Hockey Tournament

A few weeks ago, Stephen was able to participate in a hockey tournament with our hockey club. There are normally 11 people on each side, but for this tournament there was only 7, and only 3 at a time could be men. Our team did much better than last year in the tournament as we were a new hockey club and only a few of us had ever played hockey before. This year we only won one game, but the others were either tied or we were only down by one point.

I decided to go a long to watch and give support. It turned out to be a really nice day and was really enjoyable to be outside.

Here are some pictures of Stephen in action.





Here is one action picture of my friend, Tracey, just in case she is reading this. Go Tracey!!!


We have really enjoyed spending time with our hockey team. They are all great people and we will miss them a lot. Hopefully we can find another hockey club to join out in Galway, but I almost don't see how we could be part of a better group.

 
This is just a few of our hockey club members...the ones who played the whole tournament.

Stephen's Sister and the Young Adult Weekend

In April Stephen's sister, Michelle, came to visit with one of her house-mates, Michal. It was a lot of fun to have them over. Michelle was the first of our family to come and visit, so it was extra-special to see her. We had fun showing her around Drogheda and the surrounding areas.



It just so happened that the weekend that they were here the Young Adults from our church were taking a trip down to County Kerry. Kerry is just beautiful. So, Michelle and Michal were able to come along on this trip as well. We did a lot of walking, seeing the sights, visiting a castle, and just spending time together. It was a really nice weekend with everyone. We stayed at a hostel called Dunloe View Hostel. It was very nice. More like a bed and breakfast that you just had to cook your breakfast at (they provided fresh eggs and brown bread every morning). I would highly recommend it.


Ross Castle


Torc Waterfall

Ladies' View

Since Michelle and Michal could only stay a week, the time went by pretty fast, but we are still very thankful that they came and that Michelle could see what our life is kind of like here in Drogheda and meet our friends.

New Apartment!

Stephen and I had been apartment-hunting long distance online for a place we could call home in Galway. It is always kind of hard to just see what a place is like online as some pictures were taken months before, and with some others the pictures are just.... really bad. We saw pictures of a few apartments we liked but everyone that we talked to said they wouldn't hold the place for us as they would be missing out on a months rent. We just started too early, or so we thought.

I had been pretty nervous about finding the right place because it was so hard to tell what places were like online and since we lived so far away from Galway we just couldn't hop on over there at any time to see something new when it came up. I kept on praying about it, but this one morning the worries took over me again. I talked about it with Stephen and we both prayed about it, that God would provide the right place. A few minutes later we got a call back from one landlord, he said if we wanted to see his apartment we needed to come in the next couple days. This was one that we both thought looked very promising. We explained our situation and he said that he actually had another apartment he could show us that wasn't available now, but would be available at the time we needed to move in.

We rushed over to Galway and saw the first apartment we had seen online. It was nice, but really small. Also, the layout seemed a little awkward as the bedrooms were downstairs and the living area upstairs. The landlord went ahead and showed us the other apartment. We loved it. It was bigger than the first one with a much better layout (no stairs... helpful with the coming baby!). He said we could think about it since he wasn't showing it to anyone else. It ended up the first apartment we saw wasn't even an option anymore since someone else saw it and decided to rent it while we were still there, so that made that decision easy.



After thinking and praying about it for a week and also taking another trip out there to see 5 other apartments, we decided that we should go for the second one we saw. What we really like about it is that it is near a small grocery store, has a good energy rating, and has an open living layout. It is also a 10 minute drive from the city center which is nice.

We hope and pray that we will be able to use this space to serve others and that it would be a place where we can also relax and rejuvenate. Also, it is pretty exciting to think that this will be the first "home" for our new little baby.

Past, Present, and FUTURE (3 of 3)

This is the final post in the 3 part series about our ministry in Ireland.

