church!

or ¨turch,¨ as I used to say as a youngen´.
I went to mass once at the beginning of my time here, but other than that have been essentially without attendance to any service (though full of visits to churches and cathedrals). Partially due to travels and other such excuses. Anyway, near the beginning I found the address for the only Mennonite church in Barcelona in a city guide book. But of course, since all I had was the address, I never went, because I didn´t know what time to show up. (9:30 would be a little early in Spain??) Last week I finally searched the interenet and found mention of the service starting at 11 am. So This Sunday, along with the other Mennonite in the group, Dietrich, and the other linds(e) in the group, we made our way to the very outskirts of the city. And when we found the right place, we knew it by the peace-dove sign and wound our way down some stone stairs into a lovely silvan patio. ok, so it wasn´t a woods, but it had more trees than most of the city. Very beautiful. And Mennonite, I thought... We were late, but snuck into the teeny room with around 30 other people sitting along 2 sides. We sang several more worshipy praise songs (no four-part harmony, much to my dismay, though a very talented guitar player) and then moved into the sermon part. Oh, did I mention one of the songs was in Catalan? That was kinda fun. Anyway, the Guy spoke on something he never talks about, he said: Revelations 16 and the wrath/justice of God. Interesting. At the end he made a small comment about much of Revelations being pure gargabe. At least, thats what I understood him to say. =) Afterwards we talked to many of the people in the service and they were all exceptionally nice, as I expected (but we didn´t get asked to lunch at someone´s house...) ;) Turns out the guy who spoke, Dennis Byler, went to Goshen. Knows my parents. ohhhh, what a smalll (menno) world, it is! so, mom and dad: A big hello from Dennis!!! And we also met a girl from Switzerland who is also an exchange student here and so invited her to go with us to a park and to go up to Tibidabo, which is a monestary on the top of the mountain at the edge of Barcelona. We all had a lovely time, and I think I shall return on Sunday.
And now, I´m off to try to find the Faculty of Law so that I can get a book I need for a paper...ugh.
greetings to all, and encouragement to all you goshenites who have a full, most-likely icky 2 weeks ahead of you...