Muxia for the holidays

On what might become a new family tradition, we took a day trip on the day before Christmas eve (December 23rd). We drove an hour and a half to Muxia. It is one of the final destinations of the Camino de Santiago (Fisterre being the other, or Finisterre in Castellano). The weather was spectacular - bright, clear, sunny skies with warm sun and warmer temperatures than we had been having recently (around 60 Farenheit). We all had a great time, and Faith and I took more than 240 pictures. I don't know why she keeps bringing up the idea that we should each get our own camera. Be assured, I culled that down to about 120 in my library, and I posted 60 of them on Facebook and on Picasa. If you click on the slideshow above you can go to the Picasa website to see bigger pictures with comments.

What is Christmas without football?

One of the many things I miss about the holidays while living abroad is the after-meal football game on TV. I can live without it quite easily, but it was funny to find football mixed in with some Christmas sentimentality in a couple of articles. It'll have to do : -) I do like having some tangible examples of the love of Jesus impacting today's world at Christmas time.

ESPN had a column from Rick Reilly the other day that highlighted a really nice event at a high school football game. I won't waste my poor writing skills to retell the story - you can read it here. It just struck me as a really good example of some Christians choosing to do something with their actions to share the love of Jesus with some kids who really need to hear it. And sharing Jesus' love in the context of a football game speaks a language our culture gets. It really struck me as a great witness.

I'm not normally one to get too excited every time a Christian gets a good write-up in the press. I used to get too tied up in how Christians get presented in the media. However, I guess Christmas is the time that ESPN can write articles about Christians.

They also have a nice article on the front page today about Kurt Warner. It seems most people know already about Kurt's open faith, so on that front there is not much new in this article. It remains however a nice portrait of a man who does seem to live what he preaches. Merry Christmas everyone!

Mi Familia

Kathryn brought home an art project from school last week. She kept putting her right hand over the her hand-print before flashing a great-big proud smile. (Faith later drew faces on the end of each finger for each member of our family and the project went back to school)

The birth of a movement?

Our family spent 5 nights in Amsterdam more than a week ago so that Faith and I could attend a Backpacker Ministry Forum.  The Shelter City youth hostel hosted 30-35 adults who are involved in or interested in ministry among backpackers.  

This general term 'backpackers' includes young adults (think early to mid 20's) who travel Europe (at the rest of the globe) for months at a time on a budget, with their belongings collected in one backpack.  It also includes pilgrims, much like those who walk the Camino de Santiago, as well as a global 'hippie' population that still travels and gathers in places like India.  

It is not an easily defined group, but the common thread they all share is a unique window in life as they are traveling and looking for something beyond themselves and their own experience.  They are 'seekers' in a very true, but broad sense.  For all of the people gathered at this forum, we believe that God is calling us to reach out to these wanderers with his love at a time when they are very open talking and thinking deeply.  

It was both exciting and refreshing to be around a group of people with similar dreams, callings, and visions.  We were able to share experiences, thoughts, successes and difficulties with each other.  And perhaps most importantly, as we dialogued over the week, a broader collective vision of a global movement to reach out to backpackers emerged.  Each individual, and each individual organization represented, had one specific location or sub-culture they felt called to.  When we put our callings together you could begin to see how God is moving around the globe to reach this community.  

This was especially neat for a couple of reasons.  First of all, many of us often feel at best unique, and at worst, alone in our ministries.  Most of us have pursued our visions in small groups or individually.  It's really great to share this road with others.  Second of all, it is abundantly clear that God is leading this, as pretty much each individual or group has, up to now at least, not been connected.  It is not something that has grown out of a well-planned or well-run organization, nor even a clear motivating vision cast by a charismatic leader.  Rather, this is coming out of a collection of previously unrelated hearts following the Lord's leading individually. 

