YES!

So. Spain.
I live here now.
It was immensely satisfying in church yesterday when I was introduced to someone and they asked, "¿Estás aqui para vacaciones?" and I got to respond, "No, ¡Vivo aquí!"

Ok, let's take an inventory of the last few days.

-Camarma de Esterueles is the name of the small town where I live. It is about 20 minutes outside of Madrid, and it is where the school is located. So far, I am completely taken with this whole "living in a small European town" thing.  I've really only ever spent time in big cities when I've traveled, and while Madrid is really close, Camarma is it's own entity entirely. Our apartment is a stone's throw away from the main plaza, and you can see the steeple of the Catholic church from our porch. I took the picture above from our porch (that's a stork nest on top of it by the way)


-My apartment is beautiful.  Like, gorgeous.  Tile floors, yellow walls, a gargantuan porch that looks out over one of the main streets... I have my own room with a big window and built in closets/shelves.  I'm mostly moved in and have pictures on the walls and everything. (Oh and the thing above my bed is an embroidered pillow case of a camel from the old souk in Dubai :)

-The best thing about Camarma is that there are all of these little shops that sell everything you could ever need all within a short walk of my apartment. There is a bread shop. A donut shop. A sweet shop. A fruit shop. This American is so used to things like Super Target and Walmart, and driving 15 minutes to get to everything, so I'm excited about the idea of walking everywhere and getting to know the people that own these shops over the next two years.

-Apparently they don't believe in air conditioning here. The high has been somewhere between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day. As I muddle through the heat wave and turn on every possible fan, I just keep reminding myself that this is a cultural experience.

-  Our neighbors that live right behind us, who I hope to officially meet soon, have at least 300, um I mean 3, dogs, and an entire coup of homing pigeons. Bed time for me is a daily adventure. (It's entirely possible that as a by-product of living here, I may develop a dependency on Nyquil) Although I've found that with each night it gets  a little easier as I adjust to the noise and get over over jet lag.

-I got to go to Church in Madrid yesterday! There is nothing quite like worshiping in Spanish to songs that you grew up singing in English. After being at church all morning my brain hurt, but I am finding that overall I understand pretty well. It's kind of like listening to someone talk underwater, I don't get every word, but I can get the basic idea. Speaking is a struggle for me if we venture out of basic topics of conversation, but I am hopeful and excited to see how my language will grow in the coming months.

Mostly? Mostly I'm just walking around amazed that God did it. He did it. He brought me here two and a half years ago for 10 measly little days, and He said (shouted?), "This is it. This is what I'm preparing you for. This is where we are coming back to" And I just remember thinking "Ok, but I don't know how to do that" and He said, "I know. But I do. All you have to do is say yes"  So I did. I said yes. Over and over and over again, even when I wasn't really quite sure what I was agreeing to, I said yes. And He did it, just like He promised me that He would. So many people think that the Christian life is just about saying no. No to fun, no to partying, no to sex, no to a good time. They think that God is a kill joy out to make us all into prudish ascetics. Well. I'm living proof that when you say yes to the one who runs the universe, He takes you places that you never could have gone on your own. He births courage and a vision into your heart that's bigger than you ever could have imagined. That's what He does when you say yes to Him. And getting to live that is really cool.

Flourish

It’s my 24^th birthday today. 

And you know, I had mostly forgotten about it, because I just got back to Raleigh yesterday after three weeks of training with my missions agency, One Mission Society.  Well that, and I’m moving to Spain in three days.  So yeah, my birthday has been a bit of an afterthought.  Actually, when I woke up this morning and realized it was my birthday, my first thought was one of sadness.  My Nana was always the first one to call me on my birthday.  In fact, she usually couldn’t wait until the day.  She would call me the day before to wish me an early birthday and then she would call me the morning of and sing to me over the phone and say “I just had to hear your voice on your special day, I love you so much.”  Sometimes I was working or busy with friends and so she would sing on my voicemail and remind me for the hundredth time that she was praying for me.  It’s strange how little things that you took for granted when you had them rip your heart up when they aren’t there anymore.  

Imagine my surprise when, this morning, just as I was about to start getting ready for church, I saw that Paul Cox was calling me. I answered the phone somewhat surprised, to hear Paul and his wife Dawn on the other end as they and all of their kids proceeded to shout “Happy Birthday!!!” They started singing for me (loudly!), praying for me, and blessing me over the phone. And then they told me that they loved me, and that they were praying for me as I get ready to leave for Spain, and I think I managed to thank them as my eyes welled up with tears before we said "Adios".

At this point you are probably assuming that Paul and Dawn are cousins or an aunt and uncle, but no, they aren’t. Paul works for One Mission Society as the head of the mobilization department.  He and his team of people work to recruit new missionaries to OMS and then to shepherd them through the multi-step process of getting them accepted with OMS and eventually serving in different roles and ministries all over the world.  There are a lot of people in different stages of that process all the time, and Paul and his team: Cat, Brent, Andrea, Margo – their jobs are to answer our millions of questions, and help us find the people we need to find within OMS to get paperwork filed and apply for visas and raise support and buy plane tickets.  And they do all of that really well.  But they do so much more than that.  Over the past two years since I first started this journey towards being a missionary in Spain, these people have tangibly, beautifully loved me in a way that goes above and beyond any and every job description. They haven't just helped me get to Spain, they have made me feel like part of their family. 

I just spent the last three weeks in CROSS training at OMS headquarters in Greenwood, Indiana. Sometimes the days stretched long, and I know that I did not retain all of the information from every session, but the thing that came through clearer every day was the heart of One Mission Society. OMS seeks to make Jesus greater even if it means that they become smaller. Over and over again I heard people say things like, “We’re not here to build the kingdom of OMS, we’re here to build God’s Kingdom”  As a nondenominational missions organization, they seek to partner with whatever evangelical groups and organizations are already on the ground in a country in order to efficiently reach as many people with the Gospel as possible. OMS does not plant its own churches. OMS trains and equips national leaders to plant dynamic churches for their own people. The staff at OMS, people like Paul and Dawn, people like Tim and Shirley, have a passion for seeing missionaries thrive in their ministries overseas. I have spent enough time among missionaries and their families to know that serving overseas can be an incredibly difficult thing. But at OMS, the staff does whatever they believe necessary to help you not just scrape by in your ministry, but to flourish and grow where God has called you. 

My time in Spain will be interesting because I am actually the only missionary working at Evangelical Christian Academy from One Mission Society. All of the other teachers have come through other missions organizations. At first this worried me, and I wondered if perhaps I should have chosen a different organization. However, after spending three weeks at headquarters in Greenwood, God has shown me again and again that OMS is exactly where I am supposed to be. As I get ready to leave for Madrid on August 5^th, what a privilege and an honor it is to be going as an OMS missionary.  Their heart for the lost and their desire to see Christ glorified in all corners of the globe both humbles me and inspires me. When I board that plane in a few days, I do so having been thoroughly trained, prayed for, and cared for, thanks not only to all of my incredible friends and family, but thanks also to my new OMS family, one that I have joined with great joy.  

Find out more about the many ministries of One Mission Society at:  https://onemissionsociety.org/