First Week

My first week in Northern Ireland to be perfectly honest has flown by. It’s been busy, but good. I arrived at the Dublin airport at 10:05am, Sunday October 31^st. Stephen (who is one of the board members) and his wife came to pick me up. We than drove the two hours back to their house, right outside of Ballyclare.  All the fall colours were and still are out and mixed with the green of the grass it definitely made for a lovely drive back. We arrived at their house, and just spent the afternoon and evening relaxing, catch up here and there. Elaine who is my new roommate than came over for a bit, and we had dessert, than by this point I was dead exhausted and we headed back to her place which is to be my new home for the next year. I literally just unpacked and crawled into bed. Spending 29 hours awake and the majority of it traveling for some odd reason tends to make a person tired.

The next day Jonny picked me up at around 10 and we headed back to the centre. I must admit, it’s good to be back in Ballyclare. We spent part of the day in the office going over paperwork and what the year would look like for me. We went down to the bank and tired to get an account set up for me. We have an appointment this next Monday, The 8^th of November. Hopefully it won’t take more than a week to get set up. After that we went for a wee drive, and he pointed out some of the landmarks, and a lot of schools that we will be working in during the course of the next year.  We headed back to the centre, and were soon interrupted by a couple of the boys who were wanting to hangout for a bit in the afternoon. (What other job, can you take a break from office work, and play fifi world cup on the x-box and pool while still calling it work.) It was good craic. Later on Jonny dropped me back off at home for a couple hours than came to pick me up for Monday night drop in. A bunch of the regular boys came, but it was a rather small group as the kids were just getting of half term break. It was a fun evening none the less. That would be one 14 hour day done.

Tuesday Jonny picked me up again around noon and we spent the afternoon planning and organizing different activities for drop in all the way up until Christmas break. It’s going to be a fun next couple of weeks. I spent a good 2 hours designing posters on the computer, so the kids would know what was going to be happening. A quick tea break (supper) and Tuesday night drop in begins. A couple of the girls came and I was so happy to see them. It was a good crowd that night with lots of banter. Didn’t get a huge chance to talk one on one with any of them. However, it will take a while for that relationship to be built up.

Wednesday morning Jonny picked me up after Breakfast club, and we headed back to his place to pick up Laura his wife. We than made a quick stop in Belfast to pick up Miriam a co-worker of Laura’s at the drop in centre in Ballysillian and than off to the YFCNI staff retreat we went. The retreat was in Newcastle right by the Irish sea and the Mourne mountains. It was gorgeous, just sayin. We spent from Wednesday morning to Friday afternoon there. It was good to get to know some of the other staff members in the other drop in centres around Northern Ireland. We had several sessions a day where we looked at and discussed the Prayer of Jabez, 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. It was good, challenging and had some good stuff to wrestle over. There was lots of good banter. Not to mention LOTS of good food. Following staff retreat we had to hurry back to Ballyclare as Jonny and I had a Scripture Union session to teach in a primary school back in Ballyclare. For a lot of the schools where we will be doing SU’s your treated much like a celebrate almost by the kids. The fact that they love having us there doesn’t even begin to describe their enthusiasm. The rest of the evening for me was just spent at home vegging after a long but good week. Tonight (Saturday) Jonny and I will be taking a group of our boys to Belfast where they participate in midnight street football. This happens every Saturday night up until Christmas break. Thus the rest of today will just be spent getting stuff done around the house.

Here’s roughly what a normal week will look like for me.  Breakfast club on Monday and Wednesday morning from around 8am to 9am.  Drop in at the centre from around half 7 to 10pm on Monday and Tuesday nights. Afterschool drop in on Wednesday afternoons for about 2 hours. We have Scripture Unions at several different primary schools every few weeks.  After Christmas we will be getting hopefully more involved in some of the high schools helping the p7’s transition into high school. Honestly my week will vary from week to week, this is just a rough idea of what it looks like for the next wee while. It’s hard to describe just everything that I will be doing, I can tell you one thing though, I’m sure to be very busy.

Prayer Requests

That God would give me wisdom in building relationships with the youth, especially with the girls.

That when our new staff member joins Jonny and I at the end of November, we will all get along and gel together as a team.

 That God would open up more opportunities for us to get involved in some of the high schools.

That we would most importantly always remember why were doing what we’re doing and that we would seize opportunities to speak God’s love into these young people’s lives.

Praises

God’s provide in the way of volunteers for drop in and breakfast clubs! We’re not short this year which is amazing!