Parents, New York, and the LAST Week

Hard to believe it’s been nearly a month since I last posted on here! Lots has happened J

The first weekend this month Dad and Mom came up to see me! They “kidnapped” me for the weekend, and we went camping outside of Asheville, NC. We did a lot of hiking that weekend, mostly to see waterfalls along the Blue Ridge Parkway. There are definitely some gorgeous ones!!!

It was really good to get to spend some time with my parents, and fun to get out and see some of the beauty of western North Carolina! On Friday before we headed out of Boone, I also got to introduce them to some of my co-workers and show them around the department a bit, so that was good too.

I’m not nearly doing that weekend justice….you can look at my Facebook photo album to see my pictures from it, and they have more description of what we did.

The next week (Aug. 5-10) was another adventure. The first two days I was at work, like normal. That Monday night the church small group that my hosts are part of went out together to do miniature golf. It was definitely the craziest putt putt course I’ve ever seen, up a steep hill! I somehow managed to win in our group of four.

On Wednesday, I headed out for my reporting trip to New York. Driving down to Charlotte I experienced thick fog for at least 30 minutes, which made for some tense driving. Then when I got to New York, I picked up my rental car and headed out to find my hotel. Which was also a driving adventure, because my directions were wrong, since the hotel was in an odd place. And it was NY driving, so that made it interesting in and of itself!

A few things I noticed: They evidently don’t believe in turn lanes or having an arrow in the light signal. People definitely use their horns a lot more. And there are just way too many people and cars. But I survived three days of driving there, so I consider that a success!

On Thursday morning I had breakfast with the SP staff and volunteers at their church headquarters. It was fun because the site managers were the same people who had been in Joplin, and the same videographer came out to cover the dedication.

I spent the day interviewing a few volunteers and watching them work on the two houses that were in process there. That evening, the owners of the house that would be dedicated the next day came to the church to be interviewed. It was really neat to get to hear their story, and so good to get to know them.

The next morning, they took the videographer and me out to show us around their little town. They had lots of stories to tell, since the house that Hurricane Sandy destroyed had been owned by their family all their lives.

That afternoon, around 100 people flooded their large yard to celebrate with them the dedication of the first house rebuilt by Samaritan’s Purse since the storm nine months ago. To read more about that, you can check out the article I wrote posted on the SP website!

As in Joplin, I was so blessed by everyone I interacted with. Since it is still early in the rebuild process in New York, I didn’t talk to as many homeowners. But the staff and volunteers again provided wonderful testimony to the work God is doing in and through them.

That Friday evening, after I had fellowshipped with the people at the church for a while, I went down to the beach to go wading in the ocean a bit. I had quite an adventure, as you can read in my previous blog post! God certainly provided J

The next day I guess I felt like I hadn’t had enough adventures, so I decided to drive up into Manhattan a bit to see more of NYC before I left, since I had been away from the main part of the city for most of my trip. Traffic was worse than I expected on a Saturday morning, and before long I was ready to leave the big city behind for a while. Barely made it to the airport in time, but again everything worked out.

Thankfully I had a day and a half to “recover” from my trip before heading back to work again. I was pretty apprehensive about how that Monday would go, because the Monday after my Joplin trip was tough and because the two days before my trip had been rough too. But on Sunday, God did some needed work on my heart, and He really turned my attitude around. You can read more about it on my spiritual blog, starting here.

So thanks to that, instead of being hard Monday was one of the best days. For the first time, I felt completely at peace with where I was. It was a huge blessing and an answer to many people’s prayers!

The next day came a conversation I had been expecting for a while. My supervisors informed me that they had an open position in the communications department, and asked if I would be interested in applying. Long story short, God continued working in my heart that week and the next to give me an increasing sense of peace with pursuing staying on at SP.

The job opening was posted on Friday, and I submitted my application on my last Monday. On my last day (Aug. 23), I had an “interview” with my supervisors. They let me know that they’ve got a couple other candidates they’re looking at, and I let them know that I would definitely love to join the team, if that’s what they think would be a good fit.

Since nothing was finalized yet, I said all my farewells and packed up all my stuff to fly back home the next day. And now I’m kind of just playing the waiting game….waiting to see whether God will open that door, or whether He has something else in store for me. While I’m not excited to just be waiting again, I’m glad to have some time at home. And I know God will continue faithfully leading J

(To read what I wrote for SP about the Joplin trip last month, check out the article here and my blog post for them here.)

Angels in Disguise

So.......visiting the Long Island Beach tonight nearly cost me what I'm guessing would have been about $500..............

Let me back up. I came to Island Park, New York for the weekend to cover the dedication of the first home rebuilt by Samaritan's Purse after Hurricane Sandy, which was today. {Warning - long story coming up}

I bid farewell to the SP folks at the church, and they had told me where I could go to be on an ocean beach. It wasn't far away, so I decided to go. I got there at about 8:40, so it was definitely past dusk. Tried to take some pictures, and started getting my feet wet wading. Then I decided to put my camera, my phone, my flip flops, and my rental car keys together in a pile so that I could wade without worrying about my stuff getting wet.

That was shortly after 8:50. I quickly realized that the waves were going further in than I expected, so I grabbed my pile of stuff and moved it to a different place. I debated moving it further inland, but as I had walked onto the beach a beach police patrol vehicle had driven by. I could see his lights down the beach, and didn't want to take the chance that he would run over my stuff! So I put it down in a new place, but still rather uncomfortably close to the water.

A tiny bit later, I went to move it again or something, and in picking up my stuff I realized that my car keys were not right there with the other stuff. I knew I was in trouble. I turned up my phone screen brightness to use as a flashlight and started looking for the keys. Thankfully there was a pile of rocks that created a boundary marking point on one side of the area. I knew my keys had to be between where I first put my stuff and where the rocks were, a distance of maybe 20 yards. Unless the waves had already carried them away....................

The phone did no good. I got on my hands and knees and crawled along the track I had thought I walked between the two places. No luck. About that time, the police car came back toward where I was. I walked over to him and flagged him down. He had someone in the back, I think a kid who was breaking curfew or something. He didn't have a flashlight, but he turned his floodlight on and drove between the two points where I thought it was three times as I walked alongside looking. Nothing. He had to take the kid home, and said I should call a tow truck if I couldn't find them.

Long before that point, I had been praying asking God to please help me find my keys. I knew He knew where they are, and I sure would like to have them!!! I had noticed that the keys said on them "average replacement cost is $225." And if I followed the policemen's suggestion, I'd have to pay a good bit to have it towed, most likely plus a chunk more for a locksmith to get me into the car so I could get my stuff out. After the police man left, I walked back and forth I don't know how many times between the two points, shuffling my feet in the sand, just hoping that I would run into the keys with my feet. "Please guide my steps," I prayed. A knot was forming in my stomach as I thought about how much this would cost. And yes, I was definitely worried.

By 9:08, I realized I probably was not going to find the keys. And that I needed to call someone from SP to come pick me up before it got too much later. I didn't have anyone's number who was at the church (about 15 minutes away) - at least not on my phone. It was in my notebook in my car, which I couldn't get into. I did have the videographer's number in my phone, but he was at his hotel, 30 minutes away. I called him and asked him to send me the site manager's number. When I got off the phone with him and waited for the text message, I noticed I only had one bar of battery left on my phone. That made me honestly scared for the first time. "God help me," I said, knowing I was fixing to really be in a mess.

A lady and two gentlemen, one with a little kid on his shoulders walked over to me and asked if I had lost something. I questioned for a moment how wise it was to tell complete strangers that I was locked out of my car and pretty much stranded. But it was obvious that I was looking for something, and I didn't have much choice. I told them I had lost my car keys, and where I thought they ought to be, but that I was just calling a friend to get me. It was 9:13, and the text message came as I was talking to them. I called the SP site manager's number. It rang maybe four or five times, no answer. But then I hung up, because those three angels in disguise had called out to me that they found my keys. Yep, I had been looking for those silly things for 15-20 minutes, and they found them in about three minutes.

They handed me the keys, and I asked them if they would come with me to my car so that I could give them some money as a thank you. But they didn't want anything. I told them how very grateful I was. I can't even express how relieved I was about it! Oh my....God certainly provided!!!!

