The Dredded City

 A few weeks ago, we had a guest speaker that wasn't able to arrive to Mijas until Wednesday. As a result, we had no class on Monday, so some of the other interns and I took a quick overnight trip up to the eclectic city of Granada.

The journey started early Sunday morning at 8 am with a trip on a bus, followed by a train, another bus, and one more bus before finally arriving into Granada around 1 pm. What we weren't expecting was that the bus into Granada dropped us off a good fifty minute walk outside of the city center. Unfortunately, we were completely unaware of our location until we had wandered aimlessly for thirty minutes and finally figured out that we still weren't even close... hence the last bus ride.

Regardless, I had been in charge of making the travel arrangements for the trip, and fortunately I was able to find a cheap hostel for only 12 euros a night, right in the city center. After wandering around for only about half the time we took getting into the city, we found our hostel and checked in.

In the hostel, we relaxed for a moment or two but didn't stay long, knowing there were too many things out in the city to see. Our first and most important destination was the Alhambra. If you are unfamiliar with what the Alhambra is, it is a Moorish palace built in the fourteenth century that is perched atop a hill and overlooking the city of Granada below.

The Alhambra was originally intended to be used as an area for military fortress and defense, but over time palaces and residential areas were established within the walls as well. In essence, the place is so grand that it functioned not just as a fortress, but as a castle, residential annex, and a citadel. A visit to the Alhambra must certainly include seeing the famous Nasrid Palaces, the lush Generlife gardens, and the luxurious bath houses, and many other significant sections within the Alhambra.

Needless to say, we were very excited to visit it.  However, late afternoon was quickly creeping up onto us and the pressure was on to get to the Alhambra as soon as possible to see if there'd be any chance of getting a same-day ticket (a VERY rare thing for such a popular destination!). Our hostel was nestled right at the base of the hill, nearly in the shadow of the Alhambra, so we simply started to walk towards it. Someone had told us it was only about a fifteen minute walk up the hill to get there. We meandered through the streets and plazas, enjoying the new sights as we walked, but after about twenty minutes we realized we couldn't be in the right place.

We had walked around the bottom of the hill to the opposite side that we were supposed to walk up. Ironically, we ran into some other tourists along the way who were also lost and trying to find their way to the top. Some of them greeted us on the road we were walking up and told us to turn around because the road we were heading down was closed at the top.

I'm glad they figured that out and not me :)

So, as you can imagine, we changed our minds on the walking and decided to find a bus.

Easier said than done.

After another forty minutes of wandering around and running back and forth between streets, we finally found The Alhambra bus and paid a euro for our ride to the top. Totally worth it.

Once up on the hill, we were fortunate enough to get tickets and go straight in. We spent the next few hours exploring the beautiful citadel and discovering the treasures of Moorish influence. Somewhere along the way, we lost our friend Brook in the gardens. I had a security guard radio his colleagues around the area to see if they had seen a brown haired American girl. They had no luck finding her and for twenty minutes, neither did we.

Allison, Grant, and I split up to go search for her throughout the gardens. Grant found her waiting for us on a bench near the entrance...

The Alhambra was an incredible experience, but it took a lot of energy out of us. We were exhausted from walking around for hours, so we all agreed to sit down to a nice, relaxing dinner. We hopped on the bus and made our way back to our hostel where there was a cute Middle Eastern restaurant around the corner that we had noticed earlier. It made the perfect conclusion to our Moorish experience and we all thoroughly enjoyed pita and hummus, kebabs, curry chicken, cous cous, and of course, good wine.

Before turning in for the night, we set out to experience some night life in Granada. A few friends had told us that we needed to go to a lookout point where we could see the Alhambra illuminated on the hillside at night, so we made a trek (up a hill of course) to find the vista. It was on this night journey that I learned a few things about Granada.

First of all, Granada seems to the Mecca for drifters, free spirits, and "all-natural" people. In other words, one out of every three people in the city (maybe more than that) has dred locks, a worn-out backpack with all their belongings, and a poor scruffy dog that has probably never had a bath in its life... although I'm really not sure if any of the people had either. I don't know if they are living there or simply passing through, but regardless, the city definitely has an eclectic and unique flavor.

