Barcelona (Part One)

Jeep Girl here...

In July of 2013,  I had made some big changes in my life. I was starting to become more of the person I wanted to be. I was scrolling through my social media feed and I saw a post from a missionary I follow in Barcelona, Spain. John and his wife Brandi were good friends with one of my closest friends. I had heard stories about them and their grand love story for years. How Brandi had broken up with John and gone to Spain because God told her to, and how John followed her there and proposed. I met them on a couple of occasions and found them to be pretty inspiring people all around. They started a church in Barcelona called International Church of Barcelona and I watched through social media as they reached out to the city and made a very visible impact with the love and light of Jesus.  Every time I saw their posts I felt as if I was going to cry. I didn't understand why I was looking at pictures of smiling people and I was being moved to tears.  In the summer time they met outside underneath a tree, and something about that place made me feel like I was supposed to be there. I pushed it aside and accepted it as a fluke.

The probelm was, it kept happening. Soon I couldn't ignore it. One day in a moment of frustration to do with my job, I was crying to a friend and she asked me what I was going to do about the job situation. Then with my arms held above my head I dramatically exclaimed, "I'm going to go to Spain!" We both laughed, because it was completley out of context of the conversation and I wasn't exactly sure why I had said it. 

That event definetly got my attention, so I started a converstion with the Holy Spirit. I asked Him if he wanted me to go to Spain. He simply said "yes," but I ignored that for several months. During that time I would tell various friends about my outlandish outburst and how I thought God was trying to say something to me, but I just didn't know what. I can laugh about it now because it is so blarlingly obvious, but in the moment I felt confused. I didn't understand why I should go. I had no money to go. I wondered if I was going for the right reasons or if I was just trying to escape from something, and finally, I was afraid. Yep, there it is. They thing that keeps me from doing all things worth doing. FEAR.

I was afraid because I had never been out of the country and I didn't want to go alone. I don't like being alone. I mean, I really don't like being alone. It is my greatest fear. I started to tell God all the reasons why this was absolutly not a good idea.

 1. The only Spanish I know is Yo quiero Taco Bell. 

2. As much as I wanted to believe in Unicorns and big magic pots of gold at the ends of the rainbows, as far as I can tell money really does not grow on trees. (Unless you work in landscaping in which case, it kind of does.) 

3. I didn't think I had much to offer them in the way of skill, unless they wanted someone who specialized in embarrasing moments. Not creating them for others, but in creating them for myself. 

 4. I didn't trust that I could get myself half way around the world and back without ending up dead in a ditch some where my parents would never find me, for which a Lifetime movie would definetly be made.

I had visons of ending up as a missing person and being tortured.  All the worst things you could imagine flooded my imagination. You see it's very helpful in some situtaions to have an over active imagination, such as getting yourself out of unforseen trouble, but in this one it was not. 

Eventually, I felt like God was just like "Ok, stop freaking out, and trust me." So I sent a facebook message to John and Brandi about coming for a week or two to serve their church. They responded quickly and happily extended an invitation to come. They said they would have an apartment for me to stay in and everything! The catch was that they suggested I stay a month or two since it is so expensive to come. Makes total logical sense right? Of coure it does. Only, who can take a month off work to go to Spain? I mean who lives like that? It seemed completley out of the question for me! Then of course there was still the issue of money. It cost nearly four thousand dollars just for a plane ticket, not to mention food and other travel expenses. I worked for a non-profit meaning I worked very long hours for very little pay. Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute, but I couldn't just stop helping homeless families for a month. We were short handed as it was. So, I decided that I must have misunderstood. God did not intend for me to go to Spain. That was just a crazy idea in my own head.

I'm ashamed to say, I didn't even message John and Brandi back. I just kind of left it hanging there. I put it away neatly in a box in my head where I keep things that are probably never going to happen, and I moved on with my life. I knew it wasn't very "Jeep Girl" of me, but I wasn't ready yet.

So I'm wondering, do you have a box like that? What's in it?

XOXO

Jeep Girl