Where We Live Part Dos

Our house is old (at least 160 years) ~ that's older than the country of Canada, itself! ~ and large. The kids (oh, who am I kidding? Emery and I, too) are giddy about the mini balconies, shutter-type (pretty sure that's not the correct name) windows with towering draperies, marble floors, 12-foot ceilings, ornate woodwork and large staircase. For us bungalow dwellers, just to have a second floor is kinda fun! And we'll soon have quads, calves and buns of steel from walking up and down all those stairs!

At the top of the stairs, is a long hallway with a bathroom at the far end and all the bedrooms and our living room on the left:

These are our bedrooms:

Our Living Room:

At the bottom of the stairs is what was probably the formal dining room at one time. For us, it is our school room! Shouldn't every classroom have a chandelier?!

    

Our house is very very quiet. There is no forced air, no furnace/air con/fan sounds, no water softener cycle noises, no pipes banging; the house doesn't even creak at night, unless someone is walking on the floor upstairs:) Should be great for sleeping, but last night was the first night I (some of the others have adapted quicker) slept during normal sleeping hours...like from midnight to 9 am, instead of from 3 am to noon or from midnight to 3 am...you know, jet lag!

Stay tuned for "How We Live" and much, much more.

Where We Live

Of course we're on Google!

Bethel Bible Centre

in La Granja de San Ildefonso (our village)

near Segovia (capital city of the province of Segovia)

north of Madrid (capital city of country of Spain)

Here is our house.

All of our bedrooms and "living room" are on the second floor. This is our view from those rooms.

This is the Conference Building which houses lots of bunk beds, bathrooms, the kitchen and dining hall. It is beside our house.

 This building faces our house and the other building. It contains the chapel, the office, Isabelle's house on the main floor, and then some more bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor.

 Raking leaves, just like home...except there are far less leaves here than at our house in Canada. Our kids think this is a piece of cake!

Oh, and did I mention we have walnut trees? That's another job the kids are already loving. We pick up a couple of handfuls of walnuts every day. We will dry them a while to crisp them up.

Enough data for today. There is so.much.more. Wait until you see our school room! Later!

Where To Start

I guess the Lord rewarded our perseverance with the whole visa thing by providing the smoothest 20 or so hours of travel.  From the time we walked into Winnipeg airport to when we landed in Spain, there were no baggage weight issues, no connection panics, no flight delays, no security complications, no lost luggage, no whiny kids (or adults). From Winnipeg to Ottawa to London, England to Madrid, we were all relaxed, in good spirits, enjoying the journey and even slept a few hours here and there as we travelled through the night.

We arrived in Spain to a very warm welcome, instant magnificent sights of the area where we will be living (which we hope to see again in more daylight, but even as it was getting dark it was gorgeous!), beds ready and made up for us to fall into, a fridge and cupboards full of food, and each of us our own personal welcome note and treats in our rooms. We were overwhelmed by our generous host who made us feel like we truly had arrived at our new home, not some foreign, unfamiliar place across the ocean.

Speaking of our host, let me introduce Isabelle. She is the full-time missionary at Bethel Bible Centre. We may mention her often as we thank God every time we think of her. She is a fellow Canadian, but has been in Spain for 27 years. Therefore, she has already been and will continue to be an immeasurable help to us being able to function here - she will be one of the only people around us that speaks English, but she knows Spain - I mean KNOWS Spain :)

I really don't know where to start. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and it would probably take several thousand words to tell you everything we have learned, seen and experienced here already in just 48 hours. So tomorrow we will post some more pictures to help cut down on the words.

Many of you mentioned as we good-byed that the kids will probably all be a foot taller and you joked that you may not recognize them when we return. So, another introduction: the new one-tooth-less Rayna. The transformation began just 24 hours after we arrived in Spain.

Personal Welcome Treats

Today is the Day!

I've loved this song for a long time, but today, it's been on repeat in my head and heart since 6:15 am when I just could not sleep another minute :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B300gQkgDS0

We picked up our passports, complete with visas, at the post office yesterday morning, walked into our travel agent's office, and said "Can we please have 5 tickets to fly to Spain TOMORROW?" And she said, "Sure, no problem!" (That conversation really happened that way! But, of course, she had been working on the tickets for some time already and was just waiting for the OK. She is the BEST travel agent ever and we cannot thank her enough for everything she's done. Here's a little plug, MJ!)

http://www.holiday-travel.ca

So, our bags are packed - that was no easy task, let me tell you - and we're ready to go. By early afternoon (Manitoba time) on Friday, we should be in Spain.

