First off, sorry it has been so long since I have blogged. Honestly, I am having a hard time putting words to the experience because I am overwhelmed by what God is teaching me. It’s all phenomenal stuff, just need to put it to words next!! So, I at least thought I could post some pictures so you can see who I am working with.
Quick summary of how we got to be where we are at. Well, according to Derek (The pastor of Fisherwick whose picture is below) we came to Fisherwick on happenstance. Happenstance is a Irish term for something in a way that wasn’t originally planned.
Our team found ourselves with out a ministry to work with for the first two weeks in Dublin, Ireland. We prayed and asked the Lord to connect us to the right person. We felt that the Lord was leading us to Belfast, Northern Ireland for ministry but we didn’t know who we were going to work with, where we would stay, or how we would afford it. Well, after posting for help on facebook, a friend of mine connected me to Daniel (funny picture of Daniel below). Daniel graduated from Vanguard University, California, actually knows my brother and Alaina and is now living in Belfast working with a local church. I contacted him, told him our situation and asked if he knew of any ministries he could connect us to. He spoke to Derek and he called me back within an hour telling us that they have a house connected to the church that we could stay in for free (12 of us!) and that they would connect us to ministries! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!! Belfast and free living!!! We were so grateful. It is so expensive here! We were on a bus the next day!
Ashleigh is another person who has been a great help connecting us to ministries here!
This is Fisherwick Presbyterian Church!! They have such a blessing to us. Every day we are blessed with more and more and are just beside ourself with how hospitable and lovely these people are! Yes, this is my HOME for the month!!!!!
This is the inside of the church. I love it here. Yes, they are Presbyterian but they are actually very countercultural to what most Presbyterian churches in Northern Ireland are like. They also have a great blend of age groups in this church as well.
One of our ministries entailed handing out coffee/tea and biscuits (candy bars) and scones to passerby’s and engaging them in conversation about the Lord and anything else they wanted to talk about. We got to enjoy the scones and coffee too!! yay!
We’ve been helping to paint the church house that we live in to get it ready for the next interns.
Friday and Saturday nights we work with the SOS bus from 11pm -4am. It’s a beautiful ministry. Their main goal is to park on the streets by all the clubs and take care of all the people who are drunk, sick, suicidal, etc. The main goal is just to love and take care of them. If they ask us about our faith we were able to verbalize it but otherwise our priority was to show our faith through our actions. It was amazing!
This is another ministry with SOS called Hill Hall. We park the bus in a neighborhood where elderly people live. Most of them don’t ever get visitors. So, we spend hours sitting and having coffee/tea and biscuits and chatting away! It was so fun!
This is Joe – the brains and heart behind the SOS bus. He usually is smiling (unlike this pic) and cracking lots of jokes. He has more energy than anyone I have ever met and so much love for everyone!!
This is some of what I have been up to!!! There is a lot more but at least you get to see a lot of the people that have been a blessing to us while we are here. They feel like family!
Thank you all for your continuous prayers!
