Nero Fiddles...

This image was part of the BBC's "In Pictures" of the fires in California. The series included loads of burning hills, heroic firefighters and lost and once lavish mansions.

But this picture I think is an unintentional commentary on... US. Take that how you like it.

But look at how much is going on- the world is burning around the poor fool. He's on a SegWay. He's texting.
"He's still conscientious!" you cry. "He's wearing a mask!"
Yes, maybe so but it's still a classic example of people doing as little as they can to seem like they're being prudent. Is the little mask actually going to save him?

I don't know, perhaps I'm too cynical and judgemental of this poor man who is probably a swell guy in real life. But I just found this seemingly innocent news image full of symbolism and hilarity. What do you think?

Listening for a call

I'm a senior which means one thing: I'm scrambling. No, not for girls as classic Taylor culture would have it- for a career. What do I do with my life when I leave the comforts of Wengatz and the financial umbrella of Mom and Dad?
This may be why I could not stop thinking about a job when I could not focus in my youth ministry classes because God kept bringing up ideas about An Tobar Nua in Galway. Each time a prof introduced an idea, my mind would apply it to the kids and the cafe and I would feverishly write down ideas. It wouldn't stop and it almost got annoying as it went on for a little more than two weeks. I knew it wasn't coincidence that Susan and Maren were coming soon for World Opportunities Week and I felt I had to share this with them.
But I was concerned that my zeal for all of this was self-centered and really the ultimate aim was to get me a job and be provided for next year (which is all good and well, but should not be the central focus in ministry ideas). Therefore, I told God that I would go ahead and present the ideas to Susan and if she mentioned anythine about me coming over to work with them, I would know that it was His will for me to go. Basically, if she brought up the chance for me to start a job that doesn't exist yet, I'd take it. Not gonna happen right?
Apparently this sort of thing has been weighing on their minds too and things have been happening at the cafe and the ministry showing that the time is ripe for something to happen. She asked if I wanted to come help implement these new ideas. Of course, I was thinking, "Wait, God. You came through. Is this the call that I asked to hear?" So I said, "I'll pray about it" which I have been a lot lately. Of course, now it seems terrifying to go to a different country right off of graduation and do who knows what. I know Satan is attacking me because for some foolish reason I'm really doubting this call. But I want to stay firm in the fact tha I asked God for a clear sign of what to do and He gave it to me.
Outside of following whatever He wants, I don't know the details of what will happen from here.

Look, the Brits are confused

Two of the biggest British news sources have articles centered on ole Barry. It's like the abortion issue: no one is pro-death or anti-choice. Here I suppose you can either be pro or anti-Obama.
Anti-McCain
Pro-McCain

Also, you should vote. Granted most of the world does this now and we've been doing it all of our lives, not to mention that it's over promoted and those campaign ads are really annoying by now. But if you think about it in the scope of the history of the world it's absolutely absurd that minor, non-aristocratic, and unpowerful people like me and all you who read this can have a say in world politics like this. Alexander the Great would be pissed. So would Ghengis Khan. Do it just to mess with them.

District of Barkley

I never really shared pictures, did I?

Fall Break 08- what a time.

It's all me pals!

Airband had dominated my life, killing my homework and social life but last night after two shows (with encores for each) 2nd East Wengatz re-established our dynasty in the Taylor Airband tradition. In 2004 we got 1st, in 05 it was 2nd, 06 was 3rd place, and 2007 we got 2nd with Greased Lightning. Now back on top, Step in Time from Mary Poppins won both shows!
2EZ fo sheezy

Enjoy the show :-)

Sharing

For a class assignment, I had to pick a spiritual discipline and I went with fixed-hour prayer. It's great. Let's just say I'm addicted and it's totally going on when the class is over. I also have been journaling- not like this blog or journals from practicums that someone can read. This stuff is secret and will never be read by anyone but me so I can actually be brutally honest and not hide stuff like I do all the time on here ;-)
This also means that I write a lot and think out loud on paper and won't be particularly prone to blogging. But I do like sharing things like that world election thing I just put up, so I'd like to again put in another plug for Google Reader. I'm subscribed to loads of good stuff on there and when I find something I love lots, I can click "share" and other people can see it. In the meantime, they made a little page where all my shared stuff goes. It's here. You should check it out often because these people say things way better than I ever could.

