VISION XXI

From left to right: Mark, Trish, Donny, Lizzy, Laurie, Jake, Ryan, Priscilla, Luke, Naomi, Brad, Heather, Emilie (click to enlarge)

Brief overview...

Hello, all! Thanks for joining me for another year of Missions with Trish! This year's destination? Spain with VISION XXI! (For info on past trips, please see my Swaziland trip, my Israel trip, and my Brasil trip.) Many special thanks to those who supported us financially and through your prayers! We couldn't have done it without you! Here's the team roster for this year:

Laurie Alcaraz (first year on VISION)
Mark-Anthony Beltran (second year on VISION)
Donny Bueno (second year on VISION)
Lizzy Byrd (team drama trainer, fourth year on VISION)
Jake Coffin (first year on VISION)
Trisha Guinn (third year on VISION)
Naomi Klockmann (first year on VISION)
Heather Lawton (team prop girl, fourth year on VISION)
Emilie McDonald (second year as student leader, fourth year on VISION)
Ryan McDonald (first year on VISION)
Priscilla Norman (team tech girl, third year on VISION)
Brad Thuerbach (first year on VISION)
Luke VanNortwick (first year on VISION)
Mr. Larry Wilson (team leader/dad, music professor, twenty-first year on VISION)

Unlike my other mission trip blogs, you will find that this year has a lot more tourism and a lot less ministry. This was not up to us as a team; we only chose what missionaries to work with. They decided when and where we would minister. However, although we didn't perform nearly as much as we usually do, our mere presence in the cities we lived in was an outreach of sorts to the people of Spain. It is a highly unreached area, comprised mostly of Roman Catholics and very few believers in Christ. The missionaries we stayed with have been working for years to win over the people, so the majority of our task in Spain was to draw attention to these missionaries and to evangelical churches so that they might still be looked to after we leave their area. With that disclaimer out there, enjoy our days in Spain!

PICTURES:
Sevilla
Pamplona
Madrid

Days 1-2 - May 14th-15th - Tuesday-Wednesday

Hooray for a new adventure! Super tired right now... there is too much to 'splain. Let me sum up.

-Very long plane rides made up the majority of Tuesday.
-God provides, and our team is amazing. I have gotten about 4.5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours (thanks to my bright idea of pulling an all-nighter before the flight), so I have been a virtual zombie all day. However, a couple of guys on the team keep checking on me, making sure I'm okay, trying to get me to laugh, etc. I have wonderful teammates. :)
-Larry and Rosana Thornburg, our missionary contacts here in Madrid, are awesome! They were super understanding about our exhaustion, and they made us feel completely and totally welcome. I look forward to ministering with them at the end of the trip. Right now, they're a brief stop on our way to Sevilla.
-We wandered the Plaza del Sol to stay awake today, and Spanish architecture is amazing! So beautiful! We also got to experience the Metro, which was pretty cool.
-SLEEP.

Day 3 - May 16th - Thursday

I love being a country where I can understand what the people are saying half the time! For those of you who don't know, I took four years of Spanish in high school with an incredible teacher, but it's been three years since I actually put any of that to good use. Thankfully it seems to have stuck with me anyway! The first half of our day was just spent traveling to a little church where we're staying for the week; six girls in an apartment upstairs, six boys in a back room downstairs. Here we'll be working with missionaries J.D. and Sara Bennett (a really fun, sweet couple - J.D. graduated from SDCC, so he loves chatting with us about professors and places!) and Frank and Salud Benoit (and their teenage daughter Elisabeth, who will act as our guide on some of our adventures). We went to the church's Thursday night Bible study/prayer meeting thing. There were only about ten people there, so it was a really open and friendly event. And I understood so much of what J.D. said in his message! Spanish makes me so happy. :)

Day 4 - May 17th - Friday

After breakfast today and a while of just hanging out as a team, we split up into guy/girl pairs to walk through the city and distribute concert flyers to mailboxes and under doors. Some of us finished early and went to the nearby river to hang out for a bit before our designated meeting/lunch time. After lunch we all worked on singing worship songs in Spanish with J.D. It was so beautiful! Later we went back to the river and on a trail beyond it as a group, had a couple free hours (a.k.a. naptime), then went to Frank and Salud's house for Bible study. This actually ended up being all of us sharing our testimonies, which was extremely touching for some of us, as only people on past teams had heard each other's testimonies. Hearing the way that God changed lives is always intriguing. We ended the night by going out for tapas, which basically means appetizers. Lots of fun Spanish seafood involved. Yum! Now off to bed... I continue to be encouraged by the love and unity of the team. I am so blessed to be here doing this with these people!

