On March 11 I came home from school and finished packing my suitcase. I then closed up shop (or at least locked my front door) and went to rehearsal. After rehearsal I went to John and Jennifer's and spent the night there. I will admit, I was certain I'd left something, but I seemed to be doing ok! Got up early on Thursday the 12th and we were all (me, John, Jenn, JayDee, and Lupe) at the church by 8:30. We even had time to stop at JJ's!!! At the church all 17 of us weighed our luggage, added books and stuff to it, weighed again and almost every bag got filled to overflowing! Then we went in a prayed. I prayed with Kaitlyn and her mom, who I had never met! We all prayed, and cried, together! Then we had a group prayer, which many cried through, and then took group pictures...why we waited till we had all been crying is beyond me -- but it worked out that way!
So, after all that, we loaded up and headed to DFW. We had 2 flights out. Jenn, John, Chad, Amber, Missy, Kaitlynn, Tamara, all boarded with me and we flew to Newark, New Jersey. Now, we were supposed to wait there for the rest of the group (Kayla, John D, Nathan, Rendon, Barbara, Gwen, and James....Lupe was on her own on a totally different flight) to meet up with us. When we landed, though, we were offered $500 vouchers to take an earlier flight. In our infinite wisdom and concern for the others -- we accepted! We left Newark at about 7 on Thursday night (with New York out the window...sigh) and landed in Dublin, Ireland at 5:30 Friday morning....after a 4 hour flight...you do the math!
Now, they fed us twice and had plenty of drinks...however, I had the most amazing (and by amazing I mean obnoxious) woman next to me. She was loud and couldn't figure out how to do things on her own, but when she was upset with me she had no problem cursing at me. Sigh, it was a LONG 4 hours and I didn't sleep. So anyway, we landed at 5:30 and found a corner where I thought, I'll just curl up and nap. NOPE. When the other team landed at almost 9 - I still hadn't slept. You can imagine the amazing mood I was in. So the other team gets in, we get all our stuff together and board a bus to the bus station. I know, seems odd, but it's what we did! Then we got to the bus station and loaded the bus for Galway. I sat down, got my neck pillow out and slept 4 hours across Ireland to Galway. We arrived in Galway and had tea (!!!) and emptied out the suitcases of stuff for the church and then they fed us dinner. We had Supermac's chicken and fries. Either we were starved - or it was really good!
Then it was time for prayer. The church, Abundant Life Christian Centre, holds a one hour prayer meeting every day of the week. We had the privilege of being a part of the meetings, praying that God would do amazing things in the church. So after prayer, they sent us to host homes. The girls stayed at Winterton - a mansion! Ok, so not really, but it was HUGE and beautiful! When we went in the back door (which is where we always entered!) you walked into the laundry room. Of course, it had a ironing room off of that...There was also the guest bathroom which is one of those new-fangled kind without a real shower...the shower head is on the wall and the entire room is the shower. It was pretty cool! It was also an electric shower so it had ALL the HOT water you wanted!!! Then you went into the kitchen, where the fridge was hidden by having a cover that matched the cabinets...cool idea. The fridges are pretty small though! So then you can either go into a small sitting room (aka Lupe's bedroom) or into a hallway that leads to stairs. At the bottom of the stairs on the left is Nicole's room. That's where Chad and Amber stayed. It was like a sauna! Across from that (and off of 'Lupe's bedroom') is another gathering room where the piano is. Kaitlyn and Kayla slept here on the floor. If you go up the stairs to the second floor there are 4 bedrooms and one bathroom. Rachel, Sara, Sinead, and Reagan live on this floor. (Rachel's room had a bathroom in it so not ALL of us shared the bathroom!) Missy and I stayed in Reagan's room, while Reagan bunked with Rachel and Sinead. If you continued up the stairs there was a loft. That's where Gwen, Barbara, and Tamara stayed. Really, it was a very nice house!
So they sent us home, where we ate an entire pan of cookies in record time, and we all went to bed - after some chat time. When I got ready to unpack my suitcase I found that my hairspray had literally sprayed the entired contents of the can all over my suitcase. Luckily I had packed everything in those "suck-the-air-out/save-your-space" bags and it didn't get on anything but the suitcase and the outside of the bags! I unpacked all of my clothes and stuff onto a rug in Reagan's room to let my suitcase air out. Then I got ready for bed and boy did I slept HARD!!
The next morning we got up and headed up to the church to work on the St. Patrick's Day Parade float. The theme was "Under Water" so we were making a sea, a fish, and jellyfish. The sea was shimery material cut and ironed to look like waves. The jellyfish were umbrellas with 'tentacles', and the fish was round pvc covered in fabric. Here's what it looked like on Saturday morning:
Reagan, Lupe, and Tamara working on the sea
The fish frame
Jenn, Missy, Tamara, and Gwen working on making Jellyfish tentacles
Starting to look like a fish!
Jellyfish!
We worked on it most of the day and then a small group went out into the streets to witness. Just before they left we celebrated Porig (sp?) otherwise known as Paddy's birthday!
Yasmin bringing out his cake
Blowing out candles!
Yeah Paddy!!!
James, Paddy, and John D ready to hit the streets!
Nicole, Rhett, and Kaitlynn are ready to go too!
So the group hit the streets and the rest of us stayed and worked for another hour. Then we headed out to McDonagh's Fish and Chips! Jenn and I were sooo excited about this! When we came 8 years ago we ate there and we were thrilled to get to eat there again! The Fish and Chips were AMAZING! Then back to church for prayer meeting. After the prayer meeting, Rhett and our 'youth' participated in ALCC's youth meeting. Rhett, Kaitlynn, and P. Chad provided praise and worhsip and Rhett brought the message. While they were in youth meeting, Gwen, Jennifer, Amber and I practiced Now Behold the Lamb for the next morning's service.
Abundant Life and Lifegate Youth
After youth finished we all practiced NBL for the morning service. After running through it 3 of 4 times, we headed out for our respective houses. I left my camera sitting at the church and the boys found it and took it home with them. I'm very grateful they realized it was mine and took it and kept it safe. However, let me show you what happens if you leave your camera with boys! You get:
Rendon's sleepy look
James' 20-year-old wife-beater
and, my personal favorite, Nathan's morning bed-head!!!!
Alright -- my eyes don't want to stay open anymore and I have to take out some laundry so I'm going to call it quits for now...More to come later!! :)
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