They walked away down the beach, and I went back to enjoying wading a bit, since I had barely had time to do so yet. But this time, I kept all of my stuff with me, you'd better believe it. Standing there, the waves crashing against my legs, I recovered a little bit from the nervous tension I had been under for the past several minutes. And just thanked God. It was definitely a reminder that He will take care of me, even when I'm not so smart and even in the "little" things.

God is so very amazingly good! And yes, God would be just as amazingly good if I hadn't ever found my keys, or if the ocean had swept them away. But I give Him lots of thanks for the fact that in this case He decided to protect and bless me, despite my smidgen of stupidity. :)

Joplin Experience Plus

Wanted to get another update posted here! This one’s mostly about my trip to Joplin J

Orientation—the week that I posted my previous update—went fine. It was great to get a bird’s eye view of the whole SP operation, even though I already knew some of the information from reading most of the articles that have gone up on the website over the past couple of months. We got to hear more about some of the “background” things of SP, such as donor ministries, and we got to tour the campus which was fun.

Thursday the 18th I skipped out on the last few orientation sessions because I had to drive to the airport to head out to Joplin! Lots of firsts on the trip – first time to rent a car (ended up with three rentals by the end of the trip!), first time to drive a long distance by myself (total of nine hours in big chunks), first time to stay in a hotel by myself (which was fine).

Ahead of time I was pretty nervous about the trip, and especially about interviewing people I had never met before. But everything went beautifully and looking back it seems silly to have been so worried. So I grew in self-confidence a good bit from it. J I’m actually going on another similar trip next week, and I’m really not worried about it. Though this time it’s in New York…so hopefully the driving there isn’t too ridiculous…..

Anyway, Friday in Joplin turned out to be a long day for me. I went to the base church at 7:00 a.m. to meet the SP staff managing the project and to have breakfast with that last week’s crew of volunteers. Got oriented to things, then headed out to the home that they would be dedicating that afternoon to watch and interview the volunteers putting the finishing touches on it. Went to the homes of another lady and a family who had each received their houses this year to interview them, then back to the last house for the dedication ceremony.

It was pretty hot outside (almost my first taste of a “real” summer this year because of being in N.Ireland and Boone, both of which are much cooler than Dallas!!), so the 50+ people who turned out all crowded into the house. Which made it pretty hot in there too, but it was a miracle that the electricity was on at all, and everyone was excited to be there and to celebrate with the family. J It was like witnessing a family reunion – and most of these people weren’t related to one another by blood. But they obviously had a special community of relationships.

I ended up interviewing another homeowner there, plus the lady who received the last house. By then, it was time to go back to one of the houses I had visited earlier in the day for a farewell cookout that the family hosted in honor of the SP staff and volunteers. While there, I interviewed a fifth homeowner. I also got to continue witnessing the incredible love and care for one another that was so very evident among all of the people involved. There were a lot of tears too, as the Joplin homeowners bid farewell to the SP staff members who had been living and working there for months.

It was 8:00 p.m. by the time I got in my car and headed back to my hotel room. I felt so very blessed to have had the opportunity to kind of be a part of that weekend of celebration. It was a joy to hear and see what God had done in the lives of both the volunteers and the homeowners. And yet there was a heaviness there too—because all of the stories I heard involved so much loss, although every one of the people I talked to focused much more on being thankful for what God had brought out of the situation. But for me there was also a weight of responsibility. They had trusted me, a stranger, with their stories. And my job was to go back and write articles to share that with the supporters of SP. It was just a lot for one day…but in an amazing, good way.

The next day the Joplin staff had to pack up their office of two years and get everything loaded up and ready to move on to the next place. I helped out a bit, and enjoyed getting to learn more about the people behind the rebuild effort. That afternoon, I interviewed a final homeowner couple. In two days, I had completed 12 interviews, most of which were 45-60 minutes, and taken many many pages of notes (yes, I’m old fashioned that way…..).

Every one of the stories I had the honor of hearing that weekend was amazing and special in its own unique way. And in the days since then, I have had the privilege of attempting to retell those stories. So far, I’ve written five or six articles based on Joplin. None of them have been posted yet because of scheduling issues, but hopefully they will eventually be used somehow. One of those was a first-person blog post for the SP blog that goes more in-depth about what I learned from the people of Joplin…so once some of those stories get posted I will probably post links here.

I had a couple of adventures aside from the work aspects of the trip. One was locking my keys into my rental car. Yep, I managed to do that. Thankfully it was at the cookout and there were plenty of “Good Samaritans” there to help me! The hero ended up being the eight-year-old son of the homeowners. He had a metal bar that we were finally able to poke down through the window (which were thankfully cracked open!) to pry the door handle open.

The other was getting to spend Saturday evening with a couple friends from JBU! Joplin is close enough that one of the professors from our mission trip team was willing to come up to see me! We met up at a movie theater to watch Monsters University, and one of the other students who had also been on the trip showed up with her to surprise me. It was so very great to see them and to have a chance to wind down with them after the weekend. We enjoyed dinner together as well, and it was just a wonderful opportunity to catch up.

Sunday I retraced my steps from Thursday and ended up safely back in Boone! It was a really fantastic trip, even though it was a bit hard to come back and be “stuck” at my desk. In the week and a half since then, I’ve managed to keep busy at work…most of the time. I’ve worked on a few other things in addition to writing up the Joplin articles.

Then on the 26th, one of my best friends from college happened to be in the area on vacation with her family! So we got to spend the evening together, which was really special. I got to meet her dad and sister and see her mom, who I had met in May when I bid farewell to my friend. We had a great time catching up about our summers, and even though it was relatively short I was so thankful for the opportunity J

So yep, that’s pretty much been my life since my last post! Well, add in several trips hiking up the mountain I’m living on, which has been fantastic. :D I think I’ve been up there five or six different times, all to different little places, and all wonderful times to get away for some exploring and/or reflection. I’ve got some more adventures coming up! My parents are going to be here this weekend to see me, and then next week, as I said, I’ll be headed to New York! So I know these last 3.5 weeks of my internship will probably fly by pretty quick! And then? Who knows…. ;-)

Pictures!

I just rediscovered how to get a link to my Facebook photo albums! So you should be able to see my pictures in these two albums, even if you don't have a Facebook account. At least that's what they tell me :)

Framing N.Ireland - Less than half of the photos I took while in Northern Ireland with the mission team.

New Digs in NC - Pictures from my time in Boone, NC for my Samaritan's Purse internship.

Also....I'm supposed to put something on here stating that any views expressed in this blog are my own personal opinions and are in no way to be seen as official Samaritan's Purse statements. Just in case there was any confusion about that.

Two Weeks in Boone

Well, the first two weeks and two days of my internship at Samaritan’s Purse (SP) have already passed. I am now more than a fourth done with the eight-week program, and I’m sure the rest will pass quickly as well! Just wanted to let any readers out there know how things have gone thus far.

I arrived in Boone, N.C. (the international headquarters of SP) on June 30, a scant five days after landing back in the States from a month in Ireland. To say it was somewhat of an abrupt transition would be stating it mildly. But thankfully I now feel a bit more settled and content J

The next day I showed up for my first day of work in the communications department of SP, as a writing/editing intern. The first week of work dragged a little, even though we had Thursday off for the Fourth of July. Lots of the other communications folks, including my supervisor, were out of town.

I received or found a few things I could work on, but most of the rest of that week I spent time reading articles previously posted on the website. Which was good, because it gave me a chance to become more familiar with the broad variety of work SP does around our country and the world. I did get to write a couple of articles that week, based on interviews one of the other employees had done in Colorado after the wildfire there. I also edited a couple of things for publication.

While I’m here in Boone, I am staying with a lady who works with Operation Christmas Child and her husband. It’s worked out great so far! Actually, they’ve been gone on vacation since last Wednesday, getting home tomorrow. So it will be nice to have them back. I’ve attended their church both Sundays, and I really appreciate the pastor there. I also went with them to their small group last Monday, which was nice to get to meet some people from the area.

