Thursday, October 9, 2008
Easy to please
Friday, October 3, 2008
Thankful
I just got back from taking Rachel for a walk to the playground and back. And as we were walking back, I was thinking about how thankful I am to be here. When David and I first started talking about coming here, it was so hard to imagine a better life than I had in Chattanooga, with such amazing friends, an amazing church, everything my kids needed, our friends, Target and Starbucks..., and I was thinking back to a post I wrote just a few weeks ago telling how homesick I was for all things familiar and safe, and yet, the last couple of weeks I have begun feeling way more settled and at home. Things are still very different, but they are becoming "normal," and I have adjusted. I know there will still be difficult days from time to time, but I really am feeling normal. And I am able to breathe a bit and enjoy the place where God has brought us.
I have been thinking for a while of how to describe our job. Yes, we take care of high school girls whose parents are missionaries in places other than the greater Madrid area, but what that looks like on a day-to-day basis isn't really much different from what I had been doing at home, only on a larger scale (cooking and cleaning for 7 instead of for 4) and a bit harder just because of the unknowns and language barriers. But I am managing and I am feeling more confident each day, especially since I've been taking a short-term Spanish refresher course. That is helping me a lot.
But today as we were walking home, I was thinking about the fact that I can take Rachel to the playground for some Mommy-daughter time, walk there and back, leaving David at home with Mathis, and how thankful I was for that. David has been homeschooling Rachel on kind of a part-time basis, and even though he has been taking on more and more commitments at school (teaching elementary computers one day a week, doing some light construction here and there, carpooling to various school activities, working on new public relations materials, etc.,), his schedule allows him to be home with us most of the day every day. I was telling Rachel how thankful I was that Daddy was able to be home with us so much now and how much I am enjoying this time for us to be together as a family, remembering days back home when he would leave for work at 6:45 and sometimes because of various meetings or whatever, not get home until the kids were already in bed. Those days weren't the norm, thankfully, but it made me realize how much I am loving the slower pace of our life here. I don't really go anywhere except to the grocery store and to the school once in a while. I don't drive because I don't know how to drive a stick shift nor do I feel comfortable driving here, and everything I need is within walking distance. I don't have the social life or church involvement I had back home, but I am realizing that this is a particular season that God has given me. It is a gift and I am beginning to see it as that.
Another note I want to mention is that we have been praying for Rachel to find a friend since we arrived here. There are hardly any children her age and she was really missing her friends back home. This week, while watching her and Mathis play/fight/play together, we realized that God had already provided the best friend she will ever have, in her brother. Mathis was a surprise to all of us, but looking back, I am astonished at the providence of God to provide a playmate for Rachel who she would need so much this year. God always knows best. I believe that with all my heart and I say that a lot, but we were struck by that truth this week as we realized the answer to our prayer. We didn't know we needed to have another child, but God did for such a time as this.
I have been thinking for a while of how to describe our job. Yes, we take care of high school girls whose parents are missionaries in places other than the greater Madrid area, but what that looks like on a day-to-day basis isn't really much different from what I had been doing at home, only on a larger scale (cooking and cleaning for 7 instead of for 4) and a bit harder just because of the unknowns and language barriers. But I am managing and I am feeling more confident each day, especially since I've been taking a short-term Spanish refresher course. That is helping me a lot.
But today as we were walking home, I was thinking about the fact that I can take Rachel to the playground for some Mommy-daughter time, walk there and back, leaving David at home with Mathis, and how thankful I was for that. David has been homeschooling Rachel on kind of a part-time basis, and even though he has been taking on more and more commitments at school (teaching elementary computers one day a week, doing some light construction here and there, carpooling to various school activities, working on new public relations materials, etc.,), his schedule allows him to be home with us most of the day every day. I was telling Rachel how thankful I was that Daddy was able to be home with us so much now and how much I am enjoying this time for us to be together as a family, remembering days back home when he would leave for work at 6:45 and sometimes because of various meetings or whatever, not get home until the kids were already in bed. Those days weren't the norm, thankfully, but it made me realize how much I am loving the slower pace of our life here. I don't really go anywhere except to the grocery store and to the school once in a while. I don't drive because I don't know how to drive a stick shift nor do I feel comfortable driving here, and everything I need is within walking distance. I don't have the social life or church involvement I had back home, but I am realizing that this is a particular season that God has given me. It is a gift and I am beginning to see it as that.
Another note I want to mention is that we have been praying for Rachel to find a friend since we arrived here. There are hardly any children her age and she was really missing her friends back home. This week, while watching her and Mathis play/fight/play together, we realized that God had already provided the best friend she will ever have, in her brother. Mathis was a surprise to all of us, but looking back, I am astonished at the providence of God to provide a playmate for Rachel who she would need so much this year. God always knows best. I believe that with all my heart and I say that a lot, but we were struck by that truth this week as we realized the answer to our prayer. We didn't know we needed to have another child, but God did for such a time as this.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Visa update
Per an email we received last week:
Dear Mr. Musser,
We are sorry to bother you with this, but your e-mail address was provided in the visa applications of the Young family as a means of contact while in Spain.
