Once again, I'm so sorry I've yet to post a blog! It's been tough finding the time to devote to getting online for at least a half hour to get one posted, especially when you're trying to squeeze in a few Skype calls home!
So anyways, the World Race has officially begun for me here in the beautiful town of Greystones, Ireland. Six out of 7 days of the week are "soft" days. This means that the weather is a little cold and it rains on and off the entire day. And to add to that, the sun doesn't even begin setting until around 10:00 pm. It turns out that we're at the same latitude as Juno, Alaska. Crazy, right? I can't even begin to tell you how thankful I am for packing a good rain jacket and two pairs of jeans.
But please, don't take me lightly when I say that God has blessed us with a beautiful location for our first month. We're out here on the east coast of Ireland just about an hour drive from Dublin. The beach is only about a 10 or 15 minute walk from the house that we're staying in and as if that wasn't good enough, theres perfect field smack in the middle of the neighborhood for ultimate frisbee. Don't laugh. That field has turned into a minstry of its own! I'll get to that later.
So anyways, this month we've been paired with two other teams, giving us a grand total of 21 racers in a big house with lots of sleeping space, but unfortunately only one shower. I was giving the boys a hard time for having only showered once or twice since getting here, but I've already skipped a few shower days myself… so I guess we're just trying to prep for Africa, that's all =) But seriously, we are being taken care of SO WELL. We're eating 3 full meals a day, washing our clothes every other 3 days, and we're having some serious growth in learning to live in community with one another.
As far as our ministry is concerned, thats a little tricky to explain. I know I mentioned on facebook that we'd be working with the gypsy (or travelers) community, but that honestly hasn't been our main focus for the month. So lets just say a few people might have gotten a few too many expectations and a lot of them were pretty far off. It's funny how God tends to do that sometimes. We get tons and tons of training about how everything that you least expect is going to happen on the race… and then it happens within 3 days of getting here.
So now, to clarify what it is exactly that I've been doing so far, we've been asked by our ministry host to hand out magazines and tracks while we're here. For those of you who don't know what a track is (because I sure didn't, at first), its those little pamphlets that people hand out that summarize the Gospel. Sometimes they're nice little references, other times they may be a little more "Turn or Burn". Ultimately, a lot of us weren't sure how to react. Many of us have had really bad expeiences with these. Others, not so bad. We've met several times with our ministry leader and his friends and we've all reached a pretty awesome compromise. Some days we'll focus on handing out tracks and forming relationships with some of the locals, and other times we're allowed to be a little more creative, such as having a neighborhood barbecue for the local community. And one or two days a week, we'll go out into the travelers communitites to share the Gospel with them as well. So, I'm really excited about what the last 2 weeks holds for this month! God is constantly showing us that he can use anything to glorify Him, even a little pamphlet!
So what are some awesome stories from my first week and a half, you ask?
Cool Story #1
Let's go back to that awesome field I mention earlier. We'll call it the field of dreams. Just a couple of days ago, six of us decided we wanted to test out the field with some ultimate frisbee. Just about 20 minutes into playing, three little 7 year old boys walked up with a soccer ball. Then eventually 3 boys turned into about 15 boys who were all walking up to hang out with these crazy Americans who are no good at soccer. But it was a blast! Let's just say that over the past 5 or 6 times that we've gone out to play, we've probably met every kid under 15 years old in the neighborhood. When they see us walk up, they shout, "It's the Americans!!!!". Then all of a sudden the kids start pouring in from every direction to play with us!" I can't even begin to tell you about the awesome work that God is doing with this field and these kids!
Cool Story #2
We've had some incredible awesome conversation with people while we;ve been door knocking in the local community. to name a few, thers Anaisa, one of the first ladies to truly open up to us and allow us to pray for her and the family that she's had to leave behind in Mexico, including her sick grandmother. Then there's Robert and his kids, who welcomed us immediately into their house for prayer. Turns out that Rober's wife, Susan, had passed away only a week ago. Something heartbreaking turned into an hour of conversation with his family in the living room and you could just feel God's presence with us during that time.Then there's aaallll the kdis that e've come to love in this area! They're so freaking awesome.
Cool Story #3
I'm actually sitting in an internet cafe in Dublin right now writing this blog up. About 1 hour ago, we just finished speaking to about 10 people in a local apartment complex. It's a little on the rough side of town, but God worked through us and into the hearts of 5 women whose hearts were softened. Every single one of them started off saying that "God doesn't exist" "Jesus never lived" "Only crazies actually believe in that stuff". These statements began to turn into questions like "Can you prove it?" "What makes you so sure that He's real?" "Have you always believed in God?". After about an hour of answering questions and praying with them, they began to say "I want to know about this God" "How can I be a Christian?" "Would he really accept me??" AAHHHH….. It was AWESOME!! They wanted to KNOW GOD. We were pumped. We have their contact information, so we'll definitely be keeping in touch with them! And we'll also be sending them bibles in the mail very soon. Its incredible.
Cool Story #4
I was able to share the story of how God transformed my life with some of my squad as well as some of the travelers in the area and I was able to be completely vulnerable and open with them. I could NOT have done that without God. No way.
Cool Story #5
We got to go see one fo that tallest waterfalls in Ireland. Unfortunately, it was too cold, rainy, rocky, and flat out dangerous to go cliff jumping off of it. You got lucky this time, Mom.
I just wish there was some way to descrive every little detail of what we've experienced, but this blog would go on forever! (It's already waaaaaaay too long as it is). If at all possible, I'll try to blog again with the next week or so!
Everyone from home who is reading this, I love and miss all of you soooo stinking much!
For those of you who I've never met, or only just met and was able to share my blog with, I hope you're inspired by some of these experiences!
Please continue lifting up prayers for this trip and finances! God bless yall =)
