Saturday, April 20, 2013

Greetings from Minnesota :)

Hola Everyone,

Thanks so much for your support while I have been in Pamplona.  I am now back in the States!  It was an incredible trip and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to serve with La Roca Pamplona.

A lot happened these past few weeks!  Our team went on two retreats, Christine and I said goodbye to the friends we made in Pamplona and we had two opening ceremonies for La Roca!
Madrid Retreat
The retreats were incredible.  The first was a gathering of the Great Commission-Spain churches in Madrid.  It was a very encouraging time and I was grateful to meet the men and women in the other Spanish churches.  Pastor Felix (Pastor Dom’s father-in-law) spoke each night about walking in the Spirit.  Daniel Goering, the pastor of the Great Commission church in Cologne, Germany was there and spoke Easter morning.   The highlight for me was the third evening when we shared testimonies and stories of how God has been moving in our lives.  There were so many incredible stories of God transforming lives and doing the impossible.  Sometimes I forget how BIG God is.  The same God who is working in my life is working on the hearts of men and women across the world.  It’s hard to comprehend but beautiful to see!
From Madrid, we flew to Thessaloniki, Greece for a Great Commission Europe staff retreat.  I was so thankful to have the opportunity to attend!!  There were about 40 people at the retreat – all pastors, wives and missionaries from Great Commission churches in Europe.  They represented churches in the Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Amsterdam and Germany.  Meeting and talking with the different missionaries was such a blessing!!  They all had incredible stories of how they came to know the Lord, how God called them into missions and how God has provided for them where they are located.  I was very thankful to meet such humble and faithful men and women. 
Goodbye Fiesta
The week we returned from the retreats was my last week in Pamplona!  I spent most of the time saying goodbye to the girls I had been meeting with.  It was hard to say goodbye but I know we will stay in touch!!  One highlight was a going away party one of our friends from English Club (Luciana) had for us. Another English Club friend from Mexico (Dalia) made us a traditional Mexican dinner and a large group of people came.  It was wonderful to see everyone together.  I am very thankful that God allowed me to meet all of these amazing people from across the world.  I pray we will continue to stay connected and that they can help form the community at La Roca!

La Roca Dedication Ceremony
This past Saturday, we officially opened the student center!  We had two separate ceremonies.  The first was for people who helped open the center.  I was surprised at how many people had been involved!  There were about 20 people at the ceremony and they had helped with things like cleaning, painting, construction, etc.  The event went really well!  We had a worship time, Pastor Dom spoke, Pastor Felix shared a message, we prayed and then had time for brownies and cake.

La Roca Opening Ceremony
The second ceremony was in the evening and open to everyone!  It was great to see a lot of our friends from English Club as well as girls Christine and I had been meeting with.  Pastor Dom introduced the center and the rest of the time was an informal night with games, music and snacks. We had a great turnout and it was encouraging to see the center being used by so many people. 
What’s next for me?  I am going back to school to be a teacher!!  I was accepted into the Masters of Arts in Teaching program at Bethel University and will be starting at the end of this month.  In Spain, I was praying over what’s next and felt a lot of peace about going back to school.  I have been considering teaching for a while and serving in Spain helped clarify the decision.  It was helpful making lesson plans for English Club and teaching English to see that I really enjoy teaching!

Thanks again to everyone who prayed and supported me while I was overseas.  It was an incredible time and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to see God’s work in Spain, help open La Roca and build wonderful new friendships.

To my friends in Pamplona – I will miss you!!!  You will be in my prayers and I hope to see you again.
To my family and friends back home – I love you and can’t wait to see all of you!!  :)
God Bless!!
Katie
Goodbye Fiesta
Day trip with Maria, Ana and Dalia
Pastor Dom speaking at the La Roca Dedication Ceremony
Pastor Felix speaking at the La Roca Dedication Ceremony
La Roca Team


 
 

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Opening Permit Signed!!

U of F team and friends in front of Monumento al Encierro
Hi All!

