July 8-19, 2010
 

The Parker Perspective..........

(all pictures are thumbnails, click on an image for a larger version)

Saturday July 10, 2010

We woke up in Northern Ireland!  What an incredible thought!   As is the case with every mission trip, things change, so the schedule we have in the tour book is not necessarily the one we will be following.  We woke up and had breakfast.  Today we heard from John Moxen.   He is teaching us every day.  John has a great story of faith that we all can learn from, and hopefully during these times we will be able to absorb some of that living by faith that followers of Christ need.  After “teaching by John” we broke up into the groups we will be in for our VBS’s.  In those groups we had time to plan and prepare for the week.  After some time of preparation, we went out into the neighborhoods where we will be working and handed out flyers by (legally) depositing them into the mail slots on the front doors of houses.  As we were doing that we were also prayer walking.  I think it rained the entire time we were handing out flyers, so I guess we were “praying in the rain, just praying in the rain”.  We returned to Murlough House for tea (the meal around 5:00).  After tea, we had some free time around Murlough House to walk to the beach, and around on some of the trails.  We also had another session to prepare our VBS material.   After that we had a time of worship, which has become very meaningful to us on these mission trips.  And of course we had a time for students to Skype with folks at home.  Then there is a snack around 10:00 pm that they call supper.  Then shortly after that it was time for bed.

Sunday July 11, 2010                           

We decided to start the day again with the first meal of the day they call breakfast!  Everyone was excited to go to church today because we were going to worship at 3 different churches.  Our group is too large to go to one church so we had to split into 3 groups.  We visited and were well received at a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and a Methodist church.  From all of the conversations I heard it was very evident that all of them loved the Lord, and were concerned with the salvation of those in and around Downpatrick.  We returned from church and started lunch (the second meal of the day).  During lunch we paused to gather in the “Hedgehog room” to Skype with our home congregation at Campbellsville Baptist Church.  Technology is truly amazing and everyone on this side of the pond really enjoyed that short time.  We then returned to finish our lunch and do our chores.  By law in Northern Ireland, everyone working with children has to complete a child safety course.  So we had a very good session with one of John Moxen’s friends.  And again, after a little “free time”, we gathered and Skyped with the 11:00 service.  After another session of preparing for VBS, we were able to travel to another of Project Evangelism’s facilities.  Oasis is a former pub that they have turned into a retreat/hang-out center.  Here we were able to watch the final game of the world cup.  We felt that something this huge, in this culture,  should be experienced by our youth.  This will also give them something to identify with in the coming week with the people here.  After the game we returned to Murlough House and was off to bed!  Here are some random pictures from the last 2 days.  Hope you enjoy them!