The Hiding Place

Last night I finished reading the" The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. If you are looking for an extremely inspiring and moving read, I would highly recommend this book! Corrie and her family hid Jews in their home in Holland during the war, and were turned into the German police by a fellow dutchmen. After being taken away to prison camps...it was only Corrie and her sister Betsie who remained of their family. They were put through pure torture from camp to camp, fought through disease, fleas and filthy living conditions... yet, they always thanked God for everything, even the fleas that infested their cot! Their amazing faith to God really opened my eyes to realize how grateful I am to live the life I am living right now. It taught me that no matter how hard life may seem at times, God is always with you through it all. Though Betsie passed away, Corrie survived the holocaust and spent the remainder of her life traveling the world to share their amazing story of faith and love. Corrie passed away on her birthday at the age of 91. How I wish I could have seen her speak and tell her what an amazing person she was! Maybe I will bump into her in heaven one day =)

Trip to Spain, visit to Morocco!

About a week and a half ago, Dan and I packed our bags and took off for Sunny ( and outrageously windy!!) Spain. We flew into Jerez, then made our way down to Rota, which is on the Atlantic ocean in the south western tip. There is a navel station in Rota, so it was nice to have access to the base commissary to relieve us of paying in euro for a few meals (man, that gets to be expensive after awhile!). The next morning, we drove in our little Panda ( manufactured by Fiat- pretty much the official car of Spain) down the coast to Tarifa ( the very southern most tip of Spain). Tarifa is known for their wind, kite and surfing in general...they have over 50 kite schools on the main stretch! notice earlier how i said extremely windy-- i could have sworn there was going to be a hurricane when we were there! It was so windy, that even the wind surfers wouldn't go out! So this kind of put a bummer on a few of our plans, since we wanted to ride horses along the beach, and dan wanted to wind surf so bad.. but that can be saved for another time. We stayed in a beach front bungalow- that was super fun, because our room opened up to the ocean- so pretty! Finally, on the last day of our trip, the winds subsided and we were able to go forth with the much anticipated part of the trip--a day in Tanger, Morocco! We took a ferry, which advertised it only took 35 minutes, but it was more like an hour and 35 minutes...not even close..way to false advertise!! While boarding the boat, we met a family who was also stationed in Ramstein, so we ran around morocco the whole day together. The culture was for sure one to see! There were over a million people set along the coastline, it didn't seem possible! We drive through palaces, then to went into complete poverty in less then 10 minutes time. There is no happy medium in Morocco- it's either you are filthy rich, or dirt poor. After riding on a super sketchy camel in a parking lot- we spent the remainder of the day in the "old city" which consisted of run down buildings, and back markets. Our guide weaved us in and out of alley ways, and through peoples way of life. We followed him like little dogs, who wouldn't dare to stray away! At the end of the day, we were followed back to our van by street beggar children who took the last of the money we had left in our wallets. All in all, it was an awesome adventure, and yet another great story to tell!
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