Could you kindly convey to Mr. Young that the visas for his wife, Keri; and for his children, Rachel and Mathis, have finally been granted. The next time they are in the United States we can arrange to have the visas attached to their passports.
Thank you very much for your help.
Thank you for praying. Keri and the kids will be flying to Chattanooga on October 20 to get the visas. Please be praying for this trip. She is not sure about making the 16 hour flight alone with two toddlers.
Dear Mr. Musser,
We are sorry to bother you with this, but your e-mail address was provided in the visa applications of the Young family as a means of contact while in Spain.
Could you kindly convey to Mr. Young that the visas for his wife, Keri; and for his children, Rachel and Mathis, have finally been granted. The next time they are in the United States we can arrange to have the visas attached to their passports.
Thank you very much for your help.
Thank you for praying. Keri and the kids will be flying to Chattanooga on October 20 to get the visas. Please be praying for this trip. She is not sure about making the 16 hour flight alone with two toddlers.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
David's Residency Card Adventure (Blessing)
David's adventure applying for his residence card yesterday:
4:15 a.m. - Get up, take a shower, and eat breakfast
4:45 - I leave for the police station in Alcala.
5:00 - I arrive at the police station. About 30 people are standing around outside the station. I look around for the nicest looking group and try to speak to them in very broken Spanish. Thankfully, after I said something like "Mirror the residency card." instead of "Are you waiting for your residence card?" a girl replied with, "English?" The girl was a student from Mexico who spoke perfect English. I asked how many people were in line ahead of her. She replied, "Everyone here." I knew this couldn't be the case because I went through the process with another teacher two weeks ago, so I sort of knew how things were supposed to work.
6:00 - Long story short, no one who was waiting around had any idea how the system worked. After much discussion, the girl's Mexican friend went inside to ask. It turns out that we needed to form four different lines, depending on what we had come to do and what country we were from. Those of us who wanted to establish residency and who were not from the EU had to form one line. Ten tickets would be given out at 8:00 that would allow the first ten people to apply for residency that day. There were four of us in this line, I was number four. Two others arrived over the next hour.
7:00 - Five more people arrive. Two of them get in the back of our line, and three of them decide that they will be first in line. This does not go over very well with those who have been waiting since 4:00 in the morning, and I thought there might be a fight. Everyone remains calm, however, and we continue to wait. At this point I make a mental decision that I will not get upset, no matter what the outcome. God is in control of this situation, and from an eternal viewpoint, it will not matter if I am three people farther back in line. I also determine to leave my application for residency in God's hands as well.
It should be said that two weeks ago I came to the police station at 5:00 a.m., just like today, with another teacher from the school. She needed a ride to the station, and I stayed with her so she wouldn't be there alone. After waiting all morning, she was told that she had been given the wrong visa. She then had to go into downtown Madrid to try to resolve the problem. That didn't work, and it took a flight to Malaga in southern Spain, followed by another trip into Madrid before everything was right.
8:00 - A police officer comes outside for a smoke break. The Mexican students in front of me explain the issue with the three line-breakers. The three line breaking ladies also make animated comments. I can't really understand any of it, but the police officer finally throws up his hands and refuses to talk about it. He goes back inside.
8:45 - The same police officer comes back outside to hand out tickets. He walks past the first three in line and begins handing out tickets to the rightful first person in line. The first three ladies are most upset, but he refuses to even speak to them. He passes out tickets to everyone in line, and the three line-breakers do not get tickets.
8:50 - I call Silvia, the lawyer who will come help me through the process. I have a slightly elevated heart rate when I can not get ahold of her after the first three attempts, but I finally contact her.
9:10 - Silvia arrives and we wait. We talk about religion in Spain, Morrocans in Spain, Romanians in Spain, her family in Peru, etc. Interestingly, the three ladies who tried to break in front of the line have come into the waiting area, even though they don't have tickets.
10:30 - It is finally my turn. We sit at a desk and the government lady looks through all of my paperwork. She asks to see my passport, and when she looks at my visa she says, "This is the wrong visa!" (In Spanish, of course.) This is where I am glad I have a Spanish speaking lawyer because she says, "No, it is the correct visa. I have already checked it out. Look at the codes at the bottom. Those are the correct codes for a missionary." The lady pulls out a thick manual, looks up the codes, and says, "You're right."
All of my paperwork is in order. Everything is in the computer correctly (a tribute to the Spanish consulate in New Orleans, Silvia says, because things are not always entered correctly), and to top it off, there is a computer glitch which means I only have to pay 10 euros instead of the usual 20.