"What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow." -- 1 Corinthians 3:5-7

To be honest, I hesitate to even write this blog. There is something scary about sharing a long term vision with people. What if it doesn't work out? What if things don't go as planned? What will people think if we fail? Or succeed? It is then that I must remind myself of two things the Apostle Paul said. First, in Galatians 1:10 he tells us that what is really important is not the approval of others but instead the approval of God. Our approval doesn't come based on our works but on the precious blood of Jesus Christ shed for us for the forgiveness of sins and a restored relationship with God. We are not here because we want other people to think we are really cool or super spiritual. We are here because we feel called by God to tell others the greatest news of all time and establish churches. Secondly, Paul shows us in Corinthians (quoted above) that the success or failure of the preaching of the Gospel is ultimately not up to us. We plant and/or water but it is God through his Holy Spirit who does the work. We have plans and vision but ultimately the success or failure of this vision is in God's hands. The ideas and dreams that Alisa and I have come up with can (and in my experience, probably will) change. We trust God can and does work in and through our inadequacies. He knows far better than we do about reaching Irish people for Christ and so I trust Him far more than I trust myself. Now with hesitancy I procede. This is our vision for Ireland. 

Personal Goals:
*1-5 years: Plant one growing healthy Church in Galway City

*4-7: have 2nd Church in Galway City growing and healthy

*7-10: Plant 3rd and 4th Church in nearby cities

Kontaktmission Goals:
*Continue to recruit church planters to plant all over the country
*Establish a church planting network
*Be sending Irish church planters all over the world

Our desire is to see churches planted in Galway that will train and send out workers into the city and the rest of Ireland while simultaneously pioneering the way church is done in Ireland. It is our goal to see mature Irish Christians rise up in the church as elders, deacons, church planters and ultimately to see them change an island with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We desire to do as Paul told Timothy, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tm 2:2).

We plan on starting a church planting network that helps train and establish new church workers and new church works. The churches need to be serious about training and equipping people for ministry. We want each church to be a church planting church,  transforming the communities they are a part of, starting new Irish churches, and sending out missionaries to other countries. These  churches must be reproducible.  

We will continue to recruit foreign workers to plant churches but our main focus will be on raising up Irish church planters. We want to see an indigenous church planting movement happen in Ireland. This will only be possible if this movement is Irish. One of our main hurdles will be not starting an “American” church. We plan to partner with our friends at Cross Ireland Ministries and continue our partnership with Drogheda Presbyterian (and other future churches) in order to see this movement happen.

Please pray about this vision, for us, and for the people of Ireland. 

Kontaktmission Day Conference and Retreat

March 23-28th we were in Germany again to attend Kontaktmission's annual day conference and retreat.

The 24th is a huge day conference put on by Kontaktmission every year to inform lots of supporters of what is going on with Kontaktmission.
So far Kontaktmission has 243 missionaries working in 33 different countries (although since France will be added soon it will be 34 countries!). The missionaries are from 27 different nationalities. I am always amazed how we all work together even though we are all so different. God is good.



We had the opportunity to sing a song for everyone there. We chose to sing a song that we do in church quite often. The lyrics are from Psalm 84 with the melody being originally from the song "The Homes of Donegal". You can listen to a recording we made of the song here...




From Monday-Thursday we attended the annual Missionary retreat. There was over 200 people there and we were packed into the retreat center. We listened to a speaker, had different nights of prayer where we could pray for each other. Along with four other of our Kontaktmission co-workers, we had the opportunity to help lead the music for the retreat. It is a lot of fun to lead with the rest of the group as they are all very good musicians and things seem to come together easily without much practice. We sing songs in English and German, so when there is a song in German that I am singing, I try to stay in the background and hope no one is reading my lips (as I do not speak German).



It is always nice to catch up with all of our other "co-workers" who are working in various countries. A lot of my friends are also pregnant at the moment with our due dates just being a month or so apart. It was nice to hear of their experiences so far with the healthcare in their countries (or lack of) and see their baby bumps.