It's not accurate to consider this a birth of any movement for many reasons.  First of all, ministries like the Shelter youth hostels in Amsterdam and Youth Hostel Ministry out of Wheaton College have been doing ministry among backpackers for around 40 years already.  Second of all, there have already been a few forums like this one held in Australia in years past.  But regardless of the history, it is clear that more and more people and groups are becoming interested in reaching this global population.  I am excited to see how these different parts grow, connect, and work together over the coming years.  And more importantly, I'm excited to see how God works in these traveling sub-cultures. 

Picture of the Day

Castillo Santa Cruz at dusk.  Taken yesterday on a family walk not 10 minutes drive from home.

This may be true all over the globe and I'm just noticing it more here, but I love the way that light 'plays.'  It seems like the light here is always changing and reflecting in a thousand different ways.  I really like how this picture captured the light of that moment. 

Welcome to the Family

The sad truth is there are many things in our life that almost demand to be blogged about.  The even sadder truth is I have little time to capture many of them during some of the crazier times of life.  Within the last two weeks we visited Amsterdam, enjoyed a visit from some pilgrim friends, took yet another test in our Spanish class, and purchased a new car.  Today, I choose to blog about the car.  Stay tuned for details on the rest (or - if you can't wait, check out Faith's blog).  

I had hoped to get a goodbye picture and post a fitting obit for our first car here in Spain.  There was never a good time or place to get a picture of the poor old broken-down car.  It died for the last time almost a month ago on us.  In the end I think it's more fitting to post the picture above from happier times.  It was taken during our first week in Spain - we were learning how to drive stick, we had yet to put any of our numerous dings and scratches into it, its engine had not yet begun to decompose, and it was still under 300,000 kilometers.  I won't miss how it became unreliable, but I will miss how comfortable it had become to us.  It truly became 'ours' in the short time we had it, and I do miss it a little.  I will always have a soft spot in my memory for it.  

Having said that, we are definitely ready to move on to the next - and expectedly more reliable - chapter in our automobiling life.  We were excited to finally bring our new car home tonight, a mere two weeks after we signed the papers to buy it.  It is a 2008 Toyota Corolla Verso.  You can't tell by the picture below, but it actually has 7 seats inside.  It's not a sedan, but it's not quite a minivan.  Either way, we are glad to have a vehicle with the flexibility to add in a few extra passengers when needed. 

Faith and I are considering naming it Zwarte Piet - after the culturally awkward and uncomfortable Christmas helper of Sinterklaas in Holland.  Zwarte is the Dutch word for black, and you might guess how to translate Sinterklaas.  In Holland, Santa's helpers aren't little green elves, rather, he/they are black guys named Pete.  Only, in their holiday tradition, white folks put on black face paint and dress up in a manner that, at least where I come from, is so offensive that you might describe it as beyond offensive.  Yet somehow, being the Dutch, and being in Holland, it brings a smile to my face.  Does that make me a bad person?

Last week our family took a walk through central Amsterdam on the day that happened to be the day that Santa comes to Amsterdam.  There is a parade and everything.  I only saw one Sinterklaas, but downtown was swarming with Zwarte Petes.  Faith caught this Zwarte Pete on film as he was handing out candy and cookies to all the kids. 

My Election Day (after) post

Months of agonizing over my vote, a historic election, global hysteria, and this is all I can come up with? 

Yup. 

Saw this online yesterday and it cracked me up.  Still does.  

Spain is hard, yet God is still at work here.

A new friend pointed brought this article about missions in Spain from Christianity Today to my attention. The only word I can think of to describe it is sobering. The article is a little dated in that it is from 2003, but the sentiment expressed is not new to missions in Spain, nor is there any hint of change at the moment. Almost all evangelical/protestant church growth in Spain right now is directly through immigrants. The reasons for this is complex and many-sided. But the reality remains that the vast majority of people here are living in a spiritual poverty.

On a more positive side - I'd like to leave you with an excerpt from a recent e-mail from this new friend. Faith blogged about Craig Wallace recently. He is a South African missionary living some hours south of us on a branch of the Camino, and he has a heart for pilgrims as well. He has plans to create a campsite/albergue for the peregrinos where he lives. When we met him a week ago, he had just completed one of his trips on the Camino where he seeks to share Christ with pilgrims.

