We're trying.

Rachael Jones is awesome. Meeting to talk about an Invisible Children screening was the beginning of a fantastic friendship. I know, it sounds so corny. But really. She has become one of my best friends, and I don't know what I would do with out her.

What I do know, is that Covenant's Invisible Children Chapter would not be what it is. Her passion for this cause is mind blowing. She not only cares, she legitimately wants to fix it. If she ruled the world, Joseph Kony would be the first person to be terminated. Followed by people in charge of child slavery and Wal-Mart. Then sex traffickers. Basically what I'm trying to say is that God has blessed her with a heart for these things, and I pray that it will only continue to grow. She will do fantastic things for the Kingdom, and I'm so happy to be her friend and have the pleasure of sharing it with her.

Rachael Jones, with her typical thumbs up awesomeness. Next to me, who looks ridiculous.

We want to change the world. We want to stop this war. We're trying.

Rachael, I love and appreciate you so much.

Please?

I am content here.

My heart is there.

Can I please go back?

FOCUS.

This word has become the word I use most often in convincing myself to do my work. Exam week is fast approaching, and I have 4 exams, 4 papers, 500 pages to read, and 10 journals to do, and $500 to help raise for Invisible Children. Yes, I am behind. Yes, it's my fault. Yes, I am TERRIBLE at managing my time. I am stressed beyond words. I already live off of Diet Coke and coffee. I should probably just get an IV.

On the other hand, I have wonderful friends. I have a roommate, whom I dearly love, that is getting married. Which really just means we're hanging out a lot before she peace's out. I have dinner dates, and lunch dates, and coffee dates, and I love each of them. I want to dedicate my time to them, but I have too much stuff to do.

2 more years. 4 more semesters. (or 5, if I study abroad and graduate when everyone else does.) That's it. I need to enjoy it. But I need to make good grades more than I need to enjoy it.

In other words, I need to FOCUS.

Oh, and I love frosted animal cookies. And waking up to snow outside of my window. And Panera with Pvirg. And fair trade coffee with Rachael. Just sayin.

I'm learning.

Zephaniah 3:17

"The LORD your God is with you,

he is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

he will quiet you with his love,

he will rejoice over you with singing."

He loves me.

Thank you, Dr. Ward, for assigning an exegetical paper.

Typical.

I am insanely indecisive. This comes from me not truly knowing what I want, because I live for people. To love them, to care about them, to make them happy. My reasoning behind doing most of what I do is to keep everyone around me happy. I do this constantly. I do this despite knowing that ultimately, my purpose is to please God.

It's gotta stop.

I love this country.

This was supposed to be posted so long ago. Today is 15 November, 2009. I wish I could say it was half past something, but it's really just two in the morning.

I am in love with Ireland. Period.

I love the green.

I love the castles.

I love the music.

I love the people.

The Moore family.

Paul.

Heather and the youth.

These girls.

Dee.

There are so many others. Alice, Anna, Valerie (and many Harpers, for that matter.) Duncan, Mrs. Candler, Catriona and David, The Dowlings, The Sandalls, The Clarks (they're from Atlanta) The Shaws, The Connors, and really the list could go on. These people were incredibly hospitable and loved us for the short time we were there. They will always have a place in my heart.

I love the chocolate.

I love the tea. I love the rain. I love that I would have to re-wash my clothes because they would get rained on AT LEAST four times while hanging out on the line. I love that I had to hang my clothes on the line to begin with. I love that I ate way too many Magnum Ice Cream Bars and watched all but ten episodes of the seven seasons of Gilmore Girls with the fantastic women I lived with. I love the time we spent in the Word and in prayer. I love the growth and change that occurred in me. It was painful and difficult at times, but looking back almost four months later, it was one of the best experiences of my life. I will cherish it forever.

Oh, and I love this video. Some background info: Caleb is one of those people who likes to find what bothers people and do it ALL the time. He found out I HATE for my chin to be touched, and I begged him not to touch it. I told him if he made it the rest of the summer (which was about a month) that he could touch my chin at the end of the summer. Here are the results of his patience. Thanks for videoing, Suz!

Highs and Lows

High #1- I video chatted with my family. It was wonderful to see them.

High #2- I video chatted with good friends.. I miss them.

High #3- We had Bible Study with The Rock committee today. Suzy and I co-led it, teaching about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26. It turned into a great discussion.

