I bet you’re all wondering what my daily life is like here in Northern Ireland. You might’ve seen my pretty pictures of one of the Natural Wonders of the World and thought “isn’t she supposed to be working with orphans and living in the slums?”, you might have heard that I was off galavanting to a castle in the countryside with the sea crashing against the enormous cliffs, you probably saw a picture of me eating at a really nice restaurant. I’m going to drop some truth before I get into my daily life, I am struggling with enjoying the blessings of this month. God is straight up blessing my team and the two other teams that are here as well (20 of us). We are blessed with SEVEN showers, 5 or so bathrooms, a worship room, dvd players, mattresses, the blessing to have tea parties hosted by our contacts a couple times a day, to sort through vintage clothing and decide if it’s going to be sold at a store shop, going to lectures on healing on the streets, promoting events for the church and video editing. I wake up every morning so far and wonder “is this real life?”. I wonder, aren’t I supposed to be living below poverty level, aren’t I supposed to be getting lice, aren’t I supposed to be suffering? The easy answer to that is no. No, I am not supposed to be suffering. Suffering is not of the Lord. I need to start receiving these blessings. God is blessing all 20 of us this month, in ways that I can’t even describe, and I haven’t even been here for a full week yet.
So a typical day so far would look like this
I wake up usually around 7:30, earlier if I want to shower. I look at the couch next to me that has all my belongings and decide what I’m going to wear. I saunter downstairs into the kitchen and see if the cooking has started (if I’m on breakfast prep that day I’d be in there). I go and shower and get ready.
I go to the gym where we eat and sit and eat my breakfast. In that time is when I hear the schedule and what and where we are going.
Around 9am we typically all leave and head to one of either two places, the church facility where some people will be sorting through the endless amount of clothes that need to be sorted for the thrift store, or I go to the actual store and do whatever they need me to do, which is likely to be washing dishes for the many tea parties they throw randomly for us or customers.
Around 1pm we all head back to the scout hall where we are staying.
Someone starts cooking and usually we all scatter to recharge our electronics, have some quiet time, or sleep.
Between 2 and 3pm we usually start back up with either promoting a Trunk Sale we are hosting in 2 weeks which is where people from the town will all come together and have a giant garage sale type thing to raise money for the compassion ministries, or we have someone come to our hall and teach us on healing, history of Ireland, or we have some sort of team activity.
Around 5 or 6pm we have dinner. After dinner we usually have an hour of down time where again we sleep, write blogs, go into town to get wifi or grab things we need.
At usually 7pm ish we all head to our worship room and worship or we do feedback (a healthy way of communicating with our teams of where we are at emotionally and spiritually and to reflect on the day we just had). Shout out to the ladies I was in life group at Riv with, feedback would be like having our lifegroup Thursday’s only every single evening.
Later in the evenings we sometimes have it off but for the most part we stay up really late having team discussions or worship or sometimes we watch movies.
I eventually fall asleep around midnight, after I’m done giggeling and acting like I’m away at sleepaway camp with my World Race bestfriend, Payton Runnels.
Living with 20 other people and never having alone time is just as hectic as you would imagine but it’s a blessed hectic. It’s a constant stream of talking about God, running around our enormous hall talking about healings, playing little harmless pranks on each other or making endless video blogs.
It all sounds neat and organized and “easy”. I fee like 2 months have already gone by when really it’s just been 6 days. But this is anyting but easy. This is hard. This is going through processing and living with 20 other people this month.
We had 1 free day where the team I’m on jam packed all the local attractions in.
Sometimes I go into town and get morning coffee, sometimes I get up and go for a run, sometimes I freak out and miss my dog. But most of the time I’m in awe that this is my life and this is actually happening.
It’s amazing how much your life changes when you’re just concentrating on God and make Him the focal point in everything you do.
It is hard to get decent wifi for long enough to add high def. pics and video or to send e-mails regularly so please bear with me friends, family, and supporters! Thinking of you all back home, lots! Feel free to send me an e-mail, it is easy to sync them when I get a hotspot walking around town!
Blessings
Enjoy a video tour of Payton & I working at the thrift store!