On the Fourth of July, the three of us went downtown to watch the parade. But it was raining, as it has been a lot of the time I’ve been here—unusually wet summer for Boone this year! We only caught the tail end of it. Afterward they took me to the Mast General Store to look around. It’s an old-timey place, with big barrels of candy to be purchased by the pound, and a whole variety of neat things upstairs. That evening we ate hotdogs—inside, because it was raining again—and played games with a couple of their friends. We could hear a few fireworks, but didn’t try to go see any because of the rain. July 5^th the SP cafeteria had a pig pickin’, which is evidently a thing in this neck of the woods. They literally had two pigs laid out which they had roasted, and people could just take off the meat they wanted.

There are 10 other interns here this summer, though they all got here at the beginning of June. My first day of work they invited me to join them for a birthday party for one of the gals, so I got to meet most of them that way. Almost all of us took a trip down to Charlotte on the 9^th to tour the Billy Graham Library and the headquarters of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association. Last night, we also all had dinner at the Chief Operating Officer’s house, which was fun. While my host family has been gone, one of the other intern gals has been kind enough to give me a ride to work and such. So it’s been a nice group.

My second week on the job included a better work level. In fact, it was pretty much perfect! I nearly always had things to do, but never felt overwhelmed. So that was nice. I did a whole variety of things….edited various ads, wrote a couple more articles for the web, wrote some donor or volunteer thank you letters, etc. I have five or six various people asking me to do things, so it’s been great. Also got settled into my own corner of a cube! My cube mate is the media relations lady for SP, and she’s been super nice and helpful to me too.

On Saturday (July 13), one of the SP employees invited the interns and several other SP folks over for a hike up one of the many mountains around here and a dinner of “Boston Butt” (think pulled pork). We also had a campfire and made s’mores, thankfully before yet another rainstorm chased us back inside to play a couple rounds of Catch Phrase. It was great to get to know some of the 500 local SP employees in a smaller-group setting!

This week is not a typical one for me. Today and tomorrow I’m going through SP’s orientation sessions with about 30 other new employees, most of whom will soon be moving to one of the organization’s international field offices to work. Then on Thursday I get to go on a work trip! The communications team decided to send me to Joplin as the SP writer reporting on the last home dedication from the rebuild program there after the tornado of May 2011. So I’m excited to go out and see firsthand the results of SP’s work. It will be a grand adventure, I’m sure…including driving for more than an hour by myself for the first time {yikes!}. I’m flying from Charlotte to Kansas City, but there’s driving on both ends of that flight. So prayers for safety appreciated!

Ireland Update 7

This was all nearly a month ago now….but I’m finally sitting down to write about our last week in N. Ireland. I had written about the first two days in the plane coming back, but I lost my tablet that had that on it. So that’s part of what’s been holding me back – I hate writing things a second time. :P

If you want to see pictures from our time in Ireland, almost 500 of my 1,300 pictures are posted on Facebook! Mostly with detailed captions J

Day 21 - Tuesday, June 18

Tuesday was our big sightseeing day. We started off by visiting Carrick-a-Rede, a rope bridge that used to be used by fishermen to get from the mainland to an island. The bridge has planking that is less than two feet wide, with a rope mesh extending maybe another foot or so to either side. The sides of the bridge are intersecting ropes that come up about four feet to the rope handrails. The bridge is over a chasm which is almost 100 feet deep and 65 feet wide. So crossing it was a bit of a stretch for height-sensitive me. But it was totally worth it!

We hung out for quite a while on the island reached by crossing the bridge. Tons of gulls and guillemots were flying around the cliffs of the island, probably trying to get situated for nesting season. Their calls were so loud that I was looking around for a big group of seals! I actually lay down on the grassy top of the island and just watched the birds for a while, so that was fun. Most of us ate our sack lunches as a picnic on the island as well.

Next, we stopped at a coastal town (don’t remember which one…) to do some shopping. Several of us went to a used book store and found some neat old hymnals. I also got an old copy of C.S.Lewis’ book “That Hideous Strength” and a devotional on 1 Corinthians 13 that looked interesting. Just started reading the latter this morning and am SO glad I got it! I also liked walking around looking at the architecture of the town. At a bakery, I tried a “fifteen tray bake” and liked it! They’re evidently a traditional Irish treat, kind of similar to what many people call magic cookie bars in the States, but with marshmallows and cherries instead of chocolate and nuts.

Later in the afternoon we went to Giant’s Causeway. It’s this amazing geographical formation on the coast, probably formed by volcanic activity as Ireland separated from Scotland. Basically, it is a VAST structure of thousands of usually hexagonal columns of varying height that fit together like a giant puzzle. You’ll have to look at my pictures or Google it to see what I mean because it’s hard to explain. Anyway, the structure runs from the base of a mountain out into the ocean as a peninsula – and it’s great fun to scramble around on and explore!

After we looked around there for a while, we hiked up the shepherd’s trail to the top of the mountain overlooking the causeway. Part of the trail used switchbacks, but the last part was a steep 162 stairs! We were glad to reach the top. Once we had enjoyed the view, we followed the trail along the ridge back to the visitor center. Everything was so green and pretty, and out on the Giant’s Causeway I loved watching the waves crash onto the pillars of stone J

That evening we were on our own for dinner in one of the coastal towns, so a couple of the other girls and I ended up at a hamburger place actually. The inside was decorated in a ‘50s American style, with a poster cut out of Elvis and such. We were fairly amused J We had the best sweet potato fries I had ever tasted though!

After dinner, we reunited with a couple of the other team members and waited at the meeting place for the rest of the team, including the drivers. They were late and it was chilly…so we ended up crowding seven of us onto one park bench. Folks driving by us were staring and waving…and we ended up watching and laughing at some pigeons that looked like they were wrestling up on a balcony ledge. Once we got back to our youth hostel, one of the gals and I took a walk on the beach watching the sunset. It was a good chance to talk J

Day 22 - Wednesday, June 19

That morning I hustled down the beach for about 30 minutes so I could get back to the place where we had been Monday evening. I climbed up onto one of the island-ish rocks and just enjoyed sitting there with the wind blowing around me and the birds circling and calling. And the sound of the waves crashing. It was wonderful – good time for reflection too.

After breakfast, we got all of our stuff packed and loaded up. We still did some sightseeing around the area before heading out though. First stop was Dunluce Castle, now an old ruins that may date back to the 1300s and was occupied until one day in 1639 the kitchen fell into the sea! According to Ireland’s National Trust website, these ruins may have served as C.S. Lewis’ inspiration for Cair Paravel!  We had fun going a little ways into a cave/tunnel right under the cliffs the castle ruins are on. We didn’t go into the castle itself, because we would have had to pay. But we had fun climbing on the rocks around it!

Our next stop was at the small town of Ballintoy. Looked into a pretty church there, then went down, down the hillside to the coast where we scrambled around on more rocky outcroppings. Then back to the van for sack lunches and time to bid farewell to the beautiful Irish North Coast. After driving a couple hours, we stopped at Glenariff Forest Park to go hiking, but sadly the main attraction—a hike to a beautiful waterfall—was closed because of winter storm damage. We still hiked around though.

We had planned to go to a lighthouse near Belfast, but traffic delayed us too much. So we ended up eating at a tiny restaurant in Belfast that had an interesting mixed menu of pizza/Italian and Chinese/Asian food. It was delicious though! And then it was back to the home sweet home of our cottages…at least for a couple more days.

Day 23 - Thursday, June 20

The next day we literally had nothing planned. I’m pretty sure that’s the only day that happened on the whole trip! It was wonderful. We just hung out, played games, relaxed, etc.

That evening after dinner I went out to the observation deck on my own. I had a lot to think about. The trip was fast coming to an end, and with it my time at JBU was truly concluding. I’d known for a long time that I would cry about graduating and having to say goodbye to that place and everything it had meant to me for four years at some point. I expected it to happen in May, but it didn’t. It happened that night in Ireland instead. God was really gracious through that, reminding me of some important things. Later, one of the gals and I took a walk up Joe’s mountain and just talked about stuff – so that was good and helped me process things some more.

Day 24 - Friday, June 21

Spent a good part of the day in Belfast. A couple of us went to the Titanic museum together. The ship was built in Belfast, and the museum is located near the area where the gigantic ship was created and first put off into the ocean. It has an interestingly broad range of topics, clear from the early industrial history of Belfast all the way through the science of deep sea exploration. So it has relatively little on the crash of the Titanic, and more on the ship’s complete story from beginning to end. Quite interesting!

