Back in Dublin

Wednesday morning was bright and fair, albeit cold, as we walked to the Shankill DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) station a few blocks from the Kingsleys' house. We were to meet Gwenda Johnson in the City Centre at Connolly Station.

The 45-minute ride into the city takes you along the coast with great views of the Irish Sea and the heads (high peninsulas) jutting into it. Arriving just a few minutes ahead of Gwenda we loitered about the station (strictly prohibited according to the signs all around) until she showed up. We walked from there to the National Gallery of Art which has a nice café.

We first met Gwenda in September when we attended Trinity Church Central on a Sunday morning when she was leading worship. Over lattés, Gwenda filled us in on how her role as the worship coordinator for Trinity Network's three fellowships is changing and about the people that she sees as the ones to whom to pass the baton. She gave us great insight into the specific needs of each of the worship teams and how we might be able to help them through workshops and personal training/mentoring. She also helped us gain insights into the whole "worship scene" in Dublin from her perspective.

Side note: One thing that really bugs me is the fact that we tend to get so engrossed in our meetings that I totally forget to take any pictures of those we're meeting with. There are a few times this trip that I remembered, but I need to be more consistent. I will endeavor to improve in this area. Promise.

When we left Gwenda, we stopped in our favorite bookstore, Greene's, just around the corner, then sought out some midday sustenance.

Back in Shankill we did some email and made phone calls until it was time to head out to the west side of the city -- Clondalkin to be exact -- where we were meeting another couple who are worship leaders at New Life Community Church. Michael and Trish Carroll oversee several worship teams at this fellowship of about 100. They have been extremely blessed with musicians and work hard to utilize all who they feel are qualified to help lead worship.

Dealing with divergent styles and approaches to worship leading, they feel that it would be beneficial to have us do some workshops for their church. Sounds like this could be a very interesting experience.

Michael and Trish are really great people. We enjoyed getting to know them and look forward to working with them on subsequent visits.

We had hoped to meet with another American missionary couple who work at an Assemblies of God Bible College in Bray, south of Dublin, but our schedules just didn't coincide this trip. Maybe next time.

Over the past two weeks, we had numerous people telling us about an American guy who we should contact. At first we didn't put much stock in the suggestion, as he is a youth leader and it didn't sound as if he really needed a ministry such as ours. However, after maybe the 4th person mentioned his name, we thought we should contact him. So we did the next morning. Boy were we glad we did.