Cantabria!

This post has been delayed due to studying. Obviously. I went to Cantabria. . .*checks calendar* about a month ago. But as today is Sunday and I'm still going to the church that I went on the retreat on, I will also use this opportunity to talk about the church. 

It's a small evangélica church. There were probably about 60 people (whole families) on the retreat.

Here's the meeting room.

We all fit in one hostel out in the middle of nowhere. But we did have authentic northern Spanish coast food. (Well at least some of the time. One of the dinners we had filetes (fried pork) and french fries and wine. Only in España)

And this is the dining room. And the pastor and my friend Mila)

Cantabria is apparently very beautiful. And from what I saw, it was. But it was freezing and it mostly rained. This picture of the moon is from when it stopped raining briefly at night, so we went to take a walk. . .

. . .but then it started snowing, so we had to come back inside.

First snow in Spain!

Some pretty decorations in the hostel.

This is Jonathan, Hannah, Mila, and Ester (from Australia, Germany, Brazil, and Spain respectively)

It was a good retreat. I actually understood most of the teaching and got to know people and laughed. The more I spent time with them the more I realized that people are people everywhere and the church is the church everywhere. 

This morning I didn't really want to go to church, but I went anyway. And the sermon today began with John 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." and then proceeded to say that worshiping God=serving God and if you're not serving God you are serving something else, which he related to Romans 6 where it talks about being slaves to sin or slaves to God. So if you are not worshiping God you are a slave to sin--a slave to trying to find your own happiness. Which is what I think I've been doing. But I don't have to because. . ."But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness." (Romans 6:17-18) So that is my encouragement for the day.

And I'm going to meet up with Mila and hopefully some other people for chocolate later today :)

Also, I think Mila's brasileña accent is adorable!