Thank you West Florida!

Thanks to the wonderful provision of our Lord we now have our Speed the Light vehicle!

A lot of people have worked very hard for this to happen. Our West Florida DYD Scott Lingerfelt, who crosses the district with a passion to see lives changed through the power of the cross. Our home church, Panama City First Assembly of God and Lead Pastor Phil Edwards and Youth Pastor Ryan Johnson, for all their love and support. Not to mention all the Pastors, Youth Pastors and the incredible, awesome, youth of West Florida!

We love you all an appreciate your hard work and sacrifice. From all of us, a heartfelt "thank you". Every time we get in the car we thank God for all of you.

Our First Care Package!

Today we received our very first care package from the States! It was full of all kinds of treats from home. Kool-aid, Microwave popcorn (with cheese!), Mac & Cheese Packs and Pop Tarts! Stuff that is very hard to find here and if you can find it, it will be quite expensive.

All of us express our heart felt thanks to Cheryl, Ron & Brittany Hartzer for their kindness and generosity! We love you guys!

A special shout out to Britt, one of the special young ladies in our youth group back home!


And about that exciting news I mentioned in my last post... you'll just have to wait until tomorrow :)

A Plague Upon us...

Being from Florida we are use to mosquitoes and other biting insects. (Mosquitoes are so big in Florida they might as well be our state bird!). Bugs really never bothered me in Florida, I guess I don't taste very good (too much garlic in my food I suppose). But here in Spain the bugs must love garlic. Something has gotten into our house the past few night and really made a meal out of us, and boy does it itch! If anyone has some advice on how to treat horribly itchy bug bites we are all ears!

In other news some very exciting things have happened! But I'm not going to tell you what just yet (I know, I'm a stinker). As soon as we have a moment I'll let you in on some cool stuff the Lord is doing and had done! I gotta get back to conjugating verbs...

Second day of School..

...and our brains are melting. Well it feels like that anyway. All four of us newbie missionaries wound up in the A1 class (beginner class). In addition there are two girls from Holland and one from Serbia and another from Korea. Since it's a small class there will be a lot of interaction and we can be salt and light! Pray that we'll have opportunities to share the gospel with our fellow students and teachers. And pray that our brains will hold out. Each day we cover about four weeks worth of material.

School Starts!

Today Anna and I, along with new missionaries Shawn and Deb Galyen and veteran missionary Ellen Cannon started language school! Due to an accident on the road, traffic was backed up for quite awhile and we were late for class. Everyone at the school was taking the placement test to see which class they would be in. The Test consists of 100 multiple choice questions (in Spanish) a short essay (in Spanish) and then an oral test where one of the instructors has a conversation with you in Spanish.

The good news is I was the first one to finish the exam! The bad news is I only knew one answer on the test (I think). I'll definitely be in the A1 class (beginning class). Anna did really well. She was one of the last ones finished and even had a conversation with one of the teachers.

Tomorrow we find out how we did and begin our classes. Well, the others will anyway. Today I found out that you have to register to pay sales tax on your car. The car dealer where we are getting our STL vehicle from tried to complete the transaction but could not do it because we had not registered to pay the sales tax (It never occurred to us that we had to!)

So tomorrow I get to play hooky and pay taxes... I think I'd rather be in school.

Prayer Points:

• That we can get our STL car by Thursday so we can use it for our long trip to Tarragona, Spain where we will be having our Missions Orientation.
• Our Attorney will be going to the Government offices tomorrow to straighten out our Visa problems. Her name is Silva, please pray that God will give her favor and wisdom.
• That we can learn Spanish for God's glory (Especially me!).
  

Please Pray

We have a few challenges that have popped up that we would really appreciate your prayers on.

The first is our residency paperwork. It seems that the official here wants an original document that is still in the possession of the Miami consulate. This particular official really seems to dislike us and is making thing difficult. We need that document very soon or we don't know what will happen to our residence status. Please pray for favor with the government officials and that we can get that document in time or better yet, complete the process with out the document.

Second, we have everything we need to get our Speed the Light vehicle. Please pray that there are no hitches when STL transfers the funds internationally to the dealership and that we can get the vehicle registered on our temporary residence number. In the past it hasn't been a problem to get a vehicle on a temporary number, but we just had a missionary get denied.

Finally, we start school on September 2nd. We will be going to the University of Alcala. They have been teaching the Spanish language and Spanish grammar since 1499 so I'm fairly confident they can get Spanish into my thick skull. Please pray that we learn the language well so that we can spread the gospel effectively.

Thank you so much for your prayers, it means the world to us! If you have a moment please feel free to leave us a comment so we know your praying.

Survivor (Part 2)

Much of our time so far has been learning how survive and completing the visa process. Grocery shopping and cooking are one example. When Anna would go grocery shopping in the states, she would get everything she needed at one or two stores. Now she has to go to three or four to get not only the best price, but to get the item she wants. Everything is in Spanish (we are, after all, in Spain) so she had to learn the difference between Cebolla en Polvo, Ajo en polvo, and Albahaca

The adventures don't end at the grocery store. Anna has been learning how to cook all over again. She has to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius and lean to cook with different ingredients. The stove she uses has very cryptic markings for temperature and it likes to get very hot very quickly. A few times our dinner has been "well done". But she has really gotten the hang of it in the past week and our meals have been outstanding!

In other news, Rebekah lost her first tooth! Here she is posing with a flower she bought for one of her friends.