en vivo

A few things going on

2011-04-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

It is so unbelievable how quickly the time goes by. We had our retreat and it was a great success. The two main things I want to tell you are as follows:

1) Ten of the students in this picture are not believers but they participated throughout the weekend in games and devos and worship and talks. We weren't sure how they were going to react, but all of them have come back to En Vivo since the retreat and all of them feel like a part of our community now.

2) Our leadership group took care of all the games and it was incredible to watch them work together to make sure everyone felt included.

It was an interesting retreat because there were so many non-believers, but we believe that God took care of that and made them feel comfortable and they were able to hear the gospel in so many different ways. Now we must pray that they continue seeing it in all of us.

Since the retreat, we've had another weekend in which we helped with a worship conference at a local church and this past weekend we participated in the Mark Drama which is an outreach event in which participants memorize the structure of the gospel of Mark, the present it in the form of a play. Check it out: http://themarkdrama.com/, but of course, in Spanish.

It's been busy, but great to see so many things going on not only in En Vivo but also in the local church. Please keep us in your prayers and please let me know how I can pray for you also. As always, thank you thank you thank you!

Not too late.

2011-03-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

There's still one more day for people to sign up for the Spring Retreat.

Tonight we're having a concert at En Vivo and we'll see who decides to sign up at the last minute.

So far, we have about 30 people signed up to come. Probably about 10 of them are not believers...

Our leadership group has taken initiative and will be leading all of the games and fun times throughout the weekend. The talks will be given by one of the elders from our local church. I, personally, will be having lots of fun hanging out with all these wonderful people who are coming... especially one of the girls from the dorms that decided to come (thanks for your prayers!!!).

Please be in prayer for this entire weekend. For the Christians who are coming to be filled up and energized to continue spreading the gospel to their classmates and roommates and professors and everyone they meet. Pray for those who aren't believers, that they would have a wonderful experience amongst our Christian community, and that they would experience the love of Christ for the first time.

These retreats can be life changing, so pray pray pray! From about noon (your time) on Friday until noon on Sunday, a lot could happen.

Also, I know it's last minute but if you'd like to provide one of these kids with a free weekend by giving a scholarship of $75, please let me know and we will work it out ASAP!

Ok, I'm off! Thanks for reading and you'll be hearing again from me soon!

oops

2011-03-03T09:11:00.000-08:00

Oh I almost forgot to put this video in here... and I don't know how to put in links. Sorry! Just need a little cut and paste and you will have it.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150101244214236

From the concert we had about 2 weeks ago. Yay for songs by Adele.

The reason

2011-03-03T04:18:00.001-08:00

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!

These are the reasons for why I'm here. Thanks for your support in helping me be here!

Before and After Today

2011-01-17T01:26:00.001-08:00

Happy Monday Everybody!

For this post the theme is "Before and After" because there's lots that's going to happen in the semester that's ahead of us, but we've also had quite a lot happen in December.

We had our big Christmas dinner in which we played Secret Santa and had 45 people sign up to participate! This is a great way to get people involved in the community because we made them investigate who their person was in order to buy them the perfect 5 euro gift ($6.50, so it's kinda limiting... oh well, they're college students). Students like these 4 (pictured below: Anushka, Alberto, Cristina, Naomi), who just started coming around this semester participated and it was great to see them get really excited about it!

We also had our famous International Dinner, where people we have never even seen before show up to share a dish from their country. It's an unbelievable amount of food and a crazy number of people, but it's just another way for our students to get to know each other and bring their friends to En Vivo!

But the stand out moment of December was definitely when we all trekked down to the local river to see our new friend, Samantha, be baptized. What we didn't know before we went on our retreat was that Sam, an American girl who randomly came, had never really had anything to do with God or religion her entire life before coming on our Fall Retreat. In the few weeks after that weekend, she expressed a desire to start reading the Bible which she had never read before, and within a very very short span of time, she realized God had been pursuing her for a while. She wanted to get baptized in Spain, where she started her relationship with Jesus!

It was incredible to have all these students (pictured above) come out to celebrate Sam's baptism, because they all felt like they were part of this journey with her. And guess what, you guys are part of Sam's journey too!

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So fast forward to the "After" part of this update.

In January, students tend to disappear because they are studying for their one exam of the semester. So what we've done is set up a few different ways to try to get them to come out of hiding every once in a while.