In addition, I also learned very quickly that the dredded people of Granada are quite eccentric. Most of the time, the groups we would pass simply sat in contentment on the walls overlooking the Alhambra or in the plazas below, strumming on beat-up guitars and vibrantly beating on drums. Every so often you'd come across the extra-quirky person that was standing alone shouting loudly at passerbys... or a wall... or themselves...

I also had the unfortunate experience of learning not to ask questions to preoccupied Spaniards engaged in conversation. While sitting on a wall overlooking the Alhambra amidst a boisterous group of young people, I leaned over and tapped a man on the shoulder to ask a simple question. Before I got any further than "Pardon," I had a hand waved in my face and a harsh voice commanding (in Spanish of course), "Don't bother me!" Feeling quite dejected and burned, I decided I could acquire the answer to my question elsewhere and promptly relocated next to a dred-locked hippie man and his two friends. I wasn't about to try and talk to anyone else again or even ask my question again, so fortunately we were able to sit peacefully next to this new group without them seeming the least bit concerned with our presence. It almost made up for the lovely aroma wafting through the air from their direction ;-)

 

After our certainly interesting experience with the locals of Granada, we wandered back through the town in the quiet streets. We detoured only for a moment along the way when I found a 20 euro bill on the ground and exclaimed my findings in excitement in front of my friends, and apparently in front of a homeless man (or shopkeeper... I'm not really sure) standing on the street next to us. According to him, the 20 euros was actually his friends money who had dropped it and been looking for it not too much earlier. To avoid falling prey to their fully reasonable story, the four of us ducked into a restaurant nearby and discussed buying ourselves drinks with the money we had just found. Before we concluded anything, the man and his friend walked into the restaurant, approached us, and started going off in Spanish about how the money was theirs. I briefly considered putting up a fight to defend what I had found, but my friends promptly urged me that it was not worth it. Needless to say, we paid for our own drinks that night but the men went away satisfied and with a smile on their greedy faces.

We stopped in a pub before retiring that night, but Grant decided to head back to the hostel early. When the three of us girls got back to the room, Grant notified us that his brother had facebooked him saying there was an emergency and to call him immediately. We had no phones, no skype, and no proper internet connection, so Grant was left in anxiety until he was able to get ahold of his brother and find out that his mom had had her fourth stroke and was currently in the hospital.

Since my blogs have been a bit out of order lately, if you remember reading The Almond Branch, then you already know what followed from there. Grant sadly had to leave G42 early, only two days later, and rush home to say goodbye to his mother and start preparing for her funeral. It's been about a month now since that happened, but I'm sure the tragedy is still heavy on his heart, so please keep him in your prayers.

Grant left early the next morning to get back to Mijas where he could get better internet connection to talk with his family and stay connected on what was happening with his mom, but Brook and Allison and I stayed a little longer before returning to Mijas that evening. We really took it easy that day - slept in, ate breakfast together at a nice cafe, saw Grant off, and then wandered around the parts of the city we hadn't made it to the previous day. We walked through the famous Albacin, saw the Cathedral, got dried fruit and Moroccan spices in the popular plazas, and wandered through the Moroccan market. It was a very chill and laidback day and a good opportunity to see the rest of the city.

On our way back to Mijas, I considered all the strange incidents that had happened in Granada. In conclusion, I found Granada to be a lovely city, full of art, history, and culture. The only dreaded thing about it at all was the occasional intolerance of the locals. But luckily, observing (and even participating in) the bohemian lifestyle of the dredded people, along with enjoying the city's beauty and history, definitely made Granada worth the visit :)

A Birthday Blog for My Mother

For most people, September 15 is just another day like all the rest of the 364 days that fly by each year. In my family, it's a special day, and the only one like it. September 15th is my mom's birthday.

My mom is a pretty much a professional when it comes to throwing parties, so over the years we have had some pretty awesome celebrations for her birthdays. However, over the past few years, I haven't really been around on her birthday since I've been living in Texas and she's in Arizona. And the worst part is, I only seem to be getting farther and farther away. Sadly, some of the most interaction I've had with my own mom on her birthday recently was a few years ago when I ended up in the hospital with a kidney stone on her birthday. Probably not the most exciting birthday celebration for a mother to hear about her daughter having to go to the hospital!

So since I can't be with my mom on her birthday, I can't exactly throw her a party or bake a cake, and I can't even very easily send a present or a card, I decided to write a blog dedicated to her.

