Summer is here!!

I know those of you in Texas are thinking that title goes without saying... but here in Madrid summer has only just arrived. Just last Monday & Tuesday we were still wearing sweaters and long sleeves, even during the day. Everyone has told us that it has been a very unusually chilly & wet spring, lasting on and on. I must admit that I was getting a bit tired of wearing the same clothes I've been wearing since Nov (or whenever it got cold in Texas). I am a Texas girl after all, so my summer wardrobe is quite a bit larger than my winter/spring wardrobe. Mostly, however, we have been glad that the heat has held off since our A/C is not yet installed in our house. (and yes, this is the same A/C that was promised by 1 May)

But, now the heat has arrived!! Overnight it changed from highs in the low to mid 70s (or cooler) and overnight lows in the lower 50s to highs in the mid to upper 90s!!!! Monday was chilly, Tuesday was getting warmer, and Wednesday it was just plain hot. It is really unbelievable! Many people had told us that it would be like a switch being flipped - but we didn't really believe them since it was still chilly in mid June! But they weren't kidding.

Now, it does get hot in Texas, to say the least, so this is not really something new for us. But in Texas, there is A/C. Here - not so much. It's not just true in our house - tho that is causing the chief difficulty. But it is also true everywhere you go. Maybe the A/C is running at the grocery store, but not sufficiently cold enough for the store to not be still warm. So there is really nowhere to go to get away from the fact that it's just warm.

We have been told that our A/C is scheduled to be installed today. We shall see :-). Jason did go buy us a portable A/C which we are using in our bedroom so at least we can sleep. We'll be able to use it in the living room after they do install the A/C upstairs in the bedrooms.

My last observation: It's really hard not to be cranky when you're hot :-).

Podemos!!

Jason & I have been really enjoying the EuroCopa 2008 that is now going on in Switzerland and Austria. (much to my surprise!) This is a European championship of soccer teams (i.e. futbol) representing each European country. (For example, the Madrid team Real Madrid is made up of players around the world - think David Beckham from England playing for the Los Angeles team. But the EuroCopa is more like the Olympics where the Spanish team only consists of players that are actually Spanish.) Spain beat Italy last night in an overtime penalty kick shoot out. It was quite exciting. Apparently Spain hasn't beaten Italy since 1922 or something like that - and now they will play in the Semi Finals against Russia on Thursday.

This is like the SuperBowl on steroids - people are CRAZY about this here! As we are watching, you can always hear people all around us in our neighborhood yelling at their TVs as well when something big happens. :-) Things also regularly get rescheduled if they interfere with a big game!

So I thought you might enjoy a little Monday morning motivational music. This is a bit old - it's from Spain's victory over Sweden last week. But it was the best one I could find that shows the craziness - and so you could hear the anthem, or "himno" that is ringing in our ears :-). It says "Podemos, Podemos, Si!" and every now and then throws in Espana. This translates to "We can do It!, We Can Do it! Yes!"

Enjoy :-)

God's Grace

It's been a tough 10 days since we've been back from vacation. I've been wanting to blog about it (to ask for prayer!), but I've been too busy dealing with it.

Katie's been having a really hard time at school. We've had hints of it before, but after we got back from vacation it really all came out. She was feeling like she didn't have any friends at school in Spain. I'm not really sure what changed - maybe the reality of us being here for more than just a couple of months was setting in, I think there had been some unkindness from some of the girls at school, or maybe Katie was just feeling more frustrated by her attempts to communicate with the friends she had been playing with. Not sure. But she has been really discouraged and very sad about going to school. This had escalated into screaming prolonged fits when we dropped her off at school each morning. Not fun. Jason even took her yesterday (something that has worked in the past), but she was just as bad for him as for me.

It's just so hard to know what to do in these situations. Clearly screaming fits are not acceptable, but she was clearly hurting and just really sad. Added to our confusion is the fact that school is over tomorrow for the summer - a good thing that we knew this stage would be short, but I was concerned we wouldn't really come to any sort of resolution in this - just a postponement until Sept or some later date.

