"I run to You"

Okay so for the last few weeks or so I think I have learned more about myself and what I learned the 4 months I was in Valencia. After being asked “What did you learn when you were in Spain?” by almost everyone I see who knows I studied abroad, I have had the opportunity to think about what I really learned while I was in Spain since I never put much thought into it while I was over there. Although fall 2009 in Valencia, Spain was the toughest, most difficult, semester in every way possible (physically, mentally and spiritually) it was at the same time the best and most fun semester I have ever had in my life.

Obviously living in a Spanish-speaking country, a Spanish-speaking city, a Spanish-speaking house and attending a school where you could only speak Spanish, I learned a lot of Spanish and may actually (hopefully) be fluent now. Or the least I can say is that I am a heck of a lot better than when I started out in Spain back in September. I remember meeting my Madre and as soon as she started talking in Spanish of course 90 miles an hour, I quickly thought of my stupidity in making the decision I did to come abroad and live with a Spanish- speaking family. But within a month I was speaking Spanish as though it was normal and after 4 months I was not only speaking it on accident when I got back to the USA, but I also would randomly write words in my emails in Spanish. And I had several dreams in Spanish and everyone says when you began to dream in Spanish you are fluent. So by that myth or truth, who knows? I am fluent. BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT. And good news which also helps me feel like I accomplished the Spanish language… remember that post about midterms and how I was freaking out about my grammar class in which I made a 39 on the midterm which was 30% of my grade. Well I either mastered the class within the following 6 weeks or by some sort of miracle guessed right because I made a B in the class. Yes a B for the semester. I was so happy and this was a HUGE accomplishment to my Spanish abilities and myself. So yes, I learned Spanish.

Not only did I learn Spanish, but I also learned a lot more too. More about life, but mostly more about my relationship with the Lord and just how amazing His love and grace is for us. As I mentioned my three weeks of summer staff at Woodleaf was AMAZING. Although we faced many, many challenges, especially waterfront, God was there and He showed Himself to me in so many ways I’d never seen before. Those 3 weeks of my life were possibly the best and such a good preparation for Spain and what was about to come.

For months I had been praying for my time in Spain, my purpose in Spain (other than learning Spanish of course), my goals in Spain, my family and friends in Spain, and the list goes on and on. I never understood why on earth I thought it would be such a good idea to work in California at Woodleaf the last 3 weeks of summer just days before I left for Spain. But good thing I have a God that is perfect and plans super well, because He prepared my heart for all of the craziness I would encounter in Spain. I don’t know what happened at Woodleaf, but I have never felt so close to the Lord as I did there. Well, upon arriving in Spain I realized that God had not quite given me what I had asked Him for: a Christian community. And furthermore I realized how hard it was going to be to follow Him in such a spiritually dead country. You think the US is spiritually dead, well go to a place like Spain or Italy and I promise you, you will think differently. So needless to say I thought okay, God didn’t give me any help and nope, don’t think I have the strength to try this on my own. So instead I decided I’m just going to have fun and do whatever I want this semester. I mean it is my senior year and I am in Spain right? So why should it matter. So I did just that. For the first month it was fun, going out all of the time and having the time of my life, but when October came I began to feel differently. As you know we had a week off from school and so I flew to Milan and met my parents in Lake Como. We were going to be in Italy for the week. It was there that I realized I was crazy and life was not anything how I expected it to be before I came to Spain. After a week in Italy with my parents, I realized just how hard the remaining time in Spain was going to be. And I remember parting with my parents in the Milan International Airport, they were going back to the US and I was going back to Spain. I cried so much and I was so sad to see the one security I had in Spain quickly pass away. I had never ever been so homesick, or homesick really, in my life. I cried all the way back to Valencia and even when I got back. And unfortunately the sadness didn’t end there… the next week we had midterms and I had studied so much and thought that I was so prepared. Well apparently not because the following week I received my grades along with an email from my advisor there asking me to come see him. Not a good thing. As it turns out I got a 39 on my grammar exam (by far the worst grade I have ever gotten in my life and in Spanish… come on!) I had not made a single grade lower than a B in any of my Spanish classes and I quickly learned that my prideful self did not have a clue what the Spanish language was about. So yea, the month of October was terrible, but it was my breaking point. Here is a little excerpt of an email I sent to one of my good friends that sums up my feelings at this point of my life in Spain:

