The evangelical church doesn't seem to be that big here in Spain yet, growing definitely, but still small... A lot of the youth I've met over the past couple of weeks come from more traditional backgrounds and the camps are a really good place for them to come together with other young people in a more contemporary environment that relates to them more and they are then trying to make a difference in their home culture. It's exciting to see!
The service was good though. Basic, but good and it was really interesting to see church done in a different culture! We sang, we prayed, we took communion, we listened to a message and were challenged to respond to God's call when we hear it. I understood a fair bit, not all, but enough. And I'm encouraged that even in another language, amongst family in Christ, I am still at home.
I've been surprised by how many Americans are here. I met two in church this morning, Nancy and Steven at the camp last week, and more again tonight. Either retired, or teaching, or in ministry and leading churches. You can hear their accent from a mile off, even when they're talking Spanish! It's been lovely to meet a few of them and hear their stories, following God's call to come here and build His church.
Tonight, we drove almost an hour to church. This is less normal I think! But an American couple who have been in Spain for 15 years planting churches, have been recently going to the church in León and planted a church in Astorga in May. Some of the young people travel out there on a Sunday evening to support it as its still such a baby church with only about 25 people. It was quite a lot more modern in style than this morning's service, and then we played games after with the youth, and ate home made cake and freshly popped popcorn. I met a couple more Americans, and a lady from Scotland who married a Spanish guy in 1998 and they now have 3 kids and are living in the mountains near León as she teaches in a Bilingual primary school in a deprived area. I got to chat with her about Teach First for a while as well!
Before the evening service, we spent an hour or so looking around the city and visited Gaudi's palace. These are my photos from the day - Bianca's mom (Michaela) got better ones and is going to send them to me so I will update this post with better pictures at a later time! :)
Lol at Betsy's fake smile.
Some arches.
Gaudi's palace.
Us and Gaudi's palace.
Mistake photo but think it's quite artistic!
Betsy being a statue.
Yesterday, I went for a nice evening walk with Michaela, around the neighbourhood and by the river. I only took a couple of pictures - of the lovely sunset, of me standing by part of the San Salvador walk and of the big shopping centre that is really close to their house.
It's been a chilled couple of days and I've slept quite a lot, but I'm really, really tired at the moment. 2 weeks in and I'm still not used to the late nights and I think my body is recovering from three full-on weeks of travel, high-energy activities, new people, other languages... We had dinner at 10:30 tonight, and now we're about to watch God's Not Dead in Latin American Spanish.. Mi cerebro esta frito!
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