Day Eight

Hola! Today will be the final blog post of this trip. Something funny that happened was when I originally sat down to write this, Elizabeth appeared behind me and had just arrived at the hostel! So I hung out with her for about 5 minutes and took her down to everyone else. More good news is that Michaela is here, at the hostel! I have not seen her yet because she is still sleeping but I am thankful that we will get to hang out with her before we have to leave. So now for the update from yesterday (Friday).

We started off our morning like we always do and then my group ended up going to a different location today, Parc Guell. We hung out in the parc for awhile and there were just so many people it was hard to try and start any conversations so we ended up leaving after about an hour and decided that we would go to the location where we were all going to hang out that night and talk to people there. Jason had said that we would go to mass sometime while we were here because I had never been to one but that did not really work out. BUT he did let us stop into this massive Catholic cathedral on the way to our location. I walked through the chapel and then I ended up making my way into a shop...I was very stunned that they would be selling things in a church. We then went into the sanctuary and I was walking with Gina and I sat down with her to talk to a couple of nuns. As odd as it sounds this was actually an answered prayer, I have always wanted to sit down and speak with nuns about what they believe.

The entire conversation was in Spanish so I was bascially just trying to listen intently to figure out what they were saying. At the same time we were talking to the nuns there was a woman there that Jason was trying to talk to...he had shown her one verse that he said changed his life and as soon as she was done reading it she came over to Gina and I and intercepted our conversation. It was probably the worst time ever because from the passages that Gina had shown the nuns they had come to the agreement that it was by accepting the gift of Christ rather than good works that you go to heaven and then the woman came into our conversation. :( I struggled a lot to understand what this woman was saying but one sentence that I understood clearly was when she said that the Bible is a good book BUT we are not suppose to follow all of it. She also said that Jason was too obsessed with the Bible...I thought that was kind of funny :)

After our time at the church we went to the location where we had invited people to hang out that night and Heather had a great conversation with a man who was not sure he was saved and by the end of their conversation Heather was able to show him through the Bible (Romans 10:9-10, etc) that in fact he was saved and he could be sure that he was going to heaven. He was so thankful that Heather had stopped to talk to him. Becky and Dayna also had a good conversation with a girl who was a believer and they were able to give her a Bible before she had to leave. Our service started at 6 and lots of people showed up that we invited and many just joined us to see what was going on. There was many good conversations going on during the night and our groups did not start leaving until around 9 or 10. After, our group went to dinner with Sergi, and because it was so late we had to walk quite a ways to find a metro that would take us back to the hostel. It was funny because we ended up going to Carrer de Balmes, the street that I was suppose to live on orginially when I was going to study abroad in Spain. We got back around one and I was much too tired to update...I made sure Micheala was in our hostel and then I went to bed. I am now off to pack before heading off for our final day in Barcelona. I will see many of you soon!! Adios!

Day Six

Hi friends, today was good...kind of. We had our friends from the Madrid church arrive today to help us go sharing and translate for us. We were blessed to have Gina come with our group. She was able to help us right away starting from the train ride to our destination. She was able to help Jason share with some boys from Venezuela. We arrived at the Universitat again and I went with Gina and Nick sharing. It was interesting how so far during this trip I have been blessed with approaching people that can speak enough English and I can speak enough Spanish to communicate the Gospel but today we just kept running into people that knew very little English. Gina did a very good job trying to help us communicate and when we found ourselves in a rut she was very good about taking over and going through the whole Gospel and then handing them tracts to end our conversations. Even with Gina though the morning was still a bit discouraging. So far on this trip I have yet to have a conversation with someone who is soft and who really desires to know more about what we are saying.

The encouraging part of the day was when we went back to Iftikar's place for lunch. Iftikar is originally from Pakistan and I will stand by the fact that I believe Bollywood is an international language! When his employee was making my food I asked him if he was a fan of Shahrukh Khan and when I told him that I loved Shahrukh he told his employee that I should get extra meat in my wrap because I am a Bollywood fan. I think the fact that I was able to bond with him over Bollywood was why Jason later asked me if I would go with him and Gina to go talk with Iftikar again about the Gospel. He is Muslim and he spoke with Gina the majority of the time because he speaks Spanish much more fluently than he speaks English but from what I understood the conversation they went back and forth a lot between "this is what the Bible says" and "this is what the Koran says." After the conversation died down and Gina and Jason had moved on to sharing and talking with his girlfriend and employees, I started talking with him more about Bollywood. It was very touching because he took out his CD case and found a soundtrack to multiple Shahrkuh Khan movies and he gave it to me as a gift. I was very thankful that he was willing to give it to me. He had an employee that was from Nepal and he kept asking me to list the Bollywood movies I had seen and at one point he asked me to start singing the songs that I remembered. It was amazing how bonding Bollywood can be. Iftikar and his employees all asked me for my e-mail and it was also very touching because Iftikar said that if Shahrukh Khan ever comes back to Barcelona (HE WAS THERE IN JANUARY THIS YEAR!!) then he would get an autograph and a picture for me and send it to me.