These ways consist of free snacks and coffee, free pancakes at night, AND a prayer room! Yes, not all of these things are very similar... but they all appeal to different groups of people. The prayer room is something we did last January also, and we saw that the students really did enjoy having a place to go to pray, and to see that others had been praying there as well.

I believe that it's the best way to start off this semester. With a place where the students, and us as the team, can come and ask God to do his work through us this semester. To ask him to bring his Kingdom down to earth this semester in Salamanca. That's our prayer.

What does the rest of the semester hold?
-Spring Retreat
-Habitat for Humanity trip to Portugal
-Benefit Concerts
-11 Thursday night Bible studies
-12 Devotional lunches
-lots of small groups

Just a few things going on!

Thank you all once again for being faithful supporters and being the people who help make all of this possible. You are the ones that enable us to be able to have a beautiful campus house, to be able to give away free food, to be able to give away Bibles to people like Sam who have never had one, and print out small group materials. There is so much that you are helping with just by being faithful with your money.

As you read through this post, you probably saw some things highlighted, and those are the things that I would love for you to be in prayer for!

Here are a few more photos for your viewing pleasure!

Retreat!

2010-11-15T06:26:00.000-08:00

We did it!!! We had our Fall Retreat and we had 45 people attend! After only week, we doubled our number of people signed up, so thank you for your prayers, and thank you especially to those who gave money to sponsor a student. We were able to give 6 scholarships!! And now I will tell you some of the stories that came from this weekend!

Three of these four girls gave their testimonies this weekend. Vanessa, in the blue sweater, gave an especially powerful testimony, sharing of her struggles with the church while growing up. One thing that really impressed me about Vanesa's testimony is the fact that she is a very private person in general, very warm and very nice, but private. So when she stood in front of her peers and some people she didn't even know, it was hard for her. But when she cried while telling us about her first Bible Study she came at En Vivo, the whole room was in tears. She said that Jeremy Lawler stood up in front of everyone that night and spoke about the hypocrisy that is real among the church, but he said it in a way that spoke directly to her. She said "I felt like he had written that talk for me, and I left immediately after without talking to anyone and I cried all the way home."
From this moment, she said, the Bible that she had had stashed away, was pulled out and she began to discover her faith again.

What an incredible testimony of how the church, how honesty, how the Bible, and how your friends can all play parts in your walk with God. I'm not even sure who those girls are that brought Vanesa to En Vivo, but I am so thankful that they did and that since then she has become part of our leadership group, she won the 'Annual Service Award' last year, and she has become a dear friend to all of us at En Vivo.

And this leads me to my next story. This young man in this weird outfit (I can't think of any way to describe it in words...) was particularly touched by Vanesa's story. Maybe I should've put a more serious picture of him here, but it's ok, he was just participating in our ridiculous Olympic games by being extra festive. Anyhoo, his name is Miguel Angel (yes, Michaelangelo), and he's been in and out of our ministry for several years. But during the very last session of the weekend, he stood up and shared something with the entire group that none of us expected.

Miguel Angel stood up and with tears in his eyes said he felt like this weekend God had been crying out to him, that God was calling him back. While he heard Vanesa's story, he felt like he was a Christian living a hypocritical life and he had to change that immediately. He did not want to hinder anyone from coming to know Christ because of his behavior. He stood up to share that so that we could hold him accountable to becoming the Christian man that God was calling him to be.

We were completely surprised and very proud of him for asking for this accountability and we are now praying for him as he goes back to his day to day life where he will be challenged to follow through on what God made so clear to him this weekend.

This lovely little lady is named Sam. Sam had no idea what a retreat with En Vivo would consist of, because she came to her first Bible Study the day before we left for the retreat. With her adventurous spirit, she said yes when her friend asked her to come.

The weekend was beyond anything she could've imagined. She shared with us that before this retreat, she had never even considered a relationship with God. Not that he didn't exist, but why would he want a relationship with her? She had never had any Christian influences in her life that made her think twice about him. But this weekend, through the testimonies, the devotions in groups and individually, and the worship, she experienced something completely new to her. A God that wants to know her and loves her.

She got a Bible from En Vivo on the Monday after the retreat, and has already started meeting with another one of my teammates to read through Matthew. She's never had a Bible before. She went home and downloaded some of the Hillsong worship songs we sang over the weekend, cause she had never heard any of those songs before. She is EXCITED. She is reading the Bible FOR THE FIRST TIME! Can you even imagine??! It's incredible.

