Sorry this post has taken so long! Obviously we made it to Ireland! I know a few emails were sent out to tell everyone that we had arrived safely! I hope the news got passed around to everyone and that no one was worried! We arrived on Saturday the third at around 830 am. So we went to see the National Irish Stud Farm and the Japanese Gardens. The gardens were beautiful and we had NO rain! Miracles do happen in Ireland! The stud farm was very interesting. We saw horses worth 70,000,000 dollars. Jennifer was very happy to be so close to so much money. After our site-seeing for the day we went to the Forrest's home and rested a bit. Jennifer and Eric went to stay at Eamon's house for the week in Carlow. I stayed at the Forrest's.
Sunday we went to the services in both Athy and Naas. William was preaching in place of Pastor Colin. Eric did the prayers for the services and I did the Bible readings. After church we went out to Olive Leahy's house for lunch. Her daughter Sylvia was there with Ben in tow as usual. He is still as shy as ever. He will only talk about tractors and farming. Jennifer tried to talk to him but he kept running away. Sadly we did not get to go to the Peat Bog, first time in years. William had the bright idea to go see the Slieve Bloom mountains. However, he did NOT know where he was going. So Olive, Odhran. Conor, Matthew, Eric, Jennifer, and I rode around with William for about 2 hours looking for mountains in Ireland. BUT we did find them. Yes, there are mountains in Ireland. On the way home we stopped to see some castle ruins. It made the trip worth it to see Matthew climbing around on them and falling off. All in all it was a good day.
Monday We met a man named John who is a street preacher. As we passed out fliers in the streets of Carlow, we helped to have a crowd around John so people would stop and listen. John has an amazing story. He was recently in a horrible car accident. He broke almost every bone in his body, except for his left arm. He was in a coma for 5 weeks and the hospital for 5 more weeks. Many people stopped to listen to him. After helping john and handing out fliers we had the first day with the children, about 30 children showed up. This was a great turn out for the first day. We are doing the Bible lessons on Joseph and the coat of many colors, or the rainbow coat as they say here. Liz Kelso has been helping us with the children's music. We have also done crafts. Monday night we had the adult service in Carlow. William began the week by speaking on creation. It was a very enthralling lesson. Afterwards we had the BBQ, sadly Stephen could not cook out for us this year so Eamon took over for us this year. The burgers were still delicious.
Tuesday and Wednesday went about the same except Eric spoke on Who is God in the night service on Tuesday and Philip Kelso spoke on Who is Jesus. Also we had some northern Irish girls join us on Tuesday afternoon. Their names are Katy, Amy, and Sam. They are a great addition to the team. Sam is playing the guitar for us in children's clubs and such. Wednesday morning we had the morning off so we did a little shopping around Carlow. That was some savage craic. But the weather has gotten worse. It was sunny when we arrived it is now rainy every day.
Before clubs Thursday we took fliers around to many of the estates in Athy. Matthew was sick Thursday morning but had a miraculous recovery and was able to help out in clubs. The clubs had about 50 children, also some rowdy kids came this day. They were not too bad but it caused the other children to become louder. After clubs we went to Eamon's house and had dinner. Then it was to the church where Jennifer spoke on the Holy Spirit and who he is.
Friday we went out and about in the Athy estates again. We have gotten over half of them covered. Hopefully, we will be able to supply the rest with fliers on Monday. When we got to the church in Carlow before clubs we had a nice surprise waiting for us! Alasdair was there. Soon after we had been reunited we went over to the children's clubs. We had about 30 children and things went fairly well for the amount of trouble makers there. It was sad to see some of those kids for the last time! Many of them were so sweet and attentive. After clubs we went to Ruth's, a church member, home and she made us dinner. Then we heard a sermon on Salvation from Jimmy Harper. He included many football (soccer) analogies that the boys enjoyed. Afterwards we had another BBQ to close the weeks lessons. It was a good time of fellowship with the church members.
Saturday we had a nice lie in and went to Killkenny around 1130. We shopped, went to the castle, and visited some of the local churches there. We left there and headed to the ARCH center in Athy around 5. Then we all went home for some much needed rest.
This week has been full of good times and memories. All of the Carlow church members were so gracious to have us to their homes for meals and to accept us into the congregation to teach and do Bible studies. They also came out and helped us in the children's clubs many days because they knew how short handed we were. Also the Forrests have been great! Odhran, Naomi, and Matthew have helped all week in the clubs and Conor was able to join us for the night services. Please pray for the team as we head into the next week and have to make a few changes. Also pray that things continue to run as smoothly as they have this week. Everything went as planned, we had no surprises. Praise God!
Keep us in Your prayers,
Jenni
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