now, where were we?
friday, i do believe. this was quite a fun day. in the morning, mervyn scott, who is an irish missionary here in youghal, brought over his 13 year old daughter, bethany, and some of her friends to help us put stickers on magazines and stuff them with letters so that people know they are coming from the youghal baptist community. the girls also helped us make pinatas! we had a wonderful time working together, learning about their school system (which is incredibly different and much more difficult than ours all things considered), trying to mimic one another's accents, and singing together as haley oftentimes serenaded us at our request. it was a lovely morning and afternoon, and as the teens left we all headed out to a pre-camp barbecue. it was technically a night for the officers (counselors) of the senior camp (15-18) which is going on this week, but since our summer team had just arrived, john o'sullivan (everyone calls him "johno" - he's the senior camp leader/host of the bbq) let us all come and enjoy. it was an especially enjoyable night for me as i got to see old friends from my first summer here, including precious emma sly who was in my small group at camp and has just finished her first year of university at trinity in dublin. such a joy. late friday night was lovely as well as we all arrived home and the team decided they were going to gather up blankets, give me a beanie, make some tea, and coax jared and i into sitting outside, playing guitar, chatting, and looking for stars. it didn't take much coaxing and we had a splendid time. they bring so much life to our experience here....they become our "joy and crown" more and more each day.
on saturday, we headed out to the farm where camp is hosted to finish cleaning and setting up for camp. the guys engaged in "manual labour" (spelled the european way quite intentionally) as they hammered tent stakes into the ground, while us ladies washed down chairs and headed out to the "toilets" and scrubbed...and scrubbed...and scrubbed. lovely. around lunch time, the boys headed out to see transformers with two of mervyn's sons and one of the teens, ilyas, who stayed with us over the weekend because he lives rather far from camp, while ashley, haley, ernie, nancy and i headed back to the house where we warmed up hamburgers and settled in for a lovely afternoon of watching bride wars which was much cuter and funnier than i expected! we also watched walk the line, did some laundry, and listened to the guys gush away about the movie when they returned home. johno and ilyas stayed the night and the senior camp folks got packed up and ready for camp while jared and i skyped with his family!
sunday, we headed to church where ernie preached on philippians 3 and 4. the team was introduced to the church and it was lovely to show them another part of what we've been involved in so far and who they are parterning with in ministry while they're here for these 4 weeks. we said good-bye to our senior camp half and then ashley, jared and i headed to the scotts for lunch with their family and the lewis'. we chatted away there for the afternoon and then headed to the radio station (mervyn has a weekly show) where jared and i sang live on the radio. holy cow. we were going to play a recording of "in Christ alone" and then someone suggested we sing it so we played through it twice and on we went. i don't think anyone will be contacting us for a record deal anytime soon but it was very fun, spur of the moment, and a blessing to talk about and sing a song that was dear enough to us to be played at our wedding. ashley then recorded a show to be played this sunday while mervyn is speaking at our intermediate camp (12-15) and did such a wonderful job, so many will be blessed by her joy and sincerity. last night, we came home (which felt incredibly empty with only the three of us) and made breakfast for dinner :). jared and i then got to skype with my dad and sister, hooray!
and, finally, today! mervyn picked the three of us up this morning and we headed into youghal where we "put magazines through the doors" (they have slits in their doors here, not mailboxes). i've told a few people in recent days that its been interesting for me to see how different strategies of ministry are beneficial in different places. in america, i wouldn't be very optimistic about putting literature in people's mailboxes because we are so inundated with "christian" information, especially in texas. however, here, folks are rarely encouraged to read the word of God on their own because of the corruption of the Roman Catholic church in ireland. the magazine encourages them to do just that - seek out the word of God on their own, not relying on a priest or middle man to tell them God's plan for their life but to understand who He is by reading His Word! please pray that the magazines will be effective and that we will be joyful as we walk up, down, and all over town to hand them out. we headed home in the afternoon to continue making pinatas and stuffing the magazines with letters. ashley and i have permanently dyed red hands thanks to the pinata crepe paper which is a bit unfortunate, but other than that it was a delightful afternoon and all the magazines are ready to go!
well, my goodness, i've finished. congratulations if you have read this all the way through. my hope is to write these logs as such, but to also write posts as commentary on things i'm feeling, thinking, experiencing, etc. i want to keep track of our trip but i also love to focus on writing, language, thought, etc, and it can be a tad hard to do that when attempting to recount our day to day experiences. we'll just have to see what happens :).
enjoy a few pictures!
haley and little aaron bateman who fell in love with her at camp clean up on thursday night!
ashley and i working on the infamous pinatas for western/texan/we're practically mexican night.
the guys holed up in their magazine, red shirted, star wars filled world.
