What day is it?

Everyone awoke (slowly) after a much needed long night of sleep...our bodies still felt like it was the middle of the night, though. Breakfast in a hostel brings lots of fun opportunities to chat with travelers from all over the globe.

We then took the short ten-minute walk down the famous Grafton Street to hop on the Luas, a modern trolley system in Dublin. We headed out to the ministry center where Crossroads meets for another morsel of orientation, particularly focusing on the spiritual state of Dublin and Ireland in general. We are beginning to wrap our heads around the darkness that fills this city and this nation. We have also been challenged to think critically about how we can and should engage in the mission God has called us to in this world. Students are already thinking about how these lessons translate to life at home.

Renee and Nicky brought us lunch fixings and then we spent significant time planning our kids' club events for next week. Several ladies helped organize the church craft supply stash while the rest of us headed to the Beckers to help with some manual labor projects. These students are servants at heart and jumped at opportunities to encorage the Beckers in this way. A few boys also had the opportunity to do sone yard work for a friend of Rebekahs who is seeing the gospel lived out! She couldn't believe that these young people would be willing to serve "for nothing" which opens doors of opportunity to share about the compelling love of Jesus.

We had a delicious south African version of portugese food for dinner (yep, Dublin is quite the melting pot) and headed back to the Beckers for a bit more down time. We finished the day with the treck back into city center and a short time of debriefing.

Thanks for your continued prayers on our behalf. It is clear that God is working already and these students are desiring to learn and grow. They have also quickly fallen in love with the Becker children (which isn't hard to do)!

Ireland 2011

Here are the bullet points...cause I haven't slept for 30 hours or so...

- We met at Grace Church and had a time of prayer with Grace staff, a few elders and parents of our LEaD students.
- We headed to Newark to begin our long journey...
- We arrived in Dublin right on time this morning around 8:45.
- We headed into the city to drop off our luggage, then to the Crossroads Church ministry center for a time of orientation with Rebekah B.
- We grabbed lunch (or whatever meal it was...) and headed back to the hostel for showers and power naps.
- We met up with the Beckers (minus Scott who will return on Sunday) for dinner.
- After a longgggggg day (or two), we ended up at the hostel for an early night...and hopefully a long night of sleep.

These students are doing a geat job keeping good attitudes in spite of their fatigue. Please pray as we begin some serving and planning for our kids camp next week during the day tomorrow. We will also continue some more orientation.