Sunday's presentation

YOU'RE INVITED!

Isaac and I will be presenting the photos and stories from our trip to Spain. We wanted a reason to get all of our family, friends, and fans together for lunch. It is potluck style, so if you have the chance, feel free to bring something, but if you don't have time to make anything, still come PLEASE!

When: This Sunday, May 3rd, at 12:30PM.
Where: Oswego Alliance Community Center (turn onto Thompson Road, it'll be the white building on the left about 1/4 mile down)
Why: The share photos, videos, and stories about our trip to Spain
Who: Everyone is invited, we love getting together with people!

Please come, let me know if you have any questions. See you Sunday!

Wednesday-Thursday

Last full day (Wednesday) in Granada:

Wednesday was supposed to be a packed day, but unfortunately some things got canceled on us. In the morning Isaac left me at home... I was getting sick again, and he went off to the church for their "golden fellowship" small group. They are called the "Magnolia's", Joel told me to look up the significance of Magnolia, but I have yet to figure out why the would have chosen the name. 

While at the meeting Isaac hung out and ate a little with the group. Most of them do not speak a lick of English, and Isaac's Spanish is not the greatest, so they just did a lot of pointing and smiling. By this point in our trip we were very used to not knowing what was going on! Once the meeting got in full swing Isaac took a bunch of photos of the group interacting and talking. I am not sure what they will use these for, but it is nice to have these photos to share with the church. 

After the Magnolia's, Isaac and I got picked up by another American missionary. We met him and his wife at their house along with another young missionary couple. Between these two couples they have not lived in Spain for more than 3 years. It was very exciting to be able to sit down for a few hours and get to know these people that have walked the path Isaac and I are thinking of following. Because of the nature of their missionary work I am sad to say that I cannot share any information about them on here. Just know that we were extremely blessed by being in their presence, we learned so much about what they are doing. 

The rest of Wednesday was kinda of a bust. We were dropped off downtown to do some last minute shopping for some gifts, it started raining, so we ended up spending most of our time looking for jackets/scarves/gloves. It was only 8*C out which is about 46* F. We came home, packed, and just hung out until it was time to go to bed.

THURSDAY:

On Thursday morning, out bus left the station in Granada for Madrid at 7AM. That was quite early! We spent eh 5 hr bus ride resting, reading, and watching the scenery fly by. I have never had such a great bus ride. The buses in Spain are so much better than any plane I have ever flew on! When we arrived in Madrid we were greet by missionaries, Raymond & Mary Ebbett. We had not known Raymond & Mary previously, but immediately we knew we were going to have a great time. We spent our 2 nights in Madrid at their house in Colmenar Viejo, about 30 min north of Madrid.

We spent some time in a mall in Madrid taking photos of Spaniards while the Ebbett's ran some errands

Then we went off to a bible institute at a church in downtown Madrid. They rent out a warehouse for a latin american church and a Chinese church. 

We stayed for the hour long meeting. We listened, photographed, and took video of the meeting. It was really neat to be a part of this leadership training.

The pastor of the church(on the left) is a missionary from Columbia (I think) and then Raymond Ebbett on the right.

Me, Raymond, Gordon, The pastor and his wife, and I cannot remember the last lady on the right. What a fun group!

Enjoy this short video from the evening.

We're home!

Hola! Nos Estamos en Nueva York en nos Casa. 

We are home in NY and in our house. It is bittersweet to be home, because we are happy to be back in our house and with our family and friends, but we really loved Spain and everyone there.

I will be continuing posting photos and the video from our trip until I have covered each Day. So keep an eye out this next week for some new photos, video, and writing on each day. Until then enjoy this video we took when we arrived home. 

ALSO Keep get your calendars out and put this on May 3rd:

Jenna & Isaac present SPAIN

A video/photo presentation (Lots of fun)

12:30pm on May 3rd

Pot-luck Lunch (If you want to bring something that's cool, if not, thats fine too!)

Oswego Alliance Community Center.

Thomson Rd., Oswego, NY

Tuesday in Granada

Hello!!! Tuesday was a great day. The ran that was in Madrid for the past week finally hit Granada and it poured! We cleaned the church in the morning and then went off to lunch with Diego & Pepita. They are on the leadership team at the church and it was a blast to be invited over to their house. They speak NO English, and our Spanish is very broken. We managed to struggle through 2 hrs of conversation though! Here they are below

Isaac took a photo of me outside the palace at the Alhambra

Young baby whose grandmother was helping us clean the church. I couldn't help but take her for a little bit and take some nice photos.

So cute!!! 4 month old... I forgot her name

The inside of the church. It used to be an old garage. The guy who owns it decided he would rent it out to the church... all they had to do was remodel. They sometimes stuff upwards of 150 people in this church on Sunday afternoons for church service.

After Diego and Pepita's house we went off to the Alhambra. Click the link to view more. We spent a few hours touring this HUGE history piece in Granada. 

View of El Albaicin from the Palace in the Alhambra. Such a pretty town.

Inside the palace

intricate ceiling artwork.

Another view of Granada from the Palace.