Someone at G42 asked me today if I was close with my mom. I told her the truth: we do fight a lot, but I tell her everything and she's very involved in my life. My friend's response was, "That's a really special relationship to have with your mom and to be able to be that close." I agree. Although we are typical mother and daughter sometimes, I honestly don't know what I would do without my mom. She is there for me all the time, from the super serious stuff in life to the ridiculously dumb things. She listens to me, she tells me good advice, she lets me complain to her, she helps me when I don't know how to do something right, she is generous to me, she loves me and supports me, and she puts me in line when I am being stupid. I may not be in the same state or country as her very many days out of the year, but I know that she is just a phone call away, and I can call her anytime to talk about any random thing that's on my mind (which I frequently do, sometimes several times a day... thank goodness for Skype!!).

But Mom, I want you to know that I don't take any of it for granted. The fact that I can call you ten times in an hour and ask you how to cook lasagna or talk to you for an hour about my life drama or rely on you to run errands at home for me shows me that I have a wonderful mother who truly cares for me. I know it's not easy that I am so far away from home, but you have let me go and have supported me in what I am doing, and I want to thank you for encouraging me to pursue my dreams, even if it's not particularly preferable for you. And thank you for all the advice and wisdom that you share with me. I know that I can trust the things that you say and I appreciate that you help me get things into perspective a lot of the time.

Pretty much, I've got a great Mom! Thank you for loving me the way you do and for always being willing to sacrifice for me and make sure that I have the kind of care and nurture that a child should have. I have often not given you the credit you've deserved in the past, but I want to now, in a place where everyone can see what a wonderful mother you are and how much you have done for your children.

I'm sorry I can't be there today to take you to lunch or buy you a lemon meringue pie from Marie Callendar's, but I'm trusting that you will throw an awesome party with your friends to celebrate and do something fun. I wish I could be there for it, but since I'm not, I hope you know how much I really love and appreciate you.

Thank you for giving your life the way you have, and for just being my mom, and being a good one. I love you, Mom.

Happy Birthday!

P.S. I don't have a clue how old you are turning this year!!

Lessons from the Warrior Shepherd

A few weeks ago, we had a week with Dave Hearn as our teacher, current G42 staff and former officer of the United States Air Force. I haven’t had a chance to blog about it yet, but I wanted to make sure I highlighted it because Dave brought a fresh facet to our curriculum and schedule. We spent the morning class periods talking about tribes, networking, goal setting, and our vision projects. In the afternoon, however, instead of returning to the classroom, Dave took us on several hikes and walks in the mountains surrounding Mijas. It was hot. We hiked a lot. We got sweaty. And it was fantastic. Dave told us it was a lesson in hard work, which was true, but it was so much more than that. It was an opportunity for us to use every part of our being to grow, learn, be challenged, and love God. At the peak of each hike, we would take a break and use our resting time as an opportunity to do a group activity or assignment.

One of the days, Dave instructed us to design a logo and come up with a name for our hypothetical business or non-profit organization. We also had to write out our own mantra of who we are. Another day we had to do a team building exercise where we had to carry out a task written on paper without verbally communicating with the rest of our group. On another hike, we played a crazy version of Telephone, alternatively using charades and story-telling to pass the story along. Each game or activity had an intentional purpose and taught us a new lesson or opened our eyes to the importance of a principle or idea. I found them to be quite helpful and impacting!

Essentially, I really enjoyed our week of physical labor (ok maybe it wasn’t that intensive) and exercise. It was a great chance to start putting into practice healthy living habits and remembering the importance of taking care of the bodies that God has given us. Plus, it was nice to have a break from being in a classroom and taking notes :)

I figured I’d post some of the pictures from our hikes so you can see what our class experience was like that week, plus enjoy the beautiful views we got to see in Mijas.

 

 

The Almond Branch

 

Everything is shifting. It is the last full week of the term and in less than two weeks, half of the interns graduate and will be heading back to the U.S. to move forward with the next step in their lives. We’ve all been trying to push it out of our thoughts, but the impending change is still hanging in the air, weighing on us as we begin all of our “lasts.” Last weekend together, last time at the beach, last class with this group of ten, last house dinner together… They are all coming and soon after, everything will change.