Day 5 - May 18th - Sunday

This morning began with breakfast at a cafe, then we drove out to visit a huge stork preserve! It had an almost prehistoric feel to it, with huge birds flying slowly over enormous fields of wildflowers. Even with the bordered dirt paths, it felt like we were in the middle of creation before man tampered with it. After we left there mid-afternoon, we went to City Hall to set up for our program tonight and to rehearse. We returned to the church for dinner, then came back for the actual performance, which was extremely Spirit-filled and joyful despite a bunch of craziness and stress that we encountered in setting up for it earlier. God can fix anything. :)

Day 6 - May 19th - Sunday

Today we had breakfast at a church in Coria, which is led by pastor Jose Maria (a friendly guy who was absolutely thrilled by the fact that I speak a little Spanish). We had a really well-received performance there, complete with an encore song! We spent a little time talking with the people of the church there, then left for a completely free afternoon. This involved a lot of fun team-building time, including walking along a river, hanging out, singing along to Broadway songs played by Mr. Wilson on piano and Em on violin, dancing, laughing, etc. A while later, a small group of us decided to take a walk down to a little river near the church where we're staying. On a floating dock there, I had a really great conversation with one of the girls on my team. We talked for a while about things that have been on her heart lately, and she asked how I was doing. Honestly, this year has been a bit odd for me - I still haven't really figured out where I fit into the team. The past two years, I've had a teammate along who is a sort of "big brother"/best friend to me both within VISION and in my everyday life. Whenever I was unsure of myself or needed to pair up with a guy for something or just needed a person to sit with at lunch or whatever, I knew I could always go to him and be welcome. This year, he isn't on the team with us, and it's been difficult to find a place where I belong. It seemed like almost everyone was part of a group of three of four others, while I don't exactly fit in with any one group. But after talking with my dear friend on that dock, we both came to the conclusion that God must have a specific purpose in bringing both of us to Spain, and that He will provide for us. It's so refreshing to know that I am here for a reason; and furthermore, that I'm not alone in struggling a little on this team. The support our members show for one another is incredible. So blessed to be part of a self-supportive team!

Day 7 - May 20th - Monday

Today was a performance/tourism combo. We caught a bus to Sevilla after breakfast (we're actually staying in a city called Pueblo del Rio), and spent a few hours looking at the incredible architecture around the city and touring the largest palace still in use in Europe. Wow! The way God gifted some people is amazing! Everything from the floors to the walls to the ceilings and doors was intricately carved and/or painted. What a masterpiece! After we grabbed lunch, we set up in a main square for a very short performance. At first I thought that our only audience would be the one woman sitting off the the side sort of watching us. Halfway through the first drama, though, we had a crowd bigger than any we've ministered to so far! It's still a thrill to see the way people's expressions change when we switch from singing in English to their language. After we finished, we literally ran to catch our bus and had a couple hours of downtime before we went to a Catholic old people's home. We performed a fairly short set for them, fellowshipped with them for a while, then came back home. It's nice to finally get to bed before 1am!

Day 8 - May 21st - Tuesday

Completely a tourist day. First we visited an awesome outdoor Gypsy market, the we went to Sevilla and wandered around there. Visited the Sevilla Cathedral, which is the third largest cathedral in the world, and also happens to be the burial site of Christopher Columbus. After we left the cathedral we visited the Plaza de España. Every historic site here is so incredibly, beautifully made! The architecture of Spain is amazing. I think the highlight of my day, though, was spending time with one of my teammates. This is his first year on VISION, and we ended up walking together at some point today and just got into a really deep conversation about what's going on in our lives right now. It's amazing how God sets up the perfect time for people to interact in such a way that they grow closer to each other and to Him. I am so blessed by the incredible set of teammates He's given me!

