buh bye, chirrens

First off, my flat-mates and I should really have our own publicly-recognized variety of English because I am convinced that hardly anyone understands us (except ourselves). That brings me to say that today was my last day with the "chirrens". Translation: children. The university here gave us the opportunity to work at a local school in the English language classes and help with conversational English. Before I even contacted the school that my university assigned to me to set up a time to start working, the rumor I heard among all the U.S. students here was that this so-called "teaching English" only involved standing in front of a bunch of chirrens and speaking English for a total of 40 hours and getting paid to do it; no outside work involved whatsoever. So, I went into this expecting to get nothing out of it except a nice chunk of compensational change during the most expensive semester of my life. 

Week after week I went back to my school without realizing how quickly the time flew by. Some days were stressful while others were just odd observing the very different teaching methods here and being asked by 5-year-olds if I had a crush on their teacher (which I did not). I really had no idea until today how much those kids had grown on me. I hardly know any of their names, but that school, those kids, the faculty, has a special place in my heart now. I feel as though I must be experiencing what Paul did whenever he went to a new place and built relationships with people and then had to move on to the next place. God is able to stretch our hearts so much farther than we can ourselves. It was no coincidence that I was at that school. Who knows if I'll ever see any of those people again; I sure hope I do, but only God knows who else and where else He has planned next.

I would also like to say that people here are extremely blessed financially, but there is so much need spiritually. Self-sufficiency plagues the majority of the European population. Just because our friends and our family who don't know the Lord are (or seem) happy and satisfied, it doesn't mean that they're not dying on the inside. We tend to overlook so many times those who are financially stable. The spiritual need here is definitely not surmounted by the amount of wealth; it is quite the opposite. Let us not be fooled, we ALL need God.

Here are my travel plans the rest of my time here:

June 9-13: Germany

June 13-16: back in Vigo

June 16-18: Barcelona; AMANDA comes!! :) :) :)

June 18-25: Sicily

June 25-30: Barcelona

June 30-July 2: Vigo

July 3: arrive in los EE.UU.

Taking note of my list of places I wanted to go before heading back to the states, it's pretty obvious I won't make it to everywhere I wanted to go. Thus I would like to propose that I will be coming back to Europe. When? Where? How? No idea.