After lunch we went out sharing again for a couple more hours. We had two longer conversations with a couple groups of girls. One couple we approached in the park was in the middle of either breaking up or the guy was trying to tell the girl he was with that he liked her and so we felt pretty embarrassed about interrupting them but luckily we were able to leave them with tracts. I think as Christians though we would agree the Gospel and eternity was much more important than whatever conversation they were having :) Our day was cut short a bit because Jason, Dayna, and Heather went to meet and have dinner with Sergi again and we came right back to the hostel.

Dia Cinco

Day Five down...this means only three days left. I felt very off this morning, and did not feel like I was very right with God this morning. We headed out a bit later today than we normally do and when we got to the parque today I went out sharing with Randi and I just felt like I was believing so many lies from the devil this morning and I was extremely afraid of approaching people. Randi and I finally sat down and just started praying for boldness and wisdom. After we were done praying a couple of girls had come and sat down in the park near our bench and we took it as a good opportunity to approach them. They both didnt believe in God and they believed in Science but they did not reject the possibility that God existed. They were willing to let us share with them and we were able to go through the whole Gospel with them but they still felt that they very much were sure in Science and did not think you could be both a Christian and do science. In order to get them to look into Christianity further we gave them booklets that presented the tough questions about evolution vs. creationism and I wrote my email address on them and just asked that they look through what we gave them and emailed me their thoughts about what we had in the booklets since they are both in the university studying biology. Pray that they would read the material and get in contact with us again, pray that God would lead them to truth as they look into the information that we gave them.

I was still feeling very off with God and I was just being very hard towards the idea of approaching people, especially after we ended up approaching a couple of French girls that spoke absolutely no spanish or english and had to cover it up by asking them to take a picture of us. Randi and I just decided to sit down and read our Bibles for awhile and try to get on track with God before we shared with anymore people. It was pretty crazy because throughout the day I was reading my Bible and I would share with Randi what I was reading (this happened about three or four times) and it turned out that Randi had read EXACTLY the same passage either that morning or in one instance I read to her the verse that she was owning for our mission trip...it was just very encouraging to read and talk with Randi and the Word.

We had lunch and chilled for a little bit before we met Sergi and Raoul for coffee. I did not really know either of them so it was a good time for me to just sit and continue to read my Bible. During coffee Jason had an opportunity to really build into Raoul who he shared with last year and it gave everyone else an opportunity to talk to and encourage Sergi. After coffee we met up with German who we had met the night before at the service and we arranged to meet with him for dinner tonight. He took us to a Chinese restaurant with REAL chinese food which made Becky extremely happy. In all honesty, German ordered SO much food that we had to head back to the hostel by the time we were done eating and did not have an opportunity to really get into the Gospel but he was happy to take tracts from us as we departed. As we were moving through the metro station there were just dozens of homeless people sleeping on cardboard boxes during the night...please be praying for the poverty that exists here in Barcelona.

The last highlight of our night is that as we were on the last train ride home, Randi and I had yet to work up the courage to start a converastion with the two women sitting across from us but God works in mysterious (AND REALLY ODD) ways. We overheard Becky telling Nick, Heather, and Dayna about an absolutely awful and disgusting Chinese dish, that I refuse to tell anyone else about, and it was seriously so horrific that the two women sitting across from us turned and were listening to her and it was through her story that we figured out that both of them could speak English. They were not related, one was an older woman and the other was a young half German, half Spanish girl. We told them about why were in Barcelona and we discovered that neither of them believed in God. Dayna started asking the German girl some very tough questions and while the older woman did not seem to be listening, she did put away her book as Dayna was talking so hopefully the Lord was drawing her in. We had to get off the train but we at least were given the opporunity to get them thinking about life. They both was happy to accept tracks from us and this conversation concluded our night. Be praying that in our last days we are really able to give our all to spreading the Gospel here in Barcelona and that we would continue to be focused on what is really important in this life, which is God. Buenas Noches!

Dia Tres

Greetings from Espana...today was a much better day than yesterday because God is faithful in reminding me that NOTHING about my life is actually about me and especially when it comes to sharing the Gospel it is not about me and all about GOD! I started off today pretty discouraged still and just believing a lot of lies from the last few days. My mother and Leah Wake left some very encouraging messages that really helped me be re-energized in Christ.

