There and Back Again

While this isn’t a hobbit’s tale, I, like Bilbo Baggins, have had many adventures over the past month or so. In addition to reading The Hobbit, here’s a quick overview of what we’ve been up to:

FIRST: My mom came to town! It was so nice to have her here. The weather was nice, the beach was awesome, and she was so helpful as we…..

SECOND: … MOVED! Yes, that’s right. We are no longer living on the beach (I know, so sad). Our flat was only available to us during the off-season. That is, unless we wanted to pay about 3000€/month to live there during the summer. Umm… we weren’t interested in that. Nor was our bank account!

THIRD: So, where did we move to? OUR NEW STORE FRONT! There are many small store fronts here in Zarautz, called a ‘locál’ (pronounced: ‘lo-CALL’ more or less). Our locál is owned by a couple who used to live and work here in Zarautz, but have since moved to Arizona. These people laid an awesome foundation for us, connection wise. During the first week we were at the locál – cleaning and moving our stuff in – we met more people from the neighborhood than we did in our 4 months living in our old apartment complex! We are so grateful for the relationships that they built and nurtured while they were here, not to mention how grateful we are to be able to rent their locál and teach English here!

FOURTH: We went to the USA! WHAT?!? Yes, we were in the US for a whole month, but no, we weren’t in the Midwest. (BUT. Jonny will be back in the Midwest in September for his brother’s wedding!) Actually, we spend most of our time working (Jonny was translating) for an organization that takes Basque kids to the US for a month to improve their English while exposing them to the Gospel by placing them in Christian host-homes and connecting them to some great churches in the Seattle area. Here’s a picture from the camp we all attended as part of Summer in the USA.

Here’s a quick timeline of our America adventure:

                                                        LEAVE BASQUE COUNTRY

Seattle, WA









Reno, NV/Truckee, CA

                     





Phoenix/Tucson, AZ

                 

Rocky Point, MEXICO






HOME!

We had a great time connecting with new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and building bridges with the believers on the America-side of our world. Not only did we work and reconnect, but we also got to go to a wedding! It was great to be able to share Jake and Koral’s special day and spend time with people we love.

FIFTH: The return voyage. Well, now we’re back. And honestly, I’m really glad to be back. It’s refreshing to feel like I’m back home where I know where things are, where I know my neighbors, and have a regular schedule, and can go to the nicest beach in all of Basque Country WHENEVER I WANT. Yes, I am rubbing that in. But as nicely as possible. It’s also nice to get back and act on the things Jonny and I have planned out and start working towards the goals that we’ve set for the next year. Soon, we’ll sit down and have another big “white-board-discussion-night” (Jonny LOVES our huge whiteboard that we use for class). We’ll put to words and put on paper what we’ve talked about sporadically over the summer. If you’re interested in what we’ve come up with, just let us know and we’d be happy to share it with you. It’s not quite blog information, but we’d love to send you our mission statement and yearly goals once we get them all typed up.

SIXTH: Building our home. Thankfully, ‘building’ isn’t literal. However, there is a lot to do as far as the locál goes. We found out that our locál is now available to be lived in. All we have to do is fill out mounds of paperwork, meet the required standards, and hopefully not have to pay a lot of money in order to get it registered. After we get it registered, we can begin putting in a kitchen and making the place a furnished, livable space. This means: bed, closets, pantry, WASHING MACHINE, FRIDGE, OVEN, etc. Yes, it will be a long process, but we are very excited about it.

Well, now that you’ve been brought up to speed, what now? Well, if you’re wondering how you can pray for us, here are some things we’d love for you to lift up to the Father:

·         Pray that we would be able to further develop the relationships we have with the people who live in the building above our locál. Pray that we would have and take the opportunity to share the Gospel with our new friends.

·         Thank the Lord for our new locál. It is such a blessing to have a place to teach English. Hopefully, when we have a kitchen, we’ll be able to have cooking classes in English as well as our regular classes. Pray that these cooking classes get off the ground.

·         Pray that we would be able to follow with the kids we met this summer while in Seattle. We got to know quite a few kids who wanted to hang out with us when we all returned to Basque Country and we don’t want to miss this opportunity.

·         Pray that as we get back, we would be able to reconnect with our students and that they wouldn’t want to wait until the end of the summer (end of September) to reconvene for classes.

·         Pray that we would find more students, that we could start new classes (not just individual lessons), and that we would be able to use the materials we gathered in the States to improve their learning experience.

·         Thank the Lord for providing income through our surf boards. We’ve already rented out some boards since we got back last week and it’s such an answer to prayer to have a bit of income until we can get our classes started back up.

·         Pray that God would give us clarity as we plan out and set goals for this next year. Pray that we would have discernment and wisdom as we work towards starting a gathering of believers here in Zarautz. Pray that God would bring together people who are sold on seeing a Basque church planted here and who are willing to be the Body together and have an impact on this community.

·         Pray that the bridges that are being built between us and couple churches in the States would grow strong and would be focused on God’s work in the world – especially in the US and in Basque Country.

·         Pray for patience as we work through the process of registering our local, getting my paperwork finalized, and continue figuring out what it means to live life together as a married couple.

PHEW. Well, you can’t blame me if you run out of things to pray for. While we don’t currently have internet at the locál, we do have friends who have internet. So, I would love to set up some skype dates with people!