Life
has been good in the Village and we have been very busy, which is becoming more
and more the norm. On November 18th (Sunday), all the NET Ireland
teams got together and celebrated the first annual NET Thanksgiving of Ireland.
We, the Delvin team, had not really seen any of the other teams since we left
from training so we were all so excited and just couldn’t wait to hang out with
everyone we missed dearly. We arrived that morning with 2 apple crisps, that
Rebecca and I made, and a salad, minus the dressing, to share with everyone
else. We were the last team to arrive, so it’s true save the best for last,
haha just kiddingJ. So we spent a good part of the morning
just talking and hanging out with our very much missed friends. There was sooo
much food, it was a glorious sight to see all of the desserts and side dishes
just sitting there waiting to be eaten. The main course sadly was not turkey
but P.J. Ross, the team leader of the Adventure Retreat team, was cooking up a
copious amount of barbeque chicken for us to eat. After gorging ourselves, we
continued to hang out in various rooms of the house, listening to crazy stories
of both recent and past adventures. The best was hearing all the pranks Josh
Hagert did as a young lad. The day was the definition of pure class I have to
admit, and I was so happy it worked out to see all the teams. Before we told to
head out our separate ways, we had a very powerful praise and worship session.
Mark our supervisor played guitar and lead the time of prayer, while we all
kneeled in front of the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus Christ in the true presence of
the Eucharist. After about an hour of singing and praising God, we got up
hugged everyone and left feeling so filled up and on fire once again. I have
found out how much hugs mean to me and it was so nice to get so many hugs that
day, I felt truly loved.
That
evening after arriving back home we quickly got ready and left for our first
night of Awake youth group, the new junior youth group. We were all prepared
and ready for Crazy Olympics, but only one youth showed up. We had a good night
hanging out with her and prayed that the next week more would show up. Since we
had not had dinner we ate Chinese food from the local take away. It was over
all a great day, we all enjoyed seeing the other teams and truly love all of
them.
Monday,
which is normally our day off, was not our day-off because Fr. Seamus asked us
to go to a meeting that night so we decided to post-pone our day off till the
coming Saturday. We did our weekly cleaning and shopping on that day, and did
some preparation for that week’s coming youth nights. It was a good day but
very weird not having our day off like normal. The meeting that night was not
anything like we thought it would be, it was a presentation about another
Christian youth ministry organization called Scripture Union. They do a lot of
retreats for youth in Ireland focusing more on relating the scripture to youth
with outdoor activities. It was a pleasure to make another contact with people
doing work like NET is doing. We really hope to do some kind of work with them
in the future.
Tuesday
was another day that was full of prep and planning for the coming youth nights.
We had a good day but the best part was by far our jam session, and hanging out
with youth. The jam session this week was more organized for the final prep for
youth mass the coming Sunday, but it is so cool to just see all these talented
musicians play away. We have a few youth that stay every youth night till like
ten just hanging out laughing and about anything and everything. They are some
of our favorite youth in our youth group; I will miss them when we leave for
Christmas break.
Wednesday
was busy, we did drama practice in the morning lots of prep but then had a nice
relaxing lunch and hang out time in our hoods as we call it, guys and girl
time. We had some good chicken strips and fries for lunch, and watched movies. Tim
and I watched The Italian Job which is one of my favorites and Tim had never
seen it. That night we had a really good youth group with the Clonmellon youth
and sadly it is coming to an end for this part of the year. Thursday was pretty
normal with preparations for that night’s youth group and we went to Saint
Patrick’s primary school doing a session on Mary the Mother of God. The youth
group that night was a lot of fun with the youth acting out the story of
Samson. We also played one of our new favorite games, Newspaper Hockey, with
them and even had a show down between two youth which was very fun to watch. Friday was a good morning with a sleep in and
a school visit to Saint Tolas primary school. That afternoon was Team Time! We
all hung out together making CDs of our favorite music to share with each other
during car rides and we had a Nerf gun battle which sadly Tim and I lostL.
Then got some food and watched some Chuck it was a great week over all, we
earned our day off. The next day being Saturday, like I said was our day off,
we pretty much just all hung out and did our own things that night watching
some more Chuck. I cooked some steak from the butchers and had a very yummy
dinner, with mashed potatoes and gravy included. It was a good day off.
Life
has been good since that week keeping busy and really enjoying my time on NET,
the youth are such a gift to watch and I can see myself growing and being
challenged by the ministry we do. I got my first hair cut in Ireland on the
Monday following that week and it turned out very nice. I just buzzed it all
off, which is colder but so much nicer in the morning. We have seen some more
of Ireland this month including a place called Hill of Tara which is a gorgeous
hill that was the place where the high kings of Ireland used to meet in the 4th
and 5th centuries. On the hill you can see supposedly ¼ of Ireland
because everything is so flat surrounding it. Truly gorgeous, I do have
pictures up of it on my Facebook. We also went to Galway this last Saturday and
walked around the town, going to markets and shops beginning to buy our
Christmas gifts for the family back home. Galway is where the Claddagh rings
originated in Ireland Rebecca, Tim and I bought one because we all think they
are so cool. If you don’t know what they are, look them up, they are very
beautiful. The cathedral in Galway is beautiful I took lots of pictures which
will be up on Facebook eventually. I am excited to come home and I do miss my
family, but honestly Ireland is an amazing place and I am so glad I am here
doing the work I am doing.
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