Welcome Home!

 

     We arrived in Espana on time.  Flying in over Malaga was beautiful sight!  I tried some pictures but they don’t do the scene justice.  You could see the fields of olive trees amongst the rocky terrain with the snow capped mountains in the horizon…as I said beautiful!

                                         

     We came off the plane, found ALL of our luggage (all 9 pieces checked and not a single lost), passed thru customs with a wave of the hand from the guards,and made our way towards an open area where we saw lots of people waiting for others to arrive.  We had no idea who was picking us up but hoped that regardless of us not knowing their face that they would know ours.  As we were standing there looking around, a very familiar face appeared out of the crowd and a familiar voice exclaimed, “Hola, mi familia!”  Pablo and Jared gave each other the biggest hug and then there were hugs for us all.  The girls were jumping and giving big warm embraces to their friend and new pastor.  We posed for a few pictures and made our way to the cars to load up our luggage.

                     

     The drive from the airport to the church might take all of 15 minutes!  We arrived to an empty apartment awaiting our arrival.  The people of the church had cleaned it, set up some rooms (leaving stuffed animals for the girls on their beds!), and had purchased a few basic groceries.  The apartment didn’t remain empty for long.  Before we could even get the first bag unloaded, Pia (who did most of the apartment prep), Eugene (Pia’s husband), Rosa (Pablo’s wife), Yoel and Lydia (Pablo’s children), Esther (Rosa’s sister), Raquel (Esther’s daughter), Louis (pastor from Minnesota visiting & picked us up at the airport), and Lope (the “maintenance guy” at the church & also picked us up at the airport) all arrived to welcome us home.  Esther and Rosa brought us over a prepared meal of macaroni (penne pasta, tomato sauce, and ground sausage) and a salad (romaine lettuce, walnuts, apples, raisins, and olive oil).  We were told that this was our home and to treat it as such.  We can make whatever changes we feel we need to and add our own touch to the apartment.  (Oh yeah!  I get to paint the walls!!  This home decorator is EXCITED!!)  Everyone stayed for only a very short time to enable us to get settled and get some rest.  But you know me…

     After everyone departed, we started moving furniture to put both the girls into one room.  (They had it set up for them to each heave their own.  We really desire to have a room for guests (hint, hint) and to have an office space that we can use for study (both us and the girls).  Laila’s first response to the apartment was, “This place is really big!”  It’s amazing the girls perspective and ours.  It does seem like A LOT of space.  I guess that’s what happens when you have only two rooms to call your own for the last two years!  We have a video of the apartment.  We will be uploading for you to view the beginning of next week.

    We also received a tour of the building itself before everyone left us last night.  I decided that all of you joining us should get the tour too.  (It’s in several videos but we will also have to upload them next week!)

   It has been a busy few days!  Shopping to pick up up some food, toiletries and a few necessities for the apartment.  We are also leaving in a few hours to go to a family retreat for the weekend.  When we arrived, we were informed that we had already been reserved a room and spaces for all of us to attend the retreat with other members of the church!  So, we are putting all things on hold for the weekend and going to go enjoy some fellowship with our new church family.  (This is why videos won’t be updated until next week!)  I still have plenty to share about our shopping experiences, new friends we have met, things we are excited about that are going on here, and, after this weekend, all the happenings a the retreat!  LOTS of blogs to come next week…until then, ADIOS!