27 May 2009
Whoa, it’s been a really long time since I’ve written a blog (not as long as some people I know, but I won’t mention any names…Kevin). Anyway, I guess it’s been since we went to Rome over a month ago, so here’s a really quick update since then:
The weekend after we went on a retreat to the north coast with the youth from the church. It was a blast! And I even got my own room, which makes it even better. The youth are really great – a lot of fun to be around.
The Crossan family came to visit us for a little over a week – again, a really fun time. It was nice to see people from home and to show them where we’re working, etc. We also did quite a bit of sightseeing. Was really hard to see them go.
The Sunday after they left was youth Sunday, which, despite really kind of rushed planning, went extraordinarily well. I can only attribute that to how wonderful the youth at the church are. They basically each took a bit of the song “You Found Me” by The Fray and talked about the spiritual significance of the song. I was really impressed with what each of the youth talked about and the meaning they got out of the song.
The next week (which was just this past Sunday actually) the church had a formal dedication of the renovated church building. Throughout this year, the congregation had been holding meetings in the church hall while the sanctuary was getting some repairs and upgrades. We moved back into the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, and then more formally celebrated this past week by inviting a bunch of community leaders (including the Lord Mayor of Belfast and some other politicians).
I’ve also been spending a lot of time getting a church cookbook together. It was a lot of work, but also a kind of selfish project since I really wanted to take home a bunch of recipes from here.
Things are pretty much the same at the 174 Trust – I’ve been realizing how much I’ll miss the people there. Kids at the disability clubs keep saying “we’ll really miss you,” and it makes me all teary-eyed each time I hear it because I know they mean it, and I know I will miss them too. We’re getting geared up for summer programs, which will start in July. Two of the people that I work with at the Trust are going through some pretty tough times with the families recently, so if you guys have prayer lists or whatever, their names are Linda and Evelyn.
Let’s see, I think those are the major highlights. We have about two more months here in Belfast. Kevin has been accepted to go back to Eastern University in the fall to get (another) Bachelor’s, but this time in music. So, I have started looking for a job so we can pay tuition (!). I guess it’s probably about time for me to go…got to get started on writing those cover letters…
RSS Feed