Low- My family found out last week that both of my parents have been transferred for work. They move to Ringgold, Georgia (2 hours from Lawrenceville) before I get home. It's awesome that I'll be so close to them (only 30 minutes from Covenant) but hard that we're leaving our church, friends, and the house that we've lived in for almost 15 years.

God has a plan, and knows all of my highs and my lows.

He uses each of them for His glory.

I Prefer Bagpipes, Thanks.

I am nineteen years old, and have not seen Braveheart. Well, had not seen Braveheart. Until a couple of Saturdays ago. It's an excellent movie.

The next day, we went to church, then headed to County Wicklow. Braveheart is about Scotland, and was filmed mostly in Scotland. Except the parts that were filmed in Ireland. Those parts were filmed in Wicklow.

We visited Glendalough, a beautiful national park that includes an old graveyard, chapel ruins, and a round tower. Glendalough means "the Glen of the two lakes." It's beautiful.

The wonderful Dee Brennan took us on the fantastic tour of Wicklow. While we were exploring the round tower, chapel, and graveyard, she explained the reasoning for the round tower. Apparently, back when Ireland was being attacked, villages built round towers as an escape from their enemies. When someone from the village saw that attackers were coming, the entire village climbed into the tower. The door to the tower was built twelve feet (or higher) off the ground so that the attackers couldn't get to them.

On the way home, we took the Braveheart Drive through beautiful mountains. As we were driving, Team Ireland voted for country music to be played on Brittany's iPod. This meant I was over-ruled (although I didn't even try to voice my opinion, knowing I would lose) and I listened to bagpipes on my iPod. I love bagpipes anytime, but I've gotta admit that the whole Braveheart thing kind of played into it.

Four Leaf Clovers Do Exist

On Monday, June 15th, Suzanne Parrish and Emily Morris went to Dublin. Hitching a ride with David Moore --who was on his way to a class at the Irish Bible Institute-- we made the two hour journey to Ireland's capital (In case you didn't know, all roads lead to Dublin). Upon arrival, we met up with Alex, MTW's intern at Abbey Church.

We went to lunch at a cute little cafe called Lovin' Spoon. After lunch, we hit up Carroll's, the MASSIVE ridiculous tourist shop, where you can get anything and everything Irish for insane prices.

The Book of Kells consists of an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the Four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. (Thank you Wikipedia.) It lives at Trinity College.

The plan was to see The Book of Kells. When we found out it cost 9 euros (about $14), we opted to look at the pictures of it in the gift shop. We wrapped up our Trinity adventure and headed to Grafton Street, where Once was filmed. I, being an American tourist, asked someone if there was a Sony store somewhere. I secretly hoped to get a picture in front of it, just because I wanted to stand where Glen Hansard stood. Yes, I am ridiculous. Anyway, the Sony store closed a couple of years ago. Bummer. I did get some cool pictures though.

Our afternoon was spent at St. Stephen's Green. I found a four leaf clover. We had a great afternoon of relaxing.

We went and got coffee, then headed to Penny's. I love Penny's. It's like Target, only bigger and cheaper. I got real cute yellow shoes for 6 euros. I'll post a picture of me in them once I have one.

Can't leave without a picture of the Spire.

This concludes our day in Dublin.

Walk Straight

This week was wonderful.

Sunday night- We had a Gilmore Girls night. Dee (who is quoted as saying that she has three lunatics living with her. David Moore's response: That makes four Lunatics in one house. (: ) has all 7 seasons. Heather (the youth director at KPC) and Katie, one of the girls here, came over and we got a few episodes in before bed.

Monday- I slept until 10:45, and then spent some time at the house reading, talking to my parents and responding to emails while everyone else went running. It was an awesome relaxing morning. Monday afternoon we did some shopping in town and had fish and chips for lunch.

Me and Brittany

Capone and Suzy

Caleb

Fish and Chips

Monday night, we went with David Moore and Ande to a Bible study at Cahir Presbyterian Church. The church doesn't have a pastor because it is so small, so more of the pastors in surrounding towns are helping to lead this Bible study. The study was on Psalm 22, and we compared it to Jesus' death on the cross. Very cool passage. Check it out if you have a minute. Cahir Castle is beautiful, and we got some great pictures.