Once we got back into the Belfast city center, we grabbed some lunch and ate on the lawn of the city hall. Then we went together to go shopping at Primark, Ireland’s version of a department store similar to Macy’s. I wasn’t in a shopping mood though, and felt very out of place in the crowded store. So I meandered my way back to a coffee shop. Watched some street performers on the way, and just spent some time writing the previous Ireland Update and a few post cards.

When it came time to meet up with the rest of the team to ride the city bus back to Lakeside Manor, where we had parked our van, I was in full-fledged shut down mode. I’m still not sure completely why. In a way I guess it was culture shock. I just felt very very out of my element. After being in small towns for three weeks and almost exclusively with our small team, to suddenly be in the big city surrounded by hundreds of people really put me on edge for some reason. It’s not like I don’t know how to function in cities….spent my whole life until college in Dallas, and lived in D.C. for two months last summer without ever having that feeling. But that’s what happened. I just had to crawl in my shell for a while. Once we had ridden the bus out of the city center into the more residential area, I started doing fine again. It was pretty odd.

Day 25 - Saturday, June 22

Another very chill day – lots of playing table games and such. That evening, the owners of the cottages where we stayed hosted a BBQ for a ton of their friends. They invited our team too, so we went over for a while. Got to talk to an Irish gal and hear about what God is doing in her life – it was really good! It rained some during the evening, and we saw a *gorgeous* double rainbow that went all the way across. It was so very pretty!

Later, all of the main people we had worked with in Killyleagh – Wally, Heather, Samantha, Sam and Craig – came over for one last time. We just had a great time hanging out, including a dance party for most people. But then we had to say goodbye to our Killyleagh teammates L

Day 26 - Sunday, June 23

Went back into Belfast for a day of seeing C.S. Lewis related sites. We started by attending a service at St. Mark’s Church, which has a number of Lewis connections:

• ·         Jack’s grandfather was the pastor of the church during Jack’s childhood
• ·         Jack’s parents were married in the church
• ·         The baptismal font where Warren and Jack were both baptized as babies is in the back
• ·         The pulpit is the same one which Jack would have watched his grandfather preach in
• ·         On the door of the parsonage is a doorknob with a lion’s head
• ·         One of the stained glass windows was given to the church by Warren and Jack later in life in memory of their parents

It was SUCH a beautiful church – just loved it! After the service, a guy who goes there gave us the C.S. Lewis tour of the church, during which he explained all of the above. He also pointed out various things about the symbolism of the church. I enjoyed it all J

We also stopped by the house where Jack and Warren lived as children – Little Lea. We couldn’t go in, because it is now privately owned…but it was still neat to see. Our last Lewis stop was at the statue of The Searcher, commissioned in honor of the 100^th anniversary of Lewis’ birth. It shows a man looking into a wardrobe, and on the back of the wardrobe there is a copy of a letter Lewis wrote to a young lady asking about the Christian symbolism in the Chronicles of Narnia.

After that, we went to St. George’s Market in Belfast, which is basically a large building with a whole collection of vendor booths – everything from food to vintage stuff to handmade items. It was fun wandering around it J

That evening was our last one together as a whole team. So the leaders took the time to get each of us a coke bottle with a Gaelic name on it and make up a definition for the names that had something to do with what each one of us had contributed to the team. It was a time of lots of laughter, but also of encouragement. Sam came back for one last time, and a few of us ended up staying up until 4 a.m. because going to bed meant saying goodbye to Sam. We watched the sky turn light, since the sun comes up super early there.

Day 27 - Monday, June 24

The next day we spent the morning cleaning the cottages and packing up all of the JBU equipment that gets stored at Lakeside Manor during the year. It went by super fast, so that was nice. I also got my own stuff packed up. Before lunch we took one last hike up Joe’s Mountain to bid it farewell.

After lunch we went to Castleward, the former manor home of a rich family. They turned it over to the National Trust fund when they were too in debt to pay their taxes, or something like that. Now it’s basically a museum. It has lots of interesting architecture and artifacts. After getting a really great tour of the house, we walked around on the property for a while, and found some really fat pigs in the farm near the lough.

That evening we went back to Strangford for a final team dinner at a nice restaurant, the Cuan. After we finished, we went to Asda to buy any foodstuff we wanted to take home. Then it was time for our team to say goodbye to three of our members, who had to go to Belfast because they were on different flights out of Ireland.

Day 28 - Tuesday, June 25

We got up early that morning to finish up last minute things at the cottages and depart for Belfast. It was a long day of traveling. We flew from Belfast to Newark to Houston to XNA, the regional airport in northwest Arkansas. In Newark things got really stressful and crazy. Long story short, our layover was too short for everything we had to do, and half of our team didn’t make it onto the flight to Houston. I did, but in the process I accidentally left my backpack behind, and it’s still lost. We were worried that the other half of the team wasn’t going to make it to Houston in time to catch the flight to XNA – but amazingly they made it just in time. We were all so relieved when we saw them get on our little three-seat-across plane to go up to XNA. Then once we landed in XNA it was really time to say goodbye.

The End.

My parents had come up to Siloam Springs to pick me up. We stayed in our tent that night at the Arkansas welcome center, though I didn’t sleep very well. Lots on my mind, plus jetlag. The next day the three of us spent the day at Natural Falls State Park. That was fun. I got to show them a few of the places where I enjoyed spending time during my day-long excursions out there on my own. Then we drove back down to Dallas, back home. But as much as that will always be home, I have a lot of places now that feel like home. And I miss the places and the people that make each so special. But that’s what life is….moving on, saying goodbye, but holding tight to the memories and the lessons.

Speaking of lessons….if you want to read about what I learned over in Ireland, in a spiritual/reflective sense, check it out here. Thank you to each and every person who partnered with me in this trip through prayer and through financial giving! I couldn’t have done it without you.

Ireland Update 6

Day 16 - Thursday, June 13
Going to the kids' sports day was fun. I got to watch a couple of the girls in my Kids Club group win races, and we enjoyed just hanging out with the kids. Afterward, our team had a chance to wander around in Killyleagh for a while, and we could choose between going back to the cottages for a bit or just staying in town.

Another gal and I decided to walk to a park outside of the city to eat the lunches we had packed that morning, even though it was lightly raining off and on. It was a mile and a half out to the park, but the long walk gave us a good chance to talk. As we ate lunch at a picnic table, darker clouds loomed on the horizon - and then it started raining more heavily. Thankfully we both had our rain jackets, so we could stay pretty dry. We made it back into town fine :)

That afternoon, Kids Club had to be in a different location because there was a funeral at the building we normally held it in. Our theme for the day was thankfulness. It was my last time to teach the lesson, since Jonathan and I took turns switching off. The change in location created some challenges, because a bunch of the kids took advantage of it to take off running around the bigger room where two groups were both trying to hold classes. What's more, Jonathan and I had nearly 20 kids, instead of the dozen or so we had been averaging. Wally happened to come by, so he helped by giving the kids a bit of a talking to. But I kind of had to decide to just teach to the kids who were paying attention and kind of ignore the ones who were distracting themselves.

After a quick trip home for dinner, we returned to Killyleagh for Sports Camp. The rainy weather was still more on than off, so the guys ended up playing football outside, while the gals (mostly) played Frisbee in a small gym room. Part of the time though, a couple younger fellas and a couple of our team members were playing football in there, so we girls just sat around because we were tired of playing. We tried to talk some, just to get to know them better, but the room was kind of loud and they weren't super communicative. But it was still good.

Day 17 - Friday, June 14
Our last day of Kids Club focused on encouragement. In the morning, before we went to Killyleagh for the day, Jonathan and I wrote little notes to each of the kids in our team thanking them for coming to Kids Club. The lesson for the day came from a story that Tracy had adapted to fit. Jonathan read the story to the kids, and they listened amazingly well during that...although a few were still creating distractions. But then during Bible verse time they pretty much paid zero attention. It was pretty frustrating for me, because that was the last time our little team was together...and I really wish it could have felt more successful. But it was what it was.

Once all the three teams of kids gathered back in the main hall, the kids started going around asking all of the JBU team members to sign their shirts or name tags, or whatever they had. That's evidently a big deal to the kids, and it's been traditional here over the past couple of years JBU has been coming.

