Mission, Spain: 5 Days Away

Posted by Liana at 3:35 PM

For months now, a group of 13 of us have been meeting every week, to prepare for our trip/mission to Spain next week.

Spain holds a special place in my heart for reasons unknown to me.... what I do know is that I love the culture, the food (after hating it of course!), the people, and the diverse beauty of the landscapes and cityscapes.



In 2001, I lived in Valencia, Spain for a summer studying business half of each week and traveling the rest. We went to Madrid, Toledo, Ibiza, Barcelona, and other small cities closer to Valencia. After I thought I'd had a taste of Spain, a few of us ventured off to Paris for a week and Dublin, Ireland for another week. That's before the Euro was in place and the dollar still had tremendous value over there.

Every night, we enjoyed dinner at 9 or 10pm and sat outdoors for hours until the wee hours of the night. Some nights, we'd walk the mile from where we lived to the beach and danced the night away, learning new native dances with fancy footwork from my friend Imane from Casa Blanca, Morocco. We arrived home just in time for breakfast in the cafeteria at 5am. Siestas every day were normal - the shades in the room blocked out the light completely and the beds were hard as a rock, but we didn't care. Life was slower in Spain... people cared most about spending time with other people.

That was a long time ago and I expect much has changed....

Now we're embarking on a mission to go over and support our new friends in Seville, Spain. They started a church there under a tree in a park ... it's one of the only Christian churches in Spain and one of the largest now too with just about fifty members. This will be my second mission trip in just as many years. This one is so different though because we won't be putting on a conference or building anything. It's taken a LOT of time, prayer, and support preparing for it and we are all SOOOO excited for our departure on Tuesday and some events we have planned this weekend.

Here is a pic of all of us up in Rome, GA a few weekends ago -- we had a pretty interesting team-building retreat up there and they even got me up on the tightropes 30 feet in the air - yikes (yep, I'm scared of heights).



I leave with a weight off my back as I've had ample time to get "caught up" per-say these past few weeks. Thousands of emails and tasks down to a final few that I'll have time for this weekend. Sara is here and will be taking care of everything while I am away of course. Thank you to everyone who is involved in supporting this movement in all the ways that you are!!