10:50 - To pay the fees for my residence card, we have to walk to the nearest bank. This is how many fees are paid here. For example, fees at the university are also paid directly to a bank. So we walk to the nearest branch of Caja Madrid.
11:00 - We arrive at the bank and wait in another line.
11:20 - We head back to the police station.
11:30 - The government lady, whose name is Anna, tells us to wait in the waiting area as she has to help other people first before she can get back to us. She takes paperwork from a couple of other people. When she finishes with the tenth person from our line, one of the line-breaking ladies from this morning goes to her desk and tries to talk to her. Police officers make her return to the waiting area.
11:45 - Anna gets up from her desk and leaves.
12:15 - Her break is over and she returns. She helps a couple of other people.
12:30 - She calls us over. We show proof that we paid the fee. She takes my fingerprints and staples pictures of me to the various documents.
12:40 - We're done. I can come back in 45 days to pick up my residence card. As we are leaving, Anna is getting up from her desk to leave again. Meanwhile, the break-in-the-line lady is yelling to her from the waiting area. I actually feel quite sorry for the line-breaking lady because she is crying, genuinely upset, and obviously needs to get her paperwork done that day. It doesn't look like that will be happening, though, and she has now been waiting since 7:00.
I give Silvia a ride to her office about 15 minutes away and head home.
1:15 - I arrive home.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, Silvia tells me that I am very "lucky." Today was the very best that it can possibly go. Not only were there no problems with any of the paperwork that I had to turn in, but I was able to get fingerprinted on the same day, and I only had to pay half price. The usual is that you have to make a seperate appointment to get fingerprinted, and then you wait for up to three hours when you come back to get that done. I sat at the police station for almost 8 hours yesterday, but it is done. Thank you, Lord, for your favor.
Tuesdays are our day off each week. :)
4:15 a.m. - Get up, take a shower, and eat breakfast
4:45 - I leave for the police station in Alcala.
5:00 - I arrive at the police station. About 30 people are standing around outside the station. I look around for the nicest looking group and try to speak to them in very broken Spanish. Thankfully, after I said something like "Mirror the residency card." instead of "Are you waiting for your residence card?" a girl replied with, "English?" The girl was a student from Mexico who spoke perfect English. I asked how many people were in line ahead of her. She replied, "Everyone here." I knew this couldn't be the case because I went through the process with another teacher two weeks ago, so I sort of knew how things were supposed to work.
6:00 - Long story short, no one who was waiting around had any idea how the system worked. After much discussion, the girl's Mexican friend went inside to ask. It turns out that we needed to form four different lines, depending on what we had come to do and what country we were from. Those of us who wanted to establish residency and who were not from the EU had to form one line. Ten tickets would be given out at 8:00 that would allow the first ten people to apply for residency that day. There were four of us in this line, I was number four. Two others arrived over the next hour.
7:00 - Five more people arrive. Two of them get in the back of our line, and three of them decide that they will be first in line. This does not go over very well with those who have been waiting since 4:00 in the morning, and I thought there might be a fight. Everyone remains calm, however, and we continue to wait. At this point I make a mental decision that I will not get upset, no matter what the outcome. God is in control of this situation, and from an eternal viewpoint, it will not matter if I am three people farther back in line. I also determine to leave my application for residency in God's hands as well.
It should be said that two weeks ago I came to the police station at 5:00 a.m., just like today, with another teacher from the school. She needed a ride to the station, and I stayed with her so she wouldn't be there alone. After waiting all morning, she was told that she had been given the wrong visa. She then had to go into downtown Madrid to try to resolve the problem. That didn't work, and it took a flight to Malaga in southern Spain, followed by another trip into Madrid before everything was right.
8:00 - A police officer comes outside for a smoke break. The Mexican students in front of me explain the issue with the three line-breakers. The three line breaking ladies also make animated comments. I can't really understand any of it, but the police officer finally throws up his hands and refuses to talk about it. He goes back inside.
8:45 - The same police officer comes back outside to hand out tickets. He walks past the first three in line and begins handing out tickets to the rightful first person in line. The first three ladies are most upset, but he refuses to even speak to them. He passes out tickets to everyone in line, and the three line-breakers do not get tickets.
8:50 - I call Silvia, the lawyer who will come help me through the process. I have a slightly elevated heart rate when I can not get ahold of her after the first three attempts, but I finally contact her.
9:10 - Silvia arrives and we wait. We talk about religion in Spain, Morrocans in Spain, Romanians in Spain, her family in Peru, etc. Interestingly, the three ladies who tried to break in front of the line have come into the waiting area, even though they don't have tickets.
