As I
said I would do I have typed up a full blog on the last few weeks before coming
home and leaving the beautiful Green Isle. Here is the full adventure of our 2nd
to last week in the Village.
Life in
the village has been fun, and full of adventures. We have continued to learn
the meaning of growth through challenges and the strength and unity that the
growth brings for us as a team. God works in such amazing ways and we can truly
see how we have grown since the beginning of the year. We started this week by
going to all three weekend masses to hand out our Christmas Newsletter that
Marie so graciously put together. The Newsletter came out very well and gave a
very good summary of what we are doing and what we will be doing over the next
few months. After the last mass on Sunday we headed home for some music
practice. Our attempt to learn all 200 and some songs in the song book is going
pretty well but it does actually require us to learn songs, which thus requires
music practice. The next few hours of the day then was spent hanging out with a
local young adult who just finished school to become a teacher. She is super
nice and we really hope to hang out with her more in the second half of the year,
she wants to take us to a pub, but she doesn’t even drink haha. After some
dinner and Junior youth group named Awake we had a team meeting that was very
good but went until nearly half twelve. We then went to bed for our day off the
next day.
Our day
off was nice, spent basically just chilling around the house like normal, but
we had a meeting with the parents group instead of a full day off which was a
little sad not gonna lie. But the even sadder thing was that only two parents
showed up so really no planning was able to get accomplished like we had hoped.
Thus the life of a youth minister, you must learn to just go with the flow. The
week carried on like normal, with the normal Tuesday routine of breakfast,
personal prayer, mass, Team Service time/team leader meeting with Fr. Seamus,
and etc. The one cool thing about this week was Marie and Rebecca did team
prayer for the first time!!!! So Tuesday Marie led us in prayer and did a kick
butt jobJ. That
night the power went off right as we began to eat dinner at quarter past five
and stayed off till nearly half seven. Which was an adventure not only for us
but also our weekly Jam session still went on half of it in the dark. Again we
as a team keep being taught how to role with the punches.
That
night we played some Team Sport which consisted of a new revised version of
NERF gun capture the flag and we really enjoyed ourselves. Before heading to
bed we made the decision to open our Christmas Crackers, like poppers that have
prizes inside. We were opening them and teasing each other until I decided to
steal everybody’s paper crowns. I went up to Rebecca and stole her crown, and
she got really mad and began to chase me. As I ran up the stairs, one of those
situations that could never be repeated even if you tried happened. Rebecca was
chasing me up the stairs as her cross around her neck flew up and hit her in
the mouth, followed by her had reaching to see what happened, all this
happening in a split second while running up stairs. Which while she was
reaching up to her mouth my foot came and hit Rebecca’s hand, which then hit
the cross, which then hit her tooth and drum roll please . . . . broke her
front tooth in half. I felt so bad and Rebecca was so sad at first and didn’t
talk to him until the next day. This will always be one of those memories that
we as a team will remember forever and will laugh about when we are all old.
But we laughed about it the next day too, and yes she is getting it fixed over
Christmas break.
The
rest of the week was rather uneventful, just another week of ministry and such.
This week we had the normal planning plus our Mid-Year Report to compile. Our
Mid-Year Report is a very organized official document showing what we have been
up to the last four months; it is really useful to other teams, and to anybody
who asks, “What did the NET Team do all year?” So that was fun and a lot of
work but we finished it on time and the final copy was organized and compiled
by me, Woot! We did have a girl from our youth group and her mom over for tea
and biscuits on Wednesday which was actually quite a bit of fun. Our youth
group that week was very good and really nice to just spend our second to last
youth night with the amazing youth we have. Marie also led for the first time
which was cool because after that night Rebecca is the only one who hasn’t led
a youth event. On Friday we did a school visit and the other was cancelled and
then had a very long and nice Hood time. The girls went into town for a movie
and dessert, while Tim and I stayed back and made chocolate chip cookies, drank
a hard cider, and watched two movies, Taking of Pelham 123 and The Matrix II.
Both of those movies are really good, Tim and I really like movies that make
you think and each time I watch the Matrix I like it better.
Saturday
was Tim and My day of Total Consecration to Mary according to St. Louis De
Montfort, so we all went to mass and made our consecration. We then came back
for some spring planning and lunch. After lunch we began team time, which was
supposed to be Ice Skating but because a few of us can’t really Ice Skate we
went with plan B. We drove to Blanchard’s Town right outside of Dublin and did
Secret Santa shopping and dinner all together. It was really nice just to honor
each other with gifts and just spending a nicer dinner together. Over all a
very good week and it all hit us that just one more week and we are done with
our first half of NET!
The
last week in the village was not very eventful other than our Supervisor
Kristen, the Director of NET Ireland Tony Foy, and another member of staff
Gareth McNulty came and stayed the night with us Monday after we did Christmas
shopping. It was a very late notice visit but a lot of fun and really nice to
see them. The rest of the week was pretty uneventful we just all were looking
forward to Christmas Retreat and going home so it was hard to stay focused on
the mission but we did our best. Our
Christmas Party with our youth group went very well and was rather sad to say
goodbye for Christmas Break. Saturday before leaving for Christmas Retreat was
spring cleaning which was not really fun but was much needed, and it left our
house looking beautiful.
Christmas
Retreat was amazing! It was so nice to be back with everybody, and to have a
weekend focused on having fun and preparing us to go on Christmas Break. We
spent the end of Saturday and part of Sunday with the Youth 2000 retreat which
was awesome to be with this Catholic Organization that focuses so much on the
Eucharist and has adoration during every talk and major presentation the whole
weekend. We also had a White Elephant Gift Exchange, a dance party, a replay of
live Modern Warfare, which is basically capture the flag with shooting each
other with pretend guns formed out of our hands… sounds dumb but is a blast. I
truly loved being back with everybody and I left feeling so filled up and ready
for Christmas Break.
I then
woke up bright and early Tuesday morning the 18th to begin my
journey home. We left the retreat center at 7:15 and arrived at the Airport
around 8:10, which then was followed by lots of waiting, waiting to check-in,
waiting to go through security, waiting to go through customs, and waiting to
board. The flight over the ocean was not too bad, long and hard because I
didn’t want to sleep, to adjust to the new time zone as quick as possible. Also
our flight attendants were not the friendliest which was sad for me because
they were so nice on the way to Ireland.
But overall not bad traveling long for sure but worth it to see my family!
Merry Christmas to you all, and I hope you keep praying for me even though I am
home. Also have a great Christmas and enjoy the time with family or where ever
you are. Most of all remember why we have Christmas, and remember what we are
celebrating!
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