Cahir Castle

Team Ireland

Tuesday- We lead an assembly at The Model School, one of the local schools. We sang "Every Move I Make" and taught the kids the actions (NOT motions.) The kids did a skit of the story of Lazarus, and it was awesome. They were all dressed up and everything. Caleb spent some time discussing resurrection, and how both Jesus and Lazarus were resurrected. Then Brittany sang another song. IT was the tenth anniversary of the school being in the building they were in, so the kids got an extra recess after the assembly and we got cake and tea with the teachers. Toddler group at the church was right after the assembly. Then we had a quick lunch break and headed back to the church to do some clean up. I ended up going to Lidl's, a cheap grocery store, with Heather to get food for the sleepover. Brittany and Caleb made some fantastic banana pancakes for dinner.

Oh the sleepover. It's been a while since the last time I stayed up until 5 in the morning. The night was spent talking about God, boys, what God thinks about boys, and more boys. I mean, what else would we talk about? A girl named Chandini moved from Fiji last year and now lives here in Kilkenny. In Fiji, she was trained to be a beautician. She spent her night doing up-do's and THREADING MY EYEBROWS!

My eyebrows being threaded. And everyone watching.

The Sleepover Girls!

Hannah (David's daughter) and Kelly (Hannah's best friend) did an awesome mime type thing to Casting Crowns' song "Does Anybody Hear Her." It was incredibly moving. They did a great job. We watched "Step Up" and then headed to sleep.

Wednesday- Staff Meeting at the church. Lunch. We did Keep Kilkenny Beautiful, where we picked up "rubbish" for a couple of hours. We looked awesome, I'll just be honest.

Wednesday night, Suzy and I made Pizza Casserole for dinner and then chilled at home for the evening.

That's cutting it a little close to the chin, not gonna lie.

Thursday- It was a great morning of just enjoying each other's company and spending time in the Word. Thursday afternoon, we had The Rock Bible Study. It's a time for The Rock Committee to come and spend some time studying God's Word as they prepare to be a witness to the rest of Kilkenny's teens. We had a really good discussion time, and loved hanging out.

Friday- Staff meeting. Door-to-door Evangelism. I was extremely nervous and anxious about it, but Tom (the church's evangelist) kept me with him the whole time. All I had to do was smile and say "Hey" in my American accent. Friday night, we went to The Rock. There were about a hundred teens there. We just hung out and talked. People threw around Caleb's American football, danced, and played a couple of group games.

The walk back is where the title of this blog comes from. Caleb and Brittany were walking in front of Suzy and I (Matt had the night off) and Caleb kept walking crooked, making Brittany walk really close to the street. We started laughing about it, and then I talked about being in 6th grade walking down the hall next to people and I'd always run into them. I said something along the lines of "I could never walk in a straight line. People should have known it was because I couldn't see straight!" They all got a good laugh out of it. It might be one of those you had to be there type of stories. But whatever. Laugh if you want. :)

This morning- Prayer meeting at the church. Then we went with some of the women of the church to have tea and scones at a cute cafe called Food Works. As I sat there with conversations all around me, I thought about the fact that I'M IN IRELAND! Three months ago, the thought of spending my summer here never would have crossed my mind. Three weeks ago, it was still unsure. Ireland was a place I wanted to visit, but I had never imagined being a part of a ministry here. The realization that by being here, by sitting in that cafe with those women was EXACTLY where God wants me to be was amazing. I mean, I know I'm always where He wants me to be. He's God. He can use me anywhere. But realizing that He got me here, that I am in Kilkenny, serving and getting to know these people because God wants me here completely blew my mind. It's a feeling I can't even describe. And I love it.

Sunday Lunch

Sunday afternoon for lunch, we went to the Robert and Colleen Harper's farm. They farm cattle and barley, and make and sell animal feed. We had a fantastic lunch of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and carrots. And pavlova (Some type of fluffy cake something. It was real good.) for dessert. Mr. Harper showed us around the farm, and I got some great pictures.

Me, Caleb, Suzy

The view from their front door.

The path on our walk

After walking around the farm and learning about the Harper's business, Mr. Harper drove us to an old mill with a beautiful stone bridge in a little town nearby. I don't remember the name of the town or the bridge, but I got some great pictures.