On Thursday and Friday, our team was also signing several New Testaments to give to kids who had shown a specific interest in receiving one. Four of those were for girls in my group, who had been asking me how they could buy a Bible. So I really hope that they will use the Scriptures to continue learning more about God and having a relationship with Him!

It certainly felt awfully bittersweet once we had an empty church after our last Kids Club. Our team walked (through some gently falling rain) to the same house where we had dinner the first Friday of Kids Club. Then we headed to the pitches for our last Sports Camp. By then it was raining pretty constantly - but we couldn't use the inside of the gym that time. A couple of our dedicated Frisbee players still showed up and asked to play - so we did, even though it was sometimes pouring rain and very windy. So it wasn't a very good game - but we made fools of ourselves together anyway...and got pretty soaked in the process.

Some of the Killyleagh Youth for Christ volunteers came back to the cottages with us for the evening, so it was fun to hang out with them! Wally and Josh also surprise attacked us with Nerf guns, which they had been planning for a while. It was a loud finale to our two weeks of work!

Day 18 - Saturday, June 15
I woke up early Saturday morning, so I went out to a little secret place I found for some much needed prayer/re-orienting time. I'm so glad God is willing to be so patient with me despite how easily I can get distracted and fall back into old habits....

We had originally planned to go to Belfast for shopping and touristy stuff on Saturday. But for a variety of reasons, including G8 demonstrations and rainy weather, we decided not to. Instead, we went to Downpatrick Cathedral, which is one of the four places which claims to be the burial site of St. Patrick. We had gone to see the grave earlier, but the church had been closed. The inside of the church was very beautiful :)

Something we had done the Saturday before that I forgot to mention was visiting Saul Church, the site of the first Christian church in Ireland, founded by St. Patrick.

Anyway, after we looked around the Downpatrick Cathedral for a while, we went and watched "Man of Steel" in the local theater with a couple of the Killyleagh YFC guys. It seemed a fitting way to continue celebrating finishing our superhero-themed Kids Club ;-) A big downside (that had nothing to do with the movie) was that I came down with a cold and started dealing with some pain at the same time.

That evening we went back to the cottages and enjoyed more relaxation time. We've been playing games a lot in the evenings too, which is fun.

Day 19 - Sunday, June 16
Sunday morning, we joined Wally for our last prayer meeting as a team. Then we split up into two groups again. Cary preached at the Presbyterian church, and the group who went to the Church of Ireland, including me, helped Wally teach the Bible class and spoke a bit during the church service. A couple of the girls from my Kids Club group were there, and it was fun to see them :)

After lunch we planned for the celebration service that would be that evening at the Presbyterian church as a final wrap up of our ministry time. Then we had the afternoon to rest and relax, which was really nice.

That evening the service went really well. Tracy said she thought it was the most kids she's seen come to the final service in the past three years they have been here. We had the kids sing some of our Kids Club songs and recite some of their verses. A couple of our team members also shared a bit about our experience the past couple of weeks, and some of the team re-presented the skit they had done during the school assembly on Wednesday. We also showed a slide show with some pictures of our work.

Afterward, the church provided a barbeque dinner, which gave a great opportunity to just hang out and play with the kids one last time. There was a lot more shirt signing, and quite a bit of picture taking. We were all really glad that a few of the football guys came - they evidently haven't come in the past. Loading up our team and driving away afterward was really sad. Several of us were close to tears or actually crying. Several of the kids gave us cards, wishing us "safe home" and asking us to come back again. It was really sweet!

Day 20 - Monday, June 17
In the morning, our team packed up our stuff for a short trip to the North Coast of N. Ireland. We stayed at a youth hostel at Whitepark Bay, which is on the Causeway Coast - a route well known in the country for its beauty. On our way there we stopped at Carrickfergus--a coastal town with a castle--for tea, and also at another coastal town where we had really fresh fish and chips.

We had dinner at a nice and yummy restaurant, but I was feeling rather sick-ish from the cold that has been going around our team. After we got back, we finally had a chance to walk down to "our" beach. One of the guys "went swimming" (really just running in and back out), and I went wading some - but the water was pretty cold! Several of us walked down the coast for a ways to an area that had a lot of rocky islands. We watched the sunset from there, and it was so very peaceful and beautiful!

Ireland Update 5

Day 13 - Monday, June 10
Before Kids Club that day, I took some really great time to just reflect and pray through some things, including praying for all of the kids who have been a part of my team so far. We've had something like 20 kids who have come in the P3-4 grade range at least once, but usually only 10-12 on any given day. They were just heavy on my heart that day.

Kids Club went fairly well. For craft time, the kids made wordless bracelets to go along with our super power of the day (forgiveness) and our salvation theme. I explained the meanings of the colors before they made them, and then our Bible story during lesson time was about the crucifixion of Jesus - which Jonathan did a great job on. He had a couple of the kids kind of act it out, which held everyone's attention pretty well!

Later that night, one of the other team members said that one of the girls from my group (who has been in the habit of causing disruptions) was actually wearing her bracelet to Sports Camp, and the girl was able to go through and explain almost all of the colors to the leader! So that was really encouraging for me to hear :)

Monday was our day without Wally, because he was at a friend's wedding. We were all a little worried about how Sports Camp would go without him there, but it seemed to go pretty well! I didn't play any sports really because of my ankle, just tossed a Frisbee around with a circle of kids part of the time. So it didn't feel as fun for me, but it did mean I got to chat with a couple of girls a bit more, which was good.

Day 14 - Tuesday, June 11
In the morning we went to a mall in a larger town that's a bit further away - primarily so that some of our team could get hoodies for printing a team hoodie. It was interesting to walk around an Irish mall. In many ways it was pretty similar to an American mall, but at the same time it definitely felt different. They had the Irish equivalents of a Dollar Tree and a WalMart as part of the mall, which was rather odd. There was also a grocery store in the mall. So in some ways it was more like what we would think of as shopping center - but the building design was like a mall.

Kids Club yesterday focused on love, from the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. I had the kids in my team act out the story, which in some ways helped them concentrate on it better and in other ways was more of a distraction - but I think they got the point. They were definitely on the rowdy side in general though - probably because Tuesday was our first truly Irish day: RAINY and definitely chillier. The amazing thing was that our whole group was almost completely silent for about 30 seconds when I reviewed a bit about yesterday's lesson, and talked about how Jesus' death for us is the best love story ever. That was definitely a God thing, because that group of kids is *never* without someone talking or distracting the others. So I was thankful for that :)

Yesterday evening we had the game night for the elementary-aged kids. Because of the colder and wetter weather, we decided to do it inside the church....which was certainly a challenge. I was playing with the younger kids, and it was hard to keep them all involved in the games for a whole hour and a half.....but we made it through!

Day 15 - Wednesday, June 12
Today was mostly warmer than yesterday, though in the evening it was on the misty/rainy side again. And right now, at midnight my time, sitting at the picnic table on our host's porch (nicknamed our "Internet cafe") I am definitely chilly and can see my breath!

We had another assembly this morning with the school that we met with last Wednesday. Since we only had three more days of Kids Club left, we didn't want to do a big invite to Kids Club push. So we didn't use our super hero alter egos at the assembly. Instead, we led songs and then the team members who hadn't participated much in the assembly last week did a skit about not listening to temptations in life. If you've seen the phenomenal skit by Hillsong of the temptations distracting the girl from following Jesus, our team's skit was a much simplified version of that.

It went well, and was fun as always to see some of our Kids Club kids at the school. Afterward the older kids invited us to a little reception with biscuits (cookies) and juice. We also got to watch them have a bit of their Spanish class, which I think our two native Spanish speakers enjoyed.

Kids Club today was on the crazy side. We were talking about peace today.....and Jonathan's and my class did not provide a good example of peace............on the contrary, it was pretty off the wall :/  The upside was that during craft time Jonathan and I took a picture with each of our kiddos, that we're planning to print off and give them. They turned out pretty cute, so I'm excited to have those :) The kids did not do a great job of paying attention during either lesson or Bible verse...but somehow one of our gals managed to fall sound asleep really suddenly and she stayed sound asleep despite all the other kids messing with her trying to wake her up! It was rather weird....

