Food and Jesus

I feel like all I write about is food but it really is awesome. Here's a picture of what I was talking about in the first post.

Crazy, huh? Kind of makes me want to just eat one like a drumstick, sans the fat, of course.

This one is of a traditional Andalucian breakfast food, I don't think it has a specific name. Bread (lightly toasted) with olive oil, a meat paste sort of thing, tomato sauce (like salsa but without chunks or anything else), and sea salt. It's sooooo good! The coffee is delicious - really strong.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about olives. I thought I hated olives, but it turns out that I was wrong and I love them. The Saboridos pick and preserve their own olives at home and, let me tell you, they are nothing like the olives we have in the states. I like food.

Yesterday we went into Sevilla, about 20 minutes away. Being in Europe is awesome because there are so many interesting old buildings, like the small castle by the highway on the way into Sevilla. While we were there we had an apparently massive electrical storm. Being from Kansas, I was not overly impressed, but it was still awesome to watch. We went to a couple of malls because the first couple days after Tres Reyes Magos are kind of like Black Friday here, lots of sales. I got a phone! Here they're called movìles. It took forever but I believe it will be worth it. One of the stores we went to was called Eroski. Polish? I would have possibly thought so but no, apparently it's Basque. They're an separatist group (and somehow an ethnic demographic I think) who like to set off a bomb every so often to get some point or other across. Here, rather than explain it here, allow me to let the good folk of wikipedia.org do a much better and exhaustive job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_people. All that to say, Spain is really diverse and interesting.

Jesus


We had church today. I really had no idea what to expect but I was interested to see how church is practiced here in Spain. I was really surprised to sing the song "Come, Now is the Time to Worship" in Spanish ("Ven"). We also sang a lot of praise and worship songs in Spanish with which I was unfamiliar but I understood really well. We ended up singing the chorus of "How Great Thou Art" in Spanish too. That, for me, was one of the most awesome moments I've experienced since I've been in Spain. I was singing in English and everyone else was singing in Spanish of course and I was impressed again with how absolutely amazing God is and what an incredible thing it is to be a part of the Church globally. Here we were singing in different languages, from different cultures and yet we were (and are) completely and intimately known by the object of our worship. I felt so connected to the whole church around the globe, like a family. It was really cool. (sometimes modern English frustrates me because it feels as if I'm missing around a hundred adjectives and am therefore unable to adequately express myself)

The songs we sang highlighted an interesting cultural difference for me. In Spanish there are 5 verb forms (6 in the Castellano we speak here) and one of them, the nosotros form, is like "we" in English. All the songs we sang were in this form. There's a much more corporate focus with the worship here, I feel. So many songs we sing in English are from the first person and, for me, when I sing them I many times feel like I'm just repeating someone else's sentiment and therefore the sincerity is diminished. Now I'm just saying this is my experience, I'm not trying to indict the American church. I just feel that there is a different focus here. I like it.

One more thing - I was just realizing that exactly one year ago today I was just finishing my first day in England. I had NO IDEA that on the corresponding day of the next year I would be sitting here in Spain. God is incredible and I cannot wait to see where I will be on January 9, 2012.

Well, that's all for now folks, it's almost 1:30AM here and I'm trying this new "get up at a reasonable hour before 11 AM" thing. Thanks for reading!