¡Ay, que fuerte!

(Saturday)

After going to sleep at 4:00, I woke up at 8:00 and got ready to meet my friends at the park to hang out with our homeless friends. I rode my bike to meet up with them, and it turned out to be a longer distance (45 minutes on bike) than I expected. But although I was technically late, on Spanish time, I was right on time. When you plan to be somewhere here, these people don't consider it being late until an hour or so has passed since the designated meeting time. It's remarkable.

Today, we had a smaller crowd. It was just me, Markos, Cristina, Jazmín, Jessica, Macy, Abbi, and Fran (Abbi, Jazmín, y Cristina's dad). Buna was there, as was Edu (2 friends from last time). There was also a new guy, Williams, from Ghana, who is actually a Christian. He spoke English pretty well, better than Spanish, so it was cool getting to talk to him. We brought a guitar, and seeing as I was the only one who could remotely play, I was in charge of the music. We also had a djembe, so me and Buna jammed out to some Bob Marley :) We also played worship songs, Hillsong stuff, specifically. It was awesome. We stayed there until around 11:45.

Afterwards, I biked home. Lindsey ended up going to the beach for the night, so I was by myself with Miguel and Marta. Our parents when on a romantic getaway to a little pueblo not too far from here. They are just so cute. I ended up falling asleep, accidentally, and wasted what was a gorgeous afternoon.

When I woke up, I got ready and took a cab down to the metro station on Aragón (unfortunately, the closest one to me). There, I met Jessica, Macy, Cristina, Jazmín, Claudia, and Lukas. We all hopped on the metro and headed to another evangelical Baptist church for Visión. Visión is a once monthly gathering of youth from all the local churches (youth here is anywhere from 15 to 30).

When we got there, we were immediately greeted by people we knew. It was so cool! It felt like back home... being able to walk into a place and know people and have a connection on a spiritual and eternal level. We sat with Carla, Toni, and Samu. The service started out with praise and worship. The first couple of songs I didn't recognize, but then they started singing Hillsong: Hosanna, None But Jesus, Lord Most High... it was incredible. It's such an incomparable feeling to praise the Lord in another language.

They also did a skit - the one that uses Lifehouse's song "Everything". It was, as always, very moving for me. After they showed a video (and David was in it) that asked you to imagine all of these things, and then in the end it said, "No lo imagines... Hazlo real." (Don't imagine it, make it real).

Pastor Eduardo (from our church) gave the message. The theme this month was Enamórale - be enamored of Him. Pastor talked about how God's love for us is manifest in the sacrifice of his son, and how our love for the Lord should manifest itself in the sacrifice of our will. He gave five steps on how to let our love of Christ become our actions for Christ: 1. Acuérdate, 2. Espabílate, 3. Trabaja, 4. Comparte, and 5. Persevera. It was amazing.

Afterwards, we all had bocadillos and cokes and hung out for two hours in the church, just visiting and talking. We talked with Pastor Eduardo, the sweet thing, for a bit, and then precious Carla introduced us to almost everyone in the place! It's so much fun meeting new people!!!

When we left there, a huge group of us (me, Macy, Jessica, Markos, Cristina, Jazmín, Claudia, Lukas, David, Gaby, Dobis, Carla, Toni, Samu, Esteban, Sara, Ivan, Elias, and a couple other guys whose names I can't remember) went to the huge centro to hang out. We stopped at a little gaming place and played foosball. The best news of the night is that I FINALLY found a vending machine that sold skittles - so I bought 5 packs :) They don't quite taste the same, but that's okay. It's more the principle of me having the candy that's important. We left there and headed to a place close to our Calle Quart church. We danced for a couple hours, which was fun because they were just so many of us. After that, I came home and now I'm going to sleep!!!

De la cansada,

Leigh

*Pictures (from top to bottom): Buna and Mericoboma (homeless friends from the park); Carla, me, Jessica, Macy, and Samu at Visión; the sign at the church; Toni killing Dobis; Gaby, David, and Samu being silly on the escalator, with Jazmín, Claudia, and Esteban in the background