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So, it's been too long...again. But no pasa nada. Let's talk about the school. The school is the only evangelical associated school in Spain. The school is a Christian school but they cannot technically be catagorized as one because of all the regulations that go with it. If they said they were, they would have to be more like an every-religion-is-awesome school. So, they just say that they are a school and they don't make the kids do "Christian" things in order to avoid this conflict of interest. There is a Baptist Church connected to it, so, the denomination associated with the school is Baptist. They don't have crosses or pray corporately b/c then they would have to have happy budda's, pray towards Mecca, have little star of David tattoo's, and read the book of Mormon as an option...so to avoid religious confusion they steer clear of having the "religious" school title. This school is very different than American schools...and we cannot go into great detail about how different b/c we're still here and that would be breaking privacy...yeah. The teachers and staff are very interested in the salvation of the students though, so, we take every oportunity to speak into the children's lives and to be a great example of Christ.

They don't have to wear uniforms, except for during "sport" or P.E. They are outside for a really good portion of the day...which kicks America's butt. We should all be outside more! And we are...here. We set the table for every meal here. Everything is glass and they usually have three courses at lunch! mmmm... This week the primary grades are going on a 3 day field trip...its mandated by the government that every school has to go. They are going to go on a tractor ride and make bread...AWESOME! I wanna go away for three days!~Chels. I wanna make bread!~Jenn.

In the past two weeks we discovered that cold food is bad. We had the most awesome Valentine's/single's awareness day...our adopted family brought us croissants in the morning and invited us to go bowling! YAY! We ate them and they were awesome!...we only shared one. We went bowling and then saw El Hombre Lobo (the wolf man...) and it was awesome. We watched this Spanish movie with English headphones! Talk about really cool stuff. "The headphones were great! We need them in America!"~Chels. "I love popcorn in every country!"~Jenn. We had dinner with them and they gave us more oranges!

This weekend we are going with them to Valencia to see the Aquarium! YAY!!!! Can't sleep too excited! We love them so much and they are so welcoming.

That's all for now from Spain! We'll blog some more lata!

Observing Espana....why is there so much corn...everywhere?

Okay, so today we do not have much to write and that is boring for the fans...so, we're going to tell you what we are observing.

1. Blinds....they are so cool here! Let me describe this to you...they are on the outside?! Why has America not discovered this? It makes so much sense. You dont have to clean them, they don't get tangled, they protect the window...so you don't have to clean them either (or protection from melon-sized, Texas, hail!!!!) and you can get them in 3 different styles: manual, electronic and automatic solar sensory movement...ASSM. Okay I really don't know if ASSM is a real acrynym (and my spell check is in spanish, so, im sorry if everything is all messed in here!), but we have deemed it so. They are awesome point made. We will come back and have them and then sell them...b/c you all will want some!

2. Bathrooms...ARE SO CLEAN in Europe. Not only are they clean but they are the Mecca of trendy...pretty tile, beautiful mirrors, cool sinks, you have total privacy above your head and below your knees, and automatic lighting. I cannot pee in America anymore...this will be the greatest challenge when I return- Jenn. They are beautiful...super contemporary and modern!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- Chels. Needless to say, we are never nervous about walking into an unknown bathroom...thank you Europe...you are mind blowing!

3 Corn....is on everything! Pizza, salad, bread, pasta, breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner....all have corn. Why? I have no idea and the Germans don't either, but we all love it. If it wasn't a starch I think I would adapt to it for life.

Those are some of the awesomely random observations we have seen thus far! We're having fun and will write again soon! Promise! Adios!

Blog 3...No, you're not late, we are...but only by 4 days.

So, recently you may have noticed that we haven't updated yet. How inconsiderate are we?! You must have been thinking; "Wow, they must be the most boring Americans in Spain", "Did someone steal their computers?" or "Did they DIE?! AHHHHHHHHHH!". I know, I know, and we will do better next time. The real reason is that we have been very busy. We're just doing what you all told us to do...and that is have a whole lotta fun! We are having fun in the expert level...the professional level... of course! So, where to begin....oh right we left off about 10 days ago where we just finnished our first weeks and were about to go to the mall. We went to the mall and they actually call it the Centro Commercial. First off, it is NOTHING like malls in America on the outside. It is in the middle of nowhere and has NO stores or movie theaters around it. No restauraunts just parking and a bus stop...YAY!! We rode the bus to the mall from Denia, it cost about $2 for the 15 minute ride. It looks like a place where boats would be sold or something...very circular and not much advertising on the outside. Very interesting!!!! Then we went shopping for about 2 hours and bought, you guessed it, NOTHING!!!! We were just checking everything out. There were a few American stores and that was neat, but everything was more expensive. Then the best thing happened...........wait for it.......we had McDonald's!!!!!!! We both had a Happy Meal and it came with more food than in America! It was so good and made me want a Big Mac!! That is it for the Centro Commercial now onto the rest of the weekend!!