Days 9-12 - May 22nd-25th - Wednesday-Saturday

I feel like a horrible person for not writing sooner! So sorry for slacking on this!
On Wednesday morning, we sang at Jose Maria's church again, this time for an elderly ministry. They told us that there was really no outreach program to the elderly before the church took up the commission to create one, and that they have had an incredible influence on the community since then! Praise God! The rest of Wednesday consisted of train travel back to Madrid, then renting a couple of vans for team use in Pamplona and heading up there. We arrived after dark, but the Leatherwoods were very welcoming regardless! We will be staying in their huge house this week, which is the remaining (and somewhat renovated) part a 500-year-old castle! The family itself consists of Dan and his five children, Anelise (18), Aida (just turned 16), Andrew (9), Ashton (7 or 8ish?), and Avery (5 or 6ish?). He lost his wife, Lisa, to cancer two years ago, but the family is still faithfully serving God in Spain. Lisa was actually part of the very first VISION team, before VISION was even established! She was also the sister of J.D. Bennett.

On Thursday we spent the day mostly chilling and getting used to being in Pamplona, and we also got to wander the Castillo de Olite, which is a huge and very fairytale-like castle! Whoo! It's awesome spending time with the Leatherwood family and with each other as a team.

On Friday we walked up to the top of the hill that overlooks Artajona, which is the actually city in Pamplona where we are staying with the Leatherwoods. After lunch and some down time, we traveled an hour away to another church where we met the pastor. We walked around the downtown area for about half an hour passing out flyers for a performance we were holding that night in an auditorium in the local library, then had the actual performance. We had a relatively large audience, of which Dan said a few families were not believers! Dan is amazed by the extent of the openness shown to this group. Artajona has a speaker system throughout the town, and every morning the town announcements are given. This entire week, they've been announcing VISION's upcoming performance at the local Catholic church after mass, free of charge! The priest whose mass we are following used to turn and walk the other way whenever he saw Dan coming, but he's been asking more about us and trying to make sure we are being publicized!

On Saturday afternoon we went to a mall in Pamplona for a couple of hours to look around and wait out the rain, then we walked around the old part of the town and walked the route where they do the famous running of the bulls. When we got back home, we walked over to the Catholic church and performed for the post-mass audience there. We started out with only a few audience members, but the crowd grew with each new song and drama. And the reaction of the people was incredible! We even got a standing ovation at the end of our long performance. It's exciting to see God at work in Artajona.

Day 13 - May 26th - Sunday

Today we performed for a small congregation (15 people max.) at Dan's church in Tafalla, ate lunch there, then came back to the house and had a short nap. Then it was off again on a long drive to another church where we performed for both a mixed congregation of both Spaniards and Swiss! It was strange having to be translated in both Spanish and German. It seemed that the visitors from Switzerland were Roman Catholic, so hopefully our ministry had an impact on them in some way. Not much happened after that ministry event... we've got an early start tomorrow, so I'm heading to bed early (early for Spain at least, haha!).

Day 14 - May 27th - Monday

Today was a complete tourism day. Since we're only about an hour and a half from France, we drove over to do some wandering and shopping in the town of Biarritz. After spending most of the day there together, we came back to Spain along a coastal route and spent a couple of hours in the lovely area of San Sebastian. After that we came back to Artajona to pack all our things and get some rest before another early morning. Tomorrow we leave for Madrid and our last week of ministry.

Day 15 - May 28th - Tuesday

Today was mostly comprised of traveling after we bid our sad farewells to the wonderful Leatherwood family. First we went by van, then once we arrived at a church in Madrid, we were split up into cars which delivered us first to the Thornburg's house for dinner, then back to the church to pick up our things, then to the families who are hosting us for the week. Heather and I are staying in the home of a sweet couple named Jessica and Ibon. Jessica's elderly father, Jose, lives with them, and they have two little girls - a three-year-old named April, and a one-year-old named Noa. Jessica is an English professor, and Ibon speaks English fluently as well. They're also teaching English to their girls, although April is too shy right now to use any of it. :) It's been a long day of travel, so it's off to bed for me!