It’s hard to believe that I’m halfway through my time in Pamplona!!  Time is flying, but everything is going really well.  :)
We had a team visit from the University of Florida last week and they were wonderful!!  They brought so much energy and encouragement.  It was a blessing to serve with them!  We hosted English Clubs every night and the turnout was fantastic.  Out of the 50 people that signed up, 40 came!!   It was amazing to see how many friendships and connections were made.  On Friday, we had a scavenger hunt around the city and invited people to visit La Roca after.  Seeing all of the students in La Roca was exciting!!  I remember visiting Pamplona for the first time and hearing Pastor Dom talk about his vision for a ministry center near campus and now we get to see it!
Teaching the advanced group during an English Club
Which leads me to some happy news - we have the opening permit for La Roca!!!  Hooray!!  Praise God.  Dom called City Hall today and confirmed that the opening permit has been signed!  We have a few painting projects left, but we should be able to have the Opening Ceremonies soon!!!  The timing is perfect.  After having the team from the University of Florida visit, there is extra momentum and energy!  The plan is to start hosting weekly social events on Friday's to continue building the community.  We can watch movies, play games, have ‘coffee house’ nights with music and just spend time with one another.  
Building shelves in La Roca
Along with English Clubs and working on La Roca, a large portion of my time is spent meeting with girls for intercambio sessions (language exchanges).  I have met some incredible girls and love spending time with them!  Sometimes we’ll do activities together such as trying a new café, shopping or walking around the city.  With one, we both love history and cooking so we prepare a history lesson and recipe each week and explain them to each other in the language we’re learning.  It’s a lot of fun!  The best part is I’m thankful at how quickly girls have opened up to me.  Some have invited me out to activities with their friends, which is a blessing. I pray to continue building relationships with these girls and hope they continue long past my time in Pamplona.
Juevintxo Night with Christine, Sara and Laura
The team is doing well!  We started meeting every other Sunday for a fellowship time.  It’s encouraging to meet as a small group and imagine what this will look like in the future!  Pastor Dom has unending faith and love for the Lord which makes it a joy to serve with him.  His wife Damaris is incredible.  It has been wonderful meeting with her and the other ladies for life groups. 
The team member I haven’t mentioned yet is Christine!!!  She flew in two weeks after I arrived and I just love her!!!  Serving with Christine has given me a new understanding of Mark 6:7, "Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two..".  Each day we get to walk together, pray, worship, serve and share this experience with one other.  It's a blessing!  Praise God. 

Thanks for reading!!  As always, feel free to send comments or thoughts.  I really appreciate everyone’s prayers and support.  :)

Enjoy your week!  Dios te bendiga! 

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Happy Valentine's Day!

Cooking Spanish tortillas in the piso :)
Hola everyone!

It’s hard to believe that today marks two weeks that I have been in Spain!  Time is flying.  Everything is going really well!  Pastor Dom was in the States last week and flew back on Sunday so it was great meeting with him on Monday and figuring out a weekly schedule.  We toured La Roca and the place looks amazing!!  I can’t wait to open the doors.  There was an issue with the opening permit, but Pastor Dom reapplied yesterday so hopefully, Lord willing, we will have the permit soon!

In honor of Valentine’s Day, the theme of this week for English Club and Bible Study is “Love”.  On Tuesday, we had a great night at English Club!  There was a group of 10 students split between Beginners and Advanced.  We played a Word Search game using the words that describe what love is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and then went through each word, described the meaning, gave an example and provided an antonym.  We also read through Ephesians 5:21-33 and Titus 2:1-5 and talked about characteristics of men and women that lead to healthy and faithful relationships.  It led to some great conversations and was a lot of fun!

I’m really excited about what we have planned tonight!  On Thursday nights, we have a Bible Study on campus.  Tonight, Pastor Dom’s father-in-law, Pastor Felix, is coming to share about his marriage to his wife of over 60 years!!!  To get the word out, Pastor Dom and I spent time on campus this afternoon passing out ‘God’s Love Letter’ to students and invited them to the event.  If you have never read ‘God’s Love Letter’ before, take a look at the link below.  It’s a beautiful summary of how much God loves us.  http://www.fathersloveletter.com/text.html

We planned out the next three months and we have a lot coming up!!  Next week, we’re starting an English Club series on Business – vocabulary, types of business, American culture and case studies.  It will be great to use my background and experiences to prepare the materials!  We started advertising for the week-long English Club coming up at the beginning of March. The University of Florida is bringing a team of 8-10 people.  Christine Kunkel from the University of Florida is flying in tomorrow and she will be serving with Pastor Dom’s ministry for two months.  Once she gets here, we’ll have a full team!