On Sunday, we went to church as always. THEN we went to Xavi's family's house. Natalie, his mom, teaches a dance class on the weekend for the volunteers so she invited Jenn, me, and Ruben to their house for lunch. They also had their neighbors over for lunch and they were very intriguing!! Angelica, the neighbor, is American, BUT met her husband in Italy and then they moved to Germany and now they live in Spain. She was pretty awesome!! Natalie made Payaya, which is a typical Valencian dish. It is made in one pan with lots of rice AND shrimp, mussels, squid, and chicken. It was sooooo delicious!!! Jenn and I had NEVER eaten mussels and we had the WHOLE shrimp, we had to decapitate the shrimp and peel off the outer layer of stuff and then we ate the shrimp. We both enjoyed these things more than expected! All in all we had a great time with them!!! They were very nice and they have invited us to eat at their home again and they want to take us on a "tour" of Denia and surrounding areas!! We LOVE the people here!!!

Week 3 of work...nothing too exciting...lots of cleaning and lots of sweeping and helping in the English Class with the first graders....they are adorable and CRAZY!!!! We are really enjoying that because we like spending time with the kids! Pray for patience!!

Last weekend!
All the volunteers decided to have a "Bad Taste Party". This is where you dress in your best mistakes and get praised for looking the worst. We had dinner buffet style in the hall of where we live and had a disco room, a chill room, and a creative room. Thank goodness for that creative space...it really saved the party. Just kidding the dance room (which was my/jenn's room) was the BEST room! We had a canapy made out of a sheet and Chels' gave dance lessons comprising of soldier boy and the cupid shuffle. Basically we danced and chilled for 4 hours.

The next day we went to spend time with Surgio's family. First his dad took us to the beach and let us see these very BIG octopus and then told us they were small...I would like to take a moment and say that anything larger than my head is not small...it's big. These were big. [see picture] Then they took us to lunch at this place called Rokelin and it has a pig as it's symbol. We had a typical Spanish dish that is comprised of pork, ham, veggies and broth. They boil everything together and it creates this amazing broth. You eat the dish in two steps. First you have the broth with rice and limon. Once you're finished with that you move on to this amazing spread of all of the meat and veggies and you eat as much as you possibly can. I was mad at myself when i was finnished....why was I cursed with such a small stomach?!?!?! Why?! After lunch we went to their orange grove and we picked over 150 oranges. It was so fun and now we know the correct way to pick oranges! They gave them all to us! Isn't that just the bee's knees? We thought they were just going to give us a bag but they gave us 6 bags! After that we went to their beautiful apartment and talked for a while. It was such a great time :) we love our new family.

The people here are so great and other than having amazing adventures we have been getting to know them pretty well. We both really like learning about how devoted to the Lord they are and learning how they show love. Keep an eye out for our next blog! Love you all!


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Blog Numero Dos....Back by popular demand!!!!

Good morning everyone!

Well, it's the end of week one and here we are again keeping you up on what is going on in Spain! We did this a little differently this time. We both wrote a little bit about what's going here and how we are FEELING. Mine (Jenn) is first and Chelsey's is second. So, go get a snack and a cup of coffee and start reading :)! Thank you again for your support and your prayers! WE LOVE YOU ALL!

Jenn's Blog- Jan. 22, 2010

In Granbury the phrase “Love God, Love P

eople” is very popular. This phrase describes how God designed relations

hips and how God would like us to pursue Him first and others second. If our relationship with the Lord is doing well, then our relationships around us will be like the proceeding. That is not to say that you will not do well relationally if you do not have he Lord, I cannot describe how the world would act among it’s own circumstance, but to say that if you are seeking the Lord the way he intended the intimacy level of your relationships and the way you live life will be more alig

ned with how the creator intended life to be.

