This was the first time that my husband had traveled oversees, and this was my first mission trip ever. We were both very excited to go, but at the same time it was a very humbling time, because we had double the money to raise for airfare and construction/library supplies, in addition to the money we were also saving for our up and coming move to Nebraska.
We trusted that the Lord would provide the funds if he wanted us to go, and we began sending out support letters, fundraising and saving for the trip. We had a couple yard sales, which we sold a lot of our furniture and stuff that we couldn't move with us (to NE) and had a bake sale. The rest of the money was raised from the support letters, and boy did God ever provide! My husband and I raised all of our money plus some.
We got to the LAX on the day of the trip and only had one minor set back... someone had forgot their passport... but it all worked itself out and we were soon on our way to Spain. I slept on the plane almost the whole way there so the long flights didn't phase me. We got to the institute late at night and went straight to bed.
The first day one of the missionaries showed us around Toral, a small town of about 500 people, that has some really old buildings dating back to the 1500's. This is little house was right behind a wall on the same street.
This is another really old building whose original builders used various dirt and rocks to create the walls. The brick may have come later, or it may have been the brick that they had at the time. You would see a lot of patch work buildings in the area, because where ever a wall fell down they would just re-build it with whatever building material they had at the time... rocks and mud, brick and cement.
That evening right after siesta time we got to start work on cataloging the library, and painting. This was what used to be called the conference room, but was soon going to become the library.
They had a very different schedule there because the sun comes up later in the day... breakfast was at 9am, lunch at 2pm, siesta time 2pm-3pm, and dinner 9pm. I have to say, it was really nice taking an hour nap mid day. There were a lot of meals that the ladies of the camp made with only a few of the same ingredients... this was one of our many meals with ham, and fried rice with leftover ham pieces from breakfast.
On Sunday we were able to go to the church in Leon, Spain.
Our team leader was preached in Spanish, and since my husband and I speak very little Spanish, some of our other team members so graciously translated for us... the entire trip! :)
After church they had a pot luck lunch, but they needed to set up the room with the tables, so we all went down the street to this one little cafe that sells these soft potato chips and small glasses of either orange juice or grape juice. They eat a lot of "patatas" in Spain in a number of different forms... we had tortas a lot (which is a potato egg cake sort of thing). After the pot luck we walked around Leon a lot!!! We saw the cathedral...
a wall that was built by the Romans...
some beautiful buildings and street corners...
and took a pit stop at one of our favorite places... the ice cream and cafe parlor
to be continued....