Next week, I am starting to meet with girls on campus for intercambio sessions.  Intercambio sessions are meetings where you talk for the first half in English and the other half in Spanish.  It’s a great way to improve your language skills, plus it’s a wonderful opportunity to connect with women on campus!  I contacted the girls Marisa (intern from this past winter) met with and all three would like to start meeting with me!  There is another girl I will also start meeting with this weekend!

I love living in Pamplona!!  The city is beautiful and I enjoy being able to walk everywhere.  The family I am living with is amazing!  It is such a blessing.  One thing I love about Spanish culture is that lunch is the main meal of the day and at 2 PM, most people go home to have lunch with their families.  A lot of stores and schools shut down so families will have a relaxed meal and then go back to work at 4 PM.  I love that!!  Where I am living, Monica’s uncle comes over for lunch every afternoon.  I have had a few lunches with them and it’s a blast!!  Between my broken Spanish and their broken English we can usually have a decent conversation and it’s just a joy to be a part of the culture here.

I might be starting a Spanish class at the university next week!!  We’re waiting to hear when the class ends, but I would love to take it.  I used the Rosetta Stone to learn Spanish and it works okay, but doesn’t teach you grammar rules.  It would be wonderful to have a better base of Spanish so hopefully the class works out!

What God is teaching me..
“One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord to inquire in his temple.”
Psalm 27:4
One of my favorite parts of mission trips is that it takes you out of your comfort zone to a place where it’s just you and the Lord.  God has been so wonderfully good and faithful to me!!  Over and over again, he shows me how he truly is all we need.  In the moments when I worry about what’s after these three months or am worried about not being effective because I don’t know enough Spanish, I have nowhere else to go but the Lord and every time he proves faithful.  I trust in his protection, provision and love.  I can live in peace knowing this is his city, his people and I am thankful to be used to serve the kingdom in this way. 
Thank you for reading!!  Please feel free to send comments or questions.  I would love to hear from you!  J

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Hola from Pamplona!!

First night out in Pamplona :)
I made it to Spain!!  I flew in last Thursday and everything is going really well.  Thank you again for all of the love and support I received before I left Minnesota. J
God is faithful!!  On the first day, God answered a prayer.  I was very excited to come to Pamplona, but two things I prayed about were companionship and help speaking Spanish.  In Minnesota, I have three amazing roommates and am surrounded by many loving people.  I knew it would be a tough transition to go from that to a city where I only know a handful of people.  As for speaking Spanish, I started learning three months ago and wasn’t sure how difficult it would be to get around the city without translators.  Well..on the first day, I was brought to the apartment where I was supposed to live.  The woman who owns the apartment is Maria and is a member of the church in San Juan.  She was very welcoming and had a beautiful place.  The one problem was that she owns a cat and I recently found out that I am very allergic to cats.  I called Pastor Dom’s wife Damaris to see if I could possibly stay with a different woman named Sangra and found out she has cats as well.  For a few hours, I didn’t know what would happen, but it’s beautiful how God works everything out! 
Damaris called me back and said I could stay with Monica – another woman from church who has a 15-year old daughter and another girl staying with her (Maria) who is my age!!  Praise God!  Living with them is such a blessing.  Monica is a wonderful woman and I really enjoy talking with her.  She is also an amazing cook so I hope to learn a few recipes while I am here. J Maria and I know each other from both short-term trips I took to Pamplona and she picked me up from the airport when I arrived last week!  She speaks fluent English and we have a lot in common.  God is GOOD.  J
The first few days flew by.  We met friends for dinner on Friday and then spent Saturday and Sunday at church.  For those who don’t know, the pastor I am working with (Pastor Dom) is married to a woman who is the daughter of a pastor in Pamplona/Spain (Pastor Felix).  One church he started is located in San Juan and Pastor Dom is a member.  They have a Young Persons Group (Grupo de Jovenes) and I enjoyed meeting new people this weekend.  Everyone is so friendly and welcoming!

