MARCH-ing ON…

  While January and February were packed full of events and happenings, March always seems a little less chaotic and a bit of a slower pace. Well, marching along is easier that running along the path of life!

  We were able to enjoy some time with friends at a barbeque planning meeting, at the beach for café and relaxation, at a birthday celebration with yummy treats, at a home with their mini farm, and at the seasonal opening of  a Chiringuito (a small bar on the beach) with a paella lunch.
 
 
 
 
                          

  March 19th was El Dia de Padre (Father’s Day) in Spain.  We were able to surprise Jared with Father’s Day….don’t get THAT chance very often.  We prepared one of his favorite meals- fried potatoes, sauerkraut, and sausages- and the girls surprised him with a small gift- a candy bar and a hammock.  He also was able to enjoy the afternoon with our friend, Martin, while they celebrated Father’s Day outside eating tubs of ice cream (and sharing some bites with their kids).
 

  Jared was back to working 40 hours a week monitoring the gym The fitness center is really busy now with everyone coming in to get beach ready for this summer.  Our friend, Ivan (aka Grande), gives Jared a thumbs up on a break between sets!

Spring in the Gym!

    

  With Jared monitoring in the gym and Lora’s fitness classes and walking club on top of the management responsibilities, bible study prep and teaching, Spanish class, and communication with and preparations for the groups that we have visiting us at the end of April and the month of May, we are blessed  and know it’s important to make time to spend as a couple and as a family.  We make sure a few days a week we get outside with the girls to enjoy the weather, the scenery and each other.  Jared and Lora take every Friday morning alone to walk or run along the beach, have some quiet prayer time in some favorite seaside spots, and have a relaxing morning in town having a café at the same bar, getting fresh fruits and veggies from the market, and making any other needed stops at the shops in town before picking up the girls from school and Jared heading to work at 2pm.
 
           
  
         
          
 
       

    Jared was able to take an afternoon to go rock climbing with his friends, Matt and Martin.  He really enjoyed it. The location is within walking distance of our apartment.  Since Jared and Lora both enjoy climbing and Laila is showing more and more of an interest, we are hopeful to purchase (or have donated) some climbing gear for our family to have and use as another family time activity.  This particular rock face is a90 feet tall.
 

  Laila was invited to a weekend of camping with her best friend and her family.  She had a great time and LOST HER FIRST TOOTH!!  We have been actively working on getting this tooth to come out for at least a month. Her two permanent front teeth are already coming in behind her front baby teeth.  It’s a little sad that she doesn’t have that usual goofy smile with a gapping hole that kids get when they loose their teeth  but we are VERY happy it is finally out. Now….to get the other loose ones to come out!
        

  Jara has her own ministry opportunity here working in the food pantry every Monday afternoon from 4:45-6:45pm.  The pantry reopened in March after being closed for the last two months because the government has not shipped any food to replenish the stock that feeds over 200 people each month!  As you can see, the team she works with has lots of fun together.
 
 
 
          

Jara and Jared ended the last day of March attending a joint youth group event between our church youth group and another community church where our group traveled to enjoy a time of worship, teaching and a meal together.
                              

   We are enjoying watching the March weather bring the blooms of spring and watching God bring the buds of fruit in our ministry work.  We are excited that as time marches on that more and more buds are visible and the fruit is beginning to grow and flourish.
  

God continues to encourage and guide us in this field He has given us to labor in, to pray for, and to harvest from in His Name and for His Glory.

February Flew…

We have come to the end of March and as I was beginning to start a blog for the month, I realized that I never published the blog for February!!  I was waiting on pictures from one of my friend’s camera and Jared’s mobile device to add to the photos and never got back to the blog.  Sorry, for the delay…


January and February always seem to blend together for us, and this year was no different.  But with losing our internet connection in the house at the end of January and not having it the whole month of February, it made keeping you up to date on all that has been occurring in our lives and ministry very difficult and progress on updating our entire blog site halted.  As you will read, we weren’t without things to do as February flew right on by.