The kids are excited for the most part, with a few moments of "Whoa! Is this really happening?" and "Are we sure about all this?" mixed in. And actually, us parents have a few of those moments too. Sometimes it feels like we've been planning and talking about this for so long...then all the delays...that it is still a dream To Do Someday...that it's hard to believe it's actually happening TODAY! Nephew Carl (veteran missionary/world traveller) gave us some very good advice: it's perfectly normal for it not to feel real, even after you get there, maybe even for quite a while after that yet!

Not sure how long it will be until we're all wired up and online again, but don't worry - even I can hardly wait to see what we'll put in the next blog post!

Puzzle Pieces

My Friesen family has a tradition of doing a puzzle during Christmas holidays. We try to get together at Mom and Dad's for multiple days during the holidays, not always consecutive, and one of the constants is some huge, thousands-of-pieces puzzle. We leave it set up in a corner somewhere; we come and go, putting a few pieces together; some of us a little more patient than others. When the end of our time together is near, we sometimes find a few staying up well past bed-time to try to finish it.

Sometimes we don't finish it...I kinda hate it when that happens.

As our plans haven't always gone the way we thought the last several months, Emery has sometimes likened the whole thing to a puzzle. Every once in a while, we seem to find another piece. There have been some stretches where we can't seem to find any pieces that fit together.

This week, we think we found another piece for our "Why Are We Not in Spain Yet?" puzzle. One of our very close friends died suddenly and tragically. And we are here, in Canada, so we can be there for, and mourn with Ray; so we can celebrate Deb's life at her funeral. Her death, however, is one of those puzzles that may never be finished; some of the fact pieces, the why and how pieces, may never be found, never mind fit together. Remember, I don't really like those kinds of puzzles?

Today I thought back to something I heard from a speaker that I was able to hear because we aren't in Spain yet. God didn't call us to be "fine". He called us to faith. And faith is what we exercise when things are not humanly explainable or understandable. When things are not humanly explainable, that's when we can choose to trust in our all-knowing God. He may not explain it all...maybe not ever. That takes another dose of faith. But when we continue to trust Him with these things, and other things, and ev.er.y.thing, every minute of every day, that's when we really get to know Him, and begin to experience all of the benefits He wants us to have: among them peace, contentment, and inner strength that is not humanly explainable. I just don't know how people live WITHOUT HIM.

Not 12 hours after the phone call confirming Deb's death, we got a phone call from Spain that our visas have been approved! Now all we have to do is wait for the approvals to arrive in Canada. We're hoping that means we can fly to Spain within the next two weeks...yes, we've hoped things before and look what happened? But we haven't given up hope, we continue to have hope...because that is how people live WITH HIM.

Normals?

I know "normal" is not a politically correct word anymore. What is normal? How can you label something normal without offending that which isn't normal? And are you inferring that the non-normal is in any way inferior to the normal?

Well, I can't think of a better word to use right now, so...in my best Junior High attitude...whatever! Consider this the fine print that absolves me from any discrimination charges or offence that using the word normal in my blogging today may incur.

Rayna cleaning basement windows

Macy in the bathroom

With all the weird and strange things going on in our family's life right now, it was therapeutic to have some "normals" this weekend. On Saturday, when the kids asked, "What are we going to do today?", we decided we would have a normal Saturday. Basically, that means cleaning the house and mowing the lawn. I was overwhelmed with pride and joy as my kids jumped in with both feet and worked hard...I guess cleaning someone else's house and mowing someone else's lawn is just a little more fun than your own.

Braden cleaning up the yard

Birthdays, coming once a year, on the same day every year, can also bring a normal. So on Sunday, we celebrated Emery's forty-something, complete with cards, candy and gifts at the breakfast table, then a yummy supper out.

Happy Birthday!!

Oh, and I guess another normal would be that the Bombers lost. :(

The First Day of School

Today it is Emery's turn at the keyboard.

Each year we have the tradition of having breakfast together and then taking some pictures of us all leaving for school. This year, we wanted to keep the same tradition even though we were located (by only a few miles) in a different place. For both Macy and Rayna, today meant new schools. Macy is jumping into Grade 5 at SCHS, and Rayna is heading to Mitchell Elementary to join her cousin, Boston, in Grade 2.

For Rayna, this is a special month as she now is a "walker". Up to this point, our kids have always travelled on the bus to school. So it was cool to see Rayna head off with her bike for her first day.

Each of our kids is unique and different. Today Rayna wanted to go by herself. No one needed to come along. For Macy it was much more important for us to walk her to her new classroom! I was a proud and happy father to do both. Braden, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with us once he arrived at school. Even this picture had to be taken incognito so he would not be embarrassed by his mother. Braden did mention when he got home, though, that it was a little bit weird not to have Dad around at school.


As for me, this day was different than what I had experienced for the last 17 years. I was always in the picture of those going off to school for the first day. Not this year. Instead, I joined the Annual First Day of School golf game with Bev and her sister, Cori. Wow, what a beautiful morning to be out playing Quarry Oaks!