beloved brethren.

where to even begin...

the last few days have been full of people, food, tea, coffee, magazines, pictures, driving, and ever so much more. ever since the team got here, our energy level has multiplied a hundred times over and it seems our activities have too, which is the perfect combination! they are an indescribable joy to have with us. daily, i think of verses such as Philippians 4:1 in which Paul refers to his fellow brethren as "longed for," "beloved," "his joy," and "crown" as our team members encourage, serve, bless, and strengthen us, the community in Youghal, teens in the area, and our hosts. they seek to engage with others without dominating the moment and truly listen and respond to what is said to them. we adore them.

as far as this week, as i mentioned in my last post the team arrived on tuesday (after 3/4 of them went to the wrong houston airport and barely made it to their flight - go ahead and give me a heart attack why don't you?) full of exhaustion (sort of...), hunger, smiles, and that undying energy. they ate some dinner, moved into their rooms, and decided their next move would be to talk us into going on a five mile walk into town and back. talk about fun! we had the greatest time enjoying one another, the scenery, and almost being demolished by more than one vehicle and/or dog.

on wednesday, patrick and chris worked on getting the 4You magazines (www.4you.ie) we'll be distributing throughout the community ready, Haley hung out with some teenage girls we've gotten to know, and Jared, Ashley, Ernie, Nancy and I headed into Cork to do some last minute shopping for camp. we found cowboy hats for both the guys and girls for the western night we'll be putting on at camp, as well as rope for a lasso, and silly string shooting guns for the shoot out. yeehaw. then, ash, jared and i hopped on a bus and rode to a town called bandon where we had dinner at a family named the jeffers' house and met with fellow officers for our camp and planned about 4230 games.

thursday, we had a day at home that we kicked off with a morning devotional led by Ernie, and some beautiful tunes led by Haley and Jared. then, we worked through all our fun games and such for camp and tried to figure out how to lasso with extremely thin rope. really, we were trying to figure out how to lasso at all. apparently we are not very texan (don't tell). that afternoon, the guys worked on more magazines while ashley and i started making pinatas, which has been especially fun for me as i also made them the first summer i came here for mexican night at camp. we told nancy that texas is close enough to mexico for us to do pinatas at our western/texan night again this year - ha. afterwards, nancy and i headed to the grocery store so that we could get stocked up for this week - she, ernie, pat, chris, and haley have all headed off to the first week of camp so ash, jared, and i are fending for ourselves. we're quite sad that we'll be apart for 2 weeks from the other half of our team (we'll leave sunday the 28th for our week), but we absolutely can't wait to see what God does in these two weeks. on thursday night, we headed out to the farm where camp is held and started cleaning up and getting everything ready. it was so fun for me to watch everyone experience the initial "are you seriously trying to tell me we have camp here?!" thought and then see it slowly transform into "oh, wow, this really could work." while at the clean-up, aaron and emma bateman, two little kids whose grandparents own the farm where we have camp, fell absolutely in love with haley and ashley! so precious. after we cleaned up for a while, we were invited over to the bateman's house for tea, coffee, and biscuits (cookies) and to walk around in their beautiful gardens. it was absolutely lovely. they have three peacocks, by the way.

well, its midnight here and we're off to distribute magazines in the morning so i think i'll call it a night. hopefully tomorrow i'll have a few minutes to at least get caught up as far as what we've been doing each day. cheers!