Countdown to Spain ~ 12 days!

When you decide to take a trip, it is always seems to be a loooooong time until you leave.  Then you blink.  Then it is 12 days away.  You have tons to do to prepare for being gone for 3 weeks, lots to prepare for your trip, packing, and the list goes on....




On August 4th, I will be heading to Orlando, FL for a couple of days of training, then on the 6th we take off.  We will arrive in Malaga, Spain on the 7th, where we will have more training for a few more days.  We will take a train to Cordoba and spend 11 nights there, then we will take a train to Madrid August 21st.  The rest of the team is leaving on the 22nd, and I am leaving on the 25th.


This is a missions trip through Wycliffe Associates (WA).  Our job is to work "in support of missionary families working in sensitive countries throughout the region.  As the parents meet for strategic planning, spiritual refreshment, and mutual encouragement we have the opportunity to minister spiritual refreshment and encouragement to their kids." (That's the official description)  


This all came about after "the powers that be" and I decided it is a good idea for me to see what WA (and Wycliffe) do outside the states.  It is time for me to get on the field and see some things with my own eyes.  I started a mental list of all of the places I wanted to go and the "people groups" I wanted to work with and minister to.  It took about 2 seconds because I had thought about where I wanted to go about a billion times.  Spain was not on the short list, it actually wasn't on the long list either. :~)  About 20 minutes after the meeting where we all decided I needed to go somewhere, I was having a conversation with a fellow WA.  We were talking about the places I had traveled on missions trips, and while I loved those places and people, my real burden was with a different people group.  One I won't put on the blog (but is starts with a K).  Right about that time, the guy in charge of some of the ministry trips WA takes walked by and said, "if you are interested in (that people group), I have a trip for you."  I had never met this man and barley knew what he did for WA...it was just one of those God things.  In a little over a week the decision was made - I was headed for Spain in August.  Yay!