What is even harder is that the change has already begun. This weekend I took a two-day trip to Granada with Allison, Brook, and Grant, some of my fellow interns. While we were there, Grant got news on his iPhone that his mom had a stroke – her fourth one in the last nine months. He left early the next day, a couple hours before us, to head back home to Mijas where he could more easily get into contact with his family. When we walked in the door a few hours after him that evening, we found out that his mom was in ICU and was probably not going to make it, so he was being Skyped into ICU.

My heart broke.

This is one of our interns… one of our friends, our family members… and things haven’t exactly been easy in his life. To hear about such a distressing, heart-wrenching thing sent our whole group into tears and prayers. The leaders of G42 stopped by our house periodically throughout the night to encourage and support Grant while everything was going on. It was a tough night, but Grant is a really strong man and demonstrated peace and hope in the midst of that horrible situation we never want to imagine ourselves in.

Right now, Grant is on his way to Madrid to catch a flight back to L.A. where he can meet up with his relatives and brothers and see his mom one more time before the machine is turned off and she goes home to the Lord.

Graduation is one week away. Our hearts are broken for Grant. And we’re so sad to see him go, only days before getting a chance to celebrate his graduation from the last six months of hard work here at G42.

The house feels extra empty tonight, and I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like in a couple weeks when every leaves permanently.

However, I know that although the change and transition will be sad for all of us, it is an occasion of celebration and an event to rejoice in. The interns who are graduating – AnnieRose, Allison, Lynsey, Jenny and Christ Telfer, and Grant – have been poured into for six months here and have grown, changed, been challenged, and been filled up to the brim. They are bursting at the seams, ready to embrace their life-passion and the dream that God has put into their hearts. They are prepared, they are passion-filled, and they are ready – and they are about to go and do incredible things in this world! As sad as my heart is to see them go, I can’t help but also rejoice, knowing that they are fully equipped to do the work God has set out for them to do.

Andrew, the director here, taught us a story from Jeremiah 1 this week. It’s when God speaks to Jeremiah and calls him to be a prophet. After telling Jeremiah that, even in his youth, he is still qualified and capable of leading God’s people, simply because God has chosen him, God then asks Jeremiah what he sees. Jeremiah gives a simple answer – an almond branch, which God affirms is correct.

So what’s so important about an almond branch? Andrew has one in his garden and he told us something unique about it: the almond tree is the first tree to bloom in the winter. He walked out onto his terrace one grey January morning and saw the tree with blossoms budding on the branches.

Jeremiah was living in the midst of a winter. His country and his people had hardships whirling down all around them – economically, politically, spiritually, and socially. Yet when Jeremiah looked around him and described what he saw, he didn’t say he saw winter. In the midst of the coldest, darkest time, Jeremiah saw the one tiny thing that wasn’t winter: a fresh new bud on the almond tree – the symbol of hope, the promise of spring, the reminder of new life ahead.

In the midst of change, in the midst of goodbyes and departures, in the midst of our friends’ winters and our own winters, I hope we can always remember to look for the almond branch. There is always a spring ahead. And there will always be a sprig of hope in the middle of the winter.

New Realities

The G42 House on Calle San Sebastian is always bustling and teeming with interns and guests who are running around the house, laughing, cooking, working, and talking. It's rare that the house is ever empty or left alone to one person, but right now that's where I've found myself. The whole group, including some of the G42 staff members, has gone to hang out at a local pub, something I would normally love to do. All the G42 interns here are well aware of my enthusiasm for social events and have quickly learned how keen I am on getting out of the house, going new places, and meeting new people. However, tonight I had to decline the invitation to go be a social butterfly and be a part of all the excitement and interaction. Instead I decided to stay home and have some alone time.

So the house is quiet. And I'm enjoying sitting here and having the chance to reflect.

A lot has gone on in the last couple weeks. I think I've experienced a little bit of every emotion possible. After I got back from London, we had an incredible and intense week with a teacher from the U.S. named Ted Hanson. Ted is from Bellingham, Washington where he has founded House of Bread Ministry and a training school called the School of Eagles, both ministries in which he is currently involved. In addition, Ted is an apostle and a prophet and does much international travel and public speaking in order to train, activate, and release people into the future God has planned for them.

