Sometimes we have this idea that God is supposed to make sure we have enough. Enough food, enough clothes, enough friends, enough family, enough of everything... But what we measure is enough, and what God measures...are sometimes imcompatable in our minds. But that's why He's God, and I'm not. I was reminded today in very small ways. Today, my husband needed the car. His back has been sore, and we've both been grumpy as it makes life harder. So, instead of driving to school like I did on Monday, I took the bus. As I got ready, I forgot to ask my husband for money. My usual 20 euros for week (bus, a night of tapas and coffee for the week) was gone. I had had to use it for gas, as we've used the car due to my husbands back, and for parking fees, as my husbands back....you get the picture. So I get to the bus, panicked, realizing I have no money. I have maybe a euro in small coins. I find two bus cards and pray hard that one has at least one ride left, because...
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I'm coming home i s a song that has felt very relevant to me this year. Below are the key lyrics. I’m coming home I’m coming home Tell the World I’m coming home Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes I’m coming home, I’m coming home Tell the World that I’m coming...(home) I've never been a massive fan of P.Diddy, but this one seems to wrap up what I've felt most of this year.....and today, as we return back home to Granada after some much needed time away, I'm excited to return to our friends and family in Grana'. Its a hodgepodge group, Spaniards, expats, people who follow Jesus and those who aren't yet, men and women, atheletes and couch potatoes, but they are our group of people, and we are coming home. More than ever, this place is our home, and its a good thing. We are looking forward to this school year as we, "come home."
And so we continue with our theraputic time of listening to music, watching yet more MASH, and recharging our batteries, emotional, physical and creative for the coming school year. One of the things that's stuck with me this summer is the intense power of words, and on the contrary, the lack therof. Something that was said to us this summer was, "You guys are survivors." And that person probably has no idea that by saying and writing us that, how much those four small words have encouraged, sustained and kept us sane. You see here, the war, is a spiritual war. We remind ourselves weekly, sometimes almost daily, that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers and princes of this world. But in the same thought, we also get weary of fighting the war against the war. In a MASH episode, Hawkeye starts having serious nightmares, waking up screaming, and starts walking in his sleep. His fellow comrades and doctors have a discussion behind h...
Andrew and I big fans of the show M.A.S.H. For those unfamiliar, I will sum up rapidly, said television show was taped in the 70's and 80's about the Mobile Army Surgical Unit 4077 that was placed during the Korean Conflict. You can read more about it here... M.A.S.H. Essentially, it was the first sit-com to deal with a more realistic plot, following the ups and downs of this MASH unit, both hysterical and realistic. The comedy is darkly believable, the depressing moments resonate strangely with both Andrew and I. Even though he and I don't perform actually surgery on patients in a war zone, the homesickness, the boredom, the loneliness, the depth of relationships formed in a short time, and the sadness of certain situations always seem to resound in our souls. So several summers, we pull out our dvd's and have long extended marathons. I call it our therapy. We are working our way now through the early season, and one of the episodes particularly struck a chord wi...
Love your God with your Soul Passage for tonight… Deut 6:1-7 “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, 2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. 3 O Israel, you should listen and [ a ] be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 These words, which...
I feel like the summertime for me is always a return to creativity. Often, during the school year, my energies are poured into my students, my relationships with people that are only here for a short time, and more importantly, my marriage and family. After that energy is spent, I'm spent. And all I can bring myself to do is write a bit, poke around on Facebook, and maybe take a few pictures that are fun and entertaining (sometimes only to myself!). So, today, I've cracked out the paint, the crayons and the pastels, and determined to do something, anything, to engage my creative self, even if it just means taking a piece of art off my own wall and copying it into "my version". Halfway through, it barely looks like the original, but its mine. I really don't do well at drawing or painting, but I do it for me. I do it to process, to think about something else besides work, and to find a few moments of getting my fingers dirty to see what my heart tells me. To...
This week both Andrew and I went to a flamenco benefit concert for Japan, and ironically enough, there was an earthquake that rocked Southern Spain just 24 hours before the concert. A sizable town called Lorca, its located about 200 kilometers or 130 miles east of Granada, in the province of Murcia. A brief google search yields the info that at least two evangelical churches exist in the town of about 91.000 people. 13 Catholic churches exist. There were two major earthquakes in a period of about 2 hours, and than about 30 aftershocks. The nine people who died were outside due to the first earthquake and squashed by falling debris. Two of the nine women were pregnant. The 13 Catholic churches suffered such damage that no one can enter them. Crumbled, shaken, semi destroyed. Is this the church ....on whom Christ's rock will stand? Wow. The images are startling, as many of these churches have stood for hundreds of years through thousands of tiny earthquakes and the one day this...
I took Andrew to "work"today. He's currently in the midst of English classes that he's giving to a photographer, one of the best here in Granada, in exchange for photography classes. So, once a week, I actually kiss my man goodbye as he takes the bus, or drive him to the other side of town, and come back home and get to be alone in my house. I know that sounds funny, but since Andrew works out of the home, and I go to work, this is a rare moment that I'm savoring this morning. On the way home, I drove slowly, loving the moment of "commute"from La Chana to Zaidin, where Andrew and I live. Its only like 5 miles, and with traffic, took me about 15 minutes. Today however, is one of those incredibly clear spring mornings, when the sun rises over the Sierra Nevada and the snow glistens on the peak, La Veleta. All I could say was, I live here...and enjoy the moment. Why do we live here? For the last two or three years, our live has been rather topsy-tuvy, b...
