Keeping busy, Ministry is Pure Class

                Well the first few weeks of being in the Village and complaining about not being very busy, have brought us to this week. We had three youth nights, went and visited two schools and spent hours planning and preparing for each one. Our ministry is different than the road team in the way we don’t put on retreats every day, but we are doing just as much work but in different ways. All of our youth nights so far have been pretty much our idea, meaning we had to come up with all the resources we used and such. Lots of work but so worth seeing the effect it has on the youth and those we encounter.

                This week started nice and early on a beautiful Irish Sunday, we woke up had a nice breakfast, and then headed to Clonmellon. This weekend we were speaking at the masses in Clonmellon about the youth nights we were going to have over the month of November in their town. We had Saturday mass down but still had the two Sunday masses. Before mass Tim, Amy, and Becca downed a cup of tea, while I sat back and smiled, I hate tea. It was a good morning but after we got back we were all feeling pretty tired. That afternoon we were asked to go to a Soccer Awards ceremony in the Village. We were told that a bunch of youth from Clonmellon would be there and it would be a good chance to meet them and get them to come to the youth group. Amy and Marie were not feeling very good or up to the adventure so Tim, Becca, and I went to it. We walked in and it was very awkward, it was at a pub and there was a bunch of parents drinking with a ton of youth and other people we had never met. The person we were supposed to meet was not in sight so we went and stood in the corner for like 10 minutes. After a bit she came over and directed us to the youth she wanted us to meet. We had some good craic after that, and we got excited to start the youth group on Wednesday. To finish off the evening we went to Olive Powers for dinner to watch the Eucharistic Congress final mass, she had recorded it from last year. Since Amy still wasn’t feeling up to it she stayed home and Olive came to pick us up. The evening consisted of watching American T.V. shows, The X-Factor, Friends, America’s Got Talent, Pizza, Pop, and even a glass of wine. We began to watch the Eucharistic Congress the last hour we were there and we fast-forwarded a lot of it. It was really nice to relax and spend time hanging out with Olive, she has become like a grandma to us all.

                The next day was our day off like always and it was very nice to just relax, and catch up on our families and everything back home. Tim and Becca were supposed to be picked up to go to a prayer meeting with some older ladies from the parish but they never came. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day. Tuesday was another early morning but we are slowly getting more used to it. Joe Tynan the Chaplin for Athboy secondary school stopped by our house with Fr. Seamus. He wanted to meet us and talk about setting up a time for us to go to his school. We really enjoyed meeting him and we are looking forward to getting in to his school. To end the day we had a Jam Session with the musical youth of our youth group, that basically means most of them so many are talented. We had a good night and got to get to know Shannon and Zach a lot better, Zach stayed till 10 teaching Amy and Tim Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons. Over all a great night!

                Wednesday was a nice morning with Team Sport, which consisted of walking around town exploring areas we hadn’t gone before. The rest of the day consisted of planning for the Village youth group, and last minute prepping for Clonmellon youth group. We also had guy and girl hang out time, the girls watch Black Hawk Down, and the boys watch the Matrix, Tim had never seen it!!!! After dinner we left for Clonmellon, and set up for our first youth night with them. We really had no idea of who would come or how many would show up, we just prayed for Fr. Garland’s sake someone would, Fr. Garland the priest of Clonmellon was so excited and looking forward to the youth group. Twelve youth showed up and the night was full of craic, as the Irish would say, “It was pure class.” We played the NET version of Jeopardy and they were much better at the song lyric category then the Village youth group. We all left super excited for next week’s youth group.

                Thursday was a good day busy but went very well. We went to a school on Thursday and talked to the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th class about who we are and what NET is. We played games and had a lot of craic, we will be doing some sessions with them like religion classes. Sadly we could only invite the 6^th class to come to our youth group, we felt bad for the other classes having to hear about it even though they couldn’t come.  That evening we had a Youth Night about Genesis and the first three covenants God made with his people. It went ok but was definitely a harder night. But we got to build boats out of foil for the Noah station that was fun. On Friday we were down Amy, she was sick and not feeling up to going to mass or to the school. But the day went on and we really enjoyed going to another school and meet with all the 6^th class kids. The rest of the day was fairly chill preparing for next week and letting Amy rest so she could get better.  Saturday we were supposed to go to Galway but Amy was not feeling good still, so we cancelled and had a nice sleep-in. We spent the day at home hung out and played our new favorite game Bohnanza, which is about bean farming, may sound dumb but we had a lot of craic. Rebecca won the game by two cards, her and Tim tied for points. After the game Becca and I went for a walk to the local diner called Netties for some lunch. Shockingly it was closed down! Netti is an awesome lady and we will really miss getting to eat her food and talk to her at the diner. She is renting the space out to a Roma’s Italian restaurant. For dinner we made homemade pizzas and spent part of the evening looking at each other’s photos. The night ended with an episode of Chuck and craic was had by all.

