It is official: I have my city and family I will be living with for the next year all figured out! Wohoo!! I wil be living in Cedeira, A Coruña, Galicia, España from about the first week of September to I think the end of June (but neither are official dates yet.) In my family is my mom, my dad, and my 14 year old brother. Cedeira is primarily a fishing town known for their tuna with about 8,000 inhabitants and about 33 square miles large. It is also where the Atlantic and the Cantabrian (the Bay of Biscay's) waters meet. At least this is all what Wikipedia is telling me. I have contacted my family once and am still waiting to hear back from my emails I sent them in months ago, which is indeed testing my patience, but I am learning to be more relaxed and just "go with the flow" so I don't overthink/worry too much. All that really matters is I have a family and a city now so I will be going to Spain for sure!
The closer my trip gets the more real it becomes to me and the excitement as well as the fear rises. Yes, I am more than ecstatic to live in one of the most historically-rich and beautiful countries in the world for a year, but I am also slightly worried that I won't make friends, I may or may not be as outgoing using the Spanish language compared to English, and that my family and I won't get along, but these are all fears any exchange student has when leaving their home country to travel somewhere new. My friends from Spain reassure me it will be a great year (and filled with cold winters...) so I should forget my fears. This will probably be not too particularily difficult since Cedeira is on a beach and although I will be attending school, it for sure won't be as rigorous as my previous two years of high school in the IB program.
I returned from HYPE camp yesterday and feel so completely empowered in God that even though I may not have a church home with Westwood in Spain, I can pray that I will find Christian friends or a church to accept me for a year so that my faith will not be put in the back of my mind.
You make beautiful things out of the dust, You make beautiful things out of us.
Although I don't deserve His love, this opportunity, it is a part of my plan that will shape me and change me in the future to be exactly who God wants me to be.
~Ashlyn
