Unrealistic Expectations

Unrealistic expectations regarding my upcoming home assignment. Do I have them? I'm not sure. I hope not, but I guess I won't really know until I get back and spend a little time with family and friends. One of my supporters sent me an article today that originally appeared in Women of the Harvest magazine. Here are a few paragraphs from it:

"Because we are the ones on foreign soil, struggling with a new culture and life, it is an easy misconception that we can step back into the hole we left when we went to the field. It hurts to find friends and family rushing about their lives without us, often so busy they hardly have the time to stop and welcome us back. But we must recognize that even as life has moved on for us, so it has for our loved ones. Our best friends have new friends to call up when they want to chat. They have moved on to new jobs, added new family members. The church is full of new people. Our Sunday school class and other responsibilities are being handled well by others. There are jokes and anecdotes and under-currents we don’t get, and no one bothers to fill us in. They are happy to see us, of course, but we are visitors now, no longer part of their daily lives. Our space is no longer there.

“Why don’t they care?” we demand as furloughing missionaries. “How can they go about their lives as though there wasn’t a world of poverty and hunger and pain and need out there?” But our loved ones are the same normal North Americans we left. It is we who have been shaken out of our mold, for better or worse, by sights, peoples, experiences, political and economic realities they have not seen and will never understand. We have come to accept that for the rest of our lives, the only ones who will truly understand us are those who have gone through similar experiences.

It isn’t that our loved ones don’t care about us or love us anymore. They do. But their world is no longer ours. They do not understand what we have gone through or realize what we were expecting of them. Not until we could forgive family and friends for not measuring up to our own unrealistic expectations could we release them from those expectations and simply enjoy their fellowship when we come home."

I hope that I will be able to truly enjoy my time in the States. I want to hear about your lives and what's been happening while I've been gone. I'll try not to bore you with stories you don't really want to hear. I know that there will be some people that will be more interested than others and there may be some who don't even know I've been gone. But I'll try not to be too hard on them. After all, I've had many more years of being on the "sending" side and I've had my share of times when I couldn't remember where a certain missionary was serving or whether they had just gotten back from the field or were getting ready to leave. It's sad, but true. So, am I ready? I think so. Now if I could just find the time to pack my suitcases. :-)

Things Unseen: Living in Light of Forever

This is my second Mark Buchanan book and I like it just as much as the first one (Your God is Too Safe). This one is about heaven, sort of. He says it is about "our longing for heaven, our instinct for it...It is about our yearning for things unseen. It is about you and me longing for heaven...and about living here on earth now in light of that longing."

The book is divided into four parts - Heaven-Haunted: Missing Things Unseen; Heaven-Struck: Seeing Things Unseen; Heaven-Sent: Being of Earthly Good; and Heaven-Bent: Living in Light of Forever.

A few of the things that struck me:

"The world, beautiful as it is, is not enough. The beauty itself doesn't satisfy. It promises satisfaction that, mirage-like, it can't provide. Yet the beauty is a mimetic clue, both echo and foretaste, of Things Unseen, an inigmatic hint of Elsewhere which we puzzle over but rarely decipher. He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done. He is everywhere baiting us, prodding, luring us. He is playing hide-and-seek with heaven and earth, strewing clues all around, brushing the commonplace with the scent of Things Unseen. Making us always wish for more, and always coming up short."

"Faith is not sticky sentiment or dry academics. It's not an emergency provision for the times we're unable to compile enough hard, cold facts or weave a tight enough web of logic to explain things. It's not the last-ditch stand beyond biology, physics, psychology. It's not something we muster...only for the hard times and the dark times. It is more than flutter in the belly or a warm glow in the heart, more than nodding approval to a set of doctrinal statements. Faith is sinewy and feisty and vigorous, a living hope and a deep certainty that sparks life into all we are and all we do."

One of my favorite chapters has to do with John's question "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?" John is sitting in prison and he begins to doubt what he has believed about Jesus. So Jesus gives an answer to John's disciples to take back to him in prison and at the end of his message are the words, "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me." Buchanan says "Blessed is the man who doesn't fall away on account of the One who does [miracles] for others, but who sometimes leaves you in your prison, with death just outside the door." Later in the same chapter he says, "Blessed are those who don't need the sign, the shadow. Blessed are those who, bereft of the miraculous cure or rescue or windfall or breakthrough, believe anyhow, turn and embrace the Reality anyhow. They have not fallen away on account of Jesus. They have grasped that a relationship with Jesus is different from a bargain or a contract with Him..They have understood that a miracle is as much a veil as a shrine, that it conceals God as much as it discloses Him, that it can become not the "sign" that points to God, but the diversion that keeps us from Him."

