I really really do NOT want to leave Northern Ireland. I got that warm coy feeling. I think I have fallen in love, but I expected that to happen.
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leaving
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TO DID LIST
Okay so the last two days were exciting. Well let us look at our to do lists.
Friday:
1) Go to Tollymore Forest: check
It is a beautiful place and much bigger than I knew to begin with. We spent several hours wandering through it with cynthia.
2) Find Kristyn’s raunch nasty dirty sock in my camera bag: Check
3) Play duck, duck goose at kids club: check
4) play double steal the bacon at kids club: check
5) forget to do a drama at kids club: check
6) End kids club early: check
7) Do 4 dramas at Youth drop in: check
listen to Marley’s testimony at youth: check
9) dress up like a girl and speak with a bad british accent: checkSaturday:
1) Go to Belfast: Check
2) Forget wallet at the Murlough House: Check
3) Bring keys to other van so Kentucky people will be angry and have to come up with other travel arrangements: Check
4) Get punched in the face by Richie:
5) Go to a rope bridge: check
6) walk across with a ladybug umbrella and fall down hurting knee, shin, and pride. (if I had pride I wouldn’t have carried a lady bug umbrella.): check
7) Go to Giant’s Causeway. Walk a lot. See beautiful scenery travel down a small set of stairs. get rained on and receive dirty looks from certain members of my team. cough Christina cough.: Check
Ride bus to safety. Make amends with team member: Check
9) Go to Dunluce Castle and throw rocks in a cave into the ocean.: Check
10) Pick up German Hitchhikers and carry to another city not on our route: Check
11) Pray with them: Check
12)Listen to my team members cough all day: Check
13) Finally see Richie and hand him the keys that I took with me: Check
14) Get punched in the face by Richie:
15) have the best fish and chips in Northern Ireland: CheckSo it looks like we did everything that was on the list. Well except #14 and #4. It was much more exciting than I made out, and Richie ain’t as bad as we make him be. Just don’t let him know I said that.
keep praying for us
In Christ,
Hair -
IT is Thursday already?!
okay so it is thursday at 9:15 am local time and I have finally found a moment to log onto the internet and talk to you guys about our trip thus far. we have had a whirlwind of activity in the past couple of days. we started in the morning and were in public schools for most of the days. We were able to go into classes on Monday and share with the students a drama and explain a little about it. These classes were for 30 minutes and we filled that time very well. We were in Rathfriland High School all of Monday and Tuesday. We ended the School day teaching a DRAMA class. This made me very happy.
I pulled out my case of characters (a suitcase full of hats) and we did some drama techniques. The students loved it. Tuesday we went into more classes and were able to teach several more drama classes. I was right at home. the twists came when we found out that some of the classes that day were hour long blocks. So we had to adjust our approach. Then the added twist was that by the end of the day, in the last class there were the same students as the other classes so we had to really adjust. We ran out of stuff to do so we had to majorly improvise.Wednesday we were in Iveah Primary School. For this one we led an assembly by doing the Chair skit. You might know what that is. Richie, the sarcastic yet lovable guy who is the supervisor of mission teams over here, went with us. He was afraid I was going to rain down fire and brimstone on the kids, but I ended up giving them the love of Christ. We did 3 drama workshops with the kids and told them that Jesus loves them and Jesus likes them. It was a good time. Richie took a lot of pictures of this.
The kids club and the youth drop in got off to a rocky start. We were exhausted and did not have ourselves completely organized. Monday was a bit chaotic and Tuesday was more so. However Tuesday night we were able to sit ourselves down and plan the next day. Wednesday went a whole lot smoother. We were unable to do our chalk drawing at the market thanks to rain and lack of space, but we found a way to incorporate it into the youth program. the youth are drawing it and chalking it on some poster board that was taped together. it should turn out beautiful.
All in all it has been a good week. As usual there are some bumps in the road, but we are managing them. the next two days is nothing but night stuff at Rathfriland 2nd and 3rd Presbyterian. So we got to sleep in this morning and today looks like it is going to be a day of some rest. Keep praying for us. We need it. Pray that we can keep up our strength and energy. pray for the young people who are attending our program. Pray for the right words to be spoken. Pray for the staff of 2nd and 3rd Presbyterian and the Murlough house.
In His name
Hair -
First post from Northern Ireland!
