Running with the Horses

I cannot believe that this was my sixth trip to Ireland. This year our team went a little later, during the Galway Horse Races. It was so neat to see everyone dressed up in their formals while walking around the downtown! The plan for this summer mission trip was the same as the last few summers; support Discovery Church. I'm going to give you just a little snippet of what we did here.

Our flight arrived in Shannon on Friday afternoon. After a nice lunch at a good friend's home, we pulled out the leaflets (flyers for kids camp) and went door to door in Athenry to let everyone know we would be holding kids' camp the following week. On Satruday, our team went to Shoppe Street in Galway with a team from Discovery Church to support a prayer ministry. A few of us took cards with the church's information to pass out on the street and we informed people that 'just down the way' there were people willing to pray for them. After supporting the prayer ministry, our team went to Westside, our second location for kids camp and passed out the leaflets.
On Sunday, our team gave the 'regular' Sunday School teachers a break and taught the classes. I had the 3-5 year olds. Absolutely adorable:) We made paper crosses and hearts and talked about how much Jesus loves us, sang songs, had treats (of course), and peeled paper off of crayons...you know, the usual! The rest of the day was spent getting everything together for the week of kids' camp. This year we were going to be holding camp in two different locations. One area, Athenry, was very familiar to us and the other location, Westside, was new. The theme we chose was based around the 10 Commandments. Seeing the kids in Athenry was so neat. I heard from a resident of the estate(neighborhood) that the kids started asking last fall 'when are the Americans coming back?'. So when we arrived there were kids already waiting for us on the green(large grassy area where we hold camp). It brought tears to my eyes. We set up a tent for the kids to sit under, since it rains so much, but we were blessed because we had very little rain during the actual camp. The kids worked on a craft every day that tied in with the commandment they were learning. Here they are showing the puppets they made from the first day. As usual, we had game time, but this year we were able to pack a large parachute to play with. The kids had never see this before and were loving it! Everything went pretty well in Athenry. One day we had something happen that we could only laugh at! I heard a familiar ring of the bells and realized that the ice cream truck was turning the corner. Well, this must be the highlight of the day for the children of Athenry because as soon as that truck was in sight, they burst up from their seats and ran toward the truck. We were in the middle of our program! But after about 10 minutes the kids came back, sat down, licked away at their ice cream and were ready for us to continue. I could only laugh. We did have a few bullies this year, but after prayer and moving the camp to the backyard of a private home, we didn't have any more incidents.

Westport was a new 'estate' for our team. There were a few families who lived in the estate that attend the church so their children came to the camp, but we also reached out to several other new families. On the second day of camp we arrived at the green and it was pouring down rain. We saw no one there and knew that the parents would probably not allow their children to come to the camp in this weather. Our team was invited to go for tea at one of the homes where a church member lived. They had a few children, and we though why don't we just hold the camp in their front room? As part of the team drove ahead to ask permission, I was walking with a few people (under a very small umbrella) and Nathan, a new little boy from the neighborhood ran up to me from the playground on the green, soaking wet. He said in the cutest little Irish accent, "Isn't there going to be camp today? I've been waiting on the playground for you to set up." At that moment, I knew we were at Westside for Nathan. I told him that camp would be inside and he ran home to get changed into dry clothes. That was my favorite day of camp. The fruit of Nathan loving camp is that his mother saw how much he enjoyed the program and we were able to share about Discovery Church and extend an invitation. My prayer is that Nathan's family will accept Christ and attend Discovery Church.

On one of our days driving home from camp, we saw an amazing, full double rainbow. I really wasn't able to capture the beauty on camera, but here's a picture for all of you who have ever wanted to see an Irish rainbow:)

I'm sure the racehorses for the Galway Races in Ireland gave it there all that first week of August, but I'm pretty confident that our team did the same for the race we were given to run. Thank you to everyone who prayed for us and encouraged us!