SPAIN

Ben and I are going to Spain in August or September, with our pastor and his wife. We will be staying with a couple who does missionary work there. We will stay, for a week, in a town of about 11,000 people. It will be amazing to see yet another country, and more people who God has magnificently created! I am thrilled to get to see what is going on with their work! And excited to be in the middle of a new culture!

A few blogs ago, I was discussing how truly blessed Ben and I have been. Even with the struggles we have had, life has been AMAZING! This trip, just once again, proves God's plan in our lives.

For starters. I know a lot of people thought when we got married and spent a small fortune on our honeymoon, that we were "wasting money", or at leaat believed it could have been spent in a better fashion (a down payment on a house, pay off a few bills we had, etc.) Looking back on it today, I couldn't be happier with the choice we made. I have NEVER regretted it, and now I'm starting to see why.

Ben was not a traveler when I met him. Had not done much, and had no desire to do so. When we were dating, I had said once in passing, that I WOULD make it to Australia before I died. Then one day, not long after we met (a few months, max), I was talking to Ben on the phone, and told him that I was going to apply to do a teacher exchange program in Australia. I was SO excited. And his reply was, "You can't do that." AGAIN, we hadn't been together THAT long so my initial thought was, "WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME!?!?!"... But, I tried to calmly ask him why (still fully set on doing what I wanted), and he responded that he wanted to take me there on our honeymoon. WHAT!?!? I was shocked. I said, "Be serious. This is a great opportunity for me." He replied, "Amanda, I am serious. Don't you see our relationship moving that way." Of course I did, and I told him such, but Australia was NOTHING for him to be joking about. He understood that, and said, "I know that's a dream of yours, and I want to be with you to watch that dream come true for you." WOW! What a man!! :)

Well, when push came to shove, he assured me we would make it happen. I picked up a second job. He did some stuff on the side. People were overly generous with their wedding gifts! It happened...with WAAAY more ease than we could have ever imagined! And now I know why. You see, it was THAT trip (and another long story) that gave Ben the traveling bug. It wasn't AS nerve racking for him to think about traveling to a place where English was the primary language. He would NOT have gone to Spain for his first out of country trip. SO...we would NOT have been going to Spain this year had it not been for that very controversial decision we made back in April 2004.

ALSO, we decided after 3 years of blissful marriage without any stress of little ones, and just loving life, that it was probably time to start thinking about a family. We decided to take one last vacation before starting a family (knowing good and well that wouldn't happen once kids came along.) So, we decided on Jamaica. Ready and willing to learn about the people and the culture. Knowing on the resort there would be English speakers everywhere, but also knowing that the natives speak a language that is a combination of English, Spanish and French. A step closer to the foreign language thing that Ben at one point had REFUSED to do!

Well, we took the trip last June. We tried for little ones. God provided and in September our first baby was conceived! We were excited, but our nerves set in immediately. I had a strange feeling from the get go. My feelings were correct. We lost that baby in October. It was harder than I imagined it could have been. And believe me, I had imagined it! Far before conception. I was not ignorant enough to believe that it couldn't, or wouldn't, happen to me. In fact, I believed myself ready for it to happen, knowing there was nothing stopping it from happening. Knowing I had no control over it. And then, when I was pregnant, a new wave of "not me kid". And then, when it happened, I realized you can NEVER be ready for that. I couldn't figure out WHY it had happened. I was SO confused. I was mortified by the idea that I had literally flushed our baby down a toilet. I was sickened at thought of laying on a medical bed, unable to protect our child, and unable to tell those medical workers how important it was that they not mess around, and try SOMETHING to prevent it before it happened (even though rationally I knew it was out of their control by the time I laid there)!

SO WHY?? I asked this of EVERY person I talked to. The answers I got ranged from HORRIBLY rude to just not making sense! At least at the time they didn't. But NOW, one of them does make sense. A friend of mine told me I had the miscarriage so that I knew I could GET pregnant (also a concern of mine before conceiving). I laughed at her. I KNEW I could get pregnant BEFORE I had the miscarriage. The pregnancy itself had done me good in that area. BUT...with time, I have seen God's plan. You see, I had reason to believe that I could not conceive. And had I been trying all this time, unsuccessfully, we would NOT have wanted to stop trying for ANYTHING. A trip to Spain would have been OUT of the quesiton had conception not taken place, or had I remained pregnant. WHY?? 1) because I'd have to stop trying (I get sick on planes and can't have the patch while pregnant) 2) We would have had a 2 month old baby, and would NOT have been asked. 3) We would not have been able to afford to go. We are better off financially now than we were before the miscarriage. SO..it's true. We went through that all so that we knew we could get pregnant, but could still go on this trip!

ALSO...when we got a phone call to go to dinner with a particular couple at church, we were pretty sure they would be asking us about something mission related. We discussed not going to dinner at all, KNOWING if that was the case we would be wasting their time and money. But in the end, we decided since we were not SURE that was the reason, we would go. BUT, we also decided before we went to dinner, that we would politely tell them we would consider any trip, but would decline if that was indeed the reason for the invite. Over dinner, they told us what they were wanting us to do, and Ben and I just looked at each other with a YES in our eyes. I wanted to make sure I was reading him correctly, so I asked the appropriate questions, and we told them we'd get back to them. We didn't even get out of the parking lot before we both looked at each other and simultaneously said we would be fools not to seriously consider going. By the time we made it home, we had decided it was a YES.

I don't know what God has planned for us in Spain. And I might not find out while I'm there, or even a year after I've been there. But I KNOW, (as I knew about our baby), that there is indeed a reason for us to be going on this trip. I am excited to see God's plan unfold with this, and other events in our life. And if you stuck through this whole blog til now, thanks! And please pray for us and our travels. Please pray that God uses this trip in a way to make us more complete in whatever ways he sees fit to change us! I feel it happening already! It already feels like a blessing! :) GOD IS GOOD!