Seeing Seville

This time last year, a friend and I were able to visit Granada and Córdoba, two of the main cities in this region of southern Spain. Since then, top of my "must see" list has been the city of Sevilla, which is actually the capital of our province of Andalucía. 

Some months ago, the dad of one of the young people in our church youth group appeared unexpectedly at a church prayer meeting and, at 49 years of age, ended up committing his life to the Lord. It's been amazing to see how much he's changed over the past weeks: a real testimony to the life transforming power of God.  When he approached us recently to say that he'd like to take us out for a thank-you lunch, we were surprised when he suggested combining that lunch with a trip to Seville; it's more than a 200 km drive from Málaga. But we were thrilled at the idea, and so that's how we found ourselves taking an unexpected trip to Seville this weekend.

Despite drizzling rain throughout the day, it was fun to walk through the narrow streets of old Sevilla, to see the horse drawn carriages, the cathedral with its famous "Giralda" tower, the impressive Plaza de España, and a host of other palaces and pavillions. Sevilla has hosted a number of world expositions over the years - one as far back as 1929 and another as recently as 1992 (a King's Kids team from Scotland went there for outreach on their way  to Morocco that year.) Perhaps the most fun part of the day was when we fed the pigeons in the Parque Maria Luisa. Unlike other pigeons, which are content to peck around your feet, these ones were bold enough to sit on our arms and shoulders and even our heads in their bid to get some corn from us!

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