Bridge

The Old Mill Wheel

It was a wonderful afternoon, full of good conversation and laughter. It was such a blessing to spend time with the Harper's, and to see their love for God and for people. Their entire family is very missions minded, as Robert works with Ireland's branch of Operation Mobilization. Both he and Colleen are involved in a community youth program here in Kilkenny called The Rock. The Rock was started by a group of Americans a few summers ago as a fun and safe hang out time for teens. It has continued to meet every other Friday, with numbers reaching over one hundred. Please be in prayer for The Rock, as the American team that began The Rock will be coming in in July. We will be involved in it as well, and are really looking forward to it.

Team Ireland Goes to Ireland

On Tuesday, May 26th, our team met for the first time. We are five very different people, brought together to serve the God we each passionately love. Despite the differences, we immediately fell into great conversation and immediate sarcasm. After lots of team building exercises --including me falling flat on my back trying to do some insane tarzan-type thing where we were supposed to swing from rope to rope (each with a tire tied to the bottom) during the low ropes course-- and lots of sessions discussing culture shock and how to prepare us for team "storming", we said goodbye to the friends we had made who are traveling all over the world and left for Ireland.

We traveled from Atlanta to JFK in New York, then from JFK to Dublin. I'm not a fan of flying, but I survived thanks to the awesome touch screen t.v.'s Delta has on their planes and the exit row seats we had. Lots of movies and leg room was perfect for the six hour flight.

We arrived in Dublin at 7:50 a.m. (about 2:50 a.m. in Georgia). Alex (far right in picture) is interning in Dublin for the summer. We said goodbye to her and hopped on a bus which took us through Dublin to Heuston train station. At that point, we were all so ridiculously tired that the obnoxious American stereotype fit us very well. We were all laughing and joking around to keep ourselves awake. By the time we got on our 11:30 a.m. train to Kilkenny, we were ready to crash. It was a beautiful warm sunny day, perfect for admiring the countryside we were traveling through. But nope, I had to keep falling asleep. We made it to Kilkenny at 1:30ish, and were taken to "The Beech." The house that our mentors and the boys are staying at is in a neighborhood called Beech Lawns, hence the name "The Beech."

We managed to fall asleep in about thirty seconds Saturday night, after a wonderful thirty-three hours of being awake. We went to church the next morning, which was fantastic. We introduced ourselves to the congregation (which involved me standing at a microphone on front of an entire congregation, which in my mind is almost as bad as falling flat on my back in front of people I had just met) and worshipped with KPC's congregation.

Our team went to lunch at the Moore's house, then walked around the city. More exploring of the city was done today, in addition to going into multiple sports stores comparing prices of much desired Ireland soccer jerseys. Kilkenny is absolutely beautiful. It's awesome to think that in a couple of weeks, I will know my way around a city in Ireland.

Highs and lows are something that I think will be shared often with our team, and might as well be included on here. High from Saturday to Monday would be being in Kilkenny and worshipping with KPC's congregation. Low, waking up at ten and going to run. Granted I was not forced, I made the conscious choice to go, it was still bad. We ran maybe a mile (MAYBE) and I'm so out of shape I was dying. (It was pretty great that I was running through a city in Ireland, and my destination was Kilkenny Castle.) Hopefully by the end of the summer, that will change.

I've never had a blog before, and don't really know what I want to write on here or how this will go. Or whether anyone will read it. I'm writing it partially for myself, because I know I'll have it to look back at and remember things. Anyway, if you do happen to read it, leave me a comment or something and tell me what you want to hear about. I'll do my best to share good stories.

Grå Beo

The title of this blog comes from a DiscipleNow I participated in this past March. The theme for DiscipleNow was Live Love. Living the love of Christ is something I’ve been learning (and will continue to learn) to do for the past couple of years. It has been put into practice a lot, having come into contact with many different types of people in different settings.

For the summer, I will be living love along with a team of four other students, two mentors, and a really cute baby. I will be grå beo (living love in Irish) in Kilkenny, Ireland. Upon our arrival, we were told we would be doing “anything and everything.” The pastor of Kilkenny Presbyterian Church, David Moore, wants us to have a taste of all types of ministry.

My plan for now is that prayer requests and updates will be sent out over email and through my Facebook group. Those will also be posted on this, in addition to stories and pictures. That is all subject to change. For now, I think we’re looking at internet access about once a week, so we’ll see how it goes. (That will probably mean multiple blogs will be posted at once. Just sayin'.)