I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update, but wireless has been trickier to come by than expected. Well, this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life. I certainly didn't anticipate being this homesick. The realization that I am going to be gone for eleven months didn't truly hit me until the plane touched down in Ireland. My excitement quickly turned into panic, fear, and sadness. It took quite a while to shake those feelings, but after a long week I feel that I am finally myself again.
My team and I are staying in a house with 2 other teams…that means 21 people with two bathrooms and one shower, ha. But we feel blessed to even have a shower because we know that in the near future it will be a luxury!
The time here has been difficult in more ways than one. I made the mistake of coming here with expectations. Expectations of working with the travelers, roaming the Irish hills (that one we have actually been able to do a bit!) and spreading God's love quickly and easily. My expectations were quickly dashed when I arrived. We were told that we will have very little interaction with the traveling community and were asked to hand out tracts instead. The thought of that literally made me cringe. I never wanted to be one of those people. I never wanted to force people into talking about God. My immediate reaction to this news was an awful attitude and defiance. I was determined to do what I wanted the way I wanted to do it. I felt that I was letting people down if I wasn't helping an orphan or building a house for an underprivileged family, but as a very wise person told me (Brett :)), if I can effect one person's life then this is all worth it…and I truly believe that.
It took almost a full week of tears, crankiness, and non-stop discussions to finally realize that I can't do any of this on my own. I can't and won't make any one talk about God, but I can ask. God will do the rest. It's uncomfortable and you feel like a big weirdo, but it's worth it. I can't make this race what I want it to be. God is going to teach me what he wants to..whether I like it or not! My team and I have tried to take the focus off of the tracts and put it on forming relationships and sharing the love of God with anyone we can. Although what we are doing is definitely not what I had in mind, I know God will use us anyway.
My team leader and I were walking around one day during ministry time and stopped to ask a man in the park if he needed prayer. We ended up having a discussion about God and asked if he knew anything of his love. He shared with us that he has had friends who have come out of rehab who seem to have a drastic change in them and it's because of Jesus. He told us that he wanted to know him more because he too had struggled with drugs. We could see in his eyes that he was searching for something, longing for something, missing something. And that something is the love of Christ. Ryan and I were blessed enough to pray with our new friend James as he begins this journey of learning more about God. It was such a joyful experience and it gave me more joy than I can explain. We gave James our email addresses so hopefully we will be hearing from him soon!
Another blessing I have received here is the opportunity to sing again. I used to sing a lot in church, but for some reason I have not for the past 5 years or so. I have been singing my heart out here with my dear friends Bryan, Lo, and Katy. We have been leading worship at the local church and we hope to use our music for outreach in the community. Singing again has truly given me abounding joy. It's been so great to bond with my team in that way too! Today Katy and I started to sing with Bryan while he played guitar on the streets of Dublin. Slowly but surely people came to see what all the noise was about. While we were singing, the rest of our team started to talk to people and answer any questions they had about God. We started to pray for a few of the women around us, then more of them came up and asked for prayer as well. Five women gave their lives to God today (Amie, Courtney, Nikkita, Rachel, and Charlene), and it was such a blessing to be a part of!!
Thank you all for your prayers and support. I can feel it all the way here in Ireland! This is going to be a long, hard year….but it will be filled with joy! Because I am SURE that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. It's so crazy to think that God placed me here so I could have these very specific conversations with very specific people.