Day 16 - May 29th - Wednesday

Today we took a train to Segovia and visited the castle and the huge, amazing aqueduct there. Did some souvenir shopping, wandered the area, and basically just hung out there all day. It's so strange doing so little ministry here in Spain, but it's really cool getting to visit all of these beautiful, awe-inspiring places. God made some engineers with crazy brains. The architecture here is absolutely incredible! Anyway, it took us a couple of metro rides and a speed train to get to Segovia and back, and we spent about four hours there, so it was a long day even without our doing much (besides a whole lot of walking). Time for sleep.

Day 17 - May 30th - Thursday

Today we went to downtown Madrid to visit the royal palace there, which is an incredibly beautiful place! After that we wandered around and did some shopping for a short while, then stopped by the Thornburg's before heading out for ministry. We shared a mini concert of sorts tonight with a senior choir at Escuela Alameda de Osuna. It wasn't a particularly religious event, so hopefully we were able to reach a lot of non-believers! Sorry today's entry was so short - super tired. Heading to bed now.

Day 18 - May 31 - Friday

Today was all about learning to have patience and trust in God. We got off to a late start this morning... or at least Heather and I did, haha! We were supposed to be picked up at 11:30, but our picker-upper forgot about us and consequently didn't arrive until 12:30. The only person still home with us was the children's nanny (who only speaks Spanish), and we couldn't get a hold of our leader, so Heather and I just had to trust that somehow God would work it out as we waited for that hour with no news. When we did get picked up, we went to downtown Madrid again, to the same shopping area that we wandered around last time. We stayed there until a little after 4pm, then we all went to a church which had yet another dilemma - a stage so small that one of our team members actually fell of of it during one of the dramas! God provided though, and that was our only incident. No one got hurt, despite the limited performance space! Hurray! The church provided dinner for us, then after a time of fellowship, we all came home to sleep.

Day 19 - June 1st - Saturday

Today we visited the Prado museum in the late morning/early afternoon, then came back to Larry and Rosana's around 3pm to get ready for ministry. We went to a church run by a couple named Rich and Cindy and performed first for their youth group, then we played some games and had pizza with the kids. They loved practicing their English on us, while those of us who could practiced our Spanish. A little while later we performed a longer set for everyone, including many adults. Rosana said that the majority of those in attendance were unsaved! And in addition, we received a standing ovation after our final song, and the first man to stand up was an atheist who only comes to special occasions at church to please his wife! He told Rosana that we as a group "transmit something", but he couldn't figure out what exactly it is. Pray that he will learn that what we transmitted to him was the love of Jesus, and that he will come to know that love himself.

Day 20 - June 2nd - Sunday

Today was really exciting and fun! We drove to Toledo to perform at a church there. We had a long performance with lots of dramas for the Sunday School group, then a short break, then a slightly shorter set for the whole church. Apart from the usual Spanish crowd, there were a couple of Nigerian families there who spoke English, and they were very excited about us being there! God definitely opened the hearts of the people to us in Toledo. After the service we went to the pastor's house for lunch. It was a refreshing time of rest and fellowship both with the pastor's family and within our own team. After that we went to another church in Toledo, this time a super conservative church consisting primarily of Romanians. It was a very long collaborative service. First they facilitated worship, complete with a whole choir of lutes. Then we gave our presentation of songs and dramas. Then the Romanian pastor gave a sort of introduction to Larry Thornburg, who preached a message on the difference between good theology (which is faith in God alone, from and for Him) and bad theology (which is putting your faith in man and his works). That was one of the highlights of my day, because the entire message that I just described was preached in Spanish! And I understood the majority of what he said! It was so exciting! Even more exciting, after the service was over and we were all packed up and heading out the door, I actually got to have my first normal conversation entirely in Spanish! The pastor said "God bless you" in Spanish, and I said it back. He got really excited that I knew a little Spanish, chatted with me for a couple of minutes, then said "You have to meet me wife!" and dragged me over to a circle of about five women who were chatting with one another. He pushed me into the middle of them, exclaimed "She speaks Spanish! Talk Spanish to her!", and walked away. After a couple of awkward moments and a brief introduction, his wife and another woman there started up a regular conversation with me, asking and discussing what I was studying in school, what the weather was like in San Diego, the beach, how I learned Spanish, whether my family were believers, what I planned to do with my life - all in Spanish! And I was able to keep up with almost everything they were asking/saying, and say what I wanted to back! It was so thrilling to be able to use what I had learned in high school in a practical way, and to be able to do so well at it! It was definitely a God-ordained meeting. And, ironically, today is my high school Spanish teacher's birthday. :) Anyway, it's after midnight right now, and I still have some packing to do, so I'd better finish up this entry. Tonight's performance was our last ministry event and our last night with our host families.  Moving to a hotel for our last night as a team. Goodnight!

