Ello Ducky!!
I can’t even fully express how much I love Ireland. It is the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my life. In this blog I am going to tell you all about Ireland or at least what I have gathered so far!
What’s Ireland look like? Everywhere you go things are made with stone walls, there are huge green fields of the greenest grass you will ever see in your life and flowers everywhere, mountains everywhere, the bluest skies, the most exquisite flowers, cutest fences everywhere, and little coffee shops everywhere!
What are the people like? The people here are wonderful. They are super sweet and I love it because wherever I go here they call me, love, lad, mate, or ducky! It’s pretty much amazing and I am totally picking up the words they use here and going to try to bring them back to the states!
Does it rain a lot in Ireland? YES YES YES…you may want to bring some rainboots if you come to Ireland! I didn’t bring any (haha of course, what world racer has room for rain boots?!) so I borrow them from one of the foster kids that I live with here!
What does ministry look like here? We are doing so many amazing things here that I absolutely LOVE!! Week one I worked in Bray, Ireland and my team lived alone in a house owned by the church and we worked with helping a ministry that is a place where addicts go to recover. They can go to this Christian recovery house for over a year for no charge at all. The way they do this is by selling used donated furniture and also doing landscaping (they call it gardening here) for people to make money. So the men at the Betel (they have one in New York too and all over the world) do all these jobs and then they also rely on volunteers to help out. We vacuumed couches to sell, put flyers all over town letting people know to donate furniture and to buy it, ate our meals with the men there and got an amazing chance to pour into them the love of the Lord and share our testimonies and stories with them. We painted the church house we were living at too!
Now for the next 3 weeks I will live in Graystone, Ireland with our ministry contacts Cathy and Jim. There are a total of 3 teams (20 people from my squad here) working with the same church and contacts. Jim and Cathy did not have room in there house for all 20 people so we rotate one team in Bray and the other two here and switch every week. Now with Cathy and Jim we do lots of evangelism to the Travelers! What are the travelers you ask? Well they are these amazing people that are very rejected here in Ireland. As in they do not even go into town because people really do not like them here. They are the people that are seen as the ones who steal things and have no education. They do not even go to regular school but traveler school. They are the people that were first living in Ireland and up until very recently didn’t live in houses but in RV’s and in tents on the side of the road. They are the poorest people here in Ireland. We bring them bread and pastries that are donated to this ministry and we spend time getting to know them! I love them! We met two teenage boys today (boys of a family Cathy is close to) and got to share with them and planned a soccer game for this Sunday with the 20 of us and all their friends!
We are also doing just about EVERY odd job you could think of around here to keep the place running! Even cooking for the 20 that are living here is a huge ministry in itself! I have never in my life seen so much food and how long it takes to prepare that much food for so many! See along with so many things Cathy and Jim do a huge part of their ministry is they are foster parents to many many children! So our team also helps with taking care of the foster children and doing their homework with them etc!
Who are Cathy and Jim? I guess I didn’t realize when I came on the world race how much I would be ministered and poured into by older Christians around the world. Wow there are hardly words to describe Cathy and Jim. I barely went into details of everything we get the opportunity to help them with here because they do SO much! I mean I am talking these people NEVER ever stop! They live their lives every minute of every day for the Lord and serve him in every way you could ever imagine. I have never in my life seen people who serve the way they do. And WOW they not only pour into the people of Ireland but they seriously pour into us each and every day huge things! I feel like I always need a pen and paper around them to write down everything they say J
What are funny things about Ireland? The mailboxes here…well there are none! They have mail slots on their doors and they SUPER annoying bristles in the ways so all the flyers would get so messed up trying to push them through! The doorknobs are in the middle of the doors. Lots and lots of hedges and flowers everywhere. And the words they use here!! If you would like to speak a little like the Irish here you go!
Brusca-bruscar=trash can
You look massive=you look awesome
Meeting=kissing
Que=line
Half tree=3:30
Spicers=girls with their bangs combed over
Collect the people=go to pick the people up (ex: pick up friends for dinner in your car)
Take away=to go (at McDonalds for ex they say will this be take away?)
Hoovering=vacuuming
Wheely bin=big trash can
Rapid=brilliant
Are you ok?=Can I help you?
Dreckley=be there whenever I can be there
Where’s the lou?=Where’s the bathroom?
Gardening=landscaping
Biscuit=cookie
Chips=French fries
Crisps=potato chips
Hey Mate or Ducky=hey guys whats up!?
Pittel=pee
Rubbish=trash
Figeree=obsessive idea
Serious/savage/lethal=awesome
….i will let you know more words as I learn about them!!
So wow I could write so many different things to you right now but that would take up pages and pages and I know everyone does not have that long to read about all my adventures out here! But to sum it up I am really learning how to serve others this month. I am learning what it means to live in a big community of people in one house. What it means to serve the Lord every minute and realize our work needs to completely be done for him and in his name and not to serve man or think you deserve praise for anything you do…because you don’t. I love working with the men in recovery, with the travelers, doing evangelism every single place we go, working with the foster children, and serving here at the house doing tons of different things.
Once again I think of you all always and today I just praised God for each one of you. You are making a huge difference in the lives of so many people by enabling me to come out here and serve and love others. You have also given me the opportunity to grow and learn more then I ever thought possible. I am being stretched in so many ways. This time on the world race has been one of the hardest things I have even done in my life and one of the best. I cant express my gratitude towards all of you who made this mission trip possible for me. I am brought to tears all the time when thinking of all of you! Thank you for blessing me so that I may serve people and work for the Lord for free this year because of you!! I love you all!! God bless you!!