Spain is Different

I've been making a list lately of the things that are different from what I've been used to in the States (in anticipation of the questions that will probably be asked as I visit with people while I'm home). For those of you who haven't been reading this blog very long, I commented on some of the things that are different in this post last January.

I thought perhaps I would share some of the things I've added to that list. Paper bags are not an option at the grocery store, they only have plastic. People throw trash on the streets regularly (I think in part because they have city employees who are supposed to clean the sidewalks and streets) and you find broken glass and bottles on the streets and sidewalks surrounding the bars almost every weekend.

Speaking of bars, they are very different here than they are in the States. There is no age limit to who can enter a bar. And they are just as likely to serve coffee, tea or soda as they are to serve alcoholic beverages. They also serve food (usually referred to as "tapas"). They are a place for friends to meet and it's more about relationships than it is about what you're drinking.

I suppose meal times are one of the biggest differences. Spaniards have five "meals" a day. Breakfast is usually only coffee and maybe a pastry of sorts. Then at around 11:00 they take a break and visit one of the bars for more coffee and a snack. Lunch is somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. usually (with the whole family gathering because they have about 2 hours for lunch) and because dinner is not until 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. they usually have another break for coffee and a snack at around 5:00 p.m.

Fast food is pretty much a foreign concept (although there are McDonalds, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut in the larger cities). But normally Spaniards don't hurry their meals and you almost always have to ask for your check because it's considered bad manners to give it to you before you ask, in case you think they are trying to get rid of you.

The banks, post office and small businesses close somewhere between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. for lunch. The banks and post office stay closed for the rest of the day (except during the school year the banks open again from 5-8 p.m. onThursdays), but most of the businesses open up again around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. and stay open until about 8:00 p.m. when everyone heads home to prepare for dinner. So if you're going to run errands in the middle of the day, you have to remember to get there before they close for siesta.

There is more on my list, but this post is already too long and if I don't save some of them, I won't have anything to tell you when I see you.

September Update

Travel Plans

I am going to put my tentative travel schedule here so you’ll know when I will be in your area. If we have not connected yet regarding a visit, please send me an email. I would love to visit with you.

October 10 - Leave Spain

October 11 - 21 - Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Minnesota

October 22 - Arrive in Denver

December 1 - 5 - Arizona

Dec. 22 - 29 - Montana for Christmas (dates are still tentative)

Jan. 3 - 20 - Southern and Central California

Jan. 25 - 30 - New Hampshire

Feb. 24 - 28 - Michigan (leave for Spain on the 28th)

All other dates I will mostly likely be in Denver. My apologies if I won’t be in your area. I plan to schedule my home assignment every two years and I hope to see everyone at least once every four years, so if we don’t connect this year, I’ll see you next time. Thanks for understanding.

Since I will be preparing to leave, I will most likely not send out an October prayer letter. Thanks for your prayers during this time!

This month’s quote:

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Praises:

1. My pastor and I visited the office in Segovia last week regarding my residence card. They are apparently backlogged with work because of all the immigrants entering Spain. She assured me I would have my card before I leave for the States.
2. I am almost finished making travel arrangements and plane reservations for my time in the States.
3. Thank you to those who either joined my support team or increased your monthly giving. I’m asking God for 8 people that could give $10/month. Continue to pray.

Prayer Requests:

1. I have a few work projects and my language classes to finish before I leave. Pray that I finish well.
2. Biscuit (my dog) will be staying with friends here in Spain. Pray that they have a good time together and that she stays well while I’m gone.
3. Our annual WorldVenture Spain Team Retreat is October 5-8. Our International Ministries Director and his wife will be joining us. Pray for a meaningful time together.
4. Pray for travel safety, good flight connections and that some of the latest baggage restrictions will be lifted before I begin my travel.

End of Fiesta

Last night the fiesta in Cuéllar ended. Most pueblos have fiesta for about a week. It's supposed to be a celebration in honor of their patron saint. Ours includes Los Encierros Más Antiguas de España (the oldest running of the bulls in Spain). There are rides for the kids, game and food booths and the daily bull running and then later in the day the bullfights. I think I was in Barcelona last year for most of the week, although I did see one bullrun (from the safety of my balcony). A friend told me this year not to miss the fireworks the last night, so I dutifully kept an eye on the clock and at 11 p.m. went out on the balcony and watched about a 10-15 minute fireworks show. I decided to try to take some photos and see what happened. Some of them were kind of cool so I decided to post a few here.



















This last one is one of my favorites. It reminds me of a rocket launch and you can see the hillside where they were launching from.