Saturday the 26th

!Adios España, nos vemos!

The crazy 10 day trip to Spain has come to an end. We have finally all made it home safely and are quickly starting the normal life routine again. Due to the crazy schedule of the last day and an early start to our travels home, I (Steph Langolf) am just now getting to post the update of Saturday as well as our return travels (and if you thought our travels to Spain were crazy, just you wait!!!)

Saturday’s ministry was probably one of my (Steph Langolf) favorites of the trip. We arrived at Howard and Ruth’s house looking forward to helping out at a kid’s fiesta in the middle of one of the town’s busiest plaza’s. None of us should have been surprised when Howard told us that were going to be spending the time beforehand passing out tracks and sticking them on the windshields of cars! I am pretty sure that every single person in Villagarcia and Santaigo have been handed at least one track if not multiple ones. We joke about the tracks and the fact that we distributed over 6,000 of them; however, that is over 6,000 times people have seen the message of Jesus’ love and the hope we have in Him.

After distributing a few hundred pamphlets, we all met up in the Plaza Galicia in the middle of the town’s busiest commercial district. Steven, a man from Marin and two of his helpers had set up games and crafts for children of all ages. I had the pleasure of making balloon animals with Gary. I think in the 3 hours I sat at that station, I successfully made 5 swords and 3 dog/giraffe/some strange animal with four legs and a head. I popped more balloons than I can count. I believe I heard the Lord say to me that the balloon animal ministry is not my calling. However, I was so blessed by just being able to talk to all the children and translate for Gary as he amazed me with his ballooning skills. I cannot even begin to tell you how many people asked me and others why we were doing this. We had the pleasure of telling them that the local evangelical church was putting it all on at no cost. They were so surprised to hear that and it was a great community outreach. Pastor Eduardo and his gang were able to talk with many people and pass out lots of literature and bibles. Praise the Lord!

For lunch we went back to the church and had a big meal of traditional Spanish Paella. It was delicious, yet most of us were stretched to trying weird food since the shrimp still had eyes and legs and the mussels still had barnacles on the shells… gross! Later at the pastor’s house we had the privilege of trying octopus with the suckers still attached. Yeah, that was interesting. My mom, Mary, and I were blessed enough to go up to the mountain with our host family to see the beautiful Atlantic coast and overlook the entire city. At the very top of the mountain was a cross. Being up there reminded me of Moses and how when he went up the mountain he saw God, but when he came back down, his people, the Israelites, God’s chosen people had been blinded by lies and built a golden calf idol to worship. Although this cross overlooks the beautiful Spanish countryside of Galicia; at the bottom of the mountain, the people are blinded to the truth, held captive to worldly things and false idols, and most importantly in need of a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.