During the first days of ou

r stay I was welcomed with open arms and embraced in the sweetest way. I’m not gonna lie! I was scared to be here. I have never been this far away from home! Luckily, I have Chelsey, my best friend a

nd security blanket, here to be that piece of familiarity that keeps me feeling safe. I am so very thankful that the Lord gave me such an amazing friend to do His work with. So, when we arrived I was so tired and hungry that all I wanted to do was eat, shower and sleep! The other voluntarios helped us with our bags, got us something to eat and showed us around.

So, what have I been doing all week? What is the food like? What are the people like? Do you still have jet lag? Do you know Spanish? These are all the questions I’m getting. Basically what we do here is a lot of behind the scenes work. We do a lot of chores during the day so the school can run more smoothly…basically the voluntarios are kind of a big deal…..haha yeah, something like that. This week my schedule (our schedules change every week, so, mineThere are 16 voluntarios at the school and all of them, but Chels and I, are GERMAN! So, not only are we learning Spanish, but we are also learning German! Yay for that! I don’t think I have ever met a more w

elcoming bunch of people! They are so nice and are so eager to help us and I feel like I have known them way longer than one week! I am so excited to spend this time with them and to learn all about them. I love hearing the 3 languages when we are talking or praying. It’s a constant reminder of how God is everywhere!

is very different from Chelsey’s) looked like this.

Wake up at o’ dark

30

7:30-8 Exteriores- sweep up trash

8- breakfast

8:30- devo

9- Spanish class (right now were watching Grease in Spanish, but we actually do work!)

10- general work (I could do anything during this time from sweeping to moving beds…)

11- snack time J

11:30- Go to the office (now this sounds really important but its cleaning dishes…but basically its something my family can be proud of…I work in an office in Spain…yes that sounds so nice)

2:15- Lunch

3- Random work or Help in the English Class (that’s right, as a native speaker, I get to help with English Class)

After that I just have

dinner, but isn’t that nice?!? What a great schedule J.

The food is very good

. It’s just kind of like school food except on the weekends when we cook for ourselves and when we go out to the city. The people are so sweet and so welcoming! America should take notes because Spain is full of loving people. I don’t have jet lag anymore….we lost that the 3^rd day? Not sure when that happened but it wasn’t very bad. And to answer the last question from above…no I do not know but a little bit of Spanish, but you can be excited to know that in the matter of one week I have remembered enough from high school to basically understand when spoken to…it’s just responding that is difficult.

I am not going to write a lot about what we have been doing in Spain recently because I just looked over Chels’ shoulder and saw that she covered that! Ha! Ha! But I wanted to share a little bit of what the Lord has been showing me! I can see how the Lord is going to teach me so much. I am away from mo

st of my distractions and I have a lot of time to think about what the Lord wants me to do. I feel like this first week is preparing me hear a lot from the Lord and I’m excited to share more about what He is doing!

So to wrap this giant blog up, the Lord is definitely present here and the people are definitely Loving God and Hi

s people. It can be seen all around us here. And I hope to bring more of that home!

Chelsey’s Blog January 22, 2010

This has been the first full week in Spain! And the Lord has already been an incredible and faithful provider. At the school there are about 16 volunteers ages from 19-24 and all of them, but Jenn and I, are German. They have ALL taken us both in with an amazing amount of love. I don’t think I have ever felt so close to a group of people this quickly. When I think to myself, “Self, you have only been here a week.” I don’t believe it beca

use I feel as if I have known these people for much longer. The 16 of us spend the ENTIRE day together. I already feel apart of the group, and it is only day 8 of being here!!! God is so unfathomable because He has already begun to work in me in Spain. He has ALREADY blessed my time here in Spain and I am excited for what else He has in store while I am serving Him and the people here. I am extremely blessed to have been given this opportunity and to have it fall right in my lap!! The Lord is the only thing that opened all the doors I needed to make this experience possible! I am very blessed to have Jenn here with me. I have told her many times, that I don’t think I could be here without her. She is a JOY to live with in

a foreign country. We are like two peas in a pod!!! No, but seriously, it is such a blessing to be sharing this experience with her. It is great to have someone to look at and say, “WHAT?!?!” when all the other volunteers start speaking in Ge

rman!!

