (he speaks english). I think he is really connecting with some of the guys here!

Yesterday evening when I got home from the grocery store my roommate was like, "hey molly do you want to come to a suprise party me and my friends are throwing right now?" So I went to this party at 6:00 on sat. evening (it kind of reminded me of the parties we used to throw in college). Later that evening we came home for an hour and got ready to go out. I am learning a lot about the Spanish night life, im learning that it lasts ALL night and requires endurance. I have to mentally prepare for it all day..... SO we leave the apt at 10:30 and meet up with a huge group of their friends. We hung out at this one bar until 4. It was great practice for my Spanish, but thinking and talking in loud Spanish for extended periods of time really makes me tired. SO at 4:30 we went to get food and at 5 arrived at the discoteca. We danced until 7:00 in the morning. The sun was rising on our walk home. It was so fun to connect with their friends and get to know them. I went to bed at 8:45 sunday morning. That was 14 hours of "fiesta". It was a very cultural experience and even though I was tired and drenched in the smell of smoke... I really enjoyed myself and the people who took the time to reach out to me and listen in patience to my broken Spainish and really tried to help me. One of the friends made sure that no one would allow me say a word of English. So many of them talk slow for me and would explain things in a number of ways until I could understand. I am so thankful for the way my roommates have been including me and letting me become a part of their lives. Even with the lack of language, I feel welcomed and more connected as I am settling in here!

When people ask where I am from sometimes I say North Carolina and other times I say Memphis. I get two different reactions for both. When I say Norht Carolina everyone says "ohh ok" and I say do you know where that is and they say no. When I say Memphis everyone says "aahhhh! Paul Gasol" Apparently he is really famous here, maybe there too? He is a Spaniard who plays basketball for the Memphis Grizzlies. I don't know much about sports, but I love how excited everyone gets about Memphis! Now when I introduce myself I say "my name is moo-ly. I am from Memphis (mem-fees)". And when they get all excited about this basket ball player guy I just act like "of course I know who he is!... I am from Mem-fees!"

semana santa

I feel like I got to experience a whole other world this weekend. My roommates invited me to come to their home town, Loja to celebrate Semana Santa (holy week) with their friends and families. Each day and night there are these processions that take place in the street. They carry around these different statues of Jesus and Mary. There are some of Jesus carrying the cross, hanging on the cross, in a glass tomb, and one of Mary on a throne crying. These statues are huge and decorated so extravagatly with gold, candles, roses, ect. People are dressed in these robes with pointy hats follow behind spreading incense (Noemi said they believe the incense cleanses the soul... im like wait... then why are they making a big deal about Jesus if they don't believe he is the one cleansing our souls?) There are like 25 men carrying these massive statues on their shoulders and at certain points they would run up some of the steep incline streets with them and people would clap.

The most memorable night was Thursday when they trun off all the lights in the city and it was silent except for the procession of all these people dressed in black beating drums simultaneously and every now and then they would have some one singing something that sounded like they were mourning or crying. Then they light the way for the statue of Jesus on the cross and all the drummers bow in this circle area outside the church.

The highlights of the weekend: meeting all my roommates friends and talking with them, expecially about Semana Santa and probing into the significance behind it, if it is just tradition or something that is real and true to their lives and learning another culture's view on Jesus.

Strangest thing I saw: posters of Jesus on the cross in all the bars where the even the people in the processions were all drinking. I told them you would never see these kind of posters in a bar in the U.S.

Most un-American thing I did: eating lunch with about 20 of their friends from 2:30 til 6:30... we ate slow and enjoyed each other, it was fun.

Favorite moment: when I was talking about how one of the goals of my life is to make friends in every country and Noemi said, "molly, tu ya tienes muchos aqui." (molly, you already have many here.)

Funniest moment: One of her friends was asking me what we do for Semana Santa and I was telling her about a tradition at my church Forest Hill. I was trying to explain it in Spanish and I said, "On Thursday evening there is a service where we take a nail and nail it to the cross, representing that Jesus was dying for our sins." She looked at me kind of funny and was like, "you nail your "pescados" to the cross?" and I said "yeah pescados... you know bad things people do" and she said "ooohhhh pecados". I originially said "we nail our "fishes" to the cross." hahhahahahahha

Most random thing that happend: I was on Spain TV! hahaha and people told me later they saw me on the news.