More working

It has been a while since I posted, sorry. It's too easy to not think about it and just go to sleep heh. Alright so since I left off, we have been working on the Prayer House still. Yesterday was rocking because we bursted some work down and removed the wax from the tables and sanded them and stained them and got the first coat of urethane on. The reason it's so awesome is because they are a very huge part of what you see when you walk in and now they are very good looking. Jacob is still making the greatest jokes in the world and keeping it serious but yet so humorous and up beat and encouraging. About 4 days ago I helped cut some areas of paint on the wall because it was a little messy, but it turned out I was given the wrong paint color. We thought we had to repaint the whole wall a different color because we didn't have the old paint color, but we found it and saved ourselves a whole ton of time. We got this humongous espresso machine and will put it in the kitchen once the urethane dries on th counters (which are looking great).

So the whole time we are working, people are coming in and out of the prayer room which requires them to walk all up in our work space but it is all good. They are always happy and ready to pray so you never feel like getting mad at them. Mom organized this whole storeroom which was probably as huge a difference as painting the walls white to brown and everyone thanks her greatly.

Yesterday we went on this boat ride in Retiro (the park by their house) and then we came to the prayer center. But the boat ride was awesome. We paddled into the middle and Blake and I used our sweet action muscles to do circles by padding one way on his side and the opposite way on my side and it was hilarious. After that we felt cool because we navigated our way like a mile or more (probably more) to the square from Retiro.

The food here isn't incredibly different, but it is. There is a lot of pizzerias that are actually pretty good deals; usually 2€ (euros) a slice, and I get full off of 2 of them so it's pretty equiv to the U.S. We had the famous chocolate de churros (which I have quite the time pronouncing: "cho-ko-lah-tay day choo-dose") and they were awesome! It's like the cinnamon sugar churros except without cinnamon and sugar and you dip them in melted thick dark chocolate (which I drank afterwards... Man it is so thick and strong... Yuck! But I did it anyway... I mean I had to.) and it is so yummy.

We have been having so much fun here, don't you doubt it for a second. Arnold, our bOrn-German but yet Spanish and English-speaking friend has been a blessing for us younger guys because he's more in our age range and likes to make funny jokes with us as we work. Our Vilhauer boy humor actually is quite present here a the center, which is awesome for us.

On a random note, my triceps are sore from rubbing wax off of tables. It was worth it though because it's a job where you can see the change being made as you push all your strength onto the table for up to 60 seconds at a time.


Last night we bought some goods from the supermercado and it was way sweet down there. There was some type of fish guts and octopus there. K we gotta go unload a car! Arnold is driving, bye!

Pictures

Alright this is where you get to view the pictures. I put them here because incorporating them into the story is kind of hard and unorganized. There are many more pictures than this, and even videos, but I will share with you what I selected. There are captions by each of the pictures:

 This is the square! It´s a lot bigger in person/my camera isn´t big enough for it.

 This is the view of the literally 7 lane road right ouside the house. You can see Julie´s green thumb techniques on the bottom right haha

 This is Mom an Jacob Bock, probably explaining to us some hilarious story like he always does. He is such a funny guy

 This is the first room in the Prayer House, where you walk in. The kitchen is barely visible on the right, next to Brennan. The bench thing is for the booth-like area in the cafè.

 This is another shot of the first room. Tables will eventually go in by the booths. The tape under the benches is for painting, which Amanda and I did.

 Here is the first night of evangelism we saw. This is on the square after one of 3 rounds that they do, where someone stands on the red box and gives their testimony, and then someone will preach a message, and then someone will play the guitar. This is a couple being prayed for.

 In this picture are 2 sets of 1 on 1 evangelism taking place. The one on the left is Arnold and the one closest to us is Maritza, who played guitar and did a message.

 Another picture of 1 on 1 evangelism with Jacob Bock in the middle. There is some smal group evangelism on the left side. The foam on the ground Arnold used to represent the Berlin Wall in his message about there being a similar wall that we create between us and God. And yes, it is on the ground because he showed that we can tear it down.

 Some of the kitchen area.

 Fuller view of the kitchen

 The white newspaper-like stuff on the walls is paper maché to make it look like the rocks, which will be painted over so it will look like them.