To answer the question, “What are you doing in Spain?” -

Every week our schedules’ change, which I think it is nice because you are never doing the exact same thing for more than 5 days. This week, I honestly had a GREAT schedule. The day starts at 7:30 AM and I cleaned some

bathrooms, then at 8 we have breakfast with all the volunteers, along with the youth pastor. 8:30 we have a devotional one of the volunteers writes. 9 we go to Clase de Espanol, which the last two days we have watched the musical Grease, the songs are still in English, which is AWESOME!!! After class, I get to clean more bathrooms and do other general cleaning things. From 11-11:30 we have Bocadillo, which is where we literally take a break and “chill” and have a sandwich in the social room (That is a room for only the volunteers with couches and table and books, etc.). Then after that, I had Trabajo General, which me

ans General Work. We basically do whatever Fernando tells us to do. On Tuesday and Thursday, I got to go help with the English class for first graders, during this time. I loved that!! They were so cute! They are working on animals right now. I hope that I get to do that more in the future. Then we have lunch at 3 pm and then I go to the OFFICE, which means, you guessed it, CLEANING DISHES!!! It has absolutely NOTHING to do with office work! Hahaha!! After office I have a break until it is time to cook dinner. During the week the cooks mak

e our breakfast and lunch, but the volunteers have to make their own dinner. Then we all eat dinner at 8pm then most days we are free after that. On Wednesdays before dinner we have Testimonio, where one of the volunteers gives their testimony and talks about how God has moved in them during their time here. And on Thursdays we have Barcas AKA small group-esque things in the city. People from the church meet at the old church, which is in the city, and have a time of worship followed by dividing up into different

small groups. Right now there are only girl voluntarias in my small group. This is like a small group in the States, except in Spanish!! Before the Barcas Jenn, Ruben (our volunteer coordinator, and friend) and I went to the city to run some errands and see the city some more. Then we had this delicious thing called a KBop, (it is like a chicken wrap, but better!) ...YUMMM!! At night we just chill in the social room, play cards, watch a movie, etc, etc....So it is pretty awesome!!!!! That is the typical weekly schedule during the week fo

r a volunteer!! WOO!!

Check week numero uno off the list!!! We survived!!!!!!

These are my pictures that I am taken so far! YAY!! Check em out if you want!!

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The 36 hour journey.........................................

So..................we finally made it to Denia. It only took us 36 hours. Lets break this down:

Wednesday morning:

5:45am- WAKE UP!

6:30 -Drive to Airport

about 7 -arrive at airport and chillllllll......with some starbucks of course!

8:45 -Board plane

8:50 - Jenn spills coffee on self......oh yeah so classy :)

9:10 -TAKE OFF!

nap nap nap....stare out window....nap nap nap

1:45pm - Land in New York at JFK

2:15 - Spend $6 on one slice of pizza :) totally worth it because it's from New York!

wander wander wander....attempt getting free internet....realize that we land in Madrid and that that is 7 hours from Denia.....AHHHHHHHHHHHH! calm down.....wander wander...play cards!....get snack....wander wander wander....go to gate....stare at family with Burger King.....change gate....Discover the cool part of the airport!!!!!! WHY DID WE NOT WANDER OVER HERE?!?!?!?.....wait wait wait....GET FIRST CLASS TICKETS YES!......oh wait...maintenance......wait....

8:30 - Board plane...and sit in our sweet, first class seats :) (Thank you Jenna and MOM!)

8:35 - The "babies" get mimosas....mmmmm delicious

While in the air- We recieved more wine, appetizers, fancy raviolii, and ice cream for dessert....sleep sleep sleep...Jenn gets frustraited b/c she can't burrow (Jenn: it was so frustraiting!!!! how is a person suppose to sleep? I mean, yes I'm in first class but I couldn't burrow!!!! Chels: Sleeping was great!) wake up to hot coffee and delicious breakfast! YUMMO!

9:30am -Land in Madrid :)

OH CRAP

So here's were time doesnt really make sense.....b/c we were awesome and discovered that we would have to take a BUS ride from madrid to denia. That took us 7, yes, 7 hours and 35 euros...which is about $60. So, we had to take the subway from the airport to the bus station in the center of the city....easy right? NO! We were awesome and thought that we could get our 8 bags of luggage from one place to the other fine. We are idiots and will be making donations of clothing to the great country to Spain by the end of our stay :). That little trip from the airport to the bus stop took us 2 hours. We had to take breaks b/c our luggage was so heavy. This was a great way to learn why packing light is always good! But, the Lord always knows more than we do b/c this was a great opportunity to see the country side. Spain is beautiful! The drive reminded us of New Mexico or Arizona and then changes to something like California b/c there are mountains and beaches everywhere. Denia is beautiful!