The life I live here is pretty simple to understand, but not so easy to live and not so safe.  God brought me here to live my life as a believer in front of my friends.  I also do language exchanges with them as well as assist bringing interns over for them to study Spanish as well as Catalan and Spanish culture.  I also do a little bit of music in my spare time.  It sounds like the perfect kind of job, right?  One that's easy and comfortable since I live in Western Europe.

However, I want to make clear a couple of things that have been on my mind as of lately.  People tend to glamorize or make me out to be a hero in the life I live and what I do here or even the fact that I live in Western Europe.  Now for one thing, I've never viewed what I do as to be held up to a position of heroism.  I'm just a man that was willing to go where God called me to be.  I have to be honest and say that this view of what I do really frustrates me because it seems that by saying that, people place a blanket between themselves and a call to this kind of work so they don't have to answer it.  I'm not saying that everyone's called to do this kind of work.  Rather, I am asking that nobody raise me to a hero status.  I am just an ordinary man that was obedient, that's all.

Another thing that some people may think is that it's easy to do what I do here.  While I do have access to many things here like I would in the United States, I would say that this place is one of the most spiritually dry and dark places I've ever been to on this planet.  There seems to be a real hardness to the gospel here.  There's also a great deal of spiritual danger where I am because the society I live in is so open to so many things.  It's easy to live in the States, where you have your church bubble and go on trips into the "danger zone" to share the joy that you have.  I'll admit that I'm guilty of doing this in my past and now I look back on it and wished I'd really invested myself in the cultures around me.  I would go on trips for a week, a month or even three months and then come back and share the pictures.  I'll admit that I don't even keep in contact with hardly any of them.  I regret the fact that I haven't kept up with them and been there along their journey.

That being said, I absolutely love being here and to be able to do what I do is a blessing.  I will confess to you that the thought of going back into the Christian subculture in a way intimidates me to no end.  Don't get me wrong in that I want to be surrounded by believers, but at the same time I don't want to lose sight of the calling that God has placed on every believer's life... to go and make disciples of all nations, to love your neighbor as yourself and to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength.

Despite these deep moments of thought, things here have been going well.  I have been traveling a good bit as I have been to England and Germany in the past month.  We had a strategy forum here in Barcelona last week, where people that work for the company all over Europe got together to discuss new strategies and such.  It was a blessing to meet many of my co-workers and to be able to connect with teachers in the States.  However, I was glad it was over because I feel like I've been going non-stop for this whole past month.  I'm just ready to be back to hanging out with my friends here and not busy doing busy work and such.