Friday, July 8, 2011
"...and if you don't speak English, well it will be amusing..."
"...and if you don't speak English, well it will be amusing." That was Kelly's encouragement to us before we were sent off to the various camper's homes. It was definitely an experience, and a great one at that. Everyone has different stories to tell so you should definitely ask people about it!
Adolescent camp yesterday was a blast, but everyone was kind of exhausted. We had a fashion show that was amazing; the 'clothes' looked great. The Kid's Camp played American football and all the monitors said that the kid's energy had definitely picked up.
"...that is so sad..." said a boy at the Adolescent camp when someone told him we were leaving Sunday. He was so right. We are going to miss these kids so much; they have all wriggled their way into our hearts one way or another. The Kid's Camp has a program tonight to close out their week. The Adolescent Camp is having a packed day of fun, scavenger hunts, water fights, ice cream, and partying. Can't believe our time here is almost over.
Another update tomorrow, maybe. Our last one?
LOVE, all of us.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Flamenco, Films, and Fun
After camp yesterday we headed back to the Convent for a much needed Siesta. Wednesday is hump day, right? Yeah, we noticed big time yesterday. It's safe to say that most of the team could have slept from 4pm to the next day. However, we had plans for the night, being the popular and exciting group we are.
Flamenco dancing is an artform that most of the team never had the pleasure of experiencing before. We traveled in a bus through the winding roads of the Albaicin, heading up into the mountains. After almost flattening people into walls on particularly small roads and biting our nails when the bus came too close to homes for comfort, we made it to our destination. Now the Albaicin has a lot of history but for all extensive purposes, I'll just tell you that it is an Arabic area with homes built into mountain sides, mostly white painted living places, and inhabited by mainly gypsies (hope I'm right about this...hehe). Anyways, walking into the cave where the show would be was like walking into a different world. Pictures of Flamenco dancers dating way back lined the walls, copper pots and ladles hung on walls and from the ceiling. Seats were set up along the wall to the very back of the room providing a narrow dance floor. It was all very intimate and the music seemed to pulsate through you. The dancing was fantastic. Oh, and cool stuff... Apparently Michelle Obama had gone to this place to see the Flamenco dancing too. There was a picture of her with all the dancers in the cave and around the house/restaurant that surrounded it. It was significantly bigger than all the pictures. haha.
The view from nearly everywhere is beautiful in the Albaicin. From this lookout point way up into the city, it looked like all of Granada was sprawled out in front of you with bright lights decorating the ground like fallen stars. There was a perfect view of the Alhambra from that point as well. Kinda amazingly wonderful.
I am writing this while we wait for camp to start. We are watching the videos that we made in our groups yesterday. In the films we were supposed to sell the Zaidin as a vacation spot...the movies should be pretty funny.
Dinner with the kids tonight! Another update tomorrow, Lord willing.
LOVE, Carly and the team :)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
An Older Generation Perspective
Here are some random themes developing so far from the perspective of one of the older generation Granada team members:
Not Kids vs. Adults: I use “older” instead of “adult” because after spending the first 24 hours traveling together from Dresher to finally getting settled in our new convent “home” in Southern Spain, our team had quickly dissolved the notion of being a group of kids and adult chaperones. Some are older and some are younger but, after crossing the Atlantic together, it became obvious that we were one unified body on a shared mission. This shift was epitomized at our first team devotion time last Thursday when one of the younger team members said, “we really don’t know what to call the adults - Mr. or Mrs. (like we do at church) or by their first name?”. As you can imagine, all the adults voted for some variation of their first name - it is our attempt to cling as long as possible onto that “kid” in each of us that has never really grown up.
Musical Gifts: It’s really great to have so many musical talents on our team. On Friday and Saturday nights we came home and sat around our 3rd floor common room - we had 5 guitars/ukuleles/mandolins going at once and some great lead female vocals from Chrissy Hetrick. The songs range from great worship tunes, back to the Beatles and mixing in some more modern Cold Play songs.
Teaching/Preaching Gifts: John Gullett is my roommate and I think we’ve been a good fit - each of us unpacked our clothes into drawers and closets right away, and had shoes neatly aligned along the side of our bed (no people, this is normal, not anal-retentive :-)). Our neighbors on either side, Stefan & Adam and Jesse and Tommy, are still living out of suitcases 6 days into the trip - John and I are praying every day for our “lost” traveling brethren!.