In praying and thinking about this I had just realized that Katie was listening to a lie and not the truth - she does have friends at her Spanish school, friends that LOVE her... just that don't speak much or any English. (and yes, I well remember listening to this same lie as a girl...) So I started praying that she would choose to focus on the truth instead of this lie. I also read a great book my mom had given me about kids moving cross culturally. It told a story in there about how the author's son had faced a very difficult day at school with a situation he didn't know how to handle, they prayed for God to help him, and then after he left for school, the mom prayed fervently that God would visibly show up for her little boy and that he would SEE God working in his life personally. So I also started praying that this would be an opportunity for Katie's faith to grow and for her to see God's personal help in her difficult times.

I think it's hard for me to pray those sorts of prayers... b/c God does say no sometimes when we pray... and who am I to "expect" something like that from Him.

But God's grace abounds.

This morning started out the same as the past few - Katie was really clingy all morning, really anxious, really vocal about not wanting to go to school. Even as we walked up to the building, she was wanting me to pick her up and was starting to cry like she had the past few mornings. My main new strategy of the morning was to leave as quickly as possible - to try to avoid her having time to really get worked up. So I sat down near her cubby with her in my lap, and she still wasn't really crying. Then her teacher, Amanda, came to sit down by us to say good morning. I said I was going to go and let her go with Amanda, so Amanda asked if Katie wanted her to hold her hand or pick her up. (pick her up of course - and yes, her teacher is truly wonderful) Then they made a plan to go to the window of the classroom and wave at me as I left. And KATIE DIDN'T EVEN CRY!!!! I could tell she was still really scared and sad, but she held it together and was so brave. I was so proud of her I could have burst! (and yes, I was doing the crying for her :-) )

As I left, and as Katie & I talked about it after school, I realized how specifically God had answered my prayer. She saw Him help her in such a tangible way. And she was able to do what for her was impossible because God helped her. After school she told me "it was the best day ever". Some of this was due to them having the end of the year party today with loads of candy and junk, eating hot dogs & ice cream for lunch, etc... :-) But I think it was also because she sees God's love for her in a new way.

In between the amazing things we are experiencing here in Europe, this gig is really tough sometimes. But God brought us here to Spain for a reason, He is using us and giving us meaningful work to do for Him here and He is always faithful to help us through the rough patches.

Thanks for supporting us in the good times and bad!
Becca

The Library... a.k.a La Biblioteca

Hello friends...

One thing God´s put on my heart since we´ve been in Spain is how isolated English speaking expats are here. There are a variety of factors that contribute to the isolation.

• Transportation is expensive. Think gas is high in the US?? Double the price for Spain!
• The metro is great... but it can take 90 minutes to get from one side of the city to another... hard for people to get together. Especially when the work day ends at 7pm. Many people here for short stints don´t buy cars. They are very expensive to purchase and to own. So they spend a lot of time alone.
  
• TV is hard to understand in Spanish and the English channels are boring world news over and over (BBC World, CNN Int´l , etc.) Not entertaining.
  
• The same can be said for Newspapers and Movies. Expensive and often in Spanish only. For instance, I paid 5,20€ for a recent copy of The Economist. That´s about $8 for a magazine!! (what was I thinking???)
• A newspaper subscription is about 1€ ($1.50) per day. Off the newstand, they are at least $3.50US.
  
• Lastly, English books are hard to find and VERY expensive. The Chronicles of Narnia set is $90. Obama´s new book (softback) is $22. Ouch.
  

As a result of all this... I´ve been looking for something that will help people be less isolated and give them something healthy, free and enjoyable to do. The one thing that keeps coming to mind is a library. Our church doesn´t have one.

So... (if you´d told me I would do this sometime in my life... I would have laughed at you...) I´m working to setup a small library for the church. I have a couple office quality cabinets on order that will arrive in about 10 days. I´m building a book list and planning a big US purchase (my Dad will bring some books over in early July) and perhaps a big Amazon UK buy. The UK books are reasonably priced and the shipping isn´t too high.