Incredible things happened this weekend. We felt the presence of God, He was working on all of our hearts, He was answering our prayers.

Thank you for your prayers and know that these stories don't just end on the retreat, this is just the beginning. Sam is now reading her very own Bible, Vanesa has shared her life in a way that touched other people like Miguel Angel who will now be needing our support and prayers to live out this Christian life. It's not always easy, but it's good.

And thank you for reading to this last line. There are other stories but I will just have to share those next time....
Love you all mucho!!

Under Construction

2010-09-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

We've spent the past few weeks just planning for the semester, coming up with ideas for talks, for retreats, for small groups, for outreach. You name it, we probably have talked about it. So then started the renovation of the house. Usually we just paint the walls with new pretty paint, but this year we decided to put in a full new serving bar in the kitchen and get our bottom floor completely fixed... and fixed it will be... eventually. Here are some pictures of our works in progress:

In the meantime, we went to the beginning of the school year "Welcome Fair" where we proceeded to hand out 500 BAGS with our En Vivo logo and website on it, and pens and magnets and flyers and the works!! We could've used another 200 bags (I think?) because we started to run out! Tonight is the test of whether or not our "Welcome bags" worked! Of course, we also talked with every single person we gave a bag to, and everyone seemed really interested in what En Vivo is. Pray that they will come!! Pray that they will end up at our door tonight! Here are pictures of the fair:

Chris and I were even asked during the fair to play a few songs... let me tell you, "Wonderwall" by Oasis is always a good choice. You can't go wrong with that song.

A lot has been happening! And there is even more to come!
Please if you would, be in prayer for our first few events, that the students we met at the fair would somehow remember and want to come to En Vivo to see what it's all about, and pray that we might be able to love them like Jesus would! We're excited to get started with this new school year!!

Thank you for your prayers and support! I'll send pretty pictures of the finished house... when it's finished... (soon hopefully!)

Besos!

A little time

2010-08-05T12:05:00.001-07:00

Well the summer is almost over and I'm about ready to get back to Salamanca. Now I just need some toiletries, a box of grits, some maple syrup and a keyboard. If you have an old musical keyboard, not a computer keyboard:), and you'd like to donate, let me know... It has to be pretty light and portable so I can take it to leave forever at En Vivo!

This one is the dream keyboard right now, but I'll take what I can get...

Hopefully I'll be back in Salamanca around mid-August, along with the rest of the team, but it all depends on support raising for most of us, so please say a prayer that everyone on the team can get the support they need for the next year to be able to come back quickly and get the semester started. We'll be taking a quick trip to Tübingen, Germany to visit our friends at the Globalscope location there, and to do some brainstorming for the semester.

Doesn't it look nice and colorful? I'm excited. Here's their website... http://imkeller.net/

Remember, you are always welcome to come visit...

There will be more to report once we get the ball rolling over in Salamanca, but for now, I hope this will suffice! It's been great to able to see a lot of you this summer, and thank you once again for supporting En Vivo! Happy end of Summer!

Best video of the year!

2010-06-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Our lovely intern, Ms. Laura Bowers, worked long and hard to put together this lovely video that sums up this great year we just finished up. Way to go, Laura!

A Marvelous Adventure

2010-06-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

We have reached the end of the school year!! This picture was taken at our “End of the Year” banquet, when we put out all the fancy plates and glasses, tell our students to wear their fanciest attire, and make something different than chicken and rice (a staple meal at our ministry... it’s cheap and good, what can I say?) for over 60 students.

We were able to thank them for a fantastic year, review the year in videos and pictures and even say good-bye to a few of them. One of the girls, in her farewell speech to En Vivo described what she had learned at our ministry as a “marvelous adventure.” I would have to agree.

I don't know if you have Facebook or not (it's ok if you don't...), but if you can watch this video of the year, it's great!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1471426787708&oid=2273334329

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Retreat!

Here we all are, standing on the famous rock we always take the final retreat picture on. This year we had a smaller group of students on the retreat, but in spite of smaller numbers, the quality of the retreat was fantastic.