God really started showing us his faithfulness when we were on the train heading to our location. I feel that he really set up some divine appointments for us. Dayna had noticed a boy reading a music book on the train and she was thinking of approaching him when Jason decided to get off of the train a few stops earlier than we usually get off...but of course God was working and the boy ended up getting off the same time as us and Dayna approached him. He did not speak any English and Jason was able to communicate with him in Spanish. I felt very blessed by God that I was able to understand their conversation well enough to translate it to my fellow group members. I believe that we had a second divine appointment when we got back on the metro and ended up missing our final stop because we were speaking with a group of men from Israel. We were blessed that everyone was receptive to taking tracts and invitations to our service tomorrow so please pray that they come tomorrow.

We split off into groups again when we got to the Universitat (Jason, Me, Becky and Randi, Dayna, Noodles). My group went to the parque again and Jason spoke with a few groups of people in Spanish before we met up to eat lunch. We went back to the same place we ate on Saturday so that Jason could talk to the owner about the tracts that he had left with him the last time we ate there. While Jason was talking with him we were left in the dining area and I feel that this time was such a blessing. It gave Dayna and I an opportunity to just talk about God and Jesus. We got an opportunity to just talk about our struggles being here in Barcelona and also talk about things going on back home. It was just extremely refreshing to have a heartfelt conversation about Christ with another believer since being here. It was extremely encouraging and exactly what both of us needed to get pumped up about what God is doing here through our groups.

We spent a few more hours sharing, this time my group went to the universitat and Jason had a conversation with some more groups. I had spoke with Steph on the phone last night and she threatened that if I did not be bold and approach someone on my own then she would message Jason and tell him to make me approach people. Well, Steph did not have to message Jason because he went ahead and made me approach someone with Becky. It was good, something that I had been taking for granted is that God has been faithful in providing me with people who speak enough English and I know enough Spanish that we can get the Gospel communicated, I have yet to run into someone who speaks no English that I, alone, have had to share with unlike some of the other people on the trip, so I thank God for this blessing.

Coming back to hostel tonight for dinner was good as well because it gave all of us an opportunity to sit down as a group and just talk about what God has been teaching us in the last couple of days. Today really helped our group become more unified. Please pray that our conversations today really got people thinking and that people would come to the service we are having tomorrow night. God is good!

Philippians 4:13 "For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength!" NIV

Day Dos

Hola Amigos! So I have decided that if I would have studied abroad in Spain I would have lung cancer by the time I came back...or I would just be extremely sick until I got used to all of the smoke. I always knew from previous trips to Europe that so many people smoke but I woke up sick today and I am very positive that I can blame all of the smoke that I inhailed yesterday.

Today was extremely difficult and I am really going to need to gather strength from the Lord to bounce back by tomorrow. I thought that how I would grow closer to God on this trip would be through the encouragement I got from talking with people but it is definitely coming from the discouragement I feel when conversations do not go well. Today Noodles and I had longer conversations with about 7 people today. The first was with a woman who we had about an hour long conversation with but then she had to go to a meeting. The next conversation we had was with a couple from the Netherlands who spoke English...yay!!! This was probably the best conversation we had all day because it turns out that they are Christians and it was very nice to speak with them about why we come to Europe and share with people. Our next conversation was with a group of younger people...a boy from Sweden, a girl from Peru, and another girl from Holland. We talked to them and none of them believed in God but the girls had been thinking a lot about what happens after death recently. They seemed like they were understanding what we were telling them about God and about Christ because were being receptive but in the end the conversation didnt really go anywhere which was a bit discouraging. It is hard to articulate to people that they need Christ to go to heaven, I shared with them part of my testimony which is my witness to Christ and in the end I simply challenged them to seek Truth in their lives. I have really grown a heart for everyone I meet here which makes it even harder to have to walk away without seeing fruit in their lives as a result of their conversation. A lot of the conversations today reminded me of Kendra, whenever she asks me if I had the cure to her cancer how much would I have to hate her not to give it her? I do not hate anyone I come across and I try to show them Christs love in the short time we are talking in hopes that they will be saved but I just need to have faith that God will use the seeds that we are planting in these people even if we are not seeing the fruit. Many of our other conversations we had for the rest of the day were similar. People kept telling me how Godless of a city Barcelona is and I am really starting to experience it...I would have come back completely bruised a broken if I would have studied abroad here. One of the last things we did today was pass our tracts at the FC Barcelona futbol game this evening and also went to La Rambla. Please continue to pray that the people in Barcelona have soft hearts as approach them and speak with them. Pray that we are able to show them the Truth in the Bible.