While he was here, he taught on New Covenant Realities - basically the differences between the old covenant God made with the Israelites and the new covenant that has been established through Jesus Christ. The way he taught was innovative and offered a brand new interpretation on things that I had never considered before. As a result, I found myself mentally and spiritually challenged every moment we were in class. Most of the interns left class every day overwhelmed by the amount of new information that we heard and exhausted by trying to keep up with Ted and understand it all, yet we still felt full and satisfied because we knew that we were retaining and understanding exactly what we needed to for the time being. Throughout that week, I frequently heard phrases along these things: "I have no idea what's going on, but my spirit is getting it and I'm feeling really good about what I am catching onto!"

Basically, we knew we were hearing truth and being changed, but our minds were being blown beyond our comprehension. All that to say, I can't really explain yet what I learned that week. I'm still processing it all, still trying to make sense of it, and still recognizing places that it has hit me in my life and seeing the changes it has caused in my mindset and actions. The good thing is, Ted is coming back next semester and we get another chance to soak up the wisdom and passion that are dripping off of him. That's gonna be another intense, but insanely good week.

The whole week that Ted was here, we had a group of seven people from England visiting to check out G42. I was also cooking dinner that week, so my afternoons were spent cooking and my evenings were spent making new friends :) 

cooking dinner

While cooking, I realized these important things:

              1. I like cooking (even when it's for 22 people!)

              2. I'm not that bad at cooking

              3. Cooking can actually be kind of fun

I know... not all that novel of thoughts, but they were quite revolutionary for me! I always hated cooking and thought I was never capable of doing it, but I actually found last week that not only can I do it, but I can do it without anxiety and stress and can actually have a decent result! Of course, it helps a whole bunch having AnnieRose, my cooking partner, working alongside me in the kitchen with her easygoing and peaceful demeanor, because we always figured out a way to deal with whatever went wrong... and it was never a big deal! 

setting out the yummy food!

I also had a ton of fun with all the English folks visiting, and spent lots of time discussing different English dialects, accents, and odd phrases. It was also really nice having some extra people to hang out with throughout the week. On Friday night after tapas, we all headed down to the local pub (the one where everyone is at now) and hung out there for a bit. When they kicked us out at closing time, we then relocated to the terrace at home where we could sit in the cool night air and look up at the stars. It was brilliant.

dinner with our English friends

Dave Hearn

In the midst of all the fun and excitement with visitors and the thought provoking times with Ted, we were assigned a vision project. I've known about this project since before I even arrived at G42, and I knew that it was going to be a lot of work and a big deal, but I was really looking forward to the day when I actually created it and completed it.

Basically, our vision projects are an opportunity for us to communicate to others what our passion is and what we want to do about it. As I've explained before, this can be anything from a business to a non-profit organization to a ministry - essentially something that we want to start and put into effect in order to share God's love with people around the world. 

Bec Hearn

We haven't presented our projects to each other yet, so I haven't seen or heard about everyone's vision specifics yet, although I know that there are some really cool ideas that have been thought up. During the moments when I wasn't racking my brain to make sense of Ted's life-changing wisdom, cooking dinner, or hanging out with new friends, I was spending time with Andrew or his daughter Bec and son-in-law Dave to try to refine and sharpen my vision. I had a general idea of where I wanted my focus to be, but I had a lot of options and wasn't sure how to narrow it down. A nice conversation with Bec over lunch helped open my eyes to where my heart and passion truly lie and almost instantly provided me with more direction and plans for the future. After recognizing where my heart is and what I want to do, I had a much easier time sitting down to complete my project.

The project itself is simply a five page magazine article that explains our vision and includes the problem, existing solutions, and what our solution to the problem is. Sounds simple, but there's a lot of heart and passion that go into this article, so I definitely took my time with it. I wrote several pages about the problem and how it needs to be fixed, and then I got to the end and suddenly realized I didn't have a concrete solution. Another visit over to Dave and Bec's house, and I walked away with a crystal clear idea for how to materialize my plan. 

the awesome Hearn family

Of course, the plan is flexible and subject to change over time as I grow in my vision and define it more specifically, but for now I have a good lead that will take me where I need to start, and then I can proceed from there. I am quite anxious and excited to share this project with you, as it expresses my heart and is the beginning of what might be something really big in my life. I have a few changes to make still, but be looking for my article to be posted in the next week or two so that you will be able to read it and hear about my vision!

In the meantime, I am going to get some rest and relax and enjoy the last few weeks of the semester!