it is fun to see Malachai picking up Spanish again; sometimes he will say to me "will you please not say, 'sit down', will you please say 'sientate'" . . . or he'll say to me "mama! there goes a coche! (car) " . . or "to say water in Spanish, you say agua!" It is fascinating to watch his little mind at work - - sorting through two languages.

We went for a Cafe con leche this morning and saw my friend Berta; I wonder if she will gradually phase out of my life; I had quite a bit of purposeful interaction with her before we left Spain last year, but was seemed really indifferent to meaningful conversation - -not just blatantly, obvious bible talk, but anything that involved life/world/self (even when it was MYself) evauation/critique. I will keep being friendly, of course, but I think that our trip to the states has functioned as a natural relational break.

baptisms

A week ago Sunday we celebrated baptisms with the church of Pamplona.. this was huge; this was exciting! Marian and Jesus were two of the six to get baptized. our home group had been meeting in their home for a year before we left for the States; So it was good to see them, having both made a clear profession of faith over the past few months, take this next step of obedience. Marian is such a dear, dear friend; she is so warm and sincere and transparent and fun; it was touching and wonderful to see her be baptized.

The church makes the baptism service a big pick-nic, potluck event; with this in mind, I went out and finally purchased an insulated tupperware type food container (all the Spanish ladies have them) so that I could keep meal warm until lunch (you can only do pasta salad so many times . . . ) I felt very Spanish, to whip out my insulated tupperware and line it up along with the rest of them on the pick-nick table!

Thursday

we went again this morning to the police station; just to get information about how to apply for residency, we have to go to the police station where they give out appointment numbers every morning so that you can come back later on that day . . . and ask your question. the numbers are given out at 8:15 am, but I talked to a police officer last week who told me to get there by 7:30 because a line forms early; apparently these numbers are hot items. we went yesterday at 7:30, but the allotted numbers ran out before they got to us, so we went again this morning at 7:00 . . . and there were still at least 10 people in front of us when they ran out of numbers to distribute. SO we will presume on aunt Rachel one more time and have her watch the boys again tomorrow morning so that we can be there at 6:00 am . . . to wait in line . . . to get a number . . . to come back later . . . to ask a question . . . so that they can tell us what we papers we need to apply for Spanish residency . . . so that we can wait in line again when we have all our papers together. . . to get a number . . . etc . . .

So I am tired, but it was good to be with Joshua this morning, and we did meet a Venazuelan girl in front of us, and a Moldovian guy behind us in line who were both from our neighborhood - - Baranain; that was nice; we will keep an eye out for them as we are out in our community. Also, Joshua and I had a coffee together after we were turned away, and that was lovely . . .