 This is part of Retiro, the park I mentioned in the post titled ¨Prayer House¨. This park is so beautiful.

 A long walkway in the park. There were lots of these.

 Flowers from Retiro

 The silly one... Left to Right: Jacob, Julie, Laurie, Lyle. (The women didn´t know it was a silly one... Or else they just don´t know how to be silly. You decide)

The serious-but-yet-Jacob-and-Lyle-can´t-really-be-serious-picture. Haha and the women are still taking a serious one. (Except it was supposed to be serious this time)











 Alright I hope you enjoyed this small preview. We are working hard here and eating very well and very Spanishy. I think since last night we have finally adapted into sleeping in our 8 hours different time zone. If it takes me up to 3 nights again when we get back, I will probably fall asleep in school quite often. But it won´t ever be more worth it.

Prayer House

    We have been working mucho (excuse the Spanish... It´s contagious... jk) on the Prayer House here at Kilometro Cero (Kilometer Zero) which is Jacob´s evangelical house that they rent on the square (Puerte del Sol). It´s coming along great! Dad worked a lot on the kitchen area where they serve coffee and espresso things (I´m not a drinker, I don´t know the terms), and he put the countertops on and the sink in and some cabinet doors in. Amanda and I (Brady) did a whole bunch of painting under these benches to make it the color of the wall... It´s been good.

    Spain is so awesome still. On the way to the Prayer Houseyesterday, we walked through ¨Retiro¨, which the Spanish king built 500 years ago for himself, and there are tons of awesome plants and bushes in there. Today Arnold, Julie and I loaded and unloaded a bunch of chairs from a truck into our huge European van (which they call the Bockmobile) and then from that van into the square, which was super hectic.

    There is always TONS of people in the square, just like Times Square in  New York, so to unload a whole van full of chairs means getting in a whole bunch of people´s ways. We pulled up to an area actually inside the square and off the road, and then took the unloaded chairs into the building we are in. Then they came up the elevator into the 5th floor (which is actually the 6th floor in America... The 1st floor of buildings here they call the 0th floor.), and then about 2 yards (No, I´m not going to use meters, I´m not that good of a metric system user yet) into Kilometro Cero where they belong. They are being set up as I type (they get to do all the work while I sit on my butt and write this blog. LOL jk! Not always!)

   The computer I´m on is being tough in terms of uploading pictures... Hopefully it gets to work here so I can show you.

First night of evangelism

Today was our first night Of evangelism and it was awesome. A spaniard named Maritza played guitar up on the box in front of tons of people on the Puerta del Sol. After that a person came up and gave his testimony, and he was translated into Spanish by the famous Jacob Bock. He runs an INCREDIBLE team here and is an amazing evangelist himself. They stand on this durable red box and preach and stuff, it's quite the experience. Such spirit filled individuals. It's starting to make me think that Spanish is a more spiritual language haha! By the way, we accidentally left the laptop in PHX if I haven't mentioned that yet. Maybe I can jump on Jacob's laptop to try uploading some media because we have tons of beautiful pictures of God's works in evangelism and the beautiful creation of Spain. Time for bed, peace.

We made it!

Yes. We have arrived. We left Phoenix at 11:11am, and got to Atlanta at 6ish Pm (keep in mind the time changes) and we left at around 7pm. After 9 hours (or more) and 4440 miles (or more), we made it to Madrid at around 9am. It didn't actually feel very long and I (Brady) slept for about 45 total minutes. Dad probably got the most sleep. The Bocks live in an apartment that is within walking distance that isn't bad from Puerta del Sol, so unless it rains we'll probably be walking. There's a very cool outside area that is enclosed where you hang your clothes to dry. It's awesome so far. I'll try to get some pictures up when we pull the laptop out, but I figured I'd whip out a quick post from the iPod touch with the wifi. Check in later,
-Brady

Pre-Departure

    Today is 3-11-11, the day before we go to Madrid, Spain, to help our buddy Jacob Bock and his team. It's going to be tons of fun, hard work, and adventure for all of us. Please pray that all goes well on the trip.

   We'll be uploading images and more to read as we go along with our wi-fi connections at the house we're staying at and the Prayer House that we'll be working on and helping with.

 -  On The Red Box