Tonight we have English Club and I was thankful to learn that there are currently two people helping!  One is Hannah – a student from England who I met in October.  The other is Ellis – a student from South Carolina.  God provides.  I’ll let you know how it goes in my next update!
What God is teaching me..
The song that has been on my heart this entire trip is ‘Be Thou My Vision’.  It’s a beautiful hymn and a continued prayer of mine is to grow closer to God and become more reliant on his strength.
Transitioning to life here has been more difficult than I expected.  Speaking Spanish all day is a challenge.  It is one thing to use the Rosetta Stone or have a 3-hour dinner, but to be completely immersed in a Spanish speaking city is very different.  I was surprised at how quickly I became discouraged.  I started praying, ‘Lord, why did you bring me here?  How much good can I do when I struggle with having basic conversations let alone talking about you?’.
Thankfully, God is faithful!  I love how He gives us exactly what we need when we need it.  I’m currently going through a year-long message series by David Platt called, ‘A Chronicle of Redemption’.  The series walks through the entire Bible and shows how the Bible is one large story all pointing to Christ.  It’s really good!  If you’re interested, you can find it for free at www.radical.net.  (Resources à Sermons à Series à Start with ‘Prologue: Creation’)
Two messages I listened to before coming to Spain talked about the Fearful vs. the Faithful.  The examples were Joshua versus the giants in the Promised Land and David versus Goliath.  In both stories, the fearful made the giants look bigger than they really were. They were too afraid to move forward even though God promised victory.  The faithful (Joshua and David) knew that God is more powerful than anything on Earth and walked forward in faith. 
In a similar story, I’m finishing a book called ‘The Heart and the Fist’ by Eric Greitens.  It’s a story of a Rhodes Scholar who becomes a Navy Seal and Humanitarian.  One chapter is about Navy Seal training and Hell Week.  The first night (Monday) is the most brutal and before they get started, all of the men stand on the beach and watch the sun go down.  They don’t have to do anything else, just watch the sunset.  It’s at that moment that many men quit.  They had already been through a day of intense physical challenges and trained for months to be a Navy Seal.  Why do they quit?

“They quit, I believe, because they allowed their fear to overwhelm them.  As the sun went down, and the thoughts of what was to come grew stronger and stronger, they focused on all of the pain that they thought they might have to endure and how difficult it might be.” (Eric Greitens, P. 186)
It’s easy to become fearful and make the giant (Spanish) larger than it is.  The temptation is to quit, but thankfully, God is much bigger than our fears and we can trust him. 
The greatest lesson God has taught me so far is that He is all we need.  He is God.  He LOVES us.  He created everything and holds the world in His hands.  The battle is already won and if we trust Him and walk in faithful obedience, He will surely provide and we will see HIS glory.  It’s not about my strength or how well I speak Spanish.  God is in control and all we need to do is walk forward in faith.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

San Sebastian, Spain - October 2011
 
1 more week!!!! 1 more week and I’m back in Spain!! It’s a little surreal, but I am very excited.  I spoke with Pastor Dom last week and learned that La Roca now has electricity and water, construction is complete and the walls are painted!  He is waiting for the opening permit, but after that, we can open the doors.  We should be able to have the Grand Opening Ceremony shortly after I arrive!  Here are a few pictures of La Roca post-construction:

 
 
 
I am pretty much ready to go.  My Spanish is coming along.  I started learning three months ago and had a little scare on Sunday when I was asked ‘Como se llama?’ (How do you call yourself?/What is your name?) and responded with ‘Bien’ (Good).  J  Thankfully, I still have one more week!
 
I feel incredibly blessed and thankful to be a part of what the Lord is doing in Pamplona.   Here is what I am most looking forward to:

1.  Opening La Roca:  I cannot wait to see La Roca up and running.  I pray that Christ's love is seen in abundance in the ministry and the building. One thing I have learned over the past couple of years is the need for community.  We were not made to live alone and when we try, we often fall or get discouraged.  I hope that La Roca can be a place where a unified community forms and students are met with love and kindness the second they walk through the doors.

2.  Building relationships with women in Pamplona:  On both short-term mission trips to Pamplona, I loved meeting with students on campus.  It’s funny how an ocean separates us, yet we are really no different.  It will be wonderful to have three months instead of just one week to spend time with them!

3.  Encouraging Pastor Dom and team:  Pastor Dom has been in Spain for five years and I pray that I can encourage him and his team as they continue to build the ministry.

I'll update this blog each week with pictures and stories!!  Feel free to contact me with any questions or thoughts. 

Dios te bendiga!
Katie