10:30 - It is finally my turn. We sit at a desk and the government lady looks through all of my paperwork. She asks to see my passport, and when she looks at my visa she says, "This is the wrong visa!" (In Spanish, of course.) This is where I am glad I have a Spanish speaking lawyer because she says, "No, it is the correct visa. I have already checked it out. Look at the codes at the bottom. Those are the correct codes for a missionary." The lady pulls out a thick manual, looks up the codes, and says, "You're right."
All of my paperwork is in order. Everything is in the computer correctly (a tribute to the Spanish consulate in New Orleans, Silvia says, because things are not always entered correctly), and to top it off, there is a computer glitch which means I only have to pay 10 euros instead of the usual 20.
10:50 - To pay the fees for my residence card, we have to walk to the nearest bank. This is how many fees are paid here. For example, fees at the university are also paid directly to a bank. So we walk to the nearest branch of Caja Madrid.
11:00 - We arrive at the bank and wait in another line.
11:20 - We head back to the police station.
11:30 - The government lady, whose name is Anna, tells us to wait in the waiting area as she has to help other people first before she can get back to us. She takes paperwork from a couple of other people. When she finishes with the tenth person from our line, one of the line-breaking ladies from this morning goes to her desk and tries to talk to her. Police officers make her return to the waiting area.
11:45 - Anna gets up from her desk and leaves.
12:15 - Her break is over and she returns. She helps a couple of other people.
12:30 - She calls us over. We show proof that we paid the fee. She takes my fingerprints and staples pictures of me to the various documents.
12:40 - We're done. I can come back in 45 days to pick up my residence card. As we are leaving, Anna is getting up from her desk to leave again. Meanwhile, the break-in-the-line lady is yelling to her from the waiting area. I actually feel quite sorry for the line-breaking lady because she is crying, genuinely upset, and obviously needs to get her paperwork done that day. It doesn't look like that will be happening, though, and she has now been waiting since 7:00.
I give Silvia a ride to her office about 15 minutes away and head home.
1:15 - I arrive home.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, Silvia tells me that I am very "lucky." Today was the very best that it can possibly go. Not only were there no problems with any of the paperwork that I had to turn in, but I was able to get fingerprinted on the same day, and I only had to pay half price. The usual is that you have to make a seperate appointment to get fingerprinted, and then you wait for up to three hours when you come back to get that done. I sat at the police station for almost 8 hours yesterday, but it is done. Thank you, Lord, for your favor.
Tuesdays are our day off each week. :)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Como se dice "flyswatter?"
We have so many flies here that we have already broken the flyswatter that we bought after we came to Spain. So I (David) went to the Euro store (dollar store) here in town looking for a flyswatter. Once I arrived and couldn't find one I realized that I didn't know the Spanish word for "flyswatter" or "fly" for that matter. Nevertheless I found the Chinese man that owns and runs the place to ask him if he had any flyswatters. As I proceeded to act out a fly buzzing around (complete with sound effects) and then WHACK with my hand (also with sound effects) he looked at me like I was a little crazy. But after thinking for a second he smiled, said the name for a flyswatter, and then told me that they were all out. I still have no idea how to say "flyswatter" in Spanish, and we still have lots of flies, but my Spanish class begins next week.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Aranjuez, Spain - Palacio Real de Aranjuez
Yesterday one of the teachers from school was taking a tour group to Aranjuez, a town about an hour south of us, to tour what was the spring palace of the King and Queen of Spain. I'm still not clear on exactly which kings and queens used it, but I know I read something about King Philip and King Ferdinand/Queen Isabella. Now it is a museum and open to the public.
p.s. - we really do have a job. I'll post more on that this week. :)
Our group. Two teachers from ECA and two Spanish families whose children attend ECA. It was good to spend some time with them.
Both Flat Stanleys came with us.
"King Carlos - 1775"
Rachel and Flat Stanleys in front of the giant door.
I think the grass was their favorite part. We don't have much grass in Camarma.
Flat Stanley also enjoyed picking dandelions with Rachel, something she hasn't done since we got here - again, because of the lack of grass.
Flat Stanley also enjoyed picking dandelions with Rachel, something she hasn't done since we got here - again, because of the lack of grass.
Standing in one of the exterior archways.
One of several bridal photo shoots while we were there. Understandably so, as this place is so beautiful!
A duck pond.
The gardens were breathtaking.
Waterfall.
No, No, Mathis!
Throughout the gardens, there were many labyrinths formed out of shrubbery. The kids had a blast. So did Flat Stanley. :)
Friday, September 19, 2008
Back to School Picnic
Last Friday night, we had an all-school picnic at ECA. It was sunny but extremely windy. So windy in fact, that the lettuce flew off my hamburger and my chips went flying away. We decided to eat indoors, though most everyone else braved the wind and cold. Anyway, because we were inside, we forgot to take pictures. Thankfully, our good friends George and Bonnie took quite a few. Please look at their blog to see pictures from the picnic.
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