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Thanksgiving

Sophia's first American Thanksgiving was this year in Maine with her grandpa Phil, Uncle Joe and Jonah and I.  We stayed cozy watching as a storm brewed over the ocean from the bay window in Phil's cottage.  We tried to decide between a traditional Thanksgiving meal or an alternative fresh lobster meal...Jonah's youngest brother Joe insisted on tradition and honestly we would have missed out if we hadn't given in to his request.  Phil cooked an amazing turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, steamed asparagus and cranberry sauce.  We finished off with cherry pie and pumpkin pie.  We spent the day watching football and playing trivia pursuit.  Today we will have the lobster dinner, have our cake and eat it too...Pray for our health, Sophia and I are battling colds, her first cold ever.

Special Day

Jonah and I made a promise yesterday surrounded by about 50 friends to raise Sophia in a way that would please God. Jesus and Amalia Repetto hosted the dedication of Sophia and their granddaughter Tiffany in their several story spanish bodega converted into a very elegant home complete with biodome housing colorful parrots and rare asian squirrels in the back garden. The service was held amongst the flora of the patio in the heart of the home with their own personal catholic chapel enclave serving as the stage from which the parents presented their daughters. The program lasted about an hour and a half with commitments and prayer by parents and grandparents. The highlight of the afternoon program was the giving of gifts by the parents, godparents, grandparents and tioabuelos that were prophetic symbols of what is in store for these two little girls. The party finished as we moved to the garden where a banquet was set out for all to enjoy complete with spanish cured ham, cheeses, mexican hourdevoures, langostinos, gourmet mini pizzas, taboule, olives, spanish beer, sherry and desert liquor...if it sounds like a dream it really was a dream and a perfect way to start out our travels to America for the holidays not to mention our travels into this new phase of life...

baby dedication and we're off!

So this weekend we have about 40 people coming from Spain and the UK for Sophia's dedication service on Saturday. We are having the ceremony in the back garden of Jesus's parents' (did I use my apostrophes correctly? yes, I believe I did) house...it is a joint baby dedication with Jesus and Rachel's new little girl, Tiffany. The parents and godparents are supposed to give the babies a prophetic gift...I think I have my gift sorted out but I still don't understand the prophetic significance...I am hoping it comes to me before Saturday??!!
On Monday we join Sophia's godfather, James and his girlfriend Kate on the airplane to London...they stay there and we keep flying to Dublin, Ireland, then to Boston, USA where we are being met by Jonah's dad Phil for a Thanksgiving in the state of Maine. A week later we fly from the east coast to the west coast where we will be picked up by Jonah's stepdad Dave in Los Angeles and driven to Bakersfield, CA where we will be spending the month of December visiting relatives before coming back home to Spain in January...If you are interested in meeting up with us in CA send me an email with your contact details and I will give you a call while we are there...hope to hear from you...

What exactly do you do in Sevilla?

My Aunt Betty, a converted follower of the Jewish faith asked me in an email...I wondered how many people still don't know or understand what it is that we do here...So with a little cut and paste I will share here my response to Aunt Betty...

Hello Aunt Betty and Uncle Mike,
thanks for your email.
I have been able to get Sophia down for the night and so am taking some time to catch up on correspondence.
Yes, Jonah is enjoying getting back to normal life, as am I. I realized while cleaning the tub this week that I feel almost normal again. I remember trying to do housework while I was pregnant and there was so much I couldn't do and the little I did do I needed to lie down after hardly doing anything at all. So good to have my strength back and the ability to bend over and pick stuff up off the floor, etc. Ah, the little luxuries we take for granted!!

Well, it seems you are a bit confused about what we do. So I will explain...
We work with 3 Christian charities.
One is Youth with a Mission. A mission organization that trains people to be missionaries in a variety of fields, medicine, arts, agriculture, everything really. We trained with them in Madrid and now Jonah teaches in different schools when invited.
Two is 24-7 Prayer a world wide youth prayer movement united through the internet. It is also turning into a mission movement because as the young people are spending time in prayer they begin to see how messed up the world is and get the desire to do something about it. Jonah is an international coach for the movement, traveling to different countries to encourage, teach, problem solve for the leaders in that country.
Three is our charity that we founded here in Sevilla called Triburbana or Urban Tribe in english. We are a faith community (church) committed to serving our neighborhood by meeting the needs that we see. Giving out food, encouraging artists, setting up enrichment/personal development classes, helping the immigrants with their pregnancy, birth and recovery, anything we see that we can help out with we try. Jonah and I also have a very big focus on seeing the potential in others and helping them to reach their potential and fulfill their dreams. We encourage people to get to know a God that loves them and cares about them because we think this is key to helping them to realize their potential but we understand that we cannot force anyone to believe a certain way and we try to meet people where they are at and not expect them to believe as we do.
So, yeah, that is what we mainly do.
We actually spend A LOT of time just hanging out with people and getting to know people and letting them get to know us. Loving them and serving them and helping them to realize their dreams.
And yes, we do spend a lot of time praying for the things you mentioned, for our friends, family, strangers, world tragedies, etc. We pray together every night so we touch on many things.

I hope that helps you understand better what we do. Let me know if you have more questions.

I should get to bed soon. so I will go for now.
we treasure your thoughts and prayers and encouragement, Aunt Betty.
much love,
Heather, Jonah and Sophia

the case of the disappearing post

well, I wrote all about my birthday yesterday and then pressed POST and POOF! It vanished into thin air. So I will have to try to remember what I wrote.

Jesus and Rachel had their baby on Thursday. Went to see them in hospital Thursday and again on Friday which was my birthday. Jonah took me to the shopping mall and helped me pick out a handbag and a new top. He also gave me 3 flavors of Redbush tea (my favorite) and a super deluxe teacup with built in strainer. We went out to dinner on Friday night with friends. Very good birthday. My other post was way better but I can't be bothered to write it all out again.

Dreams

I am the type of person that loves to make lists and then as I complete the tasks, check things off my list one by one. Throughout my life, I think starting around the age of 21, I started making lists every couple years or so of things I would like to complete in my lifetime. Remembering back to some of the first lists, 15 years ago, I can recall things like become fluent in spanish, live in Europe, visit England again, get married by age 30, visit New York city and see a broadway play preferably with a romantic interest. These are all things that have already been completed. Other things like get over performance anxiety, learn french, see Paris, publish a book, record a CD, and show art in an art gallery have yet to be completed. But this week a very special dream that I have had has come true. I had the dream to have a baby (if possible, if not then adopt) before I turned 35. Well, this Friday is my 35th birthday. And now I can add a new dream to my list: to be able to watch my little girl grow up.