John has been leading our small group times and has really brought a sense of calm encouragement to our group - he is leading us through a more formal evening prayer time followed by some reading of Ephesians about how the good news of the peace of Christ outweighs any of our anxieties about this trip. John also preached at our church service last night with the language translation help of Kelly, who works with the World Harvest team here. This was a really neat display of God’s gifts being used cross-culturally.
Jesse’s Raw Humor: Jesse Robinson is our official team leader and brings his own giftings and encouragement, especially to the younger gang. He has this raw sense of humor and is not afraid to laugh at himself, nor shy about saying what he thinks. Our end of the dinner table was in tears laughing Sunday night, and I really can’t tell you what was so funny - it’s just refreshing and contagious to hear that Texas laugh!
Mangling the Spanish Language: I have noticed in my business travels that other European countries tend to speak a good amount of English - but it seems to be a rarity here in Spain. Thankfully, there are some good Spanish speakers on our team which has helped us greatly in navigating our way around. Other than the Lovelady’s, Laura Solt, Rachel Niekirk and Chrissy Hetrick though, the rest of us are in deep waters. Anyone from Philly has seen and heard the word, “Yo”, so many times that we immediately think of Rocky Balboa and his guttural calling to get the attention of his wife. In Spanish, “Yo” means “I” and is pronounced, “Joe” - which normally wouldn’t be an issue, but “Yo” was used about 500 times in the worship slides at church last night, and you can maybe see the problem with a group of Rocky Balboa’s trying to sing our typical New Life range of songs!
Hutta-Hutta: The Harvest team leader’s name here in Granada is J.J. Foster. In Spanish, the alphabet letter J is translated as something that sounds (to me anyway) like “Hutta”; and therefore J.J. is referred to by the locals as Hutta-Hutta. For some reason, this has become really funny to Stefan, Adam, Tommy, me and a bunch of others. For those of us that don’t speak Spanish very well, we have been able to plug in Hutta-Hutta in places where you would otherwise say normal pleasantries such as thank you, hello, good bye, etc - or when someone is speaking in Spanish and you just have no idea how to respond, “hutta-hutta” just gets us over the hump. Hutta-Hutta has essentially become our one-word rendition of the entire Spanish language. Our varied pronunciations bring in a range of influences from Japanese accents to Star Wars characters. The big problem here is when J.J. is actually in the room and hears all of us calling his name constantly!
Getting to Know the Girls: Somewhat related to the first point, we have a core group of teen girls on the trip - it’s been really great getting to know these young ladies whom I previously saw more as the kids sitting next to their parents at church. I’ve been on a couple trips now with Julia, and Laurel, Rachel Neikirk and Libby Stark have been in my travel “pod” around town. Anna Lauer and I have often been the final two slow-walking stragglers following the rest of our crew around the city. I have to mention Carly and Emily in particular here - the three of us have ended up being co-teaching leaders of our adolescent camp and so we’ve needed to spend some extra time together preparing lessons. I was going to attempt to make this a humorous recap of all the laughing these two have done together (they are roommates). But, I’ve really seen God’s gifts showing up in these girls. I don’t see myself as particularly gifted at teaching and leading groups, but Carly and Emily just naturally gravitate and connect with these kids in our camp. Our team has been taking extra care of a little blind girl, Rachel, that signed up for the English camp, and Carly and Emily having been basically giving up their lunch hour to sit and help Rachel eat her own lunch and help her get to the bathroom, etc.. It has really been a picture of Jesus in action, and it was an especially emotional goodbye said today when we had to leave the school and you could tell that Rachel would have loved to just stay and play all day.
So, to recap, I really feel like the “kid” in this group - poor Carly was in tears during one of our prep times when I mangled the Spanish word for “counselor”... OK, just tell me what to do here, Carly! If there was any doubt about who is really the adult, I was quickly reminded that I am the one who needs chaperoning: we took a walk on Day 1 into town and Emily casually asks me, “So, are you going to bring back a gift for Mrs. Leahy from our trip?”...Geeez, we haven’t even been in Granada an hour yet... and I get this dagger of guilt plunged into my heart! Emily’s friends then proceeded to fill me on the various levels of sarcasm that she tends to use with friends and strangers alike. Of course, I made a vain attempt to cover up my cluelessness and I won’t share my gift idea here because that would just give it away to Lisa...(eh-hem, no, I’m not just buying time and waiting until the last minute... Meredith, any help here???).
