Hello from Ireland!

Hello Everyone!

It's the end of my second day here in Dalkey (9.6 miles from the center of Dublin) and things are going well! Praise God for a quick and safe flight (my parents are still away on a trip, and they left before I did so I was a bit nervous about that) and I found my way around the airport by myself pretty well! I arrived at 9 in the morning in Ireland and was greeted at the airport by Brian Johnson (a younger guys who lives here at Ireland Outreach International---IOI with his wife Rachel, 2 1/2 year old daughter Selah, and a baby due in two weeks!) We drove (on the wrong side of the road!) to Charleville, the headquarters of IOI. They name all their buildings here! Dalkey is situated right on the coast, so the harbour and boats are beautiful! I met up with my friends Dan and Beth Crompton and their kids Daniel (8), Matthew (6), and Lizzy (4), who moved to serve the Lord with IOI full-time 3 weeks ago! They live on the second floor of an apartment building next door to Charleville. (By the way, I wish I could show photos, but I don't have a way to get them on the computer---yet!) I'm learning about what my jobs will be to support IOI in their ministry, but I'm already starting to feel like they will be very practical things to help make their jobs easier. Everyone is preparing for a team from the States to come the day after I leave to help build a shed for IOI on the property, so I'll be cleaning and stuff to get things ready for them!

Tonight (Wednesday) we went to their church (Fairview Hall) for the mid-week prayer meeting. It's a lot different from HBC and other American churches, so tiny! Only space for about 40 people max, and there were only about 20 at the meeting. They call their churches Brethren Fellowships and they're pretty conservative, women wear head coverings and music is a piano and a hymn book with just words. But it was encouraging to hear the fervent prayer for all aspects of the church and the local believers.

One funny anecdote before I leave you for tonight! There is an alarm clock in my room that I set on Tuesday night to wake me up this morning. At 8:40 in the mornings there is a prayer meeting for everyone in Charleville before work starts. So I set my clock for 7, to allow time to go running by the docks and get ready. But I forgot that I was in Europe and didn't take into account that they do things on a 24 hour schedule instead of a 12! So my clock never went off and if my Aunt Beth didn't come knock on my door at 8:30, I certainly would have missed the prayer meeting! So I had my walk of shame into the meeting late, and everyone had a laugh over the silly American who operates on a 12 hour schedule :)

Here are some things you could be praying for:

---My willingness to serve in any way I can, regardless of how small I may perceive the task to be!

---Safety for the workers and the property (Harbour Rd, where Charleville is, is one of the wealthiest areas in Ireland, but is also right next to areas of relative poverty. Lots of breakins and the like occur when people enter the neighborhood from other areas of the city)

Thank you so much for your prayers! I didn't have a ton of time to explain everything now, but feel free to ask questions you might have about my routine or IOI that I can answer :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Em