I´ve gone back and forth about whether to blog about this... but I decided that some of you might like to get involved. Please feel no pressure.

Here´s how you can help:
- pray that all the logistics and such go well. I´ve not done this before!
- send me a copy of your favorite book(s) to add to the library. I´m looking for mainly Christian books, but they can be anything of good quality.
- send me a small check ($25 or $50??) to buy a book or help cover the cost of shipping
- send me a list of a couple books you´d suggest. I´m always looking for more ideas about what to include in the wishlist.

If you´re interested in either sending a book over (the shipping is expensive, so beware) or sending a check, please let me know. My sister has agreed to collect checks made out to me and deposit them in my BofA account in the US. Send me a note and I´ll either send you her address in Texas, or our address here in Spain.

jnrisley@gmail.com

Most of all... pray for people here. It´s hard to move into a place like this. Becca and I have done pretty well at this. I´d say better than most... but we still have our share of challenges. People are HURTING here. Isolated and struggling. Pray for them and if this interests you, please drop me a line.

Call me a librarian and watch me cringe,
Jason

Rome!!

We traveled all day on Tuesday to reach Rome - 1st by car to Bern, then by train to Geneva, then by plane to Rome, then by train to the station near our hotel, & finally on foot for 20 minutes or so to get to our hotel. I feel like Rome was a bit of a whirlwind - we tried to pack a lot into 2 days! Then 3rd day, we had to slow down and take it a little easier - plus pick up the things we hadn't gotten to the 1st 2 days :-).

We started out at the Colosseum - of course!! Our hotel was pretty much just down the street from the Colosseum - so we wandered out the door and kind of stumbled on it :-). It was one of our favorite things, probably b/c we could really visualize the way it was and the sort of things that happened there thanks to the movies :-). It was really amazing to see it in person for sure! You could see the underground rooms where the gladiators and wild animals were held - again, pretty easy to picture it all. One amazing fact is that in 1 day, they killed 5000 wild animals!! Some species were going extinct b/c they took too many for their games. Unreal. Apparently some researchers are questioning whether any Christians were really forced to fight the wild animals there. But it seems likely to me given the intense persecution the Christians faced and the kind of people they forced to "compete". I'm not sure Katie was all that impressed w/ the Colosseum (or the other old things we saw this day...) but here is a sunny shot of her in the Colosseum.

The next stop was the Roman Forum, where the business & life of Ancient Rome was done. Again, the oldness of all this is mind boggling - all close to 2000 years old! Unfortunately the mined a lot of the beautiful stone and marble from these ruins to use elsewhere - so you have to really use your imagination to see what was there. We did get a cool book that had artists drawings of the way they think the buildings looked and you could overlay those on top of pictures of what remains. So that was helpful to understand what we were looking at. Otherwise it looks like a big rock pile at times :-). We ate lunch (that I told you about in yesterday's post) towards the right of the 1st Roman Forum pic - it was very cool. And we managed to overhear some English speaking tour guides explaining the history of the place :-). There were TONS of group tours around - mainly b/c, as I mentioned, it otherwise starts to look like a big rock pile :-). We had guide books so we weren't interested in the formal tours, but we did enjoy benefiting from them occasionally! One amazing thing we noticed is all the "scrap" rocks that are sitting around is some pretty fancy stone - marble and such. But there was so much that now it's just scrap! And I guess they keep it around in case they figure out what famous thing it used to be a part of :-).

The 1st day we also saw the Pantheon - which is pretty cool for us Math nerds - it is a perfect spherical dome on top of a perfect cylinder - if the sphere were complete, it would touch the ground of the inside of the Pantheon. Pretty cool. This isn't a great pic of it... but maybe it gives you the idea. It's actually an open building w/ a hole in the roof where the rain can come in. And then there are holes in the ground where the water can drain out. We enjoyed the mathematical beauty of it :-). And the regular sort of beauty too :-). One of the cool things about the Pantheon is that it is one of the only old buildings in Rome that was not looted for its beautiful stones - i.e. it is mostly as it was when it was built. (in 27 B.C.!!)