We start February as we do EVERY February 1st giving birthday blessings to Lora.  Her birthday was on a Wednesday this year which meant juggling all the normal daily things and making her birthday special.  Jared and the girls prepared her some yummy giant gluten free chocolate chip cookies and served it with ice cream…of course!  Then, Jared planned an evening out for Lora with friends on Friday.  Eight months without one of her favorite foods, Jared did some research and had some help from some friends in the fitness center and found a highly recommended sushi restaurant in Malaga Centro.  We had three last minute cancellations due to illnesses, got lost walking in downtown without a Spanish guide, and were an hour late for our reservations (much to the unhappiness of our friend, Alvaro, whom after much pleading for forgiveness loves us again(: ).  Despite all this chaos, we had a great evening- the food was FANTASTIC and Jared was able to share the Good News with one of our friends that night!!!
    

We followed up Lora’s Birthday with another celebration- SUPER BOWL!  We decided it was worth making a big deal about here since Indianapolis was the host city this year.  We invited many from the community, the gym and church to join us.  However, we are 6 hours ahead of Indy…making the televised broadcast of the Super Bowl commencing at 12:30AM and ending at 4:30AM!!!  We didn’t have as many come as had said that they might and a few who decided last minute to go to bed. But, those who came, came with enthusiasm!  Our new friends, Birger and Mabel, were able to come and Mabel even made little banner flags to support the Giants!  (Birger and Mabel from Norway have just recently moved to Totalan, a small pueblo above La Cala, where they have purchased a small “hotel”/bed-n-breakfast. We have come to know them through our new Spanish class that they take with us two days a week.  Mabel has also joined Lora’s walking group on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  Plus, we just spend extra time together before and after class and just really enjoy hanging out together.)
 
 

The first full week of February, Lora started a new group (free and outside the community center or church).  She and Maria have been walking at 10:30am most Tuesday and Thursday mornings after the class that Lora teaches in the fitness center from 9:30-10:30am.  They were both wanting to meet and get to know more women. So, Lora approached Maria about inviting women to join them on their walks, adding a 15-20 minute training session on the beach, and having some café (either at Lora’s apartment or at the mall food court) afterwards.  We have been walking with in this group form for over a month now and the group is growing and having LOTS of fun.  We have several women from the church and some from the community who have joined us. They think that Lora is evil with her training and pushing them during their walk (hehehe), but all are enjoying the exercise and the friendships.  The fellowship during the coffee time is great and provides the perfect ending to a morning as we all sit around a talk and laugh until our children (those who have kiddos) have to be picked up from school at 2pm (14:00).  Lora is really enjoying serving these women in love and establishing deeper relationships with the women she’s met here. 
 
 

We also enjoyed a visit by some Calvary Chapel brothers and sisters from California.  Our friends, Ivan and Eunice, who have planted a Calvary Chapel church in Rincon de la Victoria had their sending church (Calvary Chapel Upland, California) pastor and his wife, Randy and Jeanette, and well as a representative from Send Magazine (Calvary Chapel’s Missions Magazine), Lisa with her camera, and Eunice’s cousin, Cory, Cory’s husband, Paul, and a couple of youth from the church in Upland, Haley and Nash.  Jared was able to accompany the group on a scouting outing during the week. We were blessed to host them in our home for a Friday night pizza night. (Yep, 13 people fit into my space!)  They also invited us to join them the following day on Saturday for a walk around Malaga Centro and afterwards to a family meal and then a church merienda and teaching time.  While in Malaga, Centro
 
 
 

 

Eunice and her sister dance Sevilliana (a style of Flamenco dance) as their family sings along.

 


We enjoyed watching our first rugby match.  It was fun learning about the game and getting into the energy of the match between Scotland and Ireland. We celebrate our friend, Mike’s, birthday watching a sport he used to play and helping him eat his enormous birthday cake with tea…He’s a Brit!
 

We added a new class and a new instructor into the fitness center class mix…Aero-Box, an aerobic, choreographed kickboxing class.  Jared and Lora have been taking the class and occasionally Jara likes to join in.  The class is growing each week and drawing in men and women alike.  Jose is a great instructor and drags us through his workouts punching and kicking- literally!


Jara has been having fun with the youth group and the week of Carnival was no different with the group having a Friday night Carnival party.  Each was to dress up…we got creative with Jara’s costume!  She was happy with the final result and the fact that her best friend, Sophia, was able to come and join her in the fun.
 