On our way home from the Alhambra it was dark and raining so hard. We were tired and wet and just wanted to eat and get home. We got on a bus that would bring us into town and then we would catch a city bus to take us to the suburb bus to take us back to Joel & Nancy's house. This was the first time we rode the bus, and we were by ourselves. We got on the bus and couldnt figure out where to get off. The bus was packed full with college students. The windows were fogging, and to make matters worse the bus drive had a Barcelona soccer (futbol) game on the radio so loud. All the college students were yelling and screaming for the game and so we couldn't hear the stops. 

We reached the last stop. The bus had been empty for a few minutes now. The bus drive spoke no English (Which is FINE because we are in Spain), But in moments like this you want to hope you run into someone who knows even the littlest amount of English. We got off the bus in not the greatest location, but God showed us the way and gave us a women who knew a little English. We told her where we wanted to go and she said follow me... she was going on the same bus. It was such a frustrating experience. Not only did we not know where to go, we didn't know where we were, which makes it hard when you are trying to find where to go. Ahh the language barriers. Next time I want to be better at Spanish!

Monday in Granada

Sorry I have been bad at posting lately. We have been so busy with things and traveling onto Madrid that I haven't had time to post. Tonight is our first night in Madrid. We are so happy to stay here with missionaries: Raymond and Mary Ebbott. Here is a quick update on Monday

One of the church members (Chris) took us down to the coast to "Salobrena" to see the Mediterranean Sea. We were going to head up to the Sierra Nevada Mountain range but we didn't have time. 

White washed houses of Salobrena.

I love that in 45 min we were at the coast in 75* weather in flip flops... but you cold still see the snow covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

Us on the beach... gotta love self timer. Front left to right: Chris (attends C&MA church in Granada), Laura (Lives in Britain and serves with Christians in Sports), Me, and Isaac.

Little kids in this awesome sports park in the part of Granada called "Armilla". These kids were Lance Armstrongs in Training.

Joel has asked us to photograph all different types of things for the church. He had a leadership meeting on Monday that we took some good photos they can use for website and to document the timeline of the church.

Most of the leadership in the church.

Isaac with Jesus. On Saturday we visited Jesus where we works, at "Las Cuevas" where there were the hanging hams.

Joel with a family that lives near the church. He thinks they have no family photo, so we were more than happy to take this photo and then provide them with a copy!

The house we stayed at in Granada. It is a huge house with many rooms and a huge fireplace. There is even a patio with an awesome pool! Thank you Joel & Nancy for letting us be a part of your family for a week.

Hola!

As I said yesterday I was going to update you on what happened here Monday and Tuesday. Today (Tuesday) was a really long day. We were out of the house for over 13 hrs... most of it spent on our feet. With that being said I am not going to be writing much more on the blog tonight. We have a slower evening tomorrow and I will get you all updated then. For now here is today's video:

Start of the week!

Hello! If you really want the full effect of these photos you will need to read below before you look at the photos. I cannot get the text above the photos. Lo Siento

Waiting to at the church to leave for the Easter Resurrection Celebration.

Que Bonita!

Singing! We sang 1o songs. 3-4 of which I knew the English words... how exciting!

Joel Martinez speaking

A mom and her 2 daughters watching from the side. They were from their own group but heard what we were doing and were very interested. How exciting!

The gang

Praying

Lots of games! Frisbee, futbol, etc.

Love it! I want to live right HERE! next to the reservoir.

Hola mis amigos. Nos estamos amorando Espana!

I have to catch you up on two days now: Saturday and Sunday in Spain. Tomorrow I will go through Monday and Tuesday... which should catch us all up! Again I must say THANK YOU all for your prayers, as we can feel the army of people in prayer for us. It is quite great. 

The Lord has been opening so many doors for us. Less actual doors, more metaphysical doors. The world has been opened to us. We have meet so many wonderful people from around the world: A graphic designer for Guatemala, a young lady in sports ministry from Britain (She is my age and staying in the same house as us), many local Spaniards, a young man whose is a sports missionary and whose brother is starting an arts ministry in Seville (about 2 hrs away from Granada), a young lady working with ambassadors in Sports from TN, a women who drove by us in her car was pointed out as being from Mexico, NY (Can you believe that!), A missionary family from Mexico, and so on. We are starting to figure out how we can fit into this bigger picture... and it actually starts right in our hometown. I cannot wait to become a local at the coffee shop in town so I can start to know people and be known.... so I can share my love and hope in Christ. 

Tonight was the first night we actually felt like our creative ministry of photo, video, and computers is a real gem from God! It was so exciting to be available for the missionaries and church members. I will try not to spoil it all now... you MUST read tomorrow's blog.

Alright well back to SATURDAY:

After Isaac went downtown with a younger missionary couple and after we went out to lunch (tapas) we came back home for a bit to take a siesta... I LOVE SIESTA.... and then get ready for our meeting with the church's youth group. Isaac and I prepared our testimonies and anything else we were going to say during our time with them. We left the house to meet them at the church at 6pm. It turned out that they met 2 hrs earlier. We were bummed, but what are you going to do, nothing. So we went to a shopping plaza to get me some more tissues, outlet convertors (which we forgot to bring) and a small bag to carry our camera in (we only brought our gigantic rolling photography suitcase). Isaac and I wanted to go back downtown as it was still early 7pm and dinner is not typically until 9:30pm. 

