Valencia, Spain

We took a bus and train combination to get us from Granada, through Madrid to Valencia, spending most of our time doing school.  We arrived at night and got settled in our apartment, which was a bit on the outskirts of the city.  Valencia has a city noise ordinance, which prohibits loud music being played in one's accommodations, the wearing of high heels, talking in the stairwells of buildings, etc.  From our time in Ronda, our noise awareness level had become incredibly heightened as the reality of apartment living with paper-thin walls and echoing hallways was very evident, but we found this ordinance interesting.  The reality is that with the children we tend to be a loud crew, and being forced to be cognizant of our noise levels, causes us to realize the freedom we take for granted, and this ordinance caused us to be a bit nervous about how this was going to play out with 4 kids sharing beds and rooms!

We'd been craving Thai food and it was a bit chilly outside, so we were excited to find a Thai restaurant nearby and get some Tom Yum soup.  Unfortunately, it wasn't very good.  Our middle son had finished reading the Hunger Games, so he and Dad stayed up to watch the movie.  Meanwhile Mom had tweaked her back on the train and was in a lot of pain so she went to bed.  The next morning when she woke up, it was clear God had completely healed her back and she hasn't had pain since!  We continue to be amazed at the way God works without boundaries!

Our oldest son had been craving some space and while it wasn't necessarily received as a gift, we arranged for him to stay back on Saturday to have some alone time and a quiet day.  The rest of us went to explore the city of Valencia with the pastors for the River Valley church campus here.  We met Jeff, Wendy and their son Josh for lunch and enjoyed hearing their family story as well as what was happening in Valencia through River Valley.  We found it interesting that during the Franco rule of Spain between 1939-1978, Spain was forced to be a Catholic country and it was illegal for people to be Protestant.  The aftermath of the mentality that created is still felt here and new generations are just beginning to explore faith on their own.  River Valley church is one of a kind in Valencia, and even Spain as a whole, which surprised us.

We explored the city with it's amazing architecture before parting ways right after our daughter took a huge leap and landed flat on her forehead.  We were so grateful that she was not injured!  We walked along the old riverbed which has been turned into a sunken park that stretched for miles, watched some horses pulling chariots in an arena along the way, as well as people fencing, doing acrobats, and other activities before we stopped for tapas at a cafe across from the City of Arts & Sciences Museum.

With Wendy & Jeff, pastors at River Valley Valencia campus, in front of main basillica 

Metropolitan Cathedral: The Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady of Valencia

G in front of the City of Arts & Sciences Museum 

We stopped back at the apartment to pick up our oldest son and head to the Nike and Apple stores, which the kids had scouted out months ago as these are their favorite places to shop and we haven't been in a city with either of these stores for 5 months.  Note that as much as we hoped backpack living and sharing beds would cure materialism, it's not necessarily a solution as there are aspects about certain brands, stores, etc that are almost nostalgic in creating a comfort feeling of "home," and while it might be Starbucks for us adults, these are the stores that do it for the kids.  We found a couple of pharmacies and Dad was able to purchase the meds he needs for his feet, so we are grateful that he will be covered for the rest of our time abroad.  We wrapped up the evening at a Peruvian restaurant, which had lomo soltado and Pisco sours - a couple of our other favorite travel foods that we'd been craving.

Sunday morning we were so excited to get to be a part of RiverValley church in Valencia!  Wendy and Jeff's sons are all a part of the service, be it from leading the worship band to running the sound and lights or preaching - it was a treat to see their family serve together.  The church body was very welcoming and even though we didn't fully understand the language, we were able to participate in pre-service prayer and everything.  The worship was amazing with River Valley songs we were familiar with, only translated to Spanish!  We've been so privileged to be able to worship in other languages as we travel.  It creates in us a forward-like-nostalgia of what heaven will be like when we all worship in many tongues, and this is what our faith hopes for and we feel we've seen a glimpse of this year.

RiverValley Countdown Valencia!

Wendy & Jeff up front at RVC Valencia

Valencia is where Paella originated!

It also happened to be Mother's Day in Spain, and so there was a little section of the church where they'd set up a background and photo opportunity for moms to have their pictures taken with their children, so we had fun with this!  After service Wendy and Jeff were kind enough to include us in their family Mother's Day celebration and we had the famous Valencia paella, which was delicious!  We said our good-byes and returned to rest SJ and ended up all falling asleep for awhile!

Having fun being goofy celebrating Spanish Mother's Day

Spanish Mothers Day!

That night the guys scored last minute tickets to the Valencia via Real soccer while mom & SJ went for pizza and did their nails for a girls night.

Nothing like Spanish Soccer!