Thanks for praying for us and see you guys soon,
Tom L.
Not Kids vs. Adults: I use “older” instead of “adult” because after spending the first 24 hours traveling together from Dresher to finally getting settled in our new convent “home” in Southern Spain, our team had quickly dissolved the notion of being a group of kids and adult chaperones. Some are older and some are younger but, after crossing the Atlantic together, it became obvious that we were one unified body on a shared mission. This shift was epitomized at our first team devotion time last Thursday when one of the younger team members said, “we really don’t know what to call the adults - Mr. or Mrs. (like we do at church) or by their first name?”. As you can imagine, all the adults voted for some variation of their first name - it is our attempt to cling as long as possible onto that “kid” in each of us that has never really grown up.
Musical Gifts: It’s really great to have so many musical talents on our team. On Friday and Saturday nights we came home and sat around our 3rd floor common room - we had 5 guitars/ukuleles/mandolins going at once and some great lead female vocals from Chrissy Hetrick. The songs range from great worship tunes, back to the Beatles and mixing in some more modern Cold Play songs.
Teaching/Preaching Gifts: John Gullett is my roommate and I think we’ve been a good fit - each of us unpacked our clothes into drawers and closets right away, and had shoes neatly aligned along the side of our bed (no people, this is normal, not anal-retentive :-)). Our neighbors on either side, Stefan & Adam and Jesse and Tommy, are still living out of suitcases 6 days into the trip - John and I are praying every day for our “lost” traveling brethren!.
John has been leading our small group times and has really brought a sense of calm encouragement to our group - he is leading us through a more formal evening prayer time followed by some reading of Ephesians about how the good news of the peace of Christ outweighs any of our anxieties about this trip. John also preached at our church service last night with the language translation help of Kelly, who works with the World Harvest team here. This was a really neat display of God’s gifts being used cross-culturally.
Jesse’s Raw Humor: Jesse Robinson is our official team leader and brings his own giftings and encouragement, especially to the younger gang. He has this raw sense of humor and is not afraid to laugh at himself, nor shy about saying what he thinks. Our end of the dinner table was in tears laughing Sunday night, and I really can’t tell you what was so funny - it’s just refreshing and contagious to hear that Texas laugh!
Mangling the Spanish Language: I have noticed in my business travels that other European countries tend to speak a good amount of English - but it seems to be a rarity here in Spain. Thankfully, there are some good Spanish speakers on our team which has helped us greatly in navigating our way around. Other than the Lovelady’s, Laura Solt, Rachel Niekirk and Chrissy Hetrick though, the rest of us are in deep waters. Anyone from Philly has seen and heard the word, “Yo”, so many times that we immediately think of Rocky Balboa and his guttural calling to get the attention of his wife. In Spanish, “Yo” means “I” and is pronounced, “Joe” - which normally wouldn’t be an issue, but “Yo” was used about 500 times in the worship slides at church last night, and you can maybe see the problem with a group of Rocky Balboa’s trying to sing our typical New Life range of songs!
Hutta-Hutta: The Harvest team leader’s name here in Granada is J.J. Foster. In Spanish, the alphabet letter J is translated as something that sounds (to me anyway) like “Hutta”; and therefore J.J. is referred to by the locals as Hutta-Hutta. For some reason, this has become really funny to Stefan, Adam, Tommy, me and a bunch of others. For those of us that don’t speak Spanish very well, we have been able to plug in Hutta-Hutta in places where you would otherwise say normal pleasantries such as thank you, hello, good bye, etc - or when someone is speaking in Spanish and you just have no idea how to respond, “hutta-hutta” just gets us over the hump. Hutta-Hutta has essentially become our one-word rendition of the entire Spanish language. Our varied pronunciations bring in a range of influences from Japanese accents to Star Wars characters. The big problem here is when J.J. is actually in the room and hears all of us calling his name constantly!
