The Past 3 Weeks

We realize we've been out of touch with the blogosphere for the past several weeks, which is a pretty good sign that we've been too busy (and, therefore, too tired) to pause to think about and update the blog.  In any case, here's the past few weeks in pictures:

ECMI's Biennial Conference

We met with about 200 people for ECMI's Biennial Conference in Gandía, Spain.  It was a great time of encouragement, prayer, meeting new people (20-some new missionaries in the organization in the past two years!) and catching up with others. Above we're meeting with our ECMI-USA sending section.  Honestly, it was refreshing to hear people speaking English with an American accent.  Speaking of accents, B.J. shared his particular Midwestern twang with the ECMI family by singing a country song for the 'ECM's Got Talent' show.

Apartment Hunting in l'Alcora

Above you have a nice view of the town of Alcora (notice the Mediterranean Sea some 30 kilometers off in the background), and suffice it to say that after a three or four day hunt we have a nice apartment down there among all the buildings.  We hope to show more detailed photos later once we're moved in.

 IKEA

After realizing that we were moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished one in a few short weeks (around the middle of May), we decided it would be a good idea to have some furniture for our new place, including some fun stuff for the baby's room.  So we spent more time than we'd like to admit at IKEA in Madrid, where you can get good quality furniture and other hip stuff for cheaper than you can anywhere else here in Spain.

So that's been our past few weeks in a nutshell.  We've been busy, but it's been great to see how God has walked with us through it all, providing a place for us to live in our new town, as well as the means for us to put furniture in that place.  We'll keep you posted as we pack up and move to Alcora!!!

Semana Santa in Córdoba

Last week was Holy Week, known here in Spain as Semana Santa.  It is a culturally religious time here, as church fraternities take the large statues of Christ and the Virgin out of the churches and carry them through the streets in grand processions.  Instead of attempting to explain the sights, sounds and smells of Semana Santa, we've put together a video of one of the processions to give you a better feel for what it's like.  You can also see some still photos by clicking HERE.