Euro Cup 2008

Well, Spain has done it! Tonight they won the European soccer championship, their first win since 1964. You can read more about it here. The celebrating has begun. Firecrackers are going off outside my building as I'm typing. I hope they don't decide to celebrate all night. :)

Update on St. John's Day

Well, I was wrong about our town not having a bonfire. When I took Biscuit for her walk this morning, I passed in front of the city hall as I usually do and there were the remains of a bonfire and thousands of firecrackers. Since they were shooting them off from about 9:30 p.m. until about 1:30 a.m., I'm not surprised there were that many. Needless to say, since the city hall is right next door to my apartment building, I didn't get much sleep last night.

Sant Joan Day

Tomorrow is St. John's Day (Sant Joan is Catalan for St. John) and this afternoon they started setting off firecrackers. They've been going off for an hour. Not sure when they will stop, but I'll be lucky if I can get my dog to go outside tonight.

The holiday is in honor of John the Baptist. The book of Luke says that John the Baptist was born six months before Jesus so they celebrate his birth six months before Christmas. It's the first holiday of the summer and they use it welcome in the new season. If you want to read more about it, you can go here. Our town is too small to have any parades or a bonfire, but I'm sure the firecrackers will continue through the night.

I decided to go grocery shopping today and you could certainly tell that tomorrow is a holiday. Perhaps that, and the fact that the truck strike is over and the shelves are full again, brought lots of folks out to shop.

Gas and Food Shortages

There is a truck strike going on over here over soaring fuel costs. You can read more about it here. Kathy, Kristi and I went to the market today because we had heard there was a shortage of some products and we thought we probably shouldn't wait for the weekend. It was obvious that something was going on as many of the shelves were bare. There was hardly any produce. The milk aisle was also quite bare. We had to go to another store to find eggs and apples. Kathy said one of the store employees told her that the meat that was in the display case was all there was. We stocked up on staples and wondered how long this strike would last.

We certainly take a lot for granted, don't we? And it reminded me once again, that our trust should be in the Lord and not man.

Meet Kristi

Kristi is a 20 year old from Michigan who is spending the summer in Spain on a vision trip to investigate the possibility of future ministry here. She will be staying with me for three weeks as she helps out at the FIEIDE office and possibly at church. She will then go to the General Assembly of the FIEIDE, followed by a two week evangelistic trip to Benicarló (a coastal town in the province of Valencia) and then to Albania and Kosovo for a 19-day mission trip with others from the FIEIDE. She will spend her last couple of weeks in northern Spain, exploring possibilities there. I'm sure she would appreciate your prayers as she pursues God's will for her future ministry.