P.S. Today is Randis BIRTHDAY!!! We got to sing happy birthday to her after worship this morning and all day we were talking about how old she is now :) Luckily because it is her birthday we got to get Gelato before heading back to the hostel.

El Primero Dia

Hola! Today was our first day sharing the Gospel with las personas in Espana. I first want to mention that I have only 3.5 years of high school Spanish under my belt which made me the second best Spanish speaker on our team...I never thought that I would have to serve as a translator for other people in my group. It is pretty crazy how well my Spanish is coming back to me the more I speak it.

We did not end up leaving our hostel until around 1pm today because we waited for Heather Guck to get here from Iraq. She got here safely, she was tired but she prayed a lot to God to help her get through the rest of the day. Unfortunately Cole, Trisha, Kendall, and Dayne missed their flight in Detroit and then had to catch another flight to Paris but then someones ticket didnt register and so they were delayed again. The crazy part was we were in the Metro ready to get on the last train to our hostel and we ran into them and got to ride to the hostel with them! Their bags did not make it though (and Randi and Beckys bags still have yet to arrive) so please keep all of them in your prayers and pray that their bags get here soon...we are running out of clothes! :)

OK so for Day One of sharing, we went to the Universitat de Barcelona and then we first went to eat at a restaurant that Heather and Jason like. It was really cool because the owner remembered them from the last three years they have come to Barcelona. Jason got to talk to him again and started sharing with them and he gave the owner (who was from Pakistan) and gave him a tract. The cool part is that because he is from Pakistan is referenced the recent Bollywood movie My Name is Khan (anyone who knows me would realize how exciting that is to me!). After lunch we split into two groups (Randi, Becky, Jason and Noodles, Me, Heather), Heather and I tagged teamed to talk to a lot of people. We ended up having some really good conversations. The first woman we approached did not have time to talk but she did take a tract. The second girl that was spoke to was Lara. Leading up to this trip I have been praying a lot about God helping me to show these people Christian love during the little amount of time we would be spending together and the down side to this is that the Lord really gave me a heart for this girl but I did not get any of her information past her first name. She has my information (Spain phone and facebook) so pray that we are able to connect again because this girl was so wonderful and because she did not know too much English all we could do was lead her through passages in the Bible. Pray that the Lord will really grow fruit from the seed that we planted...(haha she even told us that her grandmother lights a candle for her to come to know Christ).

The second good conversation we had was in English!! We ran into a woman from Israel who wanted to talk to us but said right away that she was not a Christian and really was not Jewish like her father. She understood a lot of what we were saying and she seemed to really take to heart our Truth so pray that God is really working in her life...she took quite a bit of information from us but she still seemed unsure of what she really deemed a truth. It really seemed like God led her too us because this is the last day she would be in Barcelona. AND it was great because she gave Heather all of her contact information and Heather, who told her that she wanted to go to Isreal soon, said that when Heather came she would take her to Jerusalem if she made it to Barcelona. This conversation was really good for me...really listening to Heather talk about her personal testimony with Christ really helped me just realize once again (to the point where I was crying) how amazing Christ is and how undeserving is gift is to us sinners.

Those were the two main converstaions we could fit in during the short amount of time we had today. Randi, Becky, Jason, and Noodles also had really good conversations today and Randi and Becky were able to find people that knew English to share with and they evened talked her this girl a lot about Creationism. Pray that some of these people come to the service we are holding on Tuesday. On our way back to the hostel we ran into Colins group at a grocery store on La Rambla...small world! Last really great story of the day. Jason and the rest of the groupo were on the Metro and a group of older people were sitting down and saw that he was holding tracts. They actually asked him to give them tracts (I just want to mention these were 4 random people who did not know each and were asking him for these tracts). He gave them each a tract and he started to speak to them in Spanish, he didnt get to in depth with them because our stop was coming up and we found out after we got off that each of them turned out to be Christian...some Evangelical. Best part of this story is that after we were off the train we looked back and one of the women was blowing besos (kisses) to Jason through the window and we would turn back to look at Jason who was pretending to catch them...it was soo funny!!!

That is the update for today...pray that God continues to work through us and keeps us safe for the next week. Love In Christ, Lisa

Arrived in Barcelona

Turns out I will be able to update my blog everyday because there is internet access at the hostel I am staying at. It was pretty surreal to actually step off the plane in Barcelona...FINALLY!!! I started crying when I got on the plane to Paris, but God is good and I am finally here. I shall update more tomorrow after our first day out sharing.