en vivo: The reason

A few weeks ago, I was having one of those days when I was wondering what the heck I am doing here? I sat down and talked to one of my teammates about it, and then had to quickly prepare myself to go on to the next event... Café Inglés, that particular day.

As soon as I walked out the door to greet the students that were already at the campus house, I saw a group of girls that I had met before, but they had brought new friends. Three new friends to be exact. I ended up sitting with these 5 girls for the rest of the evening, and by the time dinner came around, they asked me if I would show them a new place to eat, because they always eat in the dining hall.

That was the beginning of a new friendship with this group of 6 (in total) Spanish freshman girls. They invited me to breakfast with them later that week and we went and sat and had crepes and coffee while they took turns playing the piano that the restaurant lets its customers play. After playing and singing a few songs, I told them about the concert I would be playing soon after, and they were all in.

If there was a way for me to be reminded as to why I am here, that was it. And it's still going. I went and had coffee with one of the girls this past week and asked her about her family and her time here and Salamanca, and what she thought of En Vivo. She told me, "It's different, because none of us believe in God. No one believes in the church anymore, so it's strange for us to go to a place where they talk about God."

But they keep coming back. They are the sweetest group of girls. One of the girls is in a wheelchair and they take such good care of her, never hesitating to help her with anything she needs, and they all take turns.

I would love for you to be in prayer for these girls. They are heavy on my heart, and the great thing is that they will be around for the next 3 or 4 years in Salamanca, so I want them to feel incredibly comfortable at En Vivo so that maybe we can reestablish their faith in God and the church.

Here are some photos of these ladies, and the concert that was a smashing success!

Also, I've started a new small group with two lovely girls, who are both very quiet and sweet and have just recently gotten involved at En Vivo. Ely is from Galicia, Spain and Sara is from Columbia. Ely told me that a few years ago she came to Salamanca to visit the university and she happened upon En Vivo during that trip, and now that she is involved, she can't believe it. I've asked her to sing in the band the past few weeks and she is so thankful and excited to help.

Things are really going well around here. Our core group of students recently went on a retreat to get to know each other a little better and they did a lot of team building exercises as pictured here:

Now their new jobs to help around En Vivo are "Toallas" (towels, or the cleaning crew), "Etiquetas" (nametags and welcome) y el Grupo de Acogida (Welcome team, they make sure people feel at home when they are at En Vivo). It's been quite incredible to see them really take their jobs seriously and sit with students that they see who may not know anyone else, something they would've never done before. But they know the importance of making people feel welcome, because that's what happened when they first started coming around.

The fact that it's already March has taken me by surprise... but writing out all of these stories helps me realize how much has been going on here. We are meeting so many new students with outreach concerts, activities in dorms and meeting individually with students. It's been a great semester so far, and so much more is to come. Today we're starting our sign ups for the Spring retreat, so be praying for those students who will becoming and let me know if you would like to give any scholarships for someone to be able to go for free!!

Now I will attach some more random pictures and a link to one of the songs we sang at our concert last week... enjoy!