In some ways I am super ready to be done with Kids Club in two days. As Jonathan said this evening, the kids are just getting crazier in some ways because they know us now and are just being themselves. But at the same time I will miss all the kids in my group (though some more than others....) The fun thing will be that on Sunday all the kids are invited to a celebration evening/dinner thing that one of the churches is putting on. So I hope a bunch of the kids and their families will come to that. But we'll see!

After Kids Club, we rushed back to our cottages, rushed through dinner, and went straight back to Killyleagh to get our team fellas to the guys' night on time. Our girls' night went pretty well - and it was much more meaningful for me than the one last week. We played "Just Dance" a couple of times while we waited for gals to trickle in, then we sat down and played a question game. Everyone had a chance to write down questions anonymously on a sheet of paper. They could either make it a general question for anyone, a question specifically for the JBU gals, one for just the Killyleagh girls, or one addressed to an individual person.

Some of the questions were silly, and some (several) were intended to be embarrassing, and others were more intentional to create an environment for good sharing. I got one of the embarrassing questions addressed straight to me, but I had kind of been expecting it and the way it worked out I was able to think about my answer ahead of time. So I hope I was able to turn my answer into something which will make the girls reflect on things...even though I'm not sure they were really listening to the important part of my answer.

The best news is that a couple of the other leaders were able to be very intentional about how they answered questions to point these gals (ages 11-13) toward having a relationship with Christ. Five of the dozen or so girls there showed interest in learning more about Christianity, and asked for Bibles - so we gave them some that we had. Please be praying that these precious young ladies would really keep thinking about what we discussed, and that they would be able to plug into good influences and not just the "easy" influences around town, which would tend to be negative.

Up Next
Tomorrow we're going to a field day that the elementary-aged kids will have. We don't have to do anything for it (that I know of), we're just going to watch and cheer! We have two last days of Kids Club, and two last youth Sports Camps. Then we'll be going to Belfast on Saturday, and Sunday will wrap up our ministry time in Killyleagh with Dr. Balzer preaching at church and the celebration dinner. The rest of our time in Ireland (about a week), we'll be getting some much-needed R&R/touring. So please keep praying for our final interactions with the kids and youth of Killyleagh, and that Wally and those who work with him will be able to continue watering the seeds we have hopefully planted!

Ireland Update 4

Day 8 - Wednesday, June 5
That morning, we presented at one of the public schools outside of Killyleagh. There are three main schools in the area. In N. Ireland, there is not separation of church and state, so we could sing Christian songs, talk about God, and pray. A couple of us went in our superhero costumes and shared the back story of why our characters were at the "School of Incredible Misfits," which is our setting for our skits.

It was a lot of fun to see some of the kids who are in my group at their school. They were super well behaved there, sitting quietly and such - which helps explain why they are so hyper at Kids Club! ;) There was one especially sweet part. One of our team guys is "Rubbish Man," what we would call a garbage collector. So he talked about how people don't appreciate his super power anymore because of big machines and such. Anyway, after we talked one of the other gals on the team stood up to talk about God's super powers of characteristics such as compassion and patience (our theme verses are Colossians 3:12-17) which are the focus of our curriculum. But first she asked the kids what kind of super power the kids would want to have, and one of the little boys piped up that he would want to have rubbish powers. So cute :D

Kids Club seemed to have much smaller attendance that day...and I actually ran out of lesson material before I ran out of time. Which was nice in some ways because it meant I covered everything - and we could just review the previous days in the extra time. The superpower of the day was humility...which will come back up in a bit.

That evening after dinner we went back to Killyleagh to do separate girls and guys events. The girls gathered at the church where we had a dancing game for them to play on the Wii. We had also taken materials for the girls to make friendship bracelets, or had a conversation ball with questions. The guys just gathered back at the pitches to play football (soccer) again. A couple of our team members also went to a kids' soccer event. Anyway, one of them had been planning to help facilitate the bracelet making, but she wasn't there. So I was kinda on my own getting 10 girls set up and taught how to do a super simple bracelet pattern. I had been really looking forward to talking to the girls and getting to know them better, but because of working on the bracelets almost the whole hour and a half flew by in the blink of an eye. I was pretty disappointed about that...so I'm hoping that next week I'll get more of a chance to visit with them.

Because of that, I was kind of in a stinky mood. Things hadn't gone the way that I expected, and I wasn't being very humble about that inside of myself. After our team sharing time around tea, I just had to go for a walk and talk through some things with God. I went up to a hill on the property we're staying at, where there's a little platform that raises one up above the Gorse bushes which have been blooming beautifully ever since we arrived. Even though it was 11 pm, there was still some light and the western sky was still beautiful with the sunset colors. (Because of our high latitude here, I've heard that the sun rises by 4ish a.m. and it doesn't set until after 10:30!) It was a really good time for me to work through a bit of stuff from the day. God really reminded that I need to learn the characteristics that we're teaching the kids!

Day 9 - Thursday, June 6
On Thursday morning, Tracy gave us time and encouraged us to spread out to pray/journal/reflect. Wednesday before lunch I had found the location of a bird blind on the property that I had seen on a map - and on the way to that I had seen a spot by a creek that I knew I wanted to return to with my journal. So on Thursday as soon as she gave us that time I made a bee line for that place. Sitting out there for a while was just a really great time for me to continue talking through some things with God, and it was an important opportunity.

Our super power of the day at Kids Club was gentleness. I don't remember anything particular about that day....I've just been getting to know the kids in my group better, and learning which ones are an especial challenge and which ones are more cooperative.

Thursday evening we had Sports Camp with the teens again. I played Ultimate Frisbee with mostly girls and a couple guys for the whole time. I also shared my testimony during half time that evening with the Frisbee group. I talked a little bit about a hard time I went through when I was 13, and just how deeply it had impacted me. I had only realized this past semester just how deeply it had all wounded me - and that for most of middle/high school I hadn't really trusted anyone (including God) very much because I just stuffed my feelings inside a lot. So I tried to encourage the kids that when bad/hurtful stuff happens to try to talk it through with people and to stay in communion with God during that time - and that He can and will redeem all of the things which He allows to happen in our lives.

Day 10 - Friday, June 7
Friday morning we did another school assembly (with the same content) at a different school. The kids loved telling me that afternoon at Kids Club that we had come to their school :D

Friday's super power was patience....and it certainly was convicting to talk to the kids about patience when I don't always feel like I do a good job of being patient with them. It's just hard to know how much to try to corral behavior issues, because we have such a short time to teach the lesson and try to get across the concept we're trying to share. I wish we could just have a couple hours to just hear from the kids about where they're at.... I did have extra lesson time again, so we were able to do some more of that on Friday - just trying to encourage the kids to think about how they could practically use the super powers we're talking about.

One of the local moms actually came into our class for a while, because the kids were definitely even more on the wild side than normal. And it definitely helped some - especially with one of the girls who is typically a primary distraction. It's always hard to know when to just ignore distractions and keep teaching or when to try to address the "trouble makers"......especially when I would love to just know them individually.

Friday afternoon put me on edge - almost to the level of Monday. And then as we were leaving the church to go to dinner at the house of one of the local teachers, the teen guys were crowded around our van. We team members were waiting in the van for the leaders, and the local teens were trying to get our attention I guess. One guy climbed over the top of our van and they were hanging off the back even when we tried to drive away. The whole situation just put me over the edge I guess. My introvert side needed to recharge, and I just felt like curling up in a ball and crying.

Thankfully the dinner was pretty informal and I was able to sit outside by myself for a bit to calm down. I debated going to Sports Camp that evening or going back to our cottages with Becci - and I'm glad that after dinner I felt up to going back into it. Sports Camp went well - we played Ultimate again with the same group of mostly girls while most of the guys played football. A big huge praise is that throughout the week the teen guys have gradually become more willing to be attentive to the guys on our team sharing their testimonies during half time. Please be praying that God will continue moving in these guys' hearts. They have tons of potential, they just don't know how to use it I guess.

