If you look over to the right of this page, you'll see that I went almost 5 years without blogging! In those five years so many things happened. And though I plan on blogging about many of the experiences through which I lived, I thought I would start off simply with one of the biggest obvious changes.....a move! I knew about 2 years ago that my time in Granada was coming to an end. What I didn't know was what that would look like. Was it time to go back to the USA? Was my time as a cross-cultural worker coming to a close? Or did I simply need to change locations in Spain? Truth be told, I was ready to accept either one. But after much prayer and consideration, I just didn't have peace that I should go back to the States yet. I began to look for other areas of Spain that had fewer churches, and a couple of regions stuck out. One of those areas was Galicia, and autonomous community in northwestern Spain, just north of Portugal. At the end of 2019 my teammate, Gabriela, decided to join me in the new work, and so we took an exploratory trip at the end of January/beginning of February 2020. You can see more details of that trip HERE. Although we felt that the Lord would be glorified wherever we chose to settle, at the end of that trip we felt confident saying "yes" to Ordes, a city right in the middle between La Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. After the trip I began looking for apartments, ready to move in early April. Mid-March came along and........Covid.
For me, the 2020 confinement was such a blessing. Not just because I absolutely needed physical rest, but because it provided the retreat that I needed spiritually and changes that needed to be made in my life. Some of my future posts will probably reflect on some of those changes. I moved to Ordes in at the end of August 2020, shortly before Covid restrictions started up again. At the time of this writing I have been here for exactly six months and I give thanks to God on a near daily basis for this move. Not only are we seeing God's hand move in some individual's lives and enjoying the friendliness of the people of Ordes, but Galicia is just plain beautiful. It is a welcomed change from the hot, arid, brown countryside of southern Spain. Although southern Spain has its own beauty (I'm talking to you, Mediterranean Sea & Sierra Nevada Mountains!), it does my heart good to be surrounded by so much green here in northern Spain! I'll just end this post with a few photos so that you can see the beauty of the region and praise God with me for his beautiful creation as well as his guidance & provision for this most life-giving move!
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As I look back over the last few posts in this blog, I realize that a whole season of life has passed since I last wrote. As a matter of fact, a couple of seasons have passed. Very hard seasons. Necessary seasons.
Last year I started to want to write again. Not really for anyone's benefit, because I don't know who will read this. I suppose it's mostly for me to be able get some long standing thoughts and experiences out of my head. "That's what diaries are for", you might argue. I agree. Maybe I should just keep these things to myself. It's not like I'm a real blogger, or a professional in my field, or even someone to whom people should pay attention. I guess it's just faster for me to type than to write, it's easier to add pictures/links to a blog than to a journal, and maybe someone might stumble upon something that would point them to Jesus. And a journal is for the stuff you wouldn't write here anyway, right? Last year I migrated the blog over here to Weebly because it's free and I could no longer justify paying so much for a website that I wasn't using. It's basic but easy to use and so here we are. Welcome to the new site! You probably don't even remember the old one. I don't either. The last five years have been filled with heartache, anxiety, depression, anger, pain, sadness, betrayal, pride, and hopelessness. And this isn't even including any of the Covid-19 business! The last 5 years have also had its share of joy, healing, freedom, growth, and hope - and this is only because of Jesus. Emotionally speaking, these years were more stressful than any of my kidney transplants. I'm not surprised my hair is thinning and has more grey! So I guess this is an introduction to the new season of The Reign in Spain. Thanks for visiting! |
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