The World Votes

I've always wanted to see this done. I can only hope that the Economist will draw enough people for it to actually be representative (however unlikely that actually is seeing how their reading population is so far overwhelmingly biased) but still it's a start.
It's not that I believe other countries should actually have political power in choosing our leader, but it's nice to know what they think before the guy gets in office and the inevitably end up hating him. Here at least we can point to their numbers and say, "Hey, you really seemed supportive back in November of 08, so what now?"

Enough from me.

Global Electoral College

Leading and following

Since I know that all of my faithful readers (Josiah, Reno) are on the edge of your seat wondering if I decided to go for that youth ministry job I thought I might tell you the outcome. Then I realized that you both already know so I don't need to say anything here.

Just kidding. More people read than that right?

Yes, Brent Williams (who I am convinced stalks me since he knows everything without me telling him) addressed me as "Mr. Youth Pastor" the other day. That was weird, so I'll stick with "youth leader"... I'm no pastor. Dr. Jones led my first time in "Youth at Center Christian" and he introduced me, gave a quick lesson on the first few verses of Philippians and now I'm on my own. We had only two kids- bro and sis, Adam and Erin but I'm sure I'll be able to meet more soon. I'm no longer nervous about whether I'm ready- I'm just excited.



Yesterday I was running out of Wengatz to meet some friends to go to dinner when I ran into Mr. Williams, my middle school band director. He went here back in the day and was taking some high schoolers from his church to visit. He's one of the people I think of when people ask how I knew about Taylor and decided to come here. It's funny because he was always a "good public school employee" and never said anything blatantly Christian and I don't know how little ole 7th grade me sensed it, but I feel like I knew somehow and I really looked up to him. We tried to meet up a couple of times that evening but I was too busy so we got to talk a bit on the way to chapel. He's now a youth/associate pastor at his church after abruptly resigning from his job at the school (while being offered an administrative position, but he felt God's call too strongly. I really admired that, seeing how I know I've felt similar calls and dropped plans that look great to the world to follow God and it's encouraging to see the same in him.

Youth Ministry?

This semester, I don't have any classes I hate. None that are lame and just can't wait to be done, and no blow off classes either (which can be a blessing and a curse :-p ). But my youth ministry classes are really great so far and I feel like I've learned so much in the first few days that I want to redo my practicum evaluation from this summer (because I know how much I missed... got an A on that by the way) and I'm currently in the processes of totally rewriting how I want to do U-Turn. Fortunately, my co-director, Amy, is all on board with that and I think things will turn out nicely.

Then I got a job offer.

My academic adviser (who is also my history prof and the Dead of Academic Affairs) sent me an email last night telling me that the church he's involved in is looking for a new youth minister and when he asked one of our youth ministry profs who would be a good candidate, apparently Phil thought of me. Phil was my practicum adviser for this summer, so I'm assuming that's where he gets his ideas about me since we've only had three class sessions together so far.
Anyway, it's a small church near Fairmount and it's a very low key position with incredibly flexible five hours a week working with a youth group of only five to ten teens. I still haven't decided for sure if I'm going to do it; I'm need to pray about it and I'm going to visit the church tomorrow for Sunday services to see what it's like. But it's all very exciting and I'm kind of scared I'm not ready. I mean if the first two weeks of YM classes gave me such ideas that I want to revamp U-Turn, how am I going to be ready to take on a whole youth group (albeit a small one). We'll see. I'll keep you updated.

Laughing

I like Peter Kreeft. He can tell me that the Lord of the Rings is the Eucharist, that death is a vagina (twice in two different books) or that God is a frogkisser and it not only makes me laugh but it makes sense the way he leads up to it.

In the meantime I also like being back at school and my new classes because all of it makes me laugh too. My only two classes today were with the same prof and in the second class we just kicked it by the lake and prayed for each other.