God has also provided a new way for the WHOLE family to bring in a little extra income!   Lora was connected to a wonderful French women who has lived in Spain for a long while (I think around 20 years, more or less) who owns and operates a marketing firm.  She was in need of an American accent for a voice over- adding an American voice to an already produced infomercial. Lora took her certification course for teaching English as a second language with a teacher that now works in the language school in the community center who does some British reading and voice work for this marketing company.  When the marketing company said that they needed an American voice, the teacher said she knew of only one…Lora.  The pictures below were taken the first voice recording .  Lora ended up sound to raspy from a cough she’d been fighting for a week.  Jared ended up doing the voice recording for final production.  Since this photo, our whole family has been back to do voice recordings for an educational video game that teaches English as a second language.  It so much fun reading the scripts and acting with just your voice.  We look forward to working with Fiorina and her company more in the coming months.
 

Our family has really enjoyed the “winter” weather in the Costa del Sol (Coast of the Sun).  Jara and Laila have been perfecting their jump roping skills.  We are still enjoying at least one bike ride a week.  The girls had a week out of school, “Semana Blanca” for week ending February and beginning March, which also provided us the opportunity to get out and enjoy the days even more.  We took one day to visit Paloma Park, a large public park on the other side of Malaga escorted by our friends, Martin and Maria, who had visited the park on several other occasions.  (Thanks to our friends, Marcos and Zoe, for letting us use their car for our outing.)  Despite a few passing clouds and a stray sprinkle, we had a fun visit at the park.  After the park visit, we took the girls to Plaza Mayor, a large outdoor shopping center, where we had visited before without the girls. For a special treat, we enjoyed a lunch at the American Restaurant, “Foster’s Hollywood”, (It was great to have legitimate American style cuisine) and purchased them each a backpack to use on our bike rides and visits to the beach to carry their water bottles, towels, and other “gear”.
 
 

Jumping rope is fun!

   
 
 
   


              

Jared ended the month with his first live FUTBOL match.  He was able to go see Spain’s national team play Venezuela in the last pre-tournament match before the World Cup which begins in June.  Martin called Jared and wanted to know if he would like to go to the match and if he knew of anyone else who might want to go with them.  Tickets were relatively cheap for such an event.  Jared and Lora discussed a decided that Jared could swing the cost of the ticket.  Jared also had two other guys from the fitness center lined up to go with them. Well, on game day, the two guys from the gym dropped out of going.  Jared felt responsible to find takers for the extra two tickets that Martin had already purchased.  Jared asked around and Birger (our other friend from Norway who attends Spanish class with us) was very excited, willing and able to purchase the ticket and go.  Now, just one left.  Jared called Ivan (our friend and pastor of Calvary Chapel Rincon del la Victoria).  Ivan told Jared that he was already going to the match and taking his nephew.  Jared hung up the phone trying to think of another person to call.  Ivan called back about 15 minutes after Jared’s first phone call to him.  He asked if they wanted to give the ticket away or find someone to purchase it.  Jared said that they were looking for someone to purchase it but also didn’t want to see it go to waste…”Why?”  Ivan explained that his nephew had really wanted to go see the match and this info was shared by his dad to Ivan.  The dad couldn’t really afford to get tickets for them to go.  Ivan was already planning on attending so he went ahead a bought a ticket for his nephew as well.  Ivan said that he would love for father and son to go together to enjoy the game and experience, but he had already paid for two tickets and couldn’t afford to buy the extra one to go with Jared.  Jared knew instantly what to do but Ivan told him to think about it.  Jared told Ivan that the ticket was his.  What Ivan didn’t know was that the Lord had already planned it out.  See, when Jared told Martin that he could attend, Martin said that he wanted to bless Jared and pay for his ticket.  We had fully intended on paying for a ticket to that match…and we did.  We were then able to bless Ivan with a free ticket so that he in turn could bless his brother and nephew with free tickets.  I love watching God’s plans come together!  By the way, the guys had great seats and a great experience… and next time these foreigners know to pack their bocadillos (sandwiches) to break out and eat during half time!
  
 

February is a short month already and when it flies by like this one did it seems even shorter!  We managed, however, to pack it full with fun, friends, and family as well as worship, work and workouts.