“I know my heart is so confused right now and I am not giving up. God is powerful and there is a reason I am here in Spain and I hope He will prevail and show me that reason soon. As for now, I am not saying I don't believe any more because I do and I know life is so much better with Him, but sometimes it seems like it is so much more stressful to be a believer and worry about maintaining a relationship with the Lord. I was prepared for challenges, but never this, I can't handle it. I think too much about what people think of me as it is and I am a follower meaning people's ideas rub off on me. And they are, badly and it scares the hell out of me. I am questioning so many things now that I would have never questioned before I came over to Spain, like why did the majority of the church support someone who clearly killed hundreds of thousands of people for almost 35 years? Laura, I don't know I don't know what to do. I am praying and am trying to believe that someone aka God is hearing them, but at the same time nothing is happening and I am wanting to give up. And I have wasted a semester in so many ways: I have been such a hypocrite and my relationship with God has weakened so much. Why do both of these things happen? I am trying I really am. I am not prepared for this, and God knows that but why He still chooses to put me in that position I don't know. I am so vulnerable and can be persuaded so easily…I am worried, but I am trying so hard to keep holding on to that little hope I do have. I try to remember how awesome life with the Lord can be.”

It seemed like years until November came and when it finally came I was SO happy. Not only because it was a new month, but also because I was going to travel 4 straight weekends in a row… Ireland, Madrid, Granada and Switzerland. I knew I also had to step it up in school so I studied more, met with teachers, reviewed my grammar class everyday and tried to tell myself that I had to learn this language. I kept telling myself, “You have always loved this language and had a passion for it so yes, you are going to suffer through and learn the language.” So after I received that terrible grade, I stepped my game up because I was going to succeed and not fail myself.

Life began to become more normal and November and December in Spain were definitely some of my happiest days. I had a solid group of friends, there were four of us that were really close (Jess, Laine and Kristin and me) and I also had some other good friends too. And we were traveling every weekend. I mean who goes to Ireland, Granada and Switzerland all within a month. I spent nights out and days studying, weekends visiting museums and traveling and weekdays in the library. My life was good, in fact it was almost perfect, especially since my Spanish was drastically improving, but there was still one thing missing in my life. The Lord. So to that extent November and December were not the happiest of days, because although I was happy on the outside and lived an awesome life, but amidst all of the business I was still super lonely and sad and disappointed in myself. I knew all I had to do was depend on the Lord and trust in Him and read the Bible, but I didn’t want to, so I just tried to be happy and content with other worldly things, that didn’t satisfy me at all.

The last two weeks of my semester in Spain were insane to say the least. I spent majority of that studying for my intense exams (remember I had to pass my grammar class), but when I wasn’t studying I was going out and having such a good time with my friends. Although I couldn’t wait until December 18^th got here back in October, I was dreading its arrival in December because I knew when it came so would my time in Spain. It seemed like those two weeks flew by overnight. I remember hugging all of my friends in the JFK airport and just sobbing because it was so hard saying goodbye. Even though we had only been friends for a split second in our life, we had friendships like we had none each other since the day we were born. It is so cool to see how God works these awesome friendships into your life.

So here I am now still learning a great deal about myself in Spain, actually I am still learning most of it. Although it was a hard experience at times I think I learned how miserable it is to be separated from God. Ah it’s just terrible and my heart aches for those people who don’t believe or don’t know there is a Savior. I also learned that God doesn’t always answer our plans or meet our expectations, He does even cooler stuff that we can’t even think of. I also learned that you aren’t always going to be surrounded by believers, in fact most of the time you are going to be surrounded by nonbelievers and hey, that is the real world so get used to it and learn that life isn’t easy, it wasn’t made to be easy and Christ even says that lives as Christians will be hard in this world. Although I didn’t feel like I was learning ANYTHING in Spain, I feel like now I have learned some valuable stuff that will become so useful in my life.

Ironically my song for Valencia was “I run to you” by Lady Antebellum, well it was the song that was randomly playing on my IPod when our bus arrived in Valencia on September 3^rd 2009 and so it quickly turned into my Valencia song. And now I listen to it just so I can reminisce to the time I had in that wonderful Spanish city. But I think it is kind of funny because now after my experience in Spain I AM running to the Lord. So every time I think of that song I thing of Valencia, but I also think about running into the Lord’s arms.

I would not have regretted any moment about Spain and I am so thankful for the experience I had. I know that as live continues to unfold I will realized even more things that happened because of the time I spent in Valencia. I was talking to my good friend Helena last night that spent fall semester ’08 in Madrid, Spain and she said that she was still learning why she was in Spain that semester. I think that is so cool and although I had these awesome expectations in my head about my semester in Spain I know God just laughed and gave no attention because those were MY plans and not HIS. Ah the Lord is so great and perfect!

-MO