We headed to Spain at the beginning of May for a bit of a refresher before crazy summer begins. Craig went with us to experience a bit of G42 life before heading back home to Winnipeg.
Our first stop was in the city of Rzhyshchiv (don't try to say that, ha ha) which is near Kiev. We have some missionary friends there who run a cafe among other things and we got to visit with them and get to know them, since we had only ever met Bruce and were now able to meet his wife Deb and seven of their eight children.
Steve attempting to make my latte at the cafe, with Bruce:
Not a quick learner, apparently....at least when it comes to lattes!
We spent the day with them, they put us up in their guest house overnight and arranged a ride to the airport for us at 4:30 the next morning. It was really cool to see their cafe and how unique it was and our wheels starting turning about how that would look in Zap.
The cheapest way to fly to Spain means that we have an overnight stay in Budapest. We were there in September and were excited to show Craig the coolest things in the city.
We arrived in Spain just in time for five full days of torrential rain. Even in our six months of living there we had never seen so much rain! And it was COLD! Very strange but it went away and then was sunny and hot for the remainder of our time.
We attended most of the classes with the current interns - Andrew was speaking the first week and we always love hearing him teach, there's always something new for us.
We stayed in one of the intern houses called Mijouse (me-house....because it's a house in Mijas....get it?) and we really loved getting to know the interns living there. There are seven women and two men in that house and they really spoiled us - the food they cooked was amazing and they were so fantastic about being available to visit with and the boys just fell in love with several of the girls. There was always someone to play with and always someone baking delicious treats for them! Plus there was tons of space for them to run around so that's always great for us.
On our first Friday evening there they had tapas....which is basically just a big potluck altogether.
Andrew and Craig sharing some deep thoughts:
Enjoying the variety of foods:
Andrew had just taught on covenant that week - about the different covenants God had with different people in the Bible and how God ALWAYS keeps his promises.....and here we are all gathered together for a feast and suddenly there's a massive rainbow spreading across the sky from the mountain to the sea - talk about amazing! We were so sure that it was there just for us!
We took a day trip to Gibraltar one day. We had been there briefly five years ago but we thought Craig should see it since it's only an hour and a bit away from Mijas. And we got to take him into another country, seeing as how it IS the United Kingdom.
We decided to take the gondola to the top of the rock to see among other things, the famous apes - and these signs were posted everywhere:
Ah yes. The monkeys.
The view was absolutely amazing. One side of the rock:
The other side - with more water than I've ever seen in every direction! Those are all ships:
Andrew (our mentor) and Mo (his wife) recently purchased a *new to them* house in Spain. They previously had a villa (condo-type place) and this house came up as kind of a God thing so they purchased it very shortly before we arrived.
They had a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time so they asked Steve and Craig if they could help move a few loads of stuff for them. We were really excited to see their new place and to spend an afternoon with them.
Steve teaching August to be the pool boy:
I guess Dez splashed Craig one too many times:
The G42 English school had a kids party one evening and our boys were invited. They played with Spanish kids, danced, had treats and got their faces painted (the Hulk and Batman).
Our friends Tara and Shanda live in Malaga so we spent a Saturday afternoon with them before having to drop Craig off at the airport. Another G42 alumni gal was there visiting for a few days near the end of our visit and it was awesome to catch up with her as well.
We had a late flight out of Malaga on our way back home and spent the night in the Budapest airport....sleeping on the floor in the deserted food court. I'm really happy my boys can sleep anywhere!! We arrived back in Kiev in the morning and killed a few hours waiting around in KFC before getting the "inter-city" train back to Zap. It's a "fast" train - taking 7 hours instead of the usual 10+ hours and it was new for the Football Euro Cup in 2012. It is quite new and lovely.
And empty apparently!!
We caught up on some much-needed sleep!
And enjoyed the Ukrainian countryside views.
The trip was awesome. We always feel so refreshed spiritually and mentally after being in classes and spending time with the teachers and interns, and that's really why we go. It really is like a second...third??? home for us and we truly appreciate that it is so close and easily accessible for us.
One of my favourite guest teachers was teaching the last couple of days that we were there and he really challenged us to take on the big dream we've been wrestling with - of starting our own center for teenagers. We've had this drop-in center idea for so long but since our time here began we were always so hesitant to start it - is it really what we want to do, do we have enough contacts, can we handle something of that scale, are we committed to staying here long enough to see this through....so many questions that Herman answered with another, much simpler question: "why not?" With God all things are possible! So we're now really praying about that aaaaaand wandering around the city looking at possible buildings....but that's a blog for another day!
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