Tomares

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The morning came to early today. After breakfast and our devotion lead by Sheryl and Becky, we got on the bus to head to the city of Tomares. Major Attack number 2 came, when the wrong bus ended up coming. We ordered a huge bus for the week so our group and the youth from the church could all go together; however, the company claimed that for today we ordered the smaller bus. Luckily, we were able to borrow a local bus from the church and everybody was able to go to Tomares. I was pumped, because we were about to accomplish something amazing in Tomares. It is a small town outside of Sevilla that has no churches besides Catholic churches, and the people have not been reached there yet. We met up with an American Missionary named Rusty, learning that they were trying to plant a church there. Before they could plant a church, they formed a group called the association of Tomares, and need to gain relationships with the people first. So our job was to spilt up into groups and go ask surveys to people and give them fliers about a kids carnival that we would be holding later that night. So they spilt us all into groups, making sure someone who spoke Spanish was in each group. I was put in a group with Jackie, one of our team members, and we were paired with a guy from the church named Abraham. After every one had their group, we set off down different streets. After going up to a few people on the streets and taking surveys, we learned a lot about Abraham. He just finished getting a college degree in bioengineering and is working kind of like a missionary. At first glance, he is beautiful, but he is one of those guys that knows he is. He also has a way with words, and can get just about anyone to stop and talking with him. Of course with these types of guys are just plain trouble. Anyways, we weren’t much help, so we watched him talk with people for a little while. When we were done, we went to meet up with the rest of the groups. On our way to meet up with them, Abraham asked us how it felt to be walking in Spain. We replied with a "it’s great". He then asked how it felt to be walking in Spain with Abraham. Jackie replied with a snarky "its awesome" and asked him where his Sarah was. At first he didn't get it, but once he did, he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said " I need to find my Sarah." When we made it to our meeting place, we got to share with each other the responses we received. After we shared, we got back on the bus and headed out to eat lunch at a mall. I got to eat a kebob, which I was ecstatic about, but it wasn't that great. When we got to the hotel, we had about an hour to rest before we were supposed to go back to Tomares and help with festivities. After quickly resting, we all wore our red mission team shirts and headed back to Tomares. We brought most of the supplies with us from the states, so we divided everything up pretty quickly and distributed out jobs to everyone. We had face painting, games, basketball, little kid games, crown making, prizes, music, balloon animals, and English Chat. English Chat is where people learning English can have the opportunity to practice speaking with others learning English. I was assigned to help with writing names for prizes. Of course I wasn't very good at that because I have no clue how to spell any of these Spanish names. The lady I was paired up with kept chasing kids down and leaving her purse, so I basically just watched it most of the time. Then this old man came up to talk to me, thankfully while the woman was with me. The music was really loud and the man spoke so softly that I couldn't really understand him. So the man would just ask the woman and she would translate. He said I was beautiful and asked to see my eyes ( i had on sunglasses), so I took off my sunglasses and he said my eyes were beautiful. He then asked if I was married, and when I said no, he asked if I had a boyfriend. I told him no, and that I didn't want one. He also asked the woman, who gave the same reply I did and then ran off after some little kid to ask them their name. I was left alone with this 86-year-old man, who was really creepy. I tried to play the "I don’t speak Spanish card", but that did not stop him. He continued to mutter things to me that I couldn’t understand until he asked if I would go with him if he was a lot younger. I mean, how am I supposed to answer that? I just smiled and nodded and he looked please. He said some other things and then repeated his question. This time I acted confused, to which he reminded me that I had said yes earlier. So I nodded again and then the man finally left after giving me two kisses on the cheek. It started to get dark at the park, so we packed up our stuff and headed back to eat dinner. We ate dinner at a pizza place next to the hotel and then went to bed as soon as we could. We will be doing the same thing tomorrow; it’s going to be a long day.

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Photos

On the small bus.

Mom, Jackie and I

Playing with the kids.

Getting ready to pass out surveys.

Jeff, Steve, and Fatma

My mom

Playing games in the park.

Dressing up

Teal, Meagan, and Dawn.

Comments

[MRS. LINDA]

FATMA.....
I RECOGNIZED HER FROM THE CPR CLASS THAT SHE GAVE LAST YEAR. SHE WAS MOST INFORMATIVE.