11:44 pm
Life in Alicante has been good. It is always fun to go away for a weekend and come.. home? Coming back to this place after every weekend trip has definitely made it feel more like home. Its nice to walk in and have Pepi's warm greeting and kisses waiting for us at the door. Its nice to actually know my way around Alicante now, and be able to walk around without getting lost every five minutes. Its nice to make a plan of all the things I want to show my parents about "my city" when they visit in just a little over a month. Above all, its nice to not feel like a tourist anymore. I have my regular restaurants and cafes that I go to, I recognize people around town, I know where the best place for gelato is.. Sometimes I forget that I am in Spain. Sometimes I even forget that people are speaking in Spanish. Yesterday, Johanna and I were talking a walk by the sea and we saw a sign that said "DANGER ZONE" (yes, we decided to stayed away from that area). But it occurred to both of us that we didn't even have to send the words on the sign through a spanish translator in our brains. We just saw the words, and they made an instant connection in our brain. That's cool. Sometimes instead of using English to talk to each other, Spanish is what comes naturally. Sometimes we have found that some Spanish words get the meaning across in a more direct way than English words. Its interesting really.
11:50 pm
I am learning so much about Spain- its culture, its history- while I am here. It is crazy to think that not too long ago, there was a horrible dictatorship here. My grammar teacher has told us a few stories of her college days, when she was involved in a lot of protests and riots at her university. She told us that the students used to carry marbles in their pockets, so that if police came on horseback to disperse a protest, they could throw the marbles on the ground and make the horses fall. She also told us a story of when the police came to a protest and started beating people. She said that everyone began to run from the police, but the streets were very narrow so it was hard to get away from them sometimes. She said that one time, she was running away, when a random guy grabbed her, pulled her into a doorway and started hugging her. She said that the police passed right by them because they thought that the two of them were just a typical lovey Spanish couple in a doorway! But as soon as they were gone, the man separated himself, and with a see ya! he ran away! I never saw him again, she said as she wistfully finished the story.
Crazy.
I am continuing to learn about the world. Johanna and I have made friends with a group of girls from all over- France, Scotland, China, and Denmark. Last week, we had them over to the apartment to make pancakes. One of the girls had told us that she loved pancakes, but she does not eat them much because they aren't common in her country. So we decided to make a girl's pancake night and Jo and I started looking up pancake recipes. We went to the store, found all the ingredients. Everything was going great until we started to try to flip the pancakes. They wouldn't flip. They were the wierdest pancakes I had ever seen. Then we tasted them.. They were good but had a strange after taste. Finally, we realized that we had bought corn flower! They made very unique pancakes. The girls were such good sports about it and it turned into a really fun night! We took our very sat pancakes into the living room and smothered them with jam and nutella as we talked for three hours about our lives, cultures, countries. It was a wonderful night.
I also loved talking with Sara, the girl from Scotland, about the UK. I love her accent. Its crazy to hear British and Australian people around here, and it contributes more and more to my profound realization that America is not the only country in the world. Who knew? Its crazy because each time I hear a British person talk, I pick up on the foreign accent first. My first thought is, oh, I can't understand them. That's a foreign language. But as I continue to listen I realize, that's english!! How strange it is to hear my own language, but with so many different accents (turns out that they are MANY very different variations of the British accent, my dear Americans) and so many foreign words! Even stranger to suddenly realize that their countries have spoken this language much longer than I have! I have learned even more how much English is NOT just America's language. We share it with so many other people and variations!
One thing I am also learning a lot about while I am here is sin. Its so exposed here. People don't even try to cover it up. I guess I never realized exactly how sheltered from the world I have been in the last 2 1/2 years at OBU. But its good to see here. Its sobering. It makes me want to throw up sometimes, especially when I realize that I have this hope inside of me that most times I don't even bother to tell people about. On Valentines day, our grammar class got into a discussion about love. We were talking about divorce rates in our countries. Every single kid who was not American in that class (which was half the class. the other half were OBU students) had divorced parents. One kid told the class that he does not believe that there is such a thing as lasting love. All love is sure to end. There is no love that will stick around.
Wow.
That same day, in my culture class, we talked about abortion, which is legal here. When an asian girl raised her hand to ask what "abortar" means (it is not a cognate in their language, so she didn't pick up on the meaning as quickly) my teacher defined it as "interrupting a pregnancy." Interrupting?
I wanted to cry that day.
I am realizing how incredibly important it is to tell people about the hope we have!
Do you know?
Gosh, all this has just got me thinking about whoever reads this blog. I've used a lot of Christianese and I don't even know if everyone knows what I am talking about.
Do you know about the fulfilling eternal grace that's offered to you? That guy in my class was horribly mistaken about love!
There is something wrong with all of us, and we all know it. Its why the world is so messed up. It sounds like such a Christiany word, but simply put-- it is sin.
At the beginning of time, things were perfect because God made them that way. People and God were together, in community, in a perfect relationship.
But remember Adam and Eve? They messed it up. People disobeyed God and sin entered the world. Because people messed up, it was absolutely not possible for them to be around God, because God is righteous. Imperfection can't survive in his presence. So people and God became separated. And the world got really messed up.
But God wanted to fix that. He wanted people to be back in a relationship with him. So he started this huge story of redemption (of bringing people back to him). Its what the whole Bible is about. And the climax of the story happened when he sent his Son, Jesus to earth to live a perfect life (the life we were supposed to live) in our place and then sacrifice himself in our place, so that we do not have to suffer death and separation from God. So that means that God will look at people and see Jesus' perfection. He literally took his righteousness and placed it on us so we could be with God, and then died, taking our punishment. But death did not even have any power over him, so he came back to life, conquering death forever.
How we respond to this amazing news is what matters. If you believe this, and trust that it is true, and surrender your life to the control of Jesus Christ, he puts his righteousness on you. He saves you, enters your life, and starts working in you to make you more like how you were intended to be-- righteous, perfect. HE does this, not you! He is the one that changes you!
Don't you see that you are dead? You are unable to do anything for yourself. Me too. But Jesus is willing to change your life and bring you back to God. To give you life. To give you lasting, real, hope.
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Eph 2:1-10
Its real. It happened to me. And this good news continues to sustain me. It doesn't end. It lasts forever. It is real, lasting love, that stays around forever.
Okay.
Its 12:30. Time for bed.
Please continue to pray for us over here. Things continue to be wonderful, experiences continue to be new and exciting, but missing home has crept up on me in a few instances lately. Nothing major. I would just really like some barbecue and a big glass of lemonade. Although the other night, Emily, Karissa, and I all recited the Pledge of Allegience, and followed it with a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner while sitting around in the kitchen eating left over kuskus that Pepita had made. Wendy (our dear Belgian sister) was quite amused. In fact, she could even sing most of the National Anthem with us. But do I know her anthem? Nope.
Needless to say, its still good to get out of the bubble (the America bubble) and realize exactly how much about the world I don't know.
What a learning experience.
Here's to 2 more months.
Cheers!
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