BJ's First Spanish Birthday!

B.J. here. Sunday was my 29th birthday, but more significanlty it was my first birthday in Spain! We spent the weekend with our Spanish team leaders, Francis & Nathalie (their son Samuel is in the picture above). Unbeknownst to me, Francis & Nathalie informed the church in Pozoblanco (about an hour north of Córdoba) that it was my birthday, so they presented me with a birthday card and sang "Cumpleaños Feliz," which seemed nice and harmless...but it's also the church's custom that the birthday boy has to read the Bible verse on the card to the congregation! So I sucked it up and read the Spanish as best as I could, and the congregation seemed to appreciate my effort to read it. I really don't feel much older. In fact, I think the reverse has happened: my inability to speak and understand Spanish well and my ignorance of exactly how life works here makes me feel a bit like a baby. So maybe it was appropriate that only one candle was on my birthday cake!

Moving Day!

About three months later than we originally expected we finally shipped most of our earthly possessions to Spain today! It's somewhat humbling (yet refreshing) to know that our stuff fit quite comfortably into a 20 foot container. From Myerstown, PA the container will be transported by truck to Baltimore, loaded onto a ship there to make its way across the Atlantic, and finally show up at our place in Córdoba in three to four weeks. We're especially looking forward to our kitchen utensils showing up--we've had to be resourceful with the few utensils our apartment came equipped with. We were very grateful for the first dry, sunny day in PA for about a week, as well as for the hulking seminarians who helped us load:

Back: B.J., Gene, Brian & Phil
Front: Jeff & little Tracy (What she lacked in strength she made up for with cuteness!)