We also enjoyed the fountains around Rome - there are water fountains everywhere, where you can fill up your water bottles for free. Or you can block the bottom spout and the water comes out a small hole to make a drinking fountain. It is a great idea! Katie enjoyed playing in them, especially in St Peter's Square. (the 2nd fountain pic)



The 2nd day, on Thursday, we went to St Peter's Square and Basilica in the Vatican. It was built right next to the spot where Peter was said to be crucified. I don't really know what to write about St Peter's Basilica. I was moved to tears twice while visiting it, though for different reasons. First b/c it is truly beautiful and grand on an unimaginable scale. I looked and looked for a postcard of the inside w/o success - it's possible that they don't allow postcards to be sold of the interior, but more likely it's just too amazing for a photo to do it justice. But then as I went into the church further, I saw the place where the line of people were passing by to kiss the feet of a statue of St Peter. And it just made me very sad to wonder what I do in the name of faith that is actually taking the place of just worshiping God Himself.

After the basilica, we went to the Vatican Museum. This is a massive complex of a series of museums, all full of collections of amazing art work, and it most memorably includes the Sistine Chapel. We did the high level tour. :-) The Sistine Chapel was really cool - very hard to take it all in due to the number of people inside and the volume of artwork covering the ceiling and walls of the chapel. The ceiling is what Michaelangelo painted and it is various scenes from the book of Genesis. Most famously, it includes the creation of Adam where God is reaching out His hand to touch Adam and give him life. It was amazing to see. Unfortunately, you couldn't take pics of the chapel. After eating lunch in a courtyard of the museum and eavesdropping on more tour groups, we saw the museum that has the biggest collection of statuary. And then we went back to the hotel and collapsed :-).

Day 3 in Rome we started off slow with an Italian breakfast of delicious (and pretty!) coffee and pastries. Then we wandered around at a much slower pace to see a couple of churches we had missed the previous 2 days - primarily to see the Michaelangelo statues in them. (we saw the San Pietro in Vincoli - St Peter in Chains - where they have Michaelangelo's statue of Moses and the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva where they have a Michaelangelo statue of Jesus. We also had missed the Trevi Fountain on the previous days. I think this was one of Katie's favorite things. She loves fountains and just came up with some really cute poses there :-). The Trevi Fountain was in a famous movie from the 50s. If you throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain (over your shoulder), you are supposely guaranteeing that you will return to Rome someday. We'll see :-), but it was fun to watch Katie try to throw a coin over her shoulder :-). It was actually hard to pick which pics to post, b/c she was having such a good time and looking so cute! :-)







The other thing we did on Friday was to reconnect with some friends from Texas who moved to Rome almost a year ago to be missionaries. Kip & Tammy have 4 kids, including a daughter, Lily, who just turned 5 last month. She & Katie really hit it off! Lily's big brothers go to a school that is just behind the Pantheon (can you imagine?!?!) and it was their last day of school, so we met them there to say hello. It was really kind of a party, with streamers and confetti all over the place! We really enjoyed the opportunity to see a slice of normal Italian life! So then we went to their house Friday night to share pizza with them - and LOTS of giggles! It was nice b/c Lily understands what Katie is experiencing in a very unique way so I think they especially appreciated being together. The 2nd pic is the girls reliving the fun of confetti :-).

This pretty much describes how we felt when we got home :-). Katie zonked out in the plane as we landed in Madrid on Saturday and really did not want to wake up!! And this pretty much describes how I've felt much of the rest of this week :-). But we sure did have a good time! The world keeps getting smaller - and our minds keep getting blown away by the things we are experiencing!

