Exploration

God Bless All!

Greetings from Sunny Beautiful Spain!

I arrived last almost a week and a half ago, and I have been enjoying all that there is to experience here. God is preparing me in ways that I couldn't believe, and I'm more and more excited everyday to be learning how to survive in this country. Barcelona will be different, yes, but by then I'll have some grasp of the country, definitely the language, and I'll be excited to be with people I love.

In the meantime, God has been showing me some amazing things through the tourist-y type things here. We were in Madrid this past weekend (my study abroad group) for some tours and such, and while in el Museo del Prado, He opened my eyes to some things.

God has given us everything we have in our lives, yet we spend our time honoring good people, good places, and good things, rather than seeing the Creator of it all. I was looking at thousands of paintings and statues of saints, the virgin, Christ, and it dawned on me, where is He in all of this? We´ve been commemorating his followers since their beginning, but no one could know what John the baptist looked like, or Christ, or Mary. Yet everyone tries?

Why do we try so hard to confine God to this perfect box of a human image? Especially when He is so much more than that. We have a perfect, unfailing, loving God, and when we try so hard to put him into this box, we leave out the qualities of him that we don´t like, or don´t understand, or don´t go along with what we´re doing in our lives. I don´t want to do that any more.

I have a God that possesses more qualities than I´ll ever know, and I don´t want to limit those. I want to explore them, to know more about His essence and why He has created me in His image, and what qualities of His I have.

I´ve been given an opportunity to take a break from America, and I´m taking every moment I can to sop it up and focus on what´s important to me. I want to invest in people, and I want to be open to allow God to invest in me.

I'm praying that this is something that isn´t just changing in me while I´m here, but will return with me.

God Bless, Take care, More soon,

K

We're all leaving the country!!!

I'm booked! We're all officially leaving the country!

God Bless,

K

AEROPLANE

So...tickets are booked for Ashley and myself. Kelsey needs to do them seperate due to the whole studying abroad first thing... But the trip is booked. We'll leave June 16th at 7:10 am from Sioux Falls and Return July 14th at 8:30 PM (we leave at 10amish Barcelona time... and have like a 19 hour flight... so essentially July 14th is going to be a 30 hour day for us:) ). Keep praying for funding to come in... we still have to pay for our hostel, food and what not, but God has provided for the tickets!!!:) Praise Him!!
Much love!
Annie

How it all began...the "AZ"story

Last year (almost exactly a year ago) I went on a Spring Break trip to Las Angeles with a team of 6..three students from DSU and three students from SDSU...lead by DSU's staff Kim. I wrestled for a long time with whether I was going or not, until the Lord so clearly spoke to my spirit saying "go." LA was a blast! It's probably the most intense spiritual thing I have ever done, and my life has been radically transformed through my experiences there. It was there that God took biblical teachings and stories and transformed them into daily experiences and realities (read the LA blog for more onthis).
One day while we were there, a woman came and spoke to us of her time spent in Africa with children in orphanges. They taught the children to really pray and seek God, to listen to his voice, in whatever way He would speak to them. She shared with us some amazing stories of these children praying and listening to words they recieved from Jesus, including a story about a hospital ward full of dying AIDS patients being miraculously healed through prayer and song (one woman who had been told she had no hope is now enrolled, or probably compeleted college!). Then this woman lead us through some of the same listening excersizes she did with the children (after all, scripture/Jesus teaches that we are to come to Him as children). She challenged us to do this, and I did. The first question we asked God was what game He would want to play with us. We then asked why and continued from there. My answer recieved was softball because the Lord wanted me to know that I have the confidence and authority in His kingdom just the same as I did on the softball diamond (I was an all state softball player 3 times...and had coaches we didn't enjoy pitching to me...). Pretty sweet right? We then asked God if he could go anyplace with us where would he go and why? I had two simultaneous responses. An image of water and the word Barcelona. I inquired first on the water, and the Lord gave me an image of me dancing on water with him as the center I danced around ( kind-of like a ballerina and him holding my hand as I danced around Him). He wanted to grow my faith to where I wouldn't just walk on water, but would be so comfortable with Him and my trust in Him that I would dance on water (which He is definately doing...through some interesting ways:)). I then inquire about Barcelona and He told me He wanted me to go there and when asked when I heard "summer 2009."
And thus, Barcelona began. Since then, Ashley and Kelsey joining me has just fallen into place. We're still planning and waiting and watching as the rest of the trip falls into place, having faith it is the Lord's will and He will continue to reveal what He has for us there. As for Ashley and Kelsey coming to Barcelona....well there stories are probably different... I'll let them share them with you themselves! :)
For now, that's it!
God bless and may you grow more in the knowledge of His love daily!
Love you much!
AZ for the Barcelona trio