The Running of the Bulls!

When most of you read this it will be early Monday morning and the 3rd day of the "Running of the Bulls" in Pamplona, Spain will be over. We have decided that those who participate in this wild tradition fall under one of three categories: 1. Drunk 2. Drunk 3. Fearless and a little tipsy. However, here in Salamanca we have our own Bull to Fight and that is the Spanish language itself. We will be in class 4 hours a day for the next two weeks learning as much Spanish as possible. We are thankful to God for the opportunity to Study Spanish in Spain. We are using the course as an opportunity to invite our classmates to a Bible study on Ecclesiastes each Wednesday in July. Margaret asked me why I chose Eccleseastes and not anything else. It is my belief that a such a secular society like Spain (or America for that matter) could use a good reminder that at the end of the Day all but fearing God and keeping his commands is meaningless. And I like how Solomon couches his thoughts throughout the entire book. Pleasure, toil, wisdom, all the things that we chase after are not going to give us ultimate joy only in fearing the Lord and following his Son can give us final fulfillment. Please pray for us as we begin our Bible Study this week and as we begin our course. Thanks for your prayers and encouragment...we really do need it and appreciate it. Peace. Gregg

Pablo and other answered prayers!

Thursday night and Friday morning were filled with God's reminders of our purpose here. We have not have hot water at our apartment since we got to Salamanca so we've been coming to the campus house to shower. Late Thursday night, around midnight, after Bird and I both showered, a guy named Pablo came by the 'en Vivo' house. He was looking for Jesse but stayed for an hour and a half talking about everything under the sun. He spoke wonderful english so Bird and I were both able to share our faith in Christ with him and tried to answer many of his wonderful questions. His biggest issue, if you would be willing to pray for Pablo is that he cannot image a good God sending anyone to hell. He has a lot of Buddhist thoughts rolling around in head and feels that God is a giant teddy bear who has no other characteristics rather than mushy gushy sentimentalism. We had a great talk with Pablo and he promised to come to our Bible Study which begins next Wednesday. Thank you God for sending us a person to remind us that not one moment of our time in Spain is wasted.

God also answered a prayer of ours for language school. Originally our plan from the beginning was to take Spanish at the University while we are here. This was going to serve a dual purpose in us getting a great opportunity to study Spanish but also to meet other international students to invite them to our Bible Study. However, we did not raise quite enough to take the course at the university but through God's provision we have enrolled in an alternative course, not connected to the school and therefore half the price. WE START CLASS ON MONDAY!! And we could not be more excited. Please pray for opportunities to meet people and to share our faith with them. Praise be to God!!

Beautiful Doors, Beautiful Girl

One of the many jewels in Salamanca, aside from the most beautiful pregnant girl in the world, are the public libraries. This is a picture of Bird at one of the many in town. Since the only thing keeping this town on the map is the university, libraries are very common. We are looking forward to spending a lot of our study time in these beautiful buildings. Today was a work day for Jesse, Sophie, Bird and I. We spent all morning cleaning out the "ev vivo" house...more to come on "en vivo" in the future. We are getting the house ready for a Bible study we are going to host starting next week and also we are cleaning for an evangelistic campaign that is coming on Monday. There are about 50 students from all over the globe coming to Salamanca next week to do drama, hold concerts, evangelize and much much more. They will be using our space to do a few of their outreaches. Some great news for us is that we are hoping to sign up for language classes tomorrow and to start on Monday. This is a huge bonus for us because when it came down to the wire we weren't sure if we would be able to afford them...Jesse has found a much cheaper school in the city and we are going to begin classes Monday...YEAH!!! My Spanish is dismal! Please continue to pray for those students who will come to our Bible study. It will begin next week and we are praying and putting up flyers over the city the next several days. Pray that God would put it on their hearts that while they are away from home they should do their best to stay connected to him. Thanks for all your prayer and love.

"Los calles de Salamanca"

The streets of Salamanca are quite amazing filled with romantic architecture. There is even a working bridge that was built by the Romans 2000 years ago. We walked the entire city by foot yesterday so that "locations" will not be inhibiting in any form. This was a fun opportunity to test more of my Spanish skills out, I'm great at asking questions.....and terrible at understanding the responses as they are quick with their native tongues.
We love all the comments we have recieved, you guys have made us feeled loved, encouraged, and thought about on a daily basis. This is something that is easily taken advantage of in the states, but when you are so far from home every ounce goes a mile. This morning Gregg and I worked on the creation of bible studies that we hope to start advertising for in the next couple of days. We spent the evening with the team leaders at the University Sports Complex where the boys tried connecting with some of the Spainard's through a game of basketball. Time is flying here even when it is light out until 10:30pm. We have decided this is why they have siesta time, otherwise everyone would be exhausted. Love from the Jennings!!

Bird and Bart

Hola,
Madrid was great and we have finally made it to Salamanca. Before we left the capital though Bird had a chance to hang out with a long time friend from the states. Salamanca is absolutely beautiful. It is the perfect European city with fabulous architecture. The city is alive with thousands of students here to study Spanish. We met this morning with Jesse Bentley, the team leader of the mission. We talked for a couple hours about our goals and expectations for the summer and their vision for us. It looks like we are going to have a great summer full of ministry opportunities. Would you please pray for us to be creative in our ministry? Without knowing Spanish we are limited to the people we encounter. Pray that God would give us wisdom and boldness to be used inspite of our weaknesses.

In Madrid!

I´ve never blogged from an internet cafe so I apologize for not having any pictures on this message. I promise that pics are to follow. Besides most of what we have seen the last couple have days has been our pillows. The red eye flight combined with Bird´s pregnancy, combined with huge dump trucks outside our hostel window has left us pretty groggy. However, we knew that our time in Madrid would be for rest before we head to Salamanca to do what we came for. Margaret woke me up at 4 am last night to tell me that she felt the baby moving but by the time I got my hand on her belly the babe was back asleep, or playing games with dad.

Our impressions of Madrid so far have given us all the proof we need to believe that this country is in desperate need of Jesus Christ. Today is the holiday called gay day and there was a huge parade in Madrid celebrating the lifestyle. Lots of starving people around Western Europe. Just a quick note to give you our latest news. Tomorrow morning we board a train to take us to Salamanca were we will spend the next 5 weeks. Please pray for our trip and for a courageous boldness to be the light of Christ in such a foggy place.

Rope Holders!

It's early in the morning on Wednesday June 27th we simply could not sleep any more for excitement. Tonight we will sleep on the plane and tomorrow morning we will wake up in Madrid. Already things have the feel of a real mission trip...anxiety...wonder...worship...the unknown...worry...praise...exhaustion are all emotions we have felt over the last 24 hours. In all of that emotion though, GOD. He has been faithful and we have many rope holders going along with us to Spain. William Carey, one of the worlds greatest missionaries to India told his British missionary board, "I will go into the dark well of India to share the gospel, but who will hold the ropes as I go and be willing to pray for me while I'm in the well?" If you are reading this blog we need and beg you to be our rope holders. God has wonderful things and maybe even trying things in store for us. We are eager to share those with you, will you be eager to hold our ropes as we go into the dark secular jungle of Spain? God bless.