More on Switzerland

I'm not sure I have much more to say about Geneva - so I'll just describe the pictures :-). We liked Geneva OK, but were glad we weren't spending any more time there - I think the soaking from the rain took its toll :-). This is the Water Jet that shoots water 453 feet in the air over Lake Geneva. Pretty cool.







This is called the Flower Clock. It was amazing how precise they had the flowers arranged! Of course it was a soccer ball since the EuroCopa was coming. They are pretty much soccer crazy here in Europe!









Saturday morning was extremely rainy. Here we are near the Reformer's Wall. Somehow Katie got soaked even with all that covering :-). She was a good little trooper though.









Finally after a very yummy lunch of cheese fondue and a hash brown potato thing called "rosti", it cleared off and the sun came out. Here is Katie throwing rocks on "Geneva Beach".









We definitely liked central Switzerland better than Geneva - though the language was a little more difficult. They speak Swiss German in the central part (and French in the Geneva area) of which we know absolutely not a word (besides maybe Danka for thank you :-) ). Fortunately the Fannings know some German! They were such wonderful hosts - they really spoiled us at every turn! This picture is near the house they are renting. It is in the middle of nowhere basically :-) (though just 30 minutes from the capitol city of Bern), in the middle of the Alps. Truly amazing. All you can see is cows and mountains and all you can hear are the wonderful cow bells. I did a little searching on You Tube for other cow videos and apparently filming the Swiss cows w/ their bells is quite popular :-).

On Sunday, we went to Lucerne, which is a truly beautiful town. We had the privilege of the weather being clear so that we could see the mountains! Jan & Buist had been to Lucerne 5 or 6 times with various guests and they had never seen the mountains around the lake! I enclosed the pic of us b/c it's a good one and the one of Jan & Buist b/c it's good AND has the mountains just behind us. (the pics were taken in the same spot - maybe Tim can explain why you can see the mtns in one and not the other :-)) One thing we really enjoyed learning from Jan & Buist was the benefits of packing your lunch to take with you as you sightsee. It was so nice to be able to find a pretty spot whenever you were hungry, then sit down and eat lunch right there! So we enjoyed beautiful scenery during our lunches. We even did this in Rome, eating the 1st day in the middle of the Roman Forum (pics later) and the 2nd day in a courtyard in the middle of the Vatican Museum. Very fun :-).

This pic is of the Kapellbrucke (Chapel Bridge) in Lucerne - we heard that this spot is one of the most photographed spots in Switzerland. The bridge was built is 1333 and is "one of the best-preserved wooden bridges in Switzerland" according to Frommer's. Very picturesque town and the classic kind of buildings you think of when you think of Switzerland.

On Monday, we went to the Bernese Oberland area of Switzerland - near Interlaken, but less commercialized. The morning got off to a rough start... 1 thing Katie did NOT like about Switzerland was the curvy roads - and yes, now Jason has had his official parenting moment where he said "Here honey, throw up into my hands". Not something that Mommy is likely to ever say... but we're thankful for Daddy :-). So after going shopping for a new outfit for Katie, we went to the Castle in Thun. It was cool b/c you could go up into each of the towers to see the view as shown in the pic at right. The mountains did not cooperate with us as much on this day - they were hiding from us - but it was still very pretty. There was a neat museum inside the castle too.

We capped our sightseeing off by visiting the Oberhofen Castle which had some lovely flower gardens. We made it back to the car just as the rain was starting - it was amazing b/c it had been rainy & cold before we got to Jan & Buist's and then it turned rainy & cold after we left - so we are so thankful we had some nice weather in between!

So that's the long version of Switzerland :-). (or the rest of the story or something) I think we could have just stayed there all week - we love the mountains! And we definitely want to go back to wander through the meadows and explore the Wanderweges (the walking trails they have marked everywhere). That will be a relaxed version of a European vacation :-).

But Rome was great too... tho I need to pick Katie up from school soon so it will have to wait till later.

