some spare time

today i have a bit of spare time on my hands, actually pretty much everyday i have spare time on my hands. david starts his exams next week, and in spain the exams determine everything with your schooling, so he has been studying 10 hours everyday...pretty intense. somedays i go and meet him at the school and do some reading or writing in the library while he and lidia are studying.

this weekend i went to the real madrid game, and whoa! it was an incredible game. real madrid are to european soccer like the yankees are to american baseball. except, that the former encompases 20+ countries across europe, and the latter is more like 1 country, maybe two. and the former is a sport that is essentially a way of life in europe, while the latter competes in popularity with the nfl and the nba. what im saying is that real madrid is kinda a big deal, people (outside of the usa) know about them, so to get to go to a game may be a once in a lifetime opportunity. and i was lucky enough for the game to be a great one. the stadium holds some 85,000 fans, and it was pretty much a packed house as they took on the number 3 team in league. the streets were completely full of people as we walked to the stadium blocking traffic hundreds of meters away from the stadium. it really was a good time, and the best part was that it was free because david's dad, emilio has season tickets.

monday i pretty much walked the entire day, all the way across town. i really enjoyed the walk and it gives a good perspective for the city. my intention was to walk to the prado (one of the most famous art collections in the world) but when i got there i found out that it isn't open on mondays; on the bright side, i also found out that you can go for free any other night from 6-8.

tuesday was the best day i've had since being here. david's mom, rema, invited me over for comida. in spain the main meal of the day is at 2 or 3pm... there isn't a name for it except comida (spanish for "food"). if someone asks you: quieres comer (literally translated: "do you want to eat") they are actually asking you if you want to have lunch together and spend an hour or more eating, chatting, drinking wine, and so on. beings that i really don't have anything better to do during the day i obliged. there are some girls about my age from argentina that have been staying at rema's house. they have been living here since late december, working in madrid, and they have some plans to travel next month around europe. anyway after comida one of the girls, jasmin, had to go to work, but the other, flor (pronounced: floor) said she had the day off, so she was going to meet a friend down town and asked if i wanted to go. flor was incredibly interested that i studied the Bible and theology in college. she had never heard of such a thing except for someone who wants to become a priest or something. for some reason i felt really comfortable around her. you know how when you first meet someone there is always that period of testing the waters. you think of the polite things to say, and make an effort not to offend them by what you believe. you ask all the right questions about where they are from, and what they do for a job, and blah, and blah, and... so it was as though we just skipped over all of that; like we had been friends for a while, but we had never talked about deep issues, so today those issues came up, they came up over and over. i know this kind of thing has happened to me before with a few people, but it always such a pleasant surprise each time it does.

i couldn't possibly recall all of our conversations, but the gist of the conversations was her trying understand what i believe. one of the first things we talked about was how i can truly feel the love of God. she said she had never felt that before, that she was a christian, and she says the catholic prayers, but she had never really, truly, tangibly felt that love. i said that if i had never felt that love, i probably wouldn't believe in Jesus at all. we talked about catholics and protestants, about the Bible, about God, Jesus, love, dreams, philosophy, humility. i told her how i am entirely reliant upon Jesus, she didn't like that idea. she preferred to think that we need to do good things to attain to heaven (pretty catholic), that God is love, and by doing good things, acts of love, we can get peace, and be at one with our spirits and with God. i just told her that i know for certain that i can do no good thing without Him... i'm dependent, im humbled before Him.

we met her friend and walked down the road a bit to a place to have some coffee and donuts while we talked. afterward we headed to the prado (that is the art museum i mentioned earlier). we wandered around the massive museum for a while and ended up in a hallway with paintings of biblical scenes. we took a seat in front of a painting by jose de ribera of isaac blessing jacob. the girls asked what was going on in the picture. so i told them the story of jacob buying the blessing from esau for a bowl of stew, and how in the picture jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing by putting the goat hide on his arm. flor asked me what happened to jacob? and i told her that he was the father of the 12 tribes, that he received the whole blessing and inheritance from isaac, and from God. she was shocked because in her mind jacob should have been punished for being deceitful and tricking his brother. everytime i told a story she would ask what the lesson is from that story. i told not every story has to have a lesson, but she insisted that if the story is in the bible then it must have a lesson. so i said the lesson is that we shouldn't consider the immediate as of more importance than future (i stole that from the book of hebrews). that esau was foolish to sell his blessing only to fill his stomach for one meal. as i thought about it more the next day the lesson is even more clear. jacob understood the importance of the blessing, it was the inheritance, and it was a great inheritance because it involved more than just land and sheep and cattle. it was the inheritance of the promise of the Lord made to his grandfather abraham. it was everything. and i think jacob understood this, and he traded, deceived, and even physically wrestled for that blessing. i want to understand my inheritance better, i want to desire the blessing like the man called israel desired it.