Other things that are funny are how I don't recognize anyone in the DC anymore and every senior I've talked to about it agrees with me as well as the fact that I moved everything in and unpacked so fast I'm either getting way too good at it or I forgot a boatload of crap.

In other news, my puppy has bronchitis... :-(

Camp pics

In a moment of procrastination, I realized that I hadn't yet shared pictures from camp. So here they are. Now back to hw.

Not me

I'd like to note that the most interesting and important part about this blog that you will ever read will never appear here in the main section. It's that handy little side bar about books and other blogs. That's right, those authors and my friends say it all way better than I do.
That's all

Camp is my home

The second half of the summer continued to go quite well. I had my ups and my downs, lots of compromises and apologizing with my co-director, but some really great devotions and moments with the campers.
High school week was intense with 150 people in camp because of project leaders as well as all of the reading camp staff. The only way I can describe following my schedule of trying to run two camps at once is this: violent. It was rough. But I got to connect with some of my favorite campers, share some good times in dance parties, regattas, or in deep conversation about how the follow God's calling to change our world. Two guys came up and wanted to specifically let me know that I had made a difference in their lives and had been a good influence... it was really encouraging to have them tell me that.
The next week was our largest number of campers since 1960something and we brought down lots of staff from Lake Luther who were an enormous help. We dealt with a good bit of messy prankage, theft and vandalism this week which was a huge downer, but it was still a good week over all.
Performing Arts week went swimmingly with Uncle Bob leading the musical and Luke leading the guitar camp. Brittany left early for a conference and I unexpectedly tried to rework schedules when I found out that we didn't have enough staff for our campers next week and I though I'd have to be counseling. Things shaped up over the weekend at Lake Luther Fest and we got another guy to cover for us, but then he got sick and we all pitched in to help cover for him. We had our first real lost camper when outpost was interrupted by a thunderstorm. Three boys had decided to wander off, didn't come back to camp and so I headed out with our maintenance man and general duty person into the woods during a thunderstorm at 1 AM to look for lost kids. We found them quickly and I lectured them the entire hike back to camp and got to discuss things with the parents for some time the next day. They shaped up really well for the rest of the week though and gave us no more trouble.
The last weekend was Family Weekend which I traditionally dread but it was somehow actually nice and almost fun (because the Graves, Kati, and other former staffers came to hang out with us). Our final week was with 16 of the most well behave 1st-3rd graders I have ever seen and it was a fantastic way to end out an eventful summer.



It's terribly sad to pick up and leave again... I feel like that phrase is blogged by my far too often but that's because it happens far too often. This is different though. It's not like I'm leaving school then I'll be back next year or that's the end of one summer at camp, can't wait to see how next year works out. This is the end. I'm not doing camp anymore after this. But it's been all I know as far as summers go since I graduated high school- literally since four days after I received my diploma I have worked at Lutheran Hills and loved it intensely. It was very hard to leave today, but strangely I didn't cry. This in fact was the first summer I've had working there that I never had an emotional breakdown. Something was very different about this summer: it went so much faster, I never felt beat, but it was just as or even harder than my previous years. The only thing that remains constant is the love and relationships: the joy you get from the pure friendship of the kids, the intense esprit de corps of the staff but most of all bathing in the everlasting love of our Lord and making it literally your job to revel in that and ask others to join you. There are countless kids that I may never see again but will think about often and really miss. My fellow staff from all the years are so wonderful and important to me and I really cherish my time spent at camp.

But for now, it's time to move on and switch gears to getting back to TU- something I haven't really done since January ;-)

My unexpected expertises

I've abandoned this blog for a while for a few reasons: I left Ireland and life got more routine and less picturesque; I still have to journal every single night for my youth ministry practicum and really don't feel like repeating or transposing it here; I have no internet access most of the time.