Becca

Cows in Switzerland

Jason has had a long-held ambition related to cows: he is always trying to get them to respond to him, whether by looking at him after he has honked at them in the car or by mooing at them to see if they moo back. (I believe this started on loooong drives to and from Lubbock) This may be the greatest success he has ever enjoyed. And yes, Jason truly did inspire this fine bit of mooing :-). You can not imagine how proud he is of this "accomplishment".

BTW - it is also a great example of the beautiful music we heard from the bells the Swiss hang on the necks of their cows. Quite nice.

Enjoy :-)

Switzerland!

We left last Friday night to fly to Geneva from Madrid.


Someday we'll laugh... but Jason's flight from Brussels Belgium (where he was for a meeting Friday morning) was delayed, and delayed, and delayed... he arrived at 4:20pm into Madrid and our vacation flight left at 6pm... so he RUSHED home, changed clothes and switched bags while his taxi waited (Bec and Katie were already at the airport), and then made it in time to catch up with the girls. Whew. Not a relaxing way to begin a vacation... but it all worked out...


We arrived into Geneva at about 8pm on Friday night. We were tired so just settled into the hotel and enjoyed a little Thai food for dinner It's the first time we've had Asian food in 3 months!. Our hotel was nice and we liked the city... not exactly what we expected... but it was ok.


We spent the morning Saturday dodging rain and failing at it! We ended up soaked and in a nice restaurant for lunch at noon. We dried out over the mealtime and so did Geneva. The next couple of hours exploring were GREAT and we had lots of fun. We walked along the lake and threw rocks into the water at what Katie calls the "Geneva Beach". It was a beautiful couple of hours...


We then took an outstanding train ride to Bern. The train ran along the west edge of Lake Geneva and (while it was cloudy) we could still enjoy some great views of the Alps. There's a reason people say Switzerland is beautiful... it truly is picture perfect. This was our first ride on a train and it was easy and very effective. No security or lines to deal with... just buy your ticket and find the right platform and viola... a train appears. Relaxing...


Our friends Jan and Buist met us at the train station in Bern. It may sound strange, but it was special to have friends there on the platform when we hopped off. It reminded me of the days in the airport when people could meet you at the gate. A warm feeling, for sure.


We explored Bern for a little while before heading to their home. Bern is a small-ish European city. About 150K people in it. Einstein once lived there and worked in the patent office. We enjoyed walking the main street of Bern and seeing some interesting statues and shops. It's funny because the flowers are just starting to bloom in Bern... whereas in Spain, springtime is about out of bounce. It's nice to enjoy a little spring again.


The EURO cup for 2008 (Futbol aka Soccer where 16 countries field a team and play for the pride of their countries) is on the way to Austria and Switzerland and EVERYWHERE we looked there were signs, banners and stuff to buy. It's a big deal to get this tournament and the Swiss seemed ready for the fun. You could feel the energy and excitement of this event literally everywhere we went.


The next couple days in Switzerland were GREAT. We went to Lucerne **gorgeous** on Sunday and Thun **fun castles** on Monday. Our friends were outstanding hosts and showed us the sights. Jason's favorite was Lucerne. It reminds me of what they are creating with Breckenridge in Colorado... but it's the original! The time with Jan and Buist was VERY relaxing and I recommend you read their blog for a brief synopsis. We forgot our camera cable... so we'll blog more and post up some pics when we get home to Madrid.


www.buistandjan.com/blog

One thing I can't wait to mention until later is the setting of their home. They are staying in the countryside about 25 minutes outside Bern. In Switzerland (you may have known this... I did not) they really do put bells on their cows necks. We were near a farm that had a small group of cows and you could open the windows and hear a soft clanking of cow bells in the distance. This is while looking out over BEAUTIFUL meadows with bits of forest and classic Swiss homes dotting the hillsides while the Alps are off in the distance. Quaint and beautiful. Peaceful. We loved it and hope to return to this house someday...

Well, that's all on Switzerland for now. We'll post more later. Promise!!

Off to Rome on Tuesday...

Jason