The first video is a video of the start of our adventure in Galway with Team Green Light…made by Daniel Durick. He makes amazing videos…more of those to come soon.
The second is a video Stacey, Rachel and I recorded while passing out cd’s one day…we needed a little break from walking so we decided to roll down the hill 🙂 We may have gone a little crazy from walking…
A brief recap of our month in Galway:
Team City Lights arriving at our campground in Galway…we didn’t pack very well for our travel from Dublin to Galway…can you tell?
All set up in our new home for the month
Ready to do some community service, partnering with Discovery Church 🙂
These orange vests made people ask a lot of questions about what we were doing and why… when they realized we were Americans it opened up even more of an opening to talk to people and share with them. This was a unique way of doing ministry in Galway for this very reason…we were serving and people were approaching us. Laura and I worked on this wall (below) for a couple that owned a butcher shop. They said no one had ever offered to anything for them for free. We got to share why were in Galway and just bless them by cleaning up their wall. While scrubbing the wall many people came up and talked to us. It was a really fun first day of ministry, and nice way of getting to know the city better. The owners even gave us some meat for breakfast as a gift:)
A beautiful sunset on our first night
Stacey, Rachel and I passing out worship CD’s door to door…our ministry for the second week. 1% of people in Ireland are Christians.
Team City Lights and Team Green Light passed out 10,000 cd’s that week to a big portion of Galway. It is awesome worship music by a team from Nashville and the worship band from Discovery Church…I know people were blessed by these cd’s and hearts will start questioning their need for the Lord because of the music on these cd’s. Later that week the SundayPM band from Nashville and Discovery Church led a worship conference for churches in Galway. We helped them out and also were able to attend this conference…we were thankful for a great weekend of worship! (in English 🙂
We did a lot of street evangelism in Ireland. We would pair up, pray for God to show us who to approach and then strike up a conversation with them. The way that we did this really challenged me with being bold and dying to myself and what people think of me while sharing Christ with them. God opened some doors for great talks and just befriending people that needed to know they were loved by someone. I really liked to approach this as relationship building and ministering to the needs we saw along with showing them the love of Christ. The Catholic Church has been very wounded in Ireland from past trials that they have gone through, so it really was a challenge to present the gospel and find the words to combat those lies they associate with “religion”. A lot of people are so stuck on the religion and how it hurt them that they don’t understand that it’s really about a relationship with Christ. This brought me to a new level of sharing my faith and it really had to be God speaking through me, as I realized, it should be. 🙂
Free face painting on shop street. A great way for us to talk to so many people and share the love of Jesus through that. And a really fun ministry!
The girls from Team Green Light started giving “Free Hugs” and everyone loved it…it was eye opening to see how many people just need a hug, a smile, and a nice conversation with someone who cares.
Some sweet girls whose faces we painted… so many teenage girls came by that day for hugs, painting and friendship. Depression runs rampant in Ireland, and this just showed us how much people want to know they are cared about. Let’s start looking for opportunities to brighten someone’s day in small ways like this…His love casts out all fear and pain.
My team had a day off and went on a tour bus through the green countryside to visit the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs are 700 feet high and stunningly beautiful! It was probably the most beautiful, and serene day on the race so far. God has always touched my heart with the beauty of His creation masterpieces, I was so excited to be there!
Team Bonding while painting a living room for a couple at Discovery Church…many good times that day team!
I think I found my calling when I get back from the race…room painter! I learned so many great painting techniques that day 🙂
And last but certainly not least: Our teams got split up the last week so we could all have nice, warm homes to stay in and get out of our wet tents for the remainder of the time. So Sami Moore and I got placed together and stayed at Rose’s house with her lovely family for the week! Rose moved to Ireland from Zimbabwe, so we got to experience some authentic food from there and just get to know and love these awesome ladies. At the end of the week we were all so sad to say goodbye and wished we had more time together. Thank you so much and we love you Rose!
Pictured below: Me, Hillary, Sami, Mandi, and Rose. (missing little Hannah:)
Goodbye Ireland, Hello Bucharest!
