Hello to you, whoever you may be.
It's been a while since I've updated, but more than that, it's been a long time since I've spoken to a lot of my friends at home. I've been seeing lots of blog updates by people on facebook, so I thought this would be the best way to share with everyone what has been going on over here in Spain :)
If you're not in the loop, I've been living in Spain for a little over a year now. I'm working as a teaching assistant in a bilingual school in the Communidad de Madrid. My school is actually located outside of the city but I live in the city and commute to work, an hour by bus each morning. You may think that's a crazy amount of time, but I'm used to it and I enjoy sleeping on the ride home, or reading a book.
I really enjoy my school and the people that I work with, I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to be a teacher though. I studied Journalism and would like to have a job in the future that is in this feild. I like kids and I do learn a lot everday, but I'm not passionate about teaching. I think I might enjoy teaching more if I were the actual teacher of my own class. Some of the little kids at school will not listen to me when the teacher is gone, because they view me as an assistant and because I'm only allowed to speak English to them. But anyhow, I am thankful for all the teacher's out there. It's a hard job, and you've got a big responsibility!
I love my living situation in Spain. I am living in the room where my boyfriend lived last year. He rented a room in an apartment owned by the nicest Peruvian lady. He also had another teaching assistant flatmate who was American. Both of them moved out after the year of teaching, and I took the opportunity to ask before I went home last summer if the room might be available when I returned. It turns out that it was :) I live with Milagros (my Peruvian landlady) and a guy named Tomeo who is from Mallorca. It's a nice quaint piso with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. I love living with Spanish people because it gives me the chance to practice a lot. I've learned a lot from Milagros. She's really great to talk to and she always helps me to understand things, or find the word that I'm trying to say but can't remember.
Speaking of my boyfriend, he's currently in England. We met last year working together. He was the other assistant at my school and he's from Grimsby, England. This year has been a little tricky with living in 2 different countries, but we've been able to visit each other lots and have lots of fun times. I went to his house for the Christmas holidays and it was really fun to be able to celebrate with his family and experience all of the British traditions. There was also snow, which was fun at first, but the cold and grey/dullness got old after a few days! I didn't know the sun could set SO early. You'd wake up to grey skies, and then it would be grey all day and the sun would set before 4pm! Not cool.
The best thing about this year has definitely been being part of an awesome community group from my church here. I go to an international, English-speaking church, called Oasis. I've made some really, really amazing friends from this church. We currently have our services in the chapel of a Lutheran school here, but we've just bought our own property and soon we are going to have our very own place to meet, which is really exciting!! The new location is going to be in the center of Sol, which is much much closer to where I live. It will be a great thing to have a place to use whenever, for whatever reason. After our services at the school, we always have to clean up quickly and we only have a short time to eat refreshments and socialize..so we move things over the the bar across the street when we get kicked out!
My community group has helped me grow a lot this year. I am really sooo thankful for them. Each week we write down our prayer requests and then put all of the papers in a hat and draw names for the person we will be praying for that week. I think this is a great thing, cos we're all committed to praying for someone! These past few months I've been praying and seeking God's will for my future, and I still don't know for sure what lies ahead, but I know that I'm going to keep following His lead.
One of my favorite lines in Donal Miller's book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, says: The ambitions we have will become the stories we live.
I think this is so true. You can look at someone's life and see how the way they live reflects what they want most in life. What I want most is for my life to reflect Christ's love for His people. I want everyone to see how awesome God is and how much He wants for His creation to accept His unconditional love and abundant life. His way is really so much better than ours.
That is all for now. :)
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