We had one Portuguese girl tells us that after years of not wanting to have anything to do with God, she was ready to pursue a relationship with him again. Another one of our girls, (who I will talk about later) said that the talks for the weekend felt like they were especially for her, and that she knew that God might be trying to speak to her... for the very first time. Another one of our students came to the realization on this retreat that for a long time he didn't think his faith could be taken outside of the church, but now he was ready to take it to his classmates and family and friends.

There were many more stories, but these are just a few of the highlights.

Thank you for your prayers for that weekend, because they were definitely answered in huge ways during that weekend and are continuing to be answered.

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I’ve probably told you countless times that we have weekly small groups, with believers and unbelievers alike, that have been going on for the past two years. In this small group (pictured here), we have Carmen(on left), who has told us consistently over the 2 years that she thinks she’s incapable of believing.

Well a few weeks ago, just after our retreat, she told us she’s ready to try being a Christian. This might sound a little strange to “try,” but for someone who has never believed in Jesus and the Bible and God, it’s a HUGE deal.

In her efforts to try, she’s started praying, reading Romans, Ephesians, James, Mark and Matthew, and you can just see it in her eyes.

So in case you are needing a motivation to start reading your Bible more, there is a girl here in Spain who still isn’t sure she can believe all of this, but she is reading 5 different books of the Bible right now, and she’s praying. How's that for motivation?

I would love to be able to share even more stories with you all this summer, so when I'm in town, I want to see you!! It really has been a marvelous adventure this year.

Thank you for making it all happen through your prayers, your support and encouragement. It's worth it.

Hasta pronto.

next week

2010-04-08T09:14:00.001-07:00

There are 2 big things coming up this week.

1. I give my devo lunch talk for the semester.

Talks in general make me nervous, talks in Spanish make me more nervous. But they're a great learning experience, so I'm ready to learn. My talk is part of a series of talks about the life of Joseph, and how God was with him through all of his trials. If you wouldn't mind saying a little prayer for me as I prepare this talk, and then give this talk this coming Tuesday, that would be great!

2. CAMPAMENTO! a.k.a. Spring Retreat!!

We have one week left to get as many of our students as possible signed up and ready to go on our Spring Retreat! This retreat happens every year in the same place, Pinos Reales, and every year we have the epic battle of the sexes game of Flamingo Soccer. Oh, what is Flamingo Soccer, you ask? Well, the boys have to play soccer hopping around on one foot only. The girls play normally. Don't ask me how, but the boys usually win, but maybe us ladies can win it this year. It's a great time to get to know each other, worship together, listen to the wisdom of invited retreat speakers (this year, it is a friend from the local church). If you want to help out with some of the expenses of the retreat, by sponsoring one of our students, let me know and we can work something out!

After this week, we'll have about one full month left of the semester. We're going to have our End of the Year Banquet, a benefit concert for a service project, and then the actual service project with Habitat for Humanity in Portugal. It's a big month, with lots of events going on, so keep En Vivo in your prayers.

I know this is a short update, but I just wanted to let you know what's going on this next week!

Thanks for reading and another update is right around the corner...

Take care and God Bless!

--Lorena

Choose your own ending

2010-03-02T02:57:00.000-08:00

I think I am overwhelmed by all the ways you can use technology... just in general. So the fact that I have a blog, a website, a myspace page, 2 email addresses, Facebook, and now a YouTube "channel," (whatever that even means) is ridiculous. But here is my shameless plug:

http://www.youtube.com/user/laurenmariethatsme

I need more views, that's the bottom line. And I need to know that I didn't post all these videos that took fooooreveerrrr to upload for nothing!

Maybe one day I'll learn how to use all of these gadgets. Wish me luck.

story time! part 1

2010-03-02T02:44:00.001-08:00

Chapter 1

When we were dividing up our students into small groups in a planning meeting, the team said “She might not want to have anything to do with ‘small groups,’ but we at least should ask her.”

We did ask her, and a year and a half later, she’s only missed 3 small groups-- and we’ve met every week since August of ’08.

In December of this last semester, we gave her a journal that had a daily scripture, and we would meet every week to discuss verses we had questions about or verses we liked, or anything. Without fail, she always read her verses, and always had questions.

Now she is reading “A Case for Christ” because someone recommended it to her, and even though some of her questions are unbelievably hard (and creative), she keeps going. She continues to come to small group without fail. She’s on the student leadership team, so she helps cook and clean and write skits and translate talks.