Getting to Know the Girls: Somewhat related to the first point, we have a core group of teen girls on the trip - it’s been really great getting to know these young ladies whom I previously saw more as the kids sitting next to their parents at church. I’ve been on a couple trips now with Julia, and Laurel, Rachel Neikirk and Libby Stark have been in my travel “pod” around town. Anna Lauer and I have often been the final two slow-walking stragglers following the rest of our crew around the city. I have to mention Carly and Emily in particular here - the three of us have ended up being co-teaching leaders of our adolescent camp and so we’ve needed to spend some extra time together preparing lessons. I was going to attempt to make this a humorous recap of all the laughing these two have done together (they are roommates). But, I’ve really seen God’s gifts showing up in these girls. I don’t see myself as particularly gifted at teaching and leading groups, but Carly and Emily just naturally gravitate and connect with these kids in our camp. Our team has been taking extra care of a little blind girl, Rachel, that signed up for the English camp, and Carly and Emily having been basically giving up their lunch hour to sit and help Rachel eat her own lunch and help her get to the bathroom, etc.. It has really been a picture of Jesus in action, and it was an especially emotional goodbye said today when we had to leave the school and you could tell that Rachel would have loved to just stay and play all day.
So, to recap, I really feel like the “kid” in this group - poor Carly was in tears during one of our prep times when I mangled the Spanish word for “counselor”... OK, just tell me what to do here, Carly! If there was any doubt about who is really the adult, I was quickly reminded that I am the one who needs chaperoning: we took a walk on Day 1 into town and Emily casually asks me, “So, are you going to bring back a gift for Mrs. Leahy from our trip?”...Geeez, we haven’t even been in Granada an hour yet... and I get this dagger of guilt plunged into my heart! Emily’s friends then proceeded to fill me on the various levels of sarcasm that she tends to use with friends and strangers alike. Of course, I made a vain attempt to cover up my cluelessness and I won’t share my gift idea here because that would just give it away to Lisa...(eh-hem, no, I’m not just buying time and waiting until the last minute... Meredith, any help here???).
Thanks for praying for us and see you guys soon,
Tom L.
Monday, July 4, 2011
First Day of Camp
Is it possible to feel chilly in Spain? After waking up to beautiful weather on the first day of camp wee headed to Café Futbol for breakfast. After splitting up and catching our respective buses we were off. Everyone was feeling anxious in their own way but excited as well.
The adolescence camp went great. We only had 10 kids but we are trusting that either God is going to send more kids or that these 10 kids are the group he has for us to teach. There were a lot of new faces but three kids that were present last year, were here today. Everyone was excited to learn English, which was encouraging. Emily and Jim L. did a wonderfully hilarious job as Chicken and Moose, our camp’s mascots. The kids were split into two groups and chose team names: the Red Monkeys and the Blue Panthers. The Red Monkeys (my team!) won today’s challenge of ice cream making. They also won the ultimate Frisbee game, which as chaotic, but pretty amusing. Today was very encouraging and a lot of fun. We are all excited for tomorrow! Please pray that we will be energetic and excited and that the counselors will learn how to work together. Thanks!
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Julia and Chris, kid’s camp counselors, is going to talk about how kid’s camp went!
HEY EVERYONE!
The kid’s camp today went great! We had a rough start with only 13 kids showing up, but we are hopeful for 10 more kids tomorrow. We were able to give the few kids we had a lot of attention. Unfortunately, we only had enough kids for 3 classrooms, but tomorrow, God willing, all 5 classrooms will be filled with children.
The day started off when Jamie and Kelly entered in full cheerleading apparel and cheered the kids on, getting them excited for the camp and learning English. After that, Jesse came and taught them a song about the camp with Jim McKernan and John Gullet played guitar. The song was great! Jim, Jesse, and John wrote a parody of ‘Pharaoh, Pharaoh’, singing “English is Fun!” Then the kids went to their classrooms and the counselors taught them English. Mr. Gullett and I, Julia, had 3 adorable girls in our group and they were super excited and attentive! Laura and Laurel Joined our classroom with a girl named Rachel who is blind. Rachel’s English is very good and she is far more advanced then the other girls in our classroom. She was always the first to raise her hand with the answer. Our Lesson went really well and I’m pretty sure the girls understood us very well and had a good time.
