Back to life as we know it...almost...

Ok, so as many of you few faithful readers out that may have noticed, we have not been doing as good recently with posting often. As you may imagine, things have been pretty crazy and busy around here lately, and there has been a lot going on, so I will try to give you a quick run-down of the highlights to get us all caught up:

As John explained earlier, for the past month, the UCF team has been here in Northern Ireland in a few different spots. The past two weeks had them here in Dunclug, where we live and we were with them all day, each day. Though occasionally overwhelming to have 15 people in the house at any spare moment, it was mostly refreshing and good to see friends and have that kind of fellowship for that length of time. All of us here were very encouraged by how great the team worked together and how they were able to really invest in the kids and people here, which we can now follow up on.

Those two weeks with the team consisted of splitting up into multiple wee bible club groups for the afternoon in and around the estates of Dunclug. Then, in the evenings, we would do a variety of things in the estate, including prayer walking, visiting homes, playing football, walking around and meeting kids, and anything else that the Spirit may have led to do. All of this was great for us, because we were able to not only loosely "head up" or help out when needed, but also to keep an eye out for who all were coming out, so that we can now follow up on these relationships.

This is much of what we have been doing since the team left on Sunday, though this week has also served as a slight recovery time for us. One of the girls on the UCF Team stayed a few days extra and so we went to Dublin with her for a few days, and have been back here since. We have been able to spend a good amount of time this week with the kids here in Dunclug already, and we also went to Ballykeel today and had a great time with many of the kids who were happy to see us. I personally was encouraged today because I was able to spend plenty of quality time with many of the older kids, as well as the younger ones, growing many different types and levels of friendships. I know the day was good for John, too, because at two points, I overheard his conversation with an approximately 13 year old girl. The first time I heard John say, "Well, the reason that there are bad things in the world is because God has subjected his creation to futility..." Haha, the second was something like "...so if God doesn't pre-exist all matter, from what source are we?" I laughed at how funny John is, and I hope you are too. Oh yeah, and John and I bought a bike off some kids today for 13 pounds, and though it doesnt have any brakes at all and half the rusted gears don't work, we feel that we made a good buy. In fact, while the others took a taxi back to Dunclug, I rode our "new" (in the loosest terms) bike back and a walk of normally 30-45 minutes took about 15, so I am already pleased.


On Saturday, John leaves for Scotland to go meet his family for our end-of-summer week off. On Sunday, Elizabeth, Erin, and I will all fly to Italy, where we will spend our much-needed week off. This time will be great for us relax and recover after a go-go-go summer pace and get ready for an entirely new schedule for the fall, with the start of school. We will meet with the Hope Team after this break and discuss more what that will look like as we begin to do assemblies at several schools a week and have much less free time with the kids in the estate than we did during the summer days.

Well, this is too long, as usual, but I am banking on the fact that you people reading this are reading because you love us and are dying to know what is going on in our lives and how you can pray for us...in which case, this would be a pleasing post. Please pray for us on holidays, that we will have safety and a refreshing time. Pray that when we return, we will be ready to get back into following up on these relationships and excited about the Lord's work here, though it often occurs little by little.

If we don't blog again before Sunday, we will talk you all in a week! Love you all and miss you tons! Feel free to leave comments expressing your love for us!