But she isn’t a Christian. She doesn’t think she can believe. She believes that it’s the best way to live, but she can’t bring herself to believe in God or Jesus, even though she acts more Christ-like than a lot of us Christians do sometimes.

Praying is all we can do. We are reading the Word with her, we are challenging her, we are loving her. God is the one that has to capture her heart. Not En Vivo and not her friends in the ministry and not the lifestyle, but God.

(those are pancakes...)

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Chapter 2

We met this girl about a year and a half ago. She first came to En Vivo cause she wanted to learn English. But she quickly became friends with some of our exchange students, and began to come to all of our events and even came to our retreat.

On that retreat she expressed to us how much it meant to her that we respected her as a woman and accepted her unconditionally.

Since then, she’s begun to help us cook meals and dinners for events, help raise money for our fundraisers, organize group dinners, and so much more. She’s always willing to help, and...

Well, she’s Muslim. She makes it very clear to us that she is. But just in the past month, she decided that she wanted to read a Christian book, Blue Like Jazz with me and 2 other girls in the ministry, girls that are already Christians.

She wanted to read about Christianity without reading the Bible.

So imagine that, a Muslim girl, in a small group with 3 other Christian girls talking about God and faith and culture and forgiveness and love. It’s been amazing.

I want her to read the Bible next, to read the words of Jesus, but if Blue Like Jazz is a stepping stone to get her talking and more comfortable, we’ll take it! If you’ve read this book and have any extra insight on it, let me know. She’s really enjoying it, and we’re praying for her all the time.

To top it all off, we went to dinner on Friday, and she prayed for our meal.

God is good and God is cool.

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2010-03-02T02:38:00.000-08:00

free coffee? do you dare?

2010-01-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

What's cool is that every January, we go and hand out coffee on the streets. In front of the libraries and the dining halls mainly, cause that's where the students are hiding for the entire month. They have this weird schedule in which, they don't take final exams before Christmas, but all through the month of January. So the typical Spanish student locks themself up in the library until the storm has passed.

These two guys in the back of this picture are 2 people that we met on the street and decided to come visit En Vivo to see what it's all about. I think it's pretty brave when people come to En Vivo not knowing exactly what we do there, but I also think it's from God. Pray for the rest of the people we met on the street, that God would put it on their hearts to come by this little place called En Vivo. It could change everything for them.

a real wordy blog...

2010-01-16T03:55:00.001-08:00

One time when I was in high school, I was pulling into the parking lot of Borders, and I saw a friend of mine who was pulling out of the parking lot. We waved at each other, what I thought was a good bye, but he proceeded to turn around and find me in the parking lot.

He told me “I just bought this book, and I don’t know why, but I knew that I was supposed to give it to someone... then I saw you. So here’s the book.”

The book was Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Frankly, C.S. Lewis was a little too far over my head in high school. In fact, it’s still quite mind-blowing today. What a book, what an incredible mind, what an incredible story. And what a man of God. Now, I think I’ve passed that book on to my brother and hopefully he’s passed it on to someone else. But I love the story of how that book ended up in my hands.

Today my mom made sure I had the book Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig and Dave Roberts in my hands before I hopped on my plane to Canada (yes, I have a stamp from Canada in my passport now... it is a real place). In just the first few chapters he talked about a revolution that is going to take place in Europe. Read this:

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley, it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered “O Lord God, you know.”

Then he said to me “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked and behold there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold they say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken and I will do it, declares the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

Sometimes, the state of things in Spain looks like a valley of dry bones. Europe in general can feel like a dark, sad place. It seems very hopeless, and that Spaniards themselves are saying “Our hope is lost... we are clean cut off” and they seem to be ok with it.

But my God, who is so much bigger than En Vivo, and Salamanca, and Spain and Europe and every continent on the planet, is going to bring these kids to life.... this country to life. An exceedingly great army of young people who will know the Lord. At a glance, it might look and feel impossible, but I think that’s exactly when God likes to work. We just can’t doubt when He tells us what to do.

Pray for Spain today please. Pray for the whole world today, that something would change through our prayers. We’re about to start a new semester in Salamanca, and if you’re reading this (way to go!), you already play a huge part in this. Thank you. Now we just have to pray for God to bring it. Bring it on. And get us ready for it. Cause He says He will do it.