After the lesson we had Art class and Gym class. In Art Class they made friendship bracelets with Sue Lauer. In Gym Class Stefan taught the kids soccer and basketball vocabulary while playing games! The whole day was a blast and we can’t wait for tomorrow!
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Last day of rest
Once again, the internet eluded us yesterday so we're double posting today. Last night we got to tour the beautiful Alhambra. It was a great experience!! Though we didn't get to tour everything we did last year, we toured it at night which meant that it was several degrees cooler than if we had in the middle of the day. Still, touring a palace around 800 years old is pretty sweet no matter the time of day. Especially with the assorted characters that comprise our group!
Tonight we'll be attending the Iglesia de Reconciliacion. We are super excited to worship with our Spanish brothers and sisters.
Tomorrow, the fury and flurry of English camp will begin bright and early tomorrow morning (early in Spanish time. 9 AM is early here). We'll be waking up for breakfast at 7 AM to get to the school grounds by 9 AM. The camp goes from 10 AM to 2 PM. I know that doesn't sound long. But the time will be intense. Fun but intense. We are looking forward to tomorrow. We are in such a better position to begin tomorrow. We have our lessons planned, our songs written (including a collaboration of John G, Jim McK, and Jesse R rewriting Louie, Louie to incorporate our vocab words each day), our games ready, and our challenges up to date. It will be a bit different running two camps this year but we've had plenty of time to plan, a luxury we didn't have last year.
We're still not sure how many kids are going to turn out tomorrow. It seems the people here are quite similar to New Life people in their time management. They don't sign up until the last minute so it is impossible to get an accurate count. In fact, they have a phrase: "mañana." It means there is always tomorrow to commit. We're hoping for a bunch of kids though!!
“The olives here are amazing…”
Sitting in an outdoor Restaurant in Plaza Fuente de las Batalla, I am once again reminded that free Wi-Fi is hard to come by here in Spain, but the beverages never fail to be extremely refreshing. I guess the sign that says free Wi-Fi was just a trap, enticing you to sit down in the comfy café chairs and let the mist from the water hoses cool you down. Then you spend Euros for cokes and beer. Anyways, I’m rambling.
Stefan, Tommy, and Adam ventured into the heat to play some soccer this afternoon. After spending nearly 30 dollars on a soccer ball, the boys took a bus to the park only to find that they were the only people there, for everyone else was in the coolness of their homes for Siesta. At least they had each other.
We had another opportunity to sleep in today. After breakfast at nine we met with Jamie and Hannah, two women from the Spain team, to go over camp stuff and work on lessons. Things are looking good for both camps. Jesse, Jim M., and John Gullet wrote some really great songs for the kid’s camp, and Emily and Jim Lovelady got their skit down for the first day of adolescent camp. Afterwards people went for walks in the city, did some shopping, or hung out at the convent until lunch at two. After that, pretty much everyone took a siesta and 5:30pm saw some of us at this outdoor restaurant.
Yesterday after my last blog, we went through orientation run by the Spain team. We learned a little about the history of Granada as well as the Teams past, present, and future. It was cool to hear, especially for Jim L., who was here in 2000, because he remembers when the Spain team was only dreaming about the things going on today.
After that, we spilt into groups and went out for Tapas then headed to various plazas and parks to hand out camp flyers. That was a good, but different, experience. We didn’t get home until around 11. Worship that night was great, once again. We read had our evening prayers and then shared about the joys and struggles of the day. It was a good grounding time, and encouraging as well. After that people hit the sack or hung around for a worship time led by Jim L., Tommy, and John G.
More posts tomorrow! The Alhambra is tonight!
Friday, July 1, 2011
After Literally Days of Searching....
After literally days of searching, being turned away by "siesta" signs on pub doors, and facing temptation to just 'do it' and spend precious Euro to pay for wi-fi, a spot that provided free wi-fi was finally found. In case you haven't already heard, WE HAVE ARRIVED! Our travel was problem free; the flights went smoothly and our layover in Madrid was restful and relaxed. After about an hour of flight time we arrived in beautiful Granada, and with all our luggage! As a second timer, it was so weird to see that practically nothing had changed. It felt like I was here just yesterday. It was fun to watch Mr. Gullet eat his first Doner Kebab and even more fun to watch people fret over how quickly they started to sweat in Granada's dry hot, hot heat.