Day 11 - Saturday, June 8
I was so very thankful for a day off on the weekend!!!!! We all needed that time away from Killyleagh to recharge a bit. In the morning I woke up a bit on the early side, so I climbed up Joe's Mountain to have some Quiet Time up there, which was just really beautiful :) But, it came at a price. On the way back I stumbled twice, wrenching my ankle that I had sprained pretty badly over a year ago. The first time I was mostly ok, but the second time it hurt super bad. And it was on practically flat ground...I felt so stupid :/ So my ankle has been swollen and sore for a couple days. I probably won't be playing Frisbee at Sports Camp on Monday because of it.... :(

That afternoon we went out to Tollymore Forest, which is similar to what we would consider a national park in the States. It's *beautiful*, at the foot of the Mourne Mountains (which includes the highest peak in Ireland!). Most of the JBU people who go there think of it as a Middle Earth/Narnia place :) It's got beautiful forests and a trail running along a large creek. In some ways for me it reminded me a lot of the sort of places my family goes to often....so I missed having Dad or Mom or Nathan there to experience it with me. So in a way it wasn't that unusual for me - but it was a bit prettier and greener than the places I've been in the States.

We hiked around there for a couple of hours. Thankfully my ankle hadn't been completely re-sprained, so I could still walk on it all right. But I did have to be more cautious than normal, and so was more apprehensive about just scrambling around rocks over the stream than I would have been otherwise. And certain angles/motions would give me sharp twinges of pain. Speaking of physical issues, one of our guys took a tumble at the park and could use prayers for healing. Also, one of our gals has a cold, and another guy pulled a muscle playing football. So we could all use prayer for stamina and safety!!!

After we finished at the park, we went into Newcastle, which is also at the foot of the mountains. What's more, it's right on the sea coast! So I went wading in the ocean a bit :) SO MUCH FUN!!!!! The weather was completely sunny and definitely on the warm side - especially for N. Ireland - so there were a lot of people on the beach. I just loved standing there, feeling the waves of the ocean drag the sand out from under my feet :)

Day 12 - Sunday, June 9
Today has been a great day. We started off by praying before church for about an hour with Wally (that's the nickname of the YFC guy, if I haven't mentioned that before). He has such a beautiful heart for Killyleagh, it is always a pleasure to worship God and pray with him. Then we split up into two groups to attend church again, as we had the week before - but we flipped which church we went to.

The group I was with attended the Presbyterian Church. We were in charge of the youth Sunday School class, so we were only in the service for the first part. It was fun because most of the students in the class were the gals that we've been playing Frisbee with. They are all super sweet :) I shared another short testimony, this time about God's faithfulness in guiding me to JBU and how He provided for my time there! Mrs. Balzer did a great job sharing from the story of Jesus raising the widow's son, about how Jesus was both compassionate and powerful!

After church, our team again split up for lunch at various family homes. A couple of the team and I went to a farm house outside of Killyleagh. Before lunch, the husband took us up to the top of his hill, which has a *beautiful* view of the Strangford Lough (pronounced lock - it's basically a big bay from the ocean that Killyleagh sits at the end of). We also got to feed a little lamb which had been born prematurely and needed special care. It was SO cute and SO soft!!!! Lunch was delicious - and it was so much fun to learn more about Ireland from the host family, and to talk about some of the differences between Ireland and the U.S. :)

Once we got back to our cottages, I lay down for a 30 minute nap, and woke up an hour later...just in time to grab dinner before we headed back to Killyleagh to lead an evening church service. Dr. Balzer led a devotional based on basically the same material that we're covering in Kids Club. And he did a great job :) Then this evening I played a game with several of the other teammates, and have finally gotten caught up on my blog!!!!

Up Next:
Tomorrow is a very important day at Kids Club. It's basically our day focused on salvation - so please be praying that the kids would have open hearts and minds, and that the Holy Spirit would give us teachers and leaders the right words to say.

The first week of ministry went really well in many ways, and so as we look at our last five or six days of focused ministry, please be praying that we would continue to have lots of patience and love for the people (primarily kids) who we are working with!!!

Oh, and this is a little thing.....but the lens on my camera is having issues. I have no idea what happened to it...but it's not auto focusing correctly - which *really* stinks. :( There's not anything I can do about it from here.....and even when I get back to the States I'm not sure what I should do.....so yeah :P (Update: the problem has ceased to be a problem, and after a couple of days my camera was back to normal! Yay!)

Ireland Update 3

I'm writing this on Thursday/Friday....and the days are starting to run together some. As we have gotten into our focused ministry time, we have naturally faced more ups and downs. But God is still very very good and He is working in my life and I'm sure in the lives of the others as well as God working through us in the lives of others.

Our mornings primarily focus on preparation time for the events of the day. Tracy Balzer, our third JBU professor/team leader, helps us get things set up and make sure that we have everything we need. After lunch we do our household chores, then head out to Killyleagh to set stuff up for Kids Club!

Each day of Kids Club focuses on a different "super power" of God that He wants us to practice too. We have a short skit during our big group time to get started which tries to set the stage for the lesson of the day, which provides a Bible story exemplifying whatever characteristic we are teaching that day. We also have a memory verse which the kids learn, and we alternate between crafts and games for our third rotation.

Once the kids have all gone home, we have dinner and then get geared up for whatever our evening activity is. That varies a bit more from day to day. Then, when we get back to our cottages for the night, we have tea time/dessert and a chance to debrief some and pray for one another. So far our schedule has certainly kept us busy!

Oh, and the weather has remained ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS. It has only rained a tiny bit on one of the days that we have been here, and the temperature has been in the 60s a lot! Everyone here keeps telling us we brought the nice weather from the States - and it's been great for our sports camps and such! It's also made it much easier to enjoy our time here. The rain is forecasted to come back next week - but I am fully enjoying the sunny days while they're here!

Day 6 - Monday, June 3
The first day of Kids Club was rough for me. My expectations, based in a large part on my church's VBS back home, were higher than the reality. We only had the kids for an hour and a half, and it was right after school.....so the time flew by and the kids were definitely on the rambunctious side. Jonathan (one of the JBU students) and I are the team teachers for the P3-4 group. The British grade system is different than America's.....but if I have it straight I think our team is the equivalent of 2-3 grade. The first day we had 8 or 9, with just two boys. Jonathan and I are switching off who does the lesson and who does the Bible verse. So Monday I started off with the lesson. By the time I had tried to let the kids introduce themselves and lay a few basic ground rules (that didn't help behavior as much as I would have liked), I barely had enough time for the basic lesson before our 20 minutes were up. So I kind of felt like a failure, and just rather overwhelmed by the kid interruptions.

Our superpower of the day was compassion, and our story was off the two blind men who were calling out to Jesus for mercy. The point was that the crowds did not show compassion because they were simply trying to shush the men, whereas Jesus showed compassion by providing the help that the men needed. As I taught the story and asked questions afterward, I definitely felt more like the crowds than like Jesus. I certainly ended up shushing a lot more than showing compassion.....

There were some encouraging things that happened during the afternoon though. The kids got really attached to several of our team members, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the people (and especially the fellas) on our team take the time to play with the kids. Also, when I asked questions about the skit for the day, the kids did a surprisingly good job at making the connections between what the "actors" had done and what they should have done instead to be compassionate.

The end of club was pretty chaotic....and I think my introvert side came out and that put me over the edge into the dumps. I just had to get alone for a while and realize that my expectations were not very fair to the kids, and to work on getting my focus back on God for a while. I guess I had forgotten about how challenging working with kids could be, and only really remembered the good times.... Our team was great at just encouraging me through that though, and reminding me that it was the first day and that day two would probably be better!

The church ladies provided us with dinner, and then we headed out to a field of pitches for sports camp with the teenagers. After my Kids Club experience and after everything I had heard ahead of time about the rudeness and disrespect of the Killyleagh youth, I was pretty apprehensive about how things would go. David Wallace (also known as Wally) circled our team up to pray before we started, and I was just praying that God would really give me/us a love for the kids.

The boys who came all wanted to play their football (our soccer), but there were also some girls hanging out. So several of we team girls kicked a soccer ball around with them for a bit, then we and the Killyleagh girls joined with a few of our team guys in playing Ultimate Frisbee. We had lots of fun at that, and I was abnormally successful (for me) at executing basic throws and catches! We had a "half time" when two of our team members shared a testimony, one to each of the two different groups. Then we played more games.