Joel dropped us downtown, without us having a clue at where we were, and where we were going. It was fun to be adventurous. As we were walking downtown we saw a huge crowd. As we got closer to the crowd we saw what looked like a procession... the Catholic church's way of celebrating Easter in Spain. Massive alters of saints, Jesus, etc., are carried all throughout the week before Easter all around town with hundreds of costumed guards and musicians. Photographing a procession was one of the most important things on my to do list. I wanted to capture it to contrast how we as evangelical Christians celebrate Easter. God Blessed us with an amazing opportunity to squeeze into an empty spot in front of the crowd of 5,000. It was truly a miracle that we were able to even see the procession because by the time we got there, people had already marked their spots well in advance. We we got our spot and settled in we got there just in time to witness the ONLY procession that is held on Holy Saturday. Click on procession to learn more. Take a look at the photos below to see what I am talking about. I was so happy that I would not go home without witnessing this elaborate production. I will speak about this in more detail during our pot-luck lunch on Sunday May 3rd. 

SUNDAY:

Happy Easter is right. Jesus is risen and we have proof of it today through the lives of all of us who believe in him. Although I was sad to miss Easter with my church family back in NY, we were overjoyed to be a part of the Alliance church in Granada's Easter celebration. It was quite exciting to see how a different culture celebrates Easter. Other than the processionals in the Catholic church, not too much is different. The world seems rather small when you can be around the world worshipping the same God in a different language. 

Easter in Spain is a huge holiday. The country shuts down for many days. Most people get Thursday and Friday off of work, some even get the Monday after. Since some people have a 5 day weekend, they usually either go away to visit family, or have family visit them here. This creates for almost a "vacation" weekend. This year Joel decided to do something different with Easter Sunday. Because almost everyone in Spain is in "vacation" mode with family, he decided that having Easter service in church, like we have all done for years now, would be against the celebration spirit the whole country is in. People would be more excited about brining their relatives to the countryside for a day of worship, fellowship, games, and eating instead of bringing them to a "stuffy" church. 

So off we went as a whole church to a reservoir up in the mountains. It was a spectacular sight to see almost 85 people drive the 45 minutes up to this secluded spot. We had an hour worship service, where Joel Martinez shared a story of two blind men, that were so spiritually blind that they rejected Jesus, even when he was right in their presence. I am not exactly sure what it was about... because it was in Spanish, which is very hard for my to understand the details. We spent all day up there having so much fun! A mom and her 2 daughters were so touched by Joel's message, that they wanted to hear more. They became Christians that day. Praise the Lord! 

One of the most emotional times of the day was when I was videotaping the singing, I looked down at my phone and realized that it was 1:10pm... 7:10am in NY... the exact same time our church in Oswego was supposed to be having their sunrise service. I was so excited to think that the songs we are singing in Spain are being sung by my brothers and sisters back in NY. The world becomes so small when you have Christ in your life. Puts a smile to my face and a tear to my cheek when I thought that I was raising my hands up to the sky at the same time Oswego Alliance Church was too. 

(It is now 1:30PM so I am sorry for the bad grammar/spelling/sentence structure.) 

We met so many people at this resurrection celebration that I will remember for the rest of my life. Isaac and I brought Reese's peanut butter cups to Spain with us from NY. Joel told us that Peanut butter is not very popular in Spain because of its price and lack of variety. Since we didn't get a chance to meet up with the Youth Group on Saturday like we had planned, we decide to bring the Reese's cups with us to our Easter service and pass them out there. It was so much fun passing out this NEW candy to all the people... both young and old. Most of them thought it was okay... weird... but not bad. Some people were disgusted at the sweetness of it, and some people wanted more. I loved being able to share one of my favorite things of mine from the states that they have never experienced before. 

Once we got home from the service we rested and hung out for a while. We got these huge baked potatoes for dinner, they call them "papas asadas" which is like a loaded potato. I could not believe the size of these massive potatoes, about the size of my head. They were so heavy once filled with your favorite goodies, such as ham, cheese, aioli, salsa, corn, tuna, etc. I will definitely make these once I get home! 

Alright well it is now 1:45 and I must get to bed. Tomorrow we are cleaning the church, going to a small group, attending lunch with a Deacon and his wife and then going to visit the Alhambra! It will be a fun packed day.

Don't these kind of look like the US guys in white... you know the kkk. I do not know the story of the outfits, does anyone know? I know the tradition dates back way before the kkk ever existed.

There are about 40-50 men underneath this. This procession lasted for about 5 hrs and went up and down windy streets until 11:30pm. 

A little boy having fun on a mini carousel type ride that was powered by a man in the center on a bike.

 Thanks for reading yet another LONG blog! God Bless and Ciao!