Anyways, yesterday we enjoyed a big lunch thanks to the wonderful nuns and after, suffered from full belly and jet-lag syndrome. Except we weren't supposed to sleep. That was a struggle. Therefore, card games, unpacking, showering, and brushing teeth that hadn't been brushed in 48 hours, ensued. Tom Leahy and John Gullet entrusted me with their lives and let me take them on a mini tour of Granada. Around 6:45pm we had family time led by John. It was a really good time for our team to connect and remember that we weren't just here to enjoy Granada. Some members from the Granada team came at about 7:30 to take us out for dinner. We split up in groups but everyone ended up getting Shwarma (Doner Kebabs) at different places. I mean, they are actually AMAZING. Usually we would stay out until around 10:30 or 11, but everyone was exhausted so we headed home around 9:30 (it was still light). This is when we realized exactly how American we were...as we meandered back to the Convent with heavily lidded eyes, all the Spaniards were just starting to go out, sleep not even a thought until for them until around 2am.
This morning we didn't have breakfast until 9, a rare treat. Some people we able to sleep all through the night and wake up before breakfast while others battled with the time change. Needless to say, they lost and the battle scars are particually prominent in the dark circles under their eyes. Fresh bread, jam, butter, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate prepared us for a day of camp prep. and walking. Right now, we are having a break time in the store front where the Spain World Harvest team holds church. Gini Herron fed us a yummy lunch succesfully giving us that full belly and jet-lag syndrome again. Basically we will always feel like that, seeing that after lunch is Siesta time for all of Spain and we are encourged to nap and laze around. Jim Lovelady and Jesse Robinson are serenading us on their guitars and some people went out on walks or to grab a coffee at a Cafe. Thus is life in Granada. Wonderful. Okay, this is long. Wrapping it up now... The rest of the day will be spent having orientation and then going out for Tapas bringing us back to the Convent around 10.
Sianara!
Carly J.
Anyways, yesterday we enjoyed a big lunch thanks to the wonderful nuns and after, suffered from full belly and jet-lag syndrome. Except we weren't supposed to sleep. That was a struggle. Therefore, card games, unpacking, showering, and brushing teeth that hadn't been brushed in 48 hours, ensued. Tom Leahy and John Gullet entrusted me with their lives and let me take them on a mini tour of Granada. Around 6:45pm we had family time led by John. It was a really good time for our team to connect and remember that we weren't just here to enjoy Granada. Some members from the Granada team came at about 7:30 to take us out for dinner. We split up in groups but everyone ended up getting Shwarma (Doner Kebabs) at different places. I mean, they are actually AMAZING. Usually we would stay out until around 10:30 or 11, but everyone was exhausted so we headed home around 9:30 (it was still light). This is when we realized exactly how American we were...as we meandered back to the Convent with heavily lidded eyes, all the Spaniards were just starting to go out, sleep not even a thought until for them until around 2am.
This morning we didn't have breakfast until 9, a rare treat. Some people we able to sleep all through the night and wake up before breakfast while others battled with the time change. Needless to say, they lost and the battle scars are particually prominent in the dark circles under their eyes. Fresh bread, jam, butter, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate prepared us for a day of camp prep. and walking. Right now, we are having a break time in the store front where the Spain World Harvest team holds church. Gini Herron fed us a yummy lunch succesfully giving us that full belly and jet-lag syndrome again. Basically we will always feel like that, seeing that after lunch is Siesta time for all of Spain and we are encourged to nap and laze around. Jim Lovelady and Jesse Robinson are serenading us on their guitars and some people went out on walks or to grab a coffee at a Cafe. Thus is life in Granada. Wonderful. Okay, this is long. Wrapping it up now... The rest of the day will be spent having orientation and then going out for Tapas bringing us back to the Convent around 10.
"I love you and miss you!"says everyone on the team to their family members. Tomorrow there will hopefully be another post. Cross your fingers, we've been struggling when it comes to posting, as you can tell. hehe.
Sianara!
Carly J.
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