               

Im still alive!

                Well once again I attempt to write a summary of the last few weeks, our adventures, and those with our Supervisors. We have recently gone to Fore Abby which is an old monastery that was built in the 12 hundreds. We got to take loads of pictures, climb around on the ruins, and had some craic. I have posted pictures on Facebook if you are interested. The week started with going to mass in the Village and then following some quick food we went to Mullingar to pass out Pro-life pamphlets. Raymond, the man who asked us to help him, then treated us to an amazing brunch. Raymond was such an amazing contact to make giving us supplies for youth group and showing interest in helping more in the future!!! After a great meal we headed to Tesco with only 130 euros to spend, which is about 50 bucks less then we normally spend. With God’s providence we made it out with everything we needed!

            Monday was our day off and as a day off goes it was pretty nice except we were all excited and on the edge of our chairs waiting for our supervisors to arrive. Mark and Kristen would be spending the whole week with us in the Village. Mark and Kristen are the supervisors of my team, each team has a guy and a girl supervisor that watches over our team and is there for support if any is needed. That evening after their arrival we had some one on ones, dinner, and biscuits and tea with the parents of the kids in our youth group, which was a lot of fun especially with Mark and all the Moms remembering him. Tuesday was another great day we finished our one on ones, had some lunch then following some delicious left overs, we, the five of us, we sent off to Mullingar to do a Bigger Better scavenger hunt. Intimidating, fun, and little crazy we had a great time ending with two shirts and a Bar apron. We ended the night with some guy and girl time which for the guys consisted of the Greyhound pub, three beers, some champions league soccer, a very annoying dog, and to finish it all of a game of pool. Then after a walk back to the house the girls asked if we the guys wanted to watch some Chuck… which was of course a yes! On my influence I have got my entire team addicted to the show Chuck, which if you haven’t watched it do it!

            Wednesday was our supervisor planned Team Day, which we were all very excited for and it lived up to our expectations. After a sleep in, 9 am, some breakfast, we started carving pumpkins and hanging out having the craic. Then after we finished we headed into Mullingar all seven of us in a five seater car, an adventure let me tell you. We put Mark in the trunk, Marie on the floor and the rest of us squeezed in around her. In Mullingar we played an awesome game of Bowling and hung out in the arcade. We all enjoyed ourselves and the time to hang out with our supervisors and each other. That night we had a very power Supervisor lead Team Prayer, with reflection and our supervisors praying over each one of us. Thursday basically consisted of ministry preparations, and last minute getting ready for our youth group. The youth group went really well and we all learned a lot about the saints and how one person changed the world around them. Our Supervisors told us that we seemed like pros, like we had been doing youth nights for months.

            Friday was sad, our supervisors left. We all didn’t want them to go, and minutes after they left realized how much we missed them. We spent our afternoon shopping hoping to find joy in that; sadly it didn’t really bring us the joy we wanted. But I did find a pure class Wool Coat that was 60% off! To end the great week we did some team stuff on Saturday, team meeting, team sport, and just enjoying the slower day. A man named Matthew stopped by and Marie and I had a very long talk with him about faith, his life experiences, and how he has turned to God. It was an awesome experience to share our time with him and hear his story, we have been praying for him since and hope that he can continue to grow closer to God, and reach his dream of being a counselor. Overall supervisor visit number one was amazing, we love our supervisors and can’t wait till we can see them again.

Since that week we have been busy with Ministry planning, on two days we planned the next six weeks of ministry for a junior youth group, our senior youth group, a second senior youth group, and getting into schools of the surrounding area. We as a team experienced Irish Halloween, which consisted of a lot of fire crackers, fireworks, and some drunk people in the neighborhood. I am really enjoying Ireland and very glad I am here continue to pray for me and all the work NET is doing here.