Egg in your face...

We're coming to an end of our time here in Ireland--not in our actual ministry venture, but the 'fact finding' tour our taxes graciously allowed us.  After being egged from an overpass (traveling at roughly 75mph), our hotmail account hating us, demanding unreal schedules of our two precious girls as we met with so many wonderful people, and being encouraged beyond our own belief, it's gone far too fast.  It's Saturday, and we will leave Galway on Monday, drive to Dublin, and leave Ireland on Tuesday.  Crazy to think that we were only just pondering the possibility of coming on this trip just a month ago.  I remember being hesitant--should we really go with our finances in such flux, what about getting time off of work, will it even be worthwhile?  Sitting on my bed tonight, I have no doubt that this was in God's plan for our lives overall, but especially for the time to come in Ireland.  

Tuesday night we met with the steering committee that is overseeing our operations with Youth For Christ in Galway.  Up until that point, these were just names on an email, faceless entities on the monthly meeting minutes.  To have the opportunity to meet with these people (who are ministers, missionaries, and community members alike) has been amazing.  Even more so to hear their hearts and see the passion in their eyes just confirms to us that we aren't completely crazy.  

"How soon can you come?"

-leaves us desperate to finish fundraising.

-makes our hearts ache

-generates a passionate hunger to pray and see God move

Kevin and I spent the week packing the girls into our Volkswagon Pollo(the smaller version of the Yaris), driving all over Galway and the surrounding suburbs and commuter towns, meeting with nearly all of these couples and individuals on a more personal basis.  If you think that Ireland is a Christian nation, I would love for you to see the desperation, commitment and faith these people have to continually pray for and build up relationships in their communities, knowing that they may never see a 'convert'.  Youth groups especially are small, and many churches have expressed to us that they want growth, they want to work with the other churches and draw in the local Catholic teens, but they just don't know how or they need more neutral ground to do it.  We know we fit into this scheme.  We know that we are going to make lots of mistakes and see a lot of things flop horribly.  We know Jesus has asked if we will go....softly, not demanding, but simply asking...and the love we have in our hearts can't say no.  It means living a life of faith and reliance on God that we have never known--and it is scary for me (Kevin will side on the scary-exciting side though....).

That's all I have (that can be articulated).

-MG