Day 21 - June 3rd - Monday

Since last night was our last ministry event, today was all about prepping for travel and simply enjoying our last day together as a team. We said goodbye to our host families this morning, and all met at a hotel where we will be staying for the night around noon. We just hung out until dinner, and the girls all got together to get fancy and to finish writing the annual "boy's song". Every year each gender on the team gets together and writes a song about the members of the opposite gender, which is presented at the final team dinner. Another team tradition plays out tonight too... at the beginning of the trip, right before we leave the states, we are given a random slip of paper with another team member's name on it. Throughout the trip, we pray for this person, write them encouraging notes, give them little gifts, etc. The whole time, the identity of their "Secret Prayer Partner" is kept hidden, but at the final dinner we reveal ourselves and give them a final gift. After all of this and other fun shenanigans tonight, we had a long time of prayer thanking God for everything that happened on the trip, from the way our team became a family, to the ministry we were able to do, to the things that He taught us throughout this journey. When all was finally finished, Mr. Wilson made a last-minute announcement that Jake will be our new student leader next year, and that I will be taking over the position of drama leader. Eep! Means a lot more work for me next year, but I look forward to passing these fantastic drama on to a new generation of VISIONaries in my last year on the team. :) After a hearty round of hugs and tears, we left the hotel to wander around Madrid and see the city lit up at night! It was beautiful, and because my birthday will happen the day after we get back to the States, Mr. Wilson decided to celebrate it early with the rest of the team and took us to get ice cream! It always amazes me how much this team and its leaders care about every individual member. God really has a way of bringing the most random, opposite people together and weaving them into a close-knit, cohesive unit. Back in the hotel now, spending my last night in Spain with Emilie and Heather.

Day 22 - June 4th - Tuesday

Today consisted entirely of travel - mercifully, it only took 15 hours to make it from Madrid to San Diego, including our layover in Philadelphia. This was probably the easiest international trip home I've ever taken. It was filled with sad goodbyes though; three of our most influential team members graduated this year, including our student leader, our drama trainer, and our tech girl. When we started off the morning in Madrid, we had to say goodbye to Mr. Wilson (who is staying to do some tourism in Spain with his wife, who joined us two days ago), Emilie, and Ryan (who are going to visit their sister in Albania). When we hit Philadelphia, Heather split off from us to spend a summer in Jacksonville, Florida with a mission organization there. The rest of us reached San Diego around 8:30pm and headed off from there to either our respective homes or back to school to be picked up by family. I actually went back to school, and I'm staying in the area tonight. Dad's coming to take me home in the morning. God gave me an immense blessing when I got back, though - my "big brother"/best friend's car was in the parking lot when we reached school, so I went searching for him and we got to spend a couple of hours hanging out together! We were joined by another one of my best friends after a while, and she actually invited me to crash at her place for the night! What a joy it was to be able to spend time with two of favorite people after such a long day! :) And with that, my Spanish adventure with VISION XXI comes to a close. Thanks for following me in my continuing journey with missions! Tune in next year to hear about my upcoming travels with VISION XXII!