From everything I heard from my other team members, the boys lived up to their reputation. But I really wasn't around them at all, and so I had a great time with the girls we played with. So for me, Sports Camp was the highlight of the day....and I consider that a blessing from God :) The leaders have basically decided that none of our gals will share their testimony around the teen boys, because it's just not a good setting for that. So I don't know yet how much interaction I'll really have with the teen boys. A praise, though, is that the guy who shared his testimony with them on Monday said he really felt filled with love for them while he was talking to them, even though they were evidently being obvious in their flippancy about the whole thing.

Day 7 - Tuesday, June 4
The second day of Kids Club ran much much better! The kids weren't perfectly behaved, of course, but they understood better how things were going. What's more, about half of the kids had obviously worked hard at Monday's memory verse at home, and they were able to say it with minimal help! Both Jonathan and I were in that day's skit, about kindness. One of our resident trouble maker skit characters took Jonathan's laser glasses during a class, and so the teacher dismissed class so people would help him find them. But I and the other characters except one just ran off instead of helping - as an example of a lack of kindness. Our kids liked having us in the skit, and they were clearly paying attention to it based on what they were able to tell us afterward :)

When I asked them about the skit during our lesson time, I made sure that they recognized that my character's behavior was not good. I made the comment that I hoped that in real life I acted more kindly than that. And one of our little gals jumped in and assured me I was kind. It made my heart happy that she was considerate enough to say that :) Also, our team members were really great about checking with me after Kids Club to see how the second day had gone, after the first rough day.

Tuesday evening we had a game night for the elementary-aged kids. The older elementary kids played football, but the younger kids played other games more like Duck Duck Goose. There was some concern among the parents about their little kids just wandering off from the pitches where we were playing, so I and some of the other team members ended up just kind of standing around the perimeter to keep an eye out for anything unusual. So I didn't get to play with the kids much, which was rather disappointing. But at one point a girl came up to me and started tossing a Frisbee to me, and our little circle just kept growing! So that was fun :)

Whenever we play Frisbee with the kids (which a lot of them are super good at, even though they say they haven't played before) we make a point of calling the person's name before we throw the Frisbee to them, since it helps to learn who's who that way. And my name quickly turned into Easter once again, instead of Esther. That's a nickname that has plagued me off and on over the years....but it was sweet that they wanted to give me a nickname I guess. Here for the first time it became Easter Bunny though, haha :)


So, I know I'm still a couple of days behind....but I had this much written up so decided to get it posted. This weekend will be a good break, before we dive into our second week of ministry. I greatly appreciate all your continued prayers!!!

Ireland Update 2

Day 4 - Saturday, June 1
My experience of the mission trip went from good to amazing yesterday, and God most certainly deserves the credit for that. He is totally awesome and beautifully gracious :) But first, a bit of background. On Friday night, Becci (one of the three JBU professors leading the trip) asked us to think about what we were most excited about and what we were most terrified about looking forward toward our time here. I thought the plan was to share that Saturday evening, though that didn't happen.

As I thought about it, I immediately knew what I'm excited about: doing my best to serve God by loving the people I come in contact here, primarily the young people of Killyleagh. It took me a little longer to think of what I was most frightened of, but I wasn't surprised by the answer. I worried that this trip would go by with me feeling more of an outsider than a member of the team. Naturally, there are introverts and extroverts in the group, and I certainly consider myself to be more on the introvert side of the spectrum, often feeling as though I am not truly part of a conversation simply because I don't know what to contribute. It wasn't at all that the team members were trying to cut anyone out. In fact, the whole team has been fantastic and we have gone on hikes together and folks have been making a point of mixing and mingling. I just have high expectations of what I want to feel truly part of a group I guess.

Saturday morning we packed lunches and drove to a nearby town where a Viking Festival was taking place. We had fun looking at their displays and practicing shooting arrows :) Then we got back in the van to drive back up to Belfast where we needed to take some Child Protection Training in order to work with kids through Youth for Christ. On the way there, I spent time thinking and praying for the team, and it was really great.

As we started the drive back to our cottages, a group of us started talking. It began with the simple question of where our dream place would be to live, and one thing led to another and we ended up talking the whole hour drive back, finding out about parts of one another's spiritual journeys. It was a fantastic experience, and several times during that I was just thanking God so much inside of me because He brought that to pass, and because I so greatly appreciated the chance to get to know my teammates.

After dinner, the whole team worked on preparing craft materials and planning games to play with the kids at Kids Club. We spent quite a while on other things as well. Then, as things wound down, several of us sat around talking again. We ended up sharing with one another until after two in the morning. God gave us the courage to be very vulnerable with one another, and to encourage one another through that. We ended by praying for one another. Even though we didn't get a lot of sleep because of that, it was so totally worth it - and I am so thankful to God and to my friends for being willing to do that together.

Day 5 - Sunday, June 2
Sunday was yet another great blessing. For the first time, our team actually went into Killyleagh, where we will be ministering the next two weeks. We started the morning by joining David Wallace, the YFC worker in Killyleagh, for a weekly time of prayer. He has a great heart for the people of the town.

We split our team of 17 into two groups to go to church at the two churches which partner with us for our ministry here. The group I was in went to the Church of Ireland, which is part of the Anglican tradition. We led a Bible Class (like a Sunday school) for the kids who showed up. We had seven kids, mostly around age 8 or 9. Dr. Balzer, another of the JBU professors, was in charge of our team's time there, and I had volunteered to share a short testimony with the group.

I shared about how for many years--especially in high school--I was a perfectionist focused on trying to earn people's approval, and how I transferred that over to thinking that I had to earn God's love as well. I shared about how God taught me that His Grace meant that I did not need to earn God's approval, and I encouraged the kids to remember that God's love for them is unconditional and that the salvation of Christ is a free gift that we do not need to try to earn.

There wasn't much of a response, but I hadn't really asked them to respond either. Dr. Balzer then talked them through the Bible story about Jesus healing the paralytic lowered through the roof, and most of them responded pretty actively to questions about the story afterward. It's just one of those things where I need to be faithful in sharing what I believe God asks me to, and to pray that He would use that to plant or water the seeds of His truth. After all, the results are up to Him, not to me :)

I loved the Anglican service! Maybe it's just because of where God has me right now, but I really appreciated all of the songs we sang and the Scripture passages which were read. We were also able to share communion with the people there. They use the Book of Common Prayer, and in the communion service for that I really liked how it includes a prayer of contrition and repentance, followed by a prayer of thanksgiving for God's redemption.

Going up to take the elements was an interesting experience. The people kneel in front of the altar, and the leaders presented each person with a small piece of bread, and then with the communal cup to drink from. I don't really know how to explain it - it was just special :) Oh, and I have now tasted alcohol for the first time, since they use wine for communion. Thankfully I found that out ahead, because otherwise I would definitely have been startled by how much it burned going down my throat!

After church, our team split into smaller groups to have lunch with various families who had offered to host us. A couple other students and I went with Father Jerome, the pastor (or whatever the Anglican church calls him) of the church there. He and his wife are actually missionaries from Rwanda to N. Ireland! Their daughter, who just finished the British version of high school, was born and raised in the UK so it was interesting to hear their story :)

After lunch we came back to the cottages and thankfully just had some down time. I really appreciated that time, I certainly needed it! After dinner, we worked more on preparation for Kid's Club and on our cleaning chores at the cottages. Then at tea time (around 9:30, when we have desert) we took the time to share about what Becci had asked us from Friday. Several people were willing to talk about what they looked forward to or feared the most, and it was a great chance to again get to know more people better!

God has given us a special unity as a team. While I am sure the enemy is just stomping his foot in annoyance at that, and while I know he will try his best to destroy that, I have even more confidence in God, and I look forward to watching Him continue His work in and through us :)

Up Next
This afternoon (Monday) will be our first day of Kids Club! It will go from 3:30-5 Ireland time, followed by Sports Camp for the teens from 7-8:30 p.m. So if you think of our team during the next two weeks between 9:30 and 11 in the mornings central time, please pray for our interaction with the younger aged elementary students. And if you think of us between 1 and 2:30 in the afternoon, we'll usually be playing sports with the older kids. Please pray that we would be able to have a lot of fun with the kids, but that we would also be able to share God's love and hope with them!

Also, please continue praying for unity within our team. I firmly believe that the blessings of the last two days have been a direct answer to prayers which have already been given on our behalf, and we certainly need that continued support! God also definitely deserves lots of Thanksgiving and Praise :)