In the meanwhile, here is a short list of things I have unexpectedly become an expert in since you last heard from me on this blog:
- Pulling 120 lbs of luggage through an airport with the slight touch of one finger.
- Getting away with harmless illegal offenses
- Faking jet lag because I'm bored
- Driving 500 miles with my co-director
- Dealing with someone having seizures
- Stripping wet insulation from flooded crawlspaces
- Identifying a stroke victim
- Teaching Old Testament history at an eighth grade level in three days
- Curing everything from a snapped ACL, homesickness, to an acute phobia of all insects using only Vitamin C
- Teaching church history from Creation to Martin Luther at a second grade level at 4 AM


As you can see camp prep, training, and the first few weeks have been wild. Brittany Tull and I were trained to lead the other 11 college age staff at Lutheran Hills, I re-certed in lifeguarding, we led a week of site training, then got our first week of camp flooded out. We spent that time helping clean up the new local lake that was the town of Trevlac, then geared up for our first actual week of camp curing which a 77 year old pastor with a history of heart trouble had in incident which required us to call an ambulance to camp for the first time in 12 years. I took over his confirmation class and so on, while the next week we had piles of leg injuries for me to deal with. I think I could be awarded an honorary medical doctorate after this summer. The third week brought the youngest kids with massive amounts of homesickness and strange phobias which again sometimes required my (literal) 24 hour attention.
Next week is a combo of high school and reading camp which means we're really running two camps at once. Party! It's stressful, but that forces me to rely on God since I am quite unable to do it on my own. I could use lots of prayer if you all don't mind even for some unmentioned things.

Perhaps I'll summarize the last half of the summer in August then this thing will get back to being a real blog again.
Cheers!

The Last Week in Ireland

I've now been back in America for nearly two weeks. I neither have the energy nor the time to tell you all about the last week, goodbyes and leaving. Luckily for you, pictures are worth a thousand words!

Croagh Patrick

On our last Saturday in Ireland, Ben and I got work off and went with Adrian to climb Croagh Patrick, something we've wanted to do for some time now. It was Adrian's 13th time up and he was a great guide, telling us pretty much everything you'll find on that website and more.
It was a fairly cloudy and rainy day, but as we went up the rain slackened a good bit and by the time we had wound our way behind the ridge it was just cloud. The last quarter mile is a brutally steep climb and I thought I wasn't going to make it, but just like always, as soon as I got to the top, I felt fine. We saw the chapel, and a funny little gnome guy and started back down. I told Adrian that I thought it would be classic Irish humor if there was a sign about 20 yards from the summit saying "Halfway Point". He thought it was brilliant and told most people on the way back down that they had about an hour to go... kinda killed most people's spirit's but he loved it. We met a Free Tibet March and an Irishman who was also a Buddhist monk- interesting combination. And of course, after we left the top, the clouds cleared and I'm sure everyone up there had a stunning view, but we were content with what we could see from our 1500 foot ridge instead of the 2100 foot peak. Very exhausting, but it was great.

Irish roads- Bothar na hEireann

My family (particularly my mother) will appreciate this. Today, I was riding with my friend Adrian to Tuam to be interviewed as a "foreigner" for my opinion on Galway and as we bumped along the way there, he mentioned that the roads at least weren't as bad as those in County Clare- the ones leading through the Burren to Doolin by the Cliffs of Moher, the one my mother drove which in Adrian's word's are "the worst roads in the northern hemisphere". He also quipped that, "The engineers responsible for the Irish road system are of the bovine variety." I though it was just a joke at the expense of foolish road workers, but then he gave us the etymology of the Irish word for road: bothar (pronounced "bo-her"). Bo is cow and thar is path, coming from back in the day when farmers would move their wandering cows from pasture to pasture, the cows used the same area of flattened grass each time, farmers moved equipment along it, someone got the idea to throw down some stones to make it easier, then finally along came the tarmacadam that we have today. So it's true- we follow cowpaths through the fields of Ireland at 100 km/h.

