game night

txus - a good friend from church

this past friday night we hosted a video game party at our house. all week long we talked to people, invited people, and tried to prepare ourselves. jonny and i both wanted lots of people to come, but we didn't think that more than 6 people would end up coming. also, i had NO IDEA what food to make. i have had little exposure to typical basque food, and i didn't want to be too american... i decided to just wing it and see what happened.

bro time

the brackets for FIFA and Tekken

as it ended up, 14 people ended up coming. it was a great experience. there were a couple kids there the jonathan knows, one of my students and a friend of his, a friend from Christian Surfers, and one of our friends from church brought a bunch of guys from his cuadrilla (group of friends - see bottom of post for link) who ended up staying until 4am (i went to bed WELL before they left - i'm not a gamer, and i like my sleep. let them have their bro-time). 

it was very fun and thankfully, we had enough food. what was the most popular food item, you may ask? PIZZA. just plain ol pizza! WHAT?!? how boring! oh well. they liked it. so... next time. i'm not spending all day making a bunch of different food. i learned my lesson = give the boys pizza. and LOTS of it. of course, i know i won't be able to help myself. i'll have to make other stuff too, but i'm definitely not going to stress about it.  not one bit.

if you want some more info about basque culture and cuadrillas, check out these links. granted, this info comes from wikipedia, so not all the information is completely reliable, but it will give you a good, general idea. ENJOY!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_culture#Culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuadrilla

progress

growth is such a cool thing to witness












it's so all of a sudden, too.








one day, all you see is dirt






then, the next day you come to see that life has sprung forth










sometimes, progress is so slow you wonder if any growing is even being done

and then other times, you see so much rapid growth, you can't help but smile from the excitement and unexpected encouragement.








pray for me. pray that like my little plants, i would grow. of course, i would love for my growth to be as swift as my coriander plant, but right now, i feel like my mint - at a apparent standstill. but don't just pray for me. pray for the seeds that we are planting here. pray that God would give us the opportunity to water the seeds we have planted, that we would be daily diligent when He does give us those opportunities, and that the Holy Spirit would stimulate growth and make ready the harvest.

So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.

1 corinthians 3.7

Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

john 4.35-36

FYI plants from top to bottom: oregano, poppy, gyspophila, basil, mint, corinder

the thoughts of a walk

this morning i went for a walk along the beach. the sand was cool and the waters were receding, so my feet sank into the sand and left deep tracks. about halfway through my walk i stopped and looked back at where i'd come from. you should have seen my tracks!! they looked as though they had been made by a drunken sailor (of which i'm NOT, by the way)! 

i decided to conduct a small experiment. from that point on, i decided to fix my eyes on a big rock at the end of the beach to see if i could walk in a straight line. i tried very hard to always keep looking at the rock. however, i was soon distracted by the waves, the debris brought in by the high tide, and the music i was listening to. my distractions were short, but they had a distinct effect on my attempt at a straight line. when i reached the cliffs at the end of our beach, i looked back to inspect my path. it wasn't perfect, but it was definitely an improvement from before when i was just walking aimlessly.

this made me think. we, as christians, are all walking in the same direction - Christ-likeness. we have also all been given something to fix our eyes on and something that will help us walk in a straight way. however, many of us (including me) walk as if we have no specific direction; we're headed the right way, but we are not purposeful about it and our lives end up looking like we're just a bunch of drunken sailors. maybe this is because what we've been given to focus on seems, like my rock, kinda boring and easily trumped by the action around us. as i was walking, i realized that my spiritual life, unlike my current reality, has a glorious object on which my life should be fixed. Christ and the Word are magnificent, but many times i look at them like i looked at the rock - with disinterested yet practical eyes. i only watched the rock so that my path would be straight, not because the rock in and of itself was interesting. 

my prayer this morning for my own life, and now for yours, is that our eyes would be opened to the magnificence and awesomeness of the foundation of our faith. that we would fix our eyes on Christ - the author and perfecter of our faith, not just because He straightens our paths, but because of who He is and the hope He has given to us. 

that's my thought for the day. hope it gets you thinking as well

hebrews 12:1-2 

therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

snippits

many things have been happening around here and as each small or monumental thing occurs, i think about how i could document it and blog about it. i've come to the conclusion that my blogs are going to be short, not necessarily deep or dramatic, and sometimes quite spastic. that's going to be my blogging strategy. if i'm not purposeful about keeping my blogging unstructured and carefree, i will never blog. i will write and write and write in my head but never write it down because it's just "not quite right". i've come to the conclusion that spastic blogging is better than no blogging and so here it comes: short, sweet, and spastic.

jonathan inspecting our receipt
at ikea's restaurant

our FREE wok!

first: our ikea adventure. for the past two fridays jonathan and i have traveled to ikea to make some wonderful purchases. we ooo-ed and aww-ed over the loads of cool stuff and bemoaned the fact that we couldn't buy everything. it was a great learning experience for both of us as we continue to read each other and learn how the other thinks and reacts. so, while we didn't get everything i could have ever wanted, i am very happy with what we did get! we got a little bit for each room, while trying not to get too attached to the place since we have to move very shortly. pictures of these things will be coming shortly as well as before and after pics of our current flat.

the mother load - round one.

second: doughnuts. i'm not a huge fan of doughnuts, but i do like the homemade ones from time to time. jonny happens to be a big fan of the sweet treats, so this saturday morning, i got up, scoured the internet for a good recipe, and tried my luck with my newest culinary experiment. they actually turned out quite well and the owners of the surf shop loved them even more than jonny and i did. pepe demanded that i bring him more - right then. i don't know if my pants could handle doughnuts every saturday morning, but the recipe i found made it into my cookbook, so i'm sure pepe will get more someday.

third: PLANTS! i am so very excited about my plants. i got a couple orchids at ikea as well as seeds for four different types of herbs (basil, coriander, peppermint, and oregano). while i was out and about at the supermarket, i couldn't help but see that there were some poppy seeds for sale. sooooo... i just HAD to buy some. so now, i have two egg cartons filled with dirt and seeds, just waiting for little bits of poppy goodness to pop out. as i was planting and watering and cleaning up my dirt mess, i realized that i feel very much like my little seeds - like i'm starting at ground zero. this new place is great. i love the people i'm getting to know and the atmosphere here is wonderful. but i still feel like i'm starting completely from scratch -  friends, language, town, culture, house, food, you name it. the cool thing is that i'm growing and will grow just like my little seeds. i'm just bound and determined to grow faster than they do. the race is ON!

my happy little plants basking in the sun