We have come to the last stage of our journey, and I doubt I will have time to add more before I return. I do appreciate those who have prayed for us during this journey.
We ended our time with some wonderful people in Drogheda. We felt like God was opening some fresh doors among them, even with new sight and victories over past, long-term situations. There was a freshness of God’s glory shining into hearts who have faithfully clung to him over some difficult seasons.
On our last day there we tried to play golf, but the winds were howling and we just didn’t have the equipment to take it on. But the course was a seaside links course of exquisite beauty and we regretted not being able to let it make fools of our golf games. But that allowed us some opportunities to see a bit of the area and spend some more time with the people there. We also went to New Grange to see a burial mound built 500 years before the pyramids, and perfectly aligned with the winter solstice so that the first rays of the morning sun on December 21 penetrates to the heart of the chamber and illuminates it as if the rocks were glowing. It was an amazing structure and it makes one wonder what would have driven people 5,000 years ago to build such a huge, ornate, and astronomically aligned site… Was it the shame of falleness, or the need for a ruler to prove his superiority or something else? No one knows.
Now we have arrived in Dublin with an extensive group of people who live relatedly in Christ’s life, but are not centered on meetings. We gathered with a few last night and will do so with a number of the youth this evening to talk through a bit of the journey. It should be great fun. Then tomorrow we’ll head for Wicklow, south of here for most of Saturday and Sunday, though we are coming back for a Saturday night meeting in Dublin.
It’s amazing to embrace the variety of God’s family here in the Emerald Islands. Each pocket of folks are doing things a bit differently, but have similar hearts for the reality of God’s presence among his people and demonstrated in the world.
On the downside, my iBook travel computer is officially dead for reasons I do not understand. The screen is black, even with a new battery. It may be that something dreadful has happened inside. It is only fourteen months, too, so that is a bit frustrating, but God will use this to further his glory somehow, because he is amazing at such things.
But that bit of writing I was going to do on the way home will not happen now. I cannot access email or the website from it now, so if you have email waiting for me, I’ll have to see it when I get home. I am sorry for any inconvenience this delay might cause. Today Sara will be checking for book and CD orders and look to get those out as quickly as possible.
All told this has been one incredible trip to taste a bit of God’s working across the length and breadth of Ireland. This country has been so shattered by religious conflicts and war and yet there are hungry hearts growing in God’s life and passionate about seeing his glory thrive here. Please hold them up in your prayers as God might lead you to do…