later, after going back to rema's house, flor said she had never known anyone her age with such strong beliefs. i said there weren't many things that i believed really strongly in. so she rephrased it to say she hadn't known someone who religion was so important, and i told her that religion wasn't important to me at all... that Jesus was important to me, above all things...most important. she thinks Jesus founded the religion, i said man founded it in order to try and understand Jesus, in order to try and capture Jesus and know how to encounter Him within their own mold. we sat down in the living room. she asked what i thought of her god, her god is love and all that is love is god, and god is all that is love. i said he sounded appealing, but i wasn't interested. that i think God certainly is love, but not just love. i told her about jericho, and how God told the israelites to destroy everything in the city: man, woman, child, animal, gold... everything. she was disgusted. she said that she didn't think she believed in my God if that really happened, because her god is only love. i wasn't really surprised that she didn't take to it. i asked if she had ever read revelations, because that would probably give her a shock about the picture she has of Jesus. Jesus certainly was love. but to only say that, is to deny that He is also fully truth, fully just, fully righteous, and fully powerful. in fact the utmost of any quality must be found in God or it cannot be real. that's heavy for me to understand.

we were blunt, we were honest, and i really enjoyed feeling okay to be that way with her. in the end she said that she didn't think she was christian after all. she said that maybe she would start her own religion. with a grin and a chuckle i wished her best of luck.

picturas

do you all know about would you rather jokes? what happens is someone crafts two completely impossible and absurd scenarios and asks another which of the two positions he or she would rather be in. anyway, during one of my journeys through an airport i thought of a pretty good one... would you rather: repeatedly get kicked in the groin for five minutes, OR stand in a line 200 meters long for airline security, only to get to the end and be "randomly" chosen as the guy that has to be stripped searched and unpack all his bags...AND, wait for it, wait for it...get a probe. EH??? the probe throws you off huh? at first you're thinking, i'll take the strip search no problem, but with the probe in the picture that five minute pummeling of the groin isn't sounding so bad.

today i spent the morning downtown just wandering around, it is really an incredibly beautiful city. david and some amigos met me there for lunch, so we ate some bocadillos de calamari (calamari sandwiches) and then we walked around these gardens on the side of the royal palace. tonight i went to meet this guy for a prayer service at a church in one of the suburbs of madrid. it was pretty fun. i liked it because it reminded me of the services in tijuana, i truly loved those services. they're like a mix between 3 parts chaos and 2 parts rock concert with a c- band. i love it. and, with the music, the bass pretty much always plays a polka beat, and with a polka beat, how can you go wrong, i think Jesus may have even said that somewhere. it took me quite a while to get back to the house because i walked from the bus station (like 30 minutes) instead of taking the metro, so david was all freaked out wondering where i was and calling people (as though somehow they could possibly know), but everything is fine.

okay, let's look at some pictures: philadelphia.

matt standing at gay street: it was surprisingly easy to talk matt into posing for this picture

provolone-wit: that's a steak sandwich with
provolone and onions

downtown philly: this is from the steps of the art museum, probably better known as the rocky steps. in the center all the way in the back is town hall. on top is a statue of william penn, he's famous for getting the state of pennsylvania named after him (what a boy!). there was a city ordinance that no building could be higher ol' bill, but in 1984 it was broken, and since then no philadelphia university or professional sports team has won a national championship since. way to stick it to the man billy

valley forge:
it was so beautiful,
and of course the camera
doesn't do justice to it.

y madrid.

la plaza mayor: the major plaza, probably my favorite place so far in madrid. the old people sit on the benches under the sun, while musicians fill each corner of the square with music. in the shade the painters work masterpieces just down the south wall from the tourists enjoying some tapas and wine.

unas pinturas en la paza mayor:

unos amigos al lado del palacio real:
this is a picture from some of the gardens next to the

royal palace. in the picture is me, eduardo, lidia (david's girlfriend), and david.

una gitana loca:
this is some crazy lady that was in the plaza in
front of the palace. when i put a coin in her cup she
start moving al of the sudden and i thought she was
going to attack me, needless to say, i shortly there
after i changed my shorts

i think that is plenty for now, i hope you enjoyed
-caleb

hello madrid

i arrived in spain yesterday morning, david met me at the airport and took me to the casa to unload my things.