This weekend Andrew and I wandered down to a town called La Linea, a town across the way from Gibraltar. A friend of ours, one of "our" students that was here 3 years ago, got married. The youth from our church had retreat this weekend, so many were unable to go. We went as representatives to a beautiful wedding, but I get ahead of myself. Tamary, the bride, had been in Granada for just one year. Her dad would come and visit every chance he got, and he was so dynamic, so fun, we just adopted him as one of our own. He would come to every event he could, and joyfully stood and worshipped. They came with us on church retreat, and rejoiced with us as we baptized new believers. 10 months after that great retreat, Tamary's dad was brutally stabbed while walking away from the doctor's office. A case of mistaken identity. A senseless death. We had always wanted to go and visit the family, but we were unable to do so. Our own family drama was unfolding. Finally, we w...
Today we officially enter the Lent Season. I grew up Protestant, and so distinctly Protestant that somehow I missed the whole, what is Lent season, until after I went to Bible College. I even sneaked through a course on Western Civilization without having it properly explained to me. After I went to Bible college, I started work for an incredibly pagan man in the catering business. I became a server first and then ended up working in the office when they realized I had more than half a brain like a lot of the servers that were working for their next pot fix. I worked for them for almost 8 months when Ash Wednesday rolled around. Since we always had tons of food (catering) we could eat lunch free. That Wednesday our mostly Mexican chefs served us fish and only fish. I didn't realize what it was until one of my office collegues said, its Ash Wednesday and had to explain to me that today, we eat fish and we will eat fish every Friday until Easter. I found it strangely ironic tha...
Perhaps it seems to a regular reader of this blog is that all I ever write about is suffering and death. I have begun to feel like a broken record myself on this topic, but I want you to know that my desire is for my audience to understand the everlasting hope I have in an afterlife. Yesterday our little church in Granada said goodbye to one of its pillars, a woman named Isabel. Isabel was only 78, in Spanish standards of life expectancy, is fairly young. However, for most of a decade she had suffered with various aliments, mostly heart related. Right as Andrew and I started to attend and particapate in this little church, she had a heart valve replacement, and we all thought that we would lose her. However, God gave her six more years, and she lived those to the fullest. She saw her daughter married,and both of her married daughters had children, all boys! Finally, after her daughter had a baby last December, Isabel began to slowly fade, and for the last two months she has been in...
Two distinct musings today, perhaps not related... Last Sunday I listened in Sunday school as we talked about Proverbs. One of the point made is that in the OT times, the heart was not the emotional center, but rather the mental center of the body. So when the proverb states, "guard your heart..." its actually speaking about guarding your mind. Hmph. How many times have we heard this proverb misused, usually in the context of some woman talking about not loving a man too quickly, or vice versa. Perhaps this would be better thought of in this context, "Guard your mind, for it is the wellspring of life." Wow, to me this makes more sense. I was watching some sci fi type show, I think something to do with zombies, and they showed how the brain stem acts when the person is alive. It vibrates with electricity, thousands of connections made per second...when the brain is dead, i.e. has no more activity, we pronounce the person dead, even though the body may continue ...
Today marks one year since my mother-in-law walked through the veil, and joined those saints who have gone before her. She breathed her last sometime in the middle of the night, and all I could think when I saw her earth shell, was, "A new Body." For one earth year, she has enjoyed this new earth body. I wish we could share some cinnamon rolls together, you and me, and her too, and we could talk about these things, but this is of course for the next life. Yes, there will be cinnamon rolls, and they'll be so much more amazing than the ones I'm baking today. This last year a friend convinced me into signing up onto which is a site that sends you a passage of Scripture and a bit of a devotional (sometimes) daily. Sometimes it has all I've been able to chew on and meditate for the day, as I couldn't seem to have the energy to sit and read my Bible. Today, of all days, this passage was sent to my email box. Listen to today's call. Jamie, Here...
Today I received an email from a pastor in Ok. looking for an evangelical church here in Granada. I realized everyone has been directed to an almost four year old blog post I wrote regarding the church my husband and I attend here in Granada. So, I've decided to write a new post and give you all a little more information. We attend a Baptist church here in Granada, one that belongs to the Baptist Union in Spain. It is located in Granada on Calle Angel Barrios and Calle Arabial, right across the street from the Parque Garcia Lorca. Services in the School year are at 12 pm and 6 pm. Sunday school is at 11am. Wednesday evening prayer meeting is at 7 pm, and once monthly there is an English worship service. When I know this years dates, I'll post them here. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to comment on my blog, or email me at jambilee at gmail. Hope this helps you! If you will email me, I'll send you my phone numbers and we'll chat! Most Sundays...
Andrew and I wandered with my uncle Peter today to a little village outside of Granada. We went with the intent of visiting a family, and when we finished 7 hours later, they had become our family. Antonio and his wife and daughter and brothers and sisters and wifes and husbands and kids and parents all invited us for migas, a traditional Andaluz dish that is flour fried in olive oil with sausage, onions, peppers, garlic, you get the drift. This gypsy family says they make it when it rains, and they can't work the fields of olives, asparagus, almonds or whatever harvest season it is. It takes two full hours to make such a delicacy, and that's why they only do it when it rains. We ate until our bellies burst, and laughed until we cried. Then talk turned to music, and guitars suddenly appeared, the small children were summoned, and summoned and then pulled out from underneath the bed they were hiding, and then they sang for us. And boy did they sing. Rocio, whose name means...