Super Salad

We've joked about it for years. Now we've actually heard it in real life...

Eating out recently, we overheard someone at the table next to us ask the waitress, "Now, what is a Super Salad?" To which the waitress responded, "That's Soup or Salad."

Then we were expected to sit there straight-faced as if we didn't overhear.

To everything, turn, turn, turn...

We feel the season changing. Okay, yeah the air is cooler. We're having those gorgeous autumn sunsets. The bay is often glassy.

But that's not what I'm talking about. We've been in a season of waiting. Sure, we've been able to travel quite a bit to Europe to get our ministry off the ground. But we have a goal -- to move to Ireland full-time so that we can conduct our work in the way it deserves. This goal has seemed somewhat elusive. For one thing, we've been working to raise our support for more than 2 years now. For another thing, the exchange rate between the dollar and the euro has kept us at the same percentage of needed support for a while even though we've taken on more pledges.

God's timing has been perfect from the beginning of this process, and we know that up to this point we wouldn't have been ready. God had some work to do to prepare us and our daughter Molly for our relocation. Molly is in her second year as a violin performance major at the University of West Florida and actually living out on her own now!

We are so proud of her -- her resourcefulness, her levelheadedness. She is much more focused than I would have imagined a child of mine would be. Just look at her parents. We weren't anything like this in college. She must have got it from my dad.

Yep, we're a little proud.

So... the change of seasons...

We are starting to sense that things are about to begin moving ahead for us. Nothing concrete -- just small indicators and inklings really. It's like the wind is shifting and a new season is underway.

We are so stoked (is that so 90's, or what?) about getting to Ireland full-time and have a lot of people in Ireland rooting for us. Just gotta keep our nose to the grindstone and get the rest of our support raised.

We'll do our part and then stand back and watch God do His thing. It's His baby, after all. We're just along for the ride.

God's grace

Everyday is a lesson on God's grace. I often miss it. I'll let a day go by without really cluing into how His grace shaped my day. And then every so often something big comes along and suddenly I'm awakened once again to how gracious He really is.

We're at a point now where we need to hold off on any more trips to Ireland until we get more money raised. At first, when we were faced with it, I was pretty bummed. Ireland is where we are supposed to be and every time we go the connection grows stronger, so the thought of staying away for a longer time than usual pained us.

But here's the thing. What is really needed is for us to get moved to Ireland full time. In order to do that we need to have a certain amount coming in every month and have a certain sum in our account to cover all the costs of relocating. So God's grace has come through by helping us to focus our attention more acutely on that goal.

And His grace will see us through as we continue the climb up Mt. Fundraising. We shall reach the summit and what a view it will be!

There and Back Again

We've now been back in the States for a couple of weeks. We are sooo ready to actually be in Ireland full time. This backing and forthing is growing tiring.

So one thing I'm really bummed about is the fact that we have very few photos from our events from this, our most recent trip. With the best intentions I always had my camera with me, ready to hand it off to someone who could snap a few images during the workshop. Or if we were meeting with someone, to set up my little tripod and get some shots.

However, my intentions seldom played out and I would remember about the time we were packing up.

Oy.

Internet!

Sorry again for being incommunicado over the last while.

I find that as these trips progress, and especially if we are traveling (as we were last week) it gets harder and harder to keep up with all that we're doing. Since we didn't have reliable access to the Internet for about a week while we were "down country", I didn't get any blogging done and then, as with other trips, by the time we're back to Dublin, there is so much to tell that it is overwhelming to try and recap it all.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

We finished up in Cork in good order, having met with contacts, old and new, as well as conducting our workshop at Grace, which went very well. Michael O'Donovan, the Worship Pastor has asked us to come back again and do an intensive with their key worship leaders.

Our new contacts made in County Kerry were very worthwhile. We met with the key leader of Listowel Christian Fellowship and an American missionary who works with him. It seems that they are at a crucial point in their church's development wherein they need some help in the area of worship. We plan to return on our next trip to see what we can do in that endeavor. We also met with another leader from that same fellowship who in full-time ministry. He divides his time between several concerns, including, among other things, Focus-on-the-Family, Evangelical Alliance Ireland (EAI) and the church in Listowel. I think he will pan out to be a strategic contact to have.

We returned to Dublin on Friday. Since then we led worship at City Gates Church and have had "bits and pieces" of business and personal things that demanded our attention.

Today we drove up to Dundalk (about half-way to Belfast) to meet David Porter, who we were with the first weekend here, to discuss ongoing issues being faced in the area of worship at his church.

We have meetings the next couple of days and then a rather comprehensive workshop with worship team members from the three Trinity congregations in Dublin.

Then it's back to Florida (and the heat - yuck) on Monday.

I'll be sharing some of my impressions, reflections, ruminations, etc. over the next while, so stay tuned...