but before i get into madrid, maybe a few words on philadelphia should be said. if i could describe philadelphia in 3 ways i would say: cheese steak, cold, and...cold. i completely froze my butt off the entire time. one time i checked the temperature and it was 3 degrees with the windchill. matt picked me up from the airport friday afternoon and we made our way back to his house for the evening. he lives in north philly, like 15 minutes from downtown. saturday we walked all around the city taking in some of the sights, pretty nice. we had some cheesesteak sandwiches (provolone-wit), saw independence hall, the original senate building, the liberty bell, etc. honestly, i was entirely unimpressed with the liberty bell. it doesn't even look real. and, because of the massive crack down it's side, there's no way, in my mind, of even verifying that it is a real bell because it doesn't ring. pretty much it's just a couple thousand pounds of copper and tin that is supposedly a representation of freedom and liberty. there was a quote at the museum that nearly made me laugh out loud, "let the bell be cast by the finest workmen and examined carefully before it is shipped..." -isaac norris. i thought maybe the quote should read, "let the bell be cast by the finest workmen and examined carefully...but i'd also like you guys to keep in mind that, you know, we are on a budget, so don't get crazy on us here okay."

saturday night there was a party at matt's house, i felt completely out of place. i actually left the party at midnight and braved walking around the freezing weather for about two hours. i thought by 2 the party should be broken up, and once everyone finally gets out, i could get some sleep on the couch, barring that no one puked all over it. upon returning to the house i realized that the crowd had not gotten smaller, it had actually doubled in size meaning that there were about 100 people crammed into this little house. CRAZY! so i made my way to the back yard and stoked the fire that was burning and enjoyed the small crowd out there until the party finally broke up at about 4 am. the whole weekend i wanted to get away and be alone for a bit, but it is a really hard thing to do when you are visiting a friend and largely at his mercy. maybe a bit more about being alone at some later time.

sunday we went to valley forge, it was beautiful, absolutely beautiful. if you don't know, valley forge is where george washington took the american troops after fleeing philadelphia in 1777 to camp for the winter. it is considered the big turning point of the american revolutionary war. i just enjoyed it so much because the place was gorgeous, and there was an incredible sunset making the whole thing that much better. i will try and post some pictures of the philly weekend later--i thought i had the right cable to unload pictures from my camera...turns out i don't, so i am going to see what i can do about that.

sunday night i talked to my folks, and it was really great to be encouraged and prayed for over the phone. my mom suggested that i call us airways to make sure that it wasn't a problem that i was missing the new york to philadelphia leg on my flight to madrid. what happened was i bought a ticket in and out of new york, but the flight goes through philadelphia, so i just thought to myself that i could stay in philadelphia with matt and catch the flight from there. again, and as usual, turns out i was wrong. i call monday morning to find out that i would have to pay something like $600 dollars to change my ticket to fly out of philly unless i could get to new york in 3 hours to take the first leg of the flight. beings that it was borderline impossible to make that happen, the guy i was talking to on the phone suggested i go down to the philly airport and talk to a representative down there. so i did, and everything ended up working out fine; i just had to pay the change of ticket fee instead of paying that fee and the current cost of the flight (which was twice as much as i originally paid). but, all is well that ends well.

just before leaving on monday i got to talk to a few people on the phone and i was reminded of how much i am blessed to have the kind of friends and family i do. when my sister, erika, tells me she loves me, and that she is praying for me it melts me, and i feel loved, i feel love. i can never thank any of you enough for your prayers. i am now in a strange land, and it would be a lie to say that i'm not scared about what could happen. everyone i talked to before i left was asking me if i was excited, and i couldn't honestly say that i was. the best way i could explain the feeling is something i said to merle: i think i am excited for about two weeks from now, when i can start to have some kind of consistency, and i won't feel so lost, and alone, and confused about what everyone is saying. but right now, i'm not incredibly excited to be here, well i don't think i am at least. i woke up this morning at 6 and just listened to music and wept. i heard a song from isaiah 43 that broke me. i still feel weak, but i'm sure this is where i belong right now. this evening i am going to meet a guy that alyssa's sister knows. he is a christian and i hope to be able to find community here.

i think this is more than enough for now. i will try and post some pictures soon. i love you all.

