Irish Days...

Winter school ended a week and a half ago. It was hard to say goodbye to not only my friends, but everything that Winter school was. I expect to see a lot of those people who I am close to again, but I will never be in the same place with all those same people again and that’s a hard reality to grasp.

At our banquet, L to R: Peggy, Shelby, (me), Amelia and Alysa

On the Loop in the brisk English weather, L to R: Shelby, Peggy, Jacob, Shinseung, Trevor, Alysa, Karina, Amelia, (me)

After winter school ended, I stayed on volunteer staff for a few days before leaving for Ireland. I really only worked one and a half days out of the four that I was there and I also helped with clean after meals on the days off. I really enjoyed myself last weekend. I got to spend some more time with a couple of my close friends and develop deeper friendships with a couple others. We had such a good time. It makes me look forward to going back to do the same in just a couple days.

Making eggs for Sunday breakfast.

Jacob playing with the sheep.

Grant playing with the sheep.

Jun making us delicious Korean noodles!

On Tuesday, I left with my friend Karina (from the Seattle area) to go to Dublin. We were able to stay with a cousin of my friends, who lives in a great location in Dublin city. We were in Dublin for a total of 4 nights. On the day we got here, we met up with one of our friends, Amelia, and her friend (also from the Seattle area) to go to The Temple Bar in the Temple Bar district in the city. The beer drinking stereotype of Ireland is not a joke! That bar was a hoppin’ place...and it was a Tuesday night!

On Wednesday morning, we wandered around the city with a few goals in mind. We ended up in the National Gallery of Ireland, which I enjoyed a lot. We didn’t make it through the whole thing, but I saw paintings by van Gogh, Rembrandt, Picasso and Michelangelo. There was a whole room dedicated to the story of Jesus’ birth, as well as one dedicated to his death and resurrection. It was so interesting to look at the different ways that artists portrayed Jesus and the other people who were present. We also did a lot of window shopping that day and simply enjoyed walking the streets of Dublin...in the snow (we preferred it to rain)! That afternoon we made our way to the Guinness factory...because you can’t go to Dublin without going to the Guinness factory! We learned about the ingredients and process of making beer and the history behind Guinness. Interesting fact: Arthur Guinness signed a contract for their factory building for 9,000 years! I received a certificate for successfully pouring a perfect pint. At the top of the building was a great view of the whole city. After that, we got a bite to eat and headed back to the house. Karina and I have basically been living on white bread and Nutella sandwiches and apples. Blech! Yay for travelling cheap!

On Thursday morning, we woke up really early to catch a coach for a tour to the cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. The four of us did the tour together. It took about two and a half hours to drive from the east coast to the west coast in Galway. Once we got to Galway, our tour officially began. On the way to the cliffs, we made several stops at various places including castles, old churches, Celtic burial grounds, the Burren and a few others. The cliffs were definitely a highlight, though. They currently rank number 4 on the natural wonders of the world. It was absolutely gorgeous. Pictures don’t do it justice by any means (but I’ll post some anyway). In fact as I sit here to think of a way to describe it, it seems impossible. They were the most incredible, lethal, beautiful, and most intricate design of cliffs I’ve ever seen. They had God’s fingerprints all over them. Fun fact: they appear in the movie The Princess Bride as the cliffs of Insanity and the 6^th Harry Potter when Harry and Dumbledore are looking for a horcrux. That tour/day was probably my highlight of the whole trip. Riding back along the coast was gorgeous too. I love the Irish countryside!

Friday we just took the day to relax a little bit. We had seen what we most wanted to so we made French toast and eggs and then hung out at a cafe and got some internet in the morning. In the afternoon we went to a boy’s choir service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral (yes, I went to St. Patrick’s cathedral in Ireland...). The service was great. The choir was beautiful and I really appreciated what the priest has to say about it being Good Friday and how we often respond to it. (Interesting fact: on Good Friday, all of Ireland shuts down the selling of alcohol...not only are bars closed, but they are not allowed to sell it in stores either.) We window shopped our way back to the house and made dinner and had an early night.

This morning we woke up at a quarter to three and got a taxi to the airport at 3:30am! Karina and I are in Paris now. Unfortunately we only have two full days here because we leave early on Tuesday morning. We haven’t done much today because we are so tired and we are not too confident about going into the city because we want to try to be back into the house before it gets dark. So today we got groceries to last us two and a half days and walked to a creperie to enjoy some fresh, genuine crepes! Tomorrow we are off to Hillsong Paris for Easter Sunday and after that...plenty of sightseeing! 

Outreach in Wales!

Well, in just under a week, winter school will end. That may not seem like a big deal, especially considering I’m still not going home for another 3 months. But it is. Winter school and spring school are two completely different schools. At the end of winter school in a week, many of my dear friends will either go home or go to another location for spring school. I can’t honestly say I will see all of them again in this life. That reality hasn’t completely struck me yet, but it results in a tear once in awhile. Some of my friends will stay here, as I am. And I look forward to that. But it will be so strange to be in the same place with some of the same people, but altogether a new school with new students. It will take some adjusting and yet I will only have 8 weeks to adjust to it before I go home. I cannot believe how quickly time has passed since we returned from Christmas break.

On another note, our 10 day outreach is now over. I can’t remember how much I wrote about it before we left, but I was one of the leaders on a team of 6 going to Wales, near Cardiff. It was absolutely brilliant. I can honestly say I had the best team I could have asked for. We were told before we left that we are the best team that they’ve had (and they’ve been having teams for 15 years!). I am so proud of my team for their willingness and enthusiasm this week.  Also, I so much enjoyed the church that we were serving alongside. It reminded me of Harvest a bit and I think it was because of that I ended up feeling so comfortable there with the people and the area we were in. We did a range of things including an assembly in a school, standing on street corners stopping people with questionnaires concerning the church and their community, sharing at a coffee morning for older women, making and serving food for a lunch, and teaching lessons on Friday nights and Sunday mornings for an age range of 3 up to teens. It is clear that God is working through those people in their community and it was an incredible privilege to be a part of that.

I think I would have to say that my favourite structured activity was something called Easter Cracked, which is a program created by our church contact person and his colleague. It was designed to be something carried out in the church and kids in certain years (grades) in school would take a field trip to the church to participate in it. It’s great because the law here has certain religious requirements that need to be filled and the program not only fills those requirements, but beautifully explains the gospel and shares the story of Easter. The kids were split up into 6 groups and each group would travel to a station and have 7 minutes there and move on. Each of us on the team did a different station. I presented the crucifixion bit 24 times in 2 days. It’s such a great program and we all really enjoyed participating in it.

I also just thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with people during various times. I had a good time socialising with people during what they call “Late Shift” (upper high school and college age), with the families who would feed us tea in the evenings and with my host family. I know that I will miss the people and the fellowship there a lot. I do hope to make a trip down there during spring school at some point, but I’m also trying not to get my hopes up too much. I loved that it felt more like living normally and serving alongside people than it being some big thing that needed to be accomplished during my time here at Bible school.

Keep an eye out for a video that I made to explain it better! It was for our school presentation and I wish I could have made it longer, but I couldn’t. I can’t post it now, due to the lack of internet...but I will soon!