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!