Sunday, January 22

Last notes on Spain, 2012 Resolutions/Goals, Mission and Values

Dear Family and Friends,

I am back in Waco. But I haven't shared much of where I have been this past semester.

Just to update you on a couple cool ways God worked in my life in Spain, I’ll share with you a couple things. Immediately God answered prayers for community. Not just any community either…I wound up going to a Young Life bible study/fellowship/dinner every Thursday while in Spain. 10-15 people each time singing, reading, discussing, sharing, and digging into God’s word and The Gospel in Life by Tim Keller. I also was bless to find an awesome English-speaking church in which I got plugged into weekly. This group came to my Salsa performance (yes I took a class and we had a performance) and that blew me away. 10 people that I didn’t know 3 months before were all there just to see me, to support.

And the most impactful experience I had was making a profound friendship with a English-speaking Nigerian 30 or so year young man who, when I met him, was homeless. I simply ate lunch with him and prayed for him 2 or 3 times a week. During my almost 4 months there, I got to be a part of God’s biggest story. Some of that included simply learning a ton about his disheartening story and the ins and outs of homelessness, going to a job interview with him, God’s providing for an apartment, and getting him plugged into my English-speaking church. I would love to tell you more about anything if you would just ask. The whole semester was stretching, faith-building in different ways, and overall pretty exciting.

If I had to put a name to the biggest stories of Spain, the following would be the headlines.

-Biggest Spain stories-

  • NYC hurricane (LA boy is followed by hurricanes)
  • (Got kicked in the butt by a) Hooker
  • YL and church and salsa performance
  • Muhammed/Arriance/Kenneth/ Addurance/Stephen
  • Matt Lozada (Divine Appointment at a Coldplay concert)
  • The best weekend of the whole trip-- Germany weekend with Becca's dad.

Love you all mucho,

Andrew

P.S.-take a look at the resolutions I have set out on. Prayers would be greatly appreciated!

Team "I Think Therefore I Slam" is off to a 1-0 record. The unstoppable team comprised of (top left-right) Giles Dearman, Matt Larsen, Jared Brimberry, (sitting L-R) Andrew Smith, Kenneth ??, Garrett Crabtree, and (posing) Jon Coss.

Goals/Resolutions^^^

Personal Mission Statement and Values\/\/\/\/\/

Tuesday, January 17

The pictures speak for themselves...

Dear Family and Friends,
From Christmas traditions







To a Baylor bowl game and RG3 geauxing all out...



 To Passion 2012 in Atlanta with 30 best friends...






Back to being 'on the road again' to Baylor...







 And to Axtell basketball games...

It's quite a different world than Madrid. The pictures speak for themselves.

It was a great break. Lots of time with Becca. Great time with the whole family too. Jesus is supreme. There are 27 million slaves in the world and we should do something about it. And yeah, life is good.

Miss you all,
Andrew

P.S.- any questions?