Hey everyone! sorry we haven’t been able to post, been a bit hectic around here and we are just getting used to the long days where we wake up around 3am your time…
the trip here was pretty uneventful, besides just missing British airways going on strike and dealing with a 4 hour layover in London with no hopes of sight seeing. we really didn’t sleep that much on the plane, so by the time we got to bed Saturday night, we had been awake for about 38 hours, with naps here and there. once in Dublin we were picked up at the airport and driven to the Dundrum/Newcastle area where we settled in to the Murlough (merlock…) house. the girls are staying in a room upstairs which acomidates 14 girls, and there are only 3 of us so we have the whole room to ourselves…until the 26th at least when another team will join us. The guys are in the “hut” right outside the house.Saturday night we decided to attend a local coffee bar where there was a musician and aprox. 40 locals there. it is a great ministry and a great first taste of Northern Ireland.
the house is gorgeous, surounded by the mourne mountains and a “lake” that sometimes disappears when high tide is over. I’ve yet to see that.
Sunday morning we wnet to a church service in rathfera (hopefully thats right). this is also where we will be doing kids club and a teen drop in,tonight, from 7:30 to 10pm. the rest of sunday was spent in preperation for Mondays events, which so far have worked out. thismorning we had breakfast and headed out to rothfera high school where we “took over” 5 classes, all of which had different reactions to strange people coming because of Jesus. each class was about half and hour where some of the team participated in a drama for the students, and we had a little “getting to know the Americans” session. Pray that we touched the heart of at least one teen today and that we can continue to do so as we will be in the school tomorrow and in a primary school on Wednesday. We invited the youth to join us tonight for the drop in, and we are all verry excited to see what God has in store for tonight. Pray for line memorization and God to speak through us, and through his word as Kristyn and I teach the children, and Hair teaches the teens. Have a great rest of the day, remember we are 4 hours ahead of the time in America (its almost tea time!) and continue to prey as we leave the murlough house within the next hour.God Bless
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t-11 hours!
it is about 11 hours till we depart from the Philly international airport…
we are getting soo excited!
Last night, Kristyn and I took a 4:42pm train from Hartford, CT to 30th st philly, PA and form there waited until the 9:59 train to Swarthmore school where we were to be picked up at around 10:20pm…we watched the schedule with our train on it get later and later, until finally, when it was 20 min late, it just went away!!! seriously it was no longer available…we grunted a little and called our ride. ultimately we decided to get some MCdonalds and wait for the next train at 10:41…it showed up alright, and we got on it! yayy Swarthmore bound we settled in.. Eventually realizing the train was almost 2 times as long as it should have been (40 min) we realized something…the conductor confirmed…we were on the right train alright, in the wrong direction! they were nice and gave us a free ticket back to 30th st. I’m sure that its not the first time it has happened. we got to 30th st at 12:30 and were at Pastor Chucks house by 1am, bed by 2. LONG DAYY…but on the bright side, we can say we have gotten on the wrong train and ended up in the middle of a HUGE abandoned (or at least at midnight) train station where we waited for the right train to come.\No worries, we are extremely safe at PC’s house and we had a really nice breakfast. now we are keeping ourselves up so we can sleep on the plane tonight. Were facebooking, watching tv, practicing skits and putting last min finishing touches on lessons.
we will keep you all updated as frequently as possible! God Bless, keep praying, and don’t take the wrong train
Marley and Kristyn
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okay crunchtime
we have 5 days until we depart. these are the times that most people start freaking out. however I am not most people. I have to deal with a broken something. last year it was a cell phone. this year it is a truck battery terminal. if everything went smoothly on a week then it would not be a mission trip. however lines are getting memorized. books are being read. and we are getting ready for a trip to the emerald isle. keep praying. we need it.
Shalom
Hair -
2010 WAfF to NI
looks like we all like each other
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we are underway
This weekend was the first official meeting of all five members of this year’s team. We had an awesome time planning and strategizing. The dramas were good and the instant chemistry on the team really made me more excited about this trip. We started the morning with a large breakfast that everyone participated in the cooking, the eating, and the cleaning. We also interjected the day with an chalk drawing outreach on the campus of Drexel University in downtown Philly. I can honestly say that we carpe’d that diem and were well exhausted by the end of it. continue to pray for us as we continue to prepare for what God is going to do.
Shalom
Hair (el director)
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Hello world!
Hi everyone! thanks for checking out our blog !
As of now we are in preparation for our Mission Trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland! We plan to keep you all updated in the weeks to come, and especially during the trip (March 19th-29th 2010) Please remember to pray for us and for what God has in store. Pray that God will soften the hearts of those he wants us to reach out to, and pray that we will be an effective team. Pray also that we will always keep God in every aspect of the trip, as it should be.
Again, thanks for all your support! check back soon for further information and awesome stories of what God is doing…I have a feeling there will be many of those!
In His name~ (me)Marley, Hair, Kristyn, Christina, TJ