Aran Islands

On our second to last Monday, we finally made a trip out to the Aran Islands. I had been there with my family, but had only a chance to bike from the port on the main island of Inis Mor to an ancient cliff fort known as Dun Aonghasa (Done Angus). Then, my dad, brother and I had tired ourselves out on the hills but enjoyed seeing the terrain up close.
This time, I got to go back with Maren, Leanna, and Kelsie (Ben was still in Dublin with his parents) and so we took the tour bus so we got to see more of the island. We still spent plenty of time at Dun Aonghasa and I got to play closer to the cliffs without my dad and brother being all worried ;-). There was a lady who got really afraid as she saw us dangling our legs over the edge and so we moved back until she left. But soon enough we were taking pictures while jumping in the air right by the cliff. For one of them Maren and I tried to jump and kick at the same time and our feet caught- down she went! There was a huge collective gasp from the crowd of tourists who had been eyeing us and immediately assumed that I had kicked Maren over the edge to plummet 300 feet to her death. Silly tourists, we were plenty far away from the edge! It was hilarious though and she just stood up muddy while the more conservative sightseers shook their head in despair for this lost generation. Hahaha!
Other highlights included Maren's first Magnum ever- a mint one and us wading barefoot in the bay before we caught the ferry home.

It was such a beautiful day and the clouds were enormous and poofy and the sky a deep blue with bright green grass. A wonderful relaxing time of fun with friends before I finish all this crazy homework and have to go back to the States.

Family dinners

Ben is gone with his parents this week and so Kelsie and I have been going over to Maren and Leanna's place to eat our dinners. It's been nice to sit at a real table (and have real food the night they shared stir-fry with us and we made an ice cream smoothie). We get to chat a lot and act goofy and even watch McGee and Me! Wow, I forgot that existed- talk about memories from pre-childhood. Good times indeed.
On Friday (when praise and worship was cut short in the morning) after dinner, the four of us had our own praise time in the chapel and it was really nice.
Realizing I have access to an oven I bought a couple of frozen pizzas recommended to me by Stephen... Goodfellas is indeed a tasty brand!

Rashers and Clams

Stephen Nolan, a guy from our church, invited some of us to go camping on a little island in the middle of Galway Bay. His dad is a clam fisherman and offered to ferry us out there for a night, so Ben, Scott, Stephen and I all headed out on Sunday afternoon armed with Maren's dad's sleeping bag and a pillow. At Clarinbridge, we were picked up by Stephen and his dad Willy who carted us in the back of their dark fish truck to their house to pick up supplies. At the Nolan's house, Willy got made us tons of toast as Stephen gathered the tents and other sleeping bags. As he got ready to head out, Stephen says, "Wait. Let's bring a frying pan and some rashers." What a guy! So we brought a pan and some bacon, then headed to the boat with our Irish s'more ingredients: digestives, marshmallows and Cadbury chocolate.
At this point I remembered I had forgotten my camera. Again. I left my camera when I went on my bike ride, when I went to the Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands with the 'rents and now as I was about to camping on a tiny island in the middle of Galway Bay. I mention this at this point because had I remembered the dang thing you could be looking at a fine picture of Cap'n Willy Nolan in his sweet fisherman stance as he drove the little dinghy out to his clamming boat. Old jeans stuffed into waders, a thick flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, One leg up, hand on hip, looking like he owns the bay- what a baller.
As we chugged out into the bay, Willy asked us if he'd like him to get dinner for us... confused we said sure and he dropped the dredge and pulled up about thirty clams! Apparently, they go for like 2 euro each in the posh restaurants on the bay, but here we were with the fresh of the fresh.

On the island, we spent the rest of our daylight exploring around and found that a small ribbon of the inner island gets flooded by the high tide, but has to recede out like a river with a fast current- it was really amusing to watch. Scott and I braved the mud to get on one of the little islands between the flow, but decided we wanted to buld a bridge of rocks to get back. Of course once we found out how much the mud splattered on the guys across the way, we spent the next twenty minutes launching rocks at the mud trying to splatter the others as much as possible.

We finished up by exploring the town of like 7 old stone houses probably form the 17th or 18th century then began to build our fire. Despite having excellent kindling, and dry wood, it took us some time to get it started. It was pretty frustrating. But once we got it going, we cooked up our rashers, ate them with some brown bread, mixed water with