After he returned home he sent out an e-mail that included these four short paragraphs telling of some of the pilgrims he met and the nature of their conversations. I thought it would be valuable to share these stories to highlight the interest, need, and hunger that some pilgrims on the Camino have for "something more."

"On the first day out I met a Belgiam called Jan and spent three to four hours sharing the gospel with him.After growing up in a communistic atheistic family, and dedicating many years to communism, he is now disillusioned and was most surprised to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.Many trips behind the iron curtain left him with a sad despair and he lost his faith in humanity.I put the Bible into his hands and showed him the gospel of John before I knew his name , and he wanted to know what the name John meant.Jehovah is gracious , I told him, so he wanted to know what grace is.Jan, or John the Belgian, was crying as I left him having heard about the grace of God for the first time in his life.

That night I met in the refugio a Chinese girl and a British woman, Lin and Christine.Lin is a research scientist in behavioral genetics at Oxford university and a lively discussion ensued. Her grandfather was one of the leaders of the Three Self Church in China , and this heritage caused her to ask me about Christ and his message.Chrsitine , a British Anglican , insisted that she was a Christian but does not believe in the resurrection….so I took out my Bible and showed them the scriptures.Seed was sown in their hearts.

Coming into Puebla Sanabria I met Keren, an American woman on a cycle who I continued to travel with for the next few days. Keren progressed from being suspicious to opening up her heart to my answers to deeply probing questions concerning the christian faith.We will continue to correspond through email.

Antonio from Seville, who grew up in Germany, a marathon runner who had been walking an average of 40 kms a day for a thousand kilometers, was challenged in our sharing and vowed to begin reading the Bible to strengthen the faith which he has come into through a series of life circumstances.I will be sending him literature."

The Oxford Project

"In the Storytelling tradition of Studs Terkel and the photographic spirit of Mike Disfarmer, The Oxford Project tells the extraordinary true tale of a seemingly ordinary Midwestern town through the pictures and words of its residents. Equal parts art, American history, cultural anthropology, and human narrative - The Oxford Project is at once personal and universal, surprising and predictable, simple and profound.

The Project began almost twenty-five years ago, when Peter Feldstein undertook the remarkable task of photographing nearly every resident of this town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 676). The collection of photographs that resulted is a fascinating glimpse into the ethos and character of small-town life. In those stark, full-body images Feldstein managed to capture not only the visage of rural America, but a sense of its underlying spirit."

- from the opening pages of The Oxford Project

I discovered the website for this interesting book/project via another blog. The book is more than 250 pages long, but on the website you can view quite a few of the photographs and stories of the townspeople. What I was able to read and see online was fascinating and gripping in it's own way.

I never actually grew up in a small midwestern town, but have family in rural northwestern Illinois. It definitely reminded me how different the world can seem in different places. Even though I lived in Chicago for 10 years, and now live abroad, part of who I am can be traced to small town and rural Illinois. It also reminded me of how precious small town life can be, when often it's overlooked as so common and uninteresting. I'm convinced that much of America has lost it's connection with our rural roots. And to me there is some mist of sadness about this loss as we become a more urban and global society. Something like this helps shine the light on the unique and valuable way of life that continues unnoticed in many small towns like this.

Update: I discovered this short 3-minute video on youtube about the project. Enjoy!

As an added side note, I am also currently reading the book Gilead, which is also set in a small rural town in Iowa. It's funny how these two things found their way into my life from so seemingly far away. I guess there's nothing like a little nostalgia to offset the difficulty of learning Spanish!!

Don't go!

At least that is what it seems like Kathryn is saying to Po Po. Faith's mom has been with us for nearly two weeks, and we all are a little sad to see her go already. Her visit did not go as we thought it would, with four of us getting sick while she was here. But it was refreshing to have her help during the week sickness ravaged our house, and to enjoy some of her home-cooked Chinese food.