¡campeones!

"we are the champions, my friends..."

Spain won the Euro Cup last night! The whole country was a party all night long! It was sooo cool to be able to be here and celebrate with them. We all went out in the streets with our yellow and red and sang chants, waved around flags, and cheered all night. I saw on the the news today, like every plaza of every city and town in Spain were packed out with thousands and millions of people, like a sea of red and yellow. I am so proud and happy for my people here!

culture and religion

This is where I went to church this sunday. I woke up and thought how much more often will I have the opportunity to go to church in a huge monument built in the 1500's? I should take advantage of where I live while I am still here, living to the fullest. I live 7 minutes (walking) from this building.

I have been learning a lot about Catholicism lately (Spanish Catholicism). I think my dad would be proud because he is like Catholic church history expert!

I am learning that there is a lot I don't know and a lot I can't assume.

It is really interesting to talk to the people about their beliefs. My Spanish tutor is the one who has given me the most insight into religion and culture in Spain. Usually our class turns into just talking about our lives and her explaining things about the culture to me. She asked me to write a paper on what I believe about Jesus. I did.

She told me she believes the exact same thing except that she believes you go to heaven by being a good person. I tried to tell her that was a huge difference, she said it was a minor detail, more like personal opinion.

So I thought I would go to Mass at the Cathedral, just to continue learning and plunging into the culture. I sat in the middle of a bunch of really really old people hahaha. I thought the sermon was really good. I couldn't stop looking up at all the art work that just kept going higher and higher. It was very beautiful and reverent in there.

My Spanish tutor told me that talking about God was an off limits subject among Spaniards. Which I don't know how when they have about a million holidays where they carry statues of Jesus and Mary through the streets. The preacher at the Cathedral was telling people that it is easy to pretend like you are an atheist but how worth it it is to go out and share the gospel and with the people in their lives.

So more than anything I am learning that I have a lot to learn and it takes a long time to really know a culture and understand how they perceive things. I feel like I have gotten a glimpse into their world and even gotten to be a part of it for this past year and a half.

Here is an example of my learning the culture. There were some hot days in the end of April. So I decide to wear my very Spanish sandals. My friends looks at my shoes and goes, "ah Molly, I thought you've changed, I thought you have become more Spanish, but you are still very American." Meaning it was just too early for the sandals. I said, "But it's HOT!" She said, "But it's just not time yet." So then I waited til the middle of June to wear my sandals like the rest of the Spaniards :)

Culture intrigues me... especially this one. And I am thankful because in some ways these people and this culture have become deeply a part of who I am becoming. And I will carry this experience with me forever.

we are hot

Literally! Summer has arrived it is hot, we live with out air condition I love summertime. Sun, flip flops, beaches, abanicos, open windows, less weight of all those heavy winter clothes to carry on my body. It is light and free. Almost. It also means that my time in Spain is coming to a close. I have lived here now for a year and 4 months. Spain... I had never given that country much thought in my entire life until I felt like this is where God was leading me to. It was just a random place in the world. I remember thinking, "Spain?? wait, didn't I fail Spanish in high school? But ok I will go wherever."

I am not sure what I came here expecting to find, but I know I found something I was not expecting to find.

My dad asked me why I chose these friends I have here. I told him, I didn't choose them, they chose me. I told him they have been one of the greatest examples of Christ to me in my entire life. These people who have loved me well, these people who treated me as if I were one of them, when I am not even close to fitting in, when I didn't even speak their language. These people who have taught me an entire language (the language I failed in high school) with patience,love and lot's of humor. These people who have made the random country Spain become my home, España.

It will be so bittersweet to leave. Home, I am going home. Yet now this feels so familiar. It will be so weird to turn on the TV and hear English. I haven't even drank a Starbuck's coffee since Feb 2007. I remembered drive thru's for the first time in forever and felt like I was remembering a faint dream, another time, another place, another world.

I am learning as I often do, to be here now. To be in the moment, to savor the experience, to soak it in, to be... really be and enjoy where I am and to praise God for it. To let go of guilt of the past and worry of the future. I am here now, I am in Granada Spain, I am in Anna's apartment, it is 7:30 pm, I am wearing shorts and short sleeves, I am sweating a little... and this is where I am right now. At home on the other side of the world.

the dance

My last semester of my senior year of college I still needed to take a humanities course. I signed up for Intro to dance, like a dance history course. I loooooved that class, especially my teacher who was so weird and so cool. I don’t remember learning that much about dance itself...

It was a class room setting most days, our teacher would lecture… or inspire:) As well as break out into random tap dance or begin to sing the words of his lecture to us. Hahaha he was so serious, but it was hilarious.

One day he took us to the stage of theater to teach us some basic dance moves. We all, with our partners tried to follow him. We stumbled all over ourselves. He called on a random girl in the class to demostrate with him. She was not a dancer, she had been stumbling just like the rest of us.

As she danced with the professor she began to look like a dancer… she just followed his lead and he made her shine. She didn’t know what she was doing. But he did. She let loose and trusted in his movements. He knew exactly how to lead her, give nudges in her back, hold her, push her and pull her in order to make her look like a dancer, to show off his expertise and to make their dance beautiful. He came to her beginner's level and worked with her pace, until she began to get it. It was like she forgot we were all watching and got caught up in the flow, the rhythm, the movements and enjoyed dancing with our professor. It looked fun.

And so that image comes back to me often whenever I am at a place when I don’t really know what to do, what voices to listen to, or what decsions to make. That is the image that comes back to me when God has me in a place of waiting on Him. When I learn to want Him more than the answers, when I learn to enjoy him more than I do the clarity in the decisions to make. His timing. His movements. His voice. The music becomes louder and the voices of people pleasing fade away. The false sense that I am in control fades away. There is a trust and a letting loose in the uncertainty and my "not knowing what I am doing”. He knows what He is doing. He is patient with me. And the steps I am learning turn into a dance, and it becomes fun.