-leb

so it begins...

well, my bags are packed. tomorrow morning at 730 i fly out of los angeles to philadelphia too spend the weekend with a friend before leaving for europe for about 3 months... i have no clue what i'm doing.

i wanted to start this blog so you, my friends and family, may have an all access pass to the life of me! up to the minute stats about where i'm at, and what i'm doing 24/7 (actual stats may vary). i know it sounds really exciting, but once you get through all of the paperwork and the introductory training course you'll probably be disappointed. but seriously i do think that these next few months are going to be big for me, and i want you all to be a part of it, and i want to hear back from you as well.

the last few weeks i have spent with my mom and levalley and logan here in l.a. and also a few weeks in hawaii. it has been so nice to relax, and to feel the sun. i remember the first day i arrived, christmas eve, i got to the house, opened the window shades and let the sun flow though the glass as i took a wonderful nap. there has actually been a few moments over the last couple weeks when i have completely forgotten that it was even winter. i'm afraid a really cold reality is going to kick in tomorrow afternoon when i get to philly.


as i said at the beginning, i have no clue what i'm doing. litrally, no clue. i have a ticket into madrid, and i have a ticket out of madrid three months later. i feel like a lot of things are aren't going too well right now. i just graduated college last month, i have no idea what i'm going to do with a bible/theology degree. right before i left portland, the starter on my car blew, making it virtually worthless. thankfully, austin lute is helping me out huge by working on it and selling it for me. while i was in hawaii, i got in an accident in the rental car that i wasn't actually supposed to be driving (i only drove it once, and i was going to church, so don't judge me). and most recently, my lady friend ended our relationship : ( i haven't had hardly any anxiety about this trip until a few days ago. i have been tripping lately about going on this trip. so much of me doesn't want to go, and i don't really know where i do want to go.

i have been thinking so much about life the last few days. when i left portland i was so busy that there was no way i had anytime to think about the trip. but leaving l.a. i've already packed, i don't have a roomful of stuff to try and pack into the closet (sorry justin and cara), i don't have a busted ass car sitting in front of the house to worry about, so i'm left to my thoughts: getting in a wreck sucks, it's so frustrating, and all you can think about is well if only i hadn't stopped at the grocery store, then i wouldn't have been driving down that road right then. or maybe if i hadn't looked over to grab a pretzel from the bag in the passenger seat i would have avoided this whole thing, and you know whose fault it is??? rold gold's, if they didn't make such delicious, salty, addicting pretzels then i never would have felt the urge to open the bag in the car, maybe i wouldn't have even bought the bag at all...and i certainly wouldn't have gotten in this wreck... damn you rold gold (shaking my fist towards the heavens)... i can theorize about a thousand ways in which the wreck wouldn't have happened, but the problem is that it did happen. the wreck wasn't too bad in all truth, and of course my mom is going to bail me out of another one (though hopefully the insurance companies will sort it out mostly) i can always count on my mom for things like that, she always gets me out of tight spots. i don't worry about money, not really, and maybe that's going to be a problem for me in the future, but for now i'm going to be fine, i just know i am. -- getting dumped sucks, it really hurts a lot. it's really weird the kind of pain it is too, but it is pain, not even just emotional pain, it physically hurts. my step mom darla said, "there is no pain more intense than love lost." that's a beautiful statement, but she didn't end there, "the greater the love, the more intense the pain. it should give us some real perspective into the heart of God, and His love for us." i have been dwelling so much on His love lately. i don't get it... i really don't, why would He love us the way He does, and with such passion. and it is the times like these, when i can easily feel like i am not being loved, that He is loving me the most. i think it is funny how we can't force ourselves into a place of humility and dependence on God. we can walk paths that more or less lead us into a place closer to humilty, but it can't be a self effort, that is the opposite of dependence. i feel so humbled before God now, i feel so confused, hurt, lost, and alone. but in this place, this place of pain, of discipline, He is showing me greater love and grace than i have ever known. i have actually felt His love towards me, and it brings me to tears every time... every time. honestly i can't even start to explain why, i would think that it would bring me joy, and maybe that is it, just joy disguised or something, i don't know but i do know that it is completely wrecking me for my Love. the break-up wasn't too bad in all truth. she is such an incredible girl, so it hurts, it hurts no doubt, but of course Dad is going to bail me out of another pit, i can always count on Him for love. i learning to not worry about love, i'm learning to be secure in who i am as a child of God, as a bride, and when i think of His love and grace for me, i know i'll be fine.

much love to you all, sorry this is so long, in fact it is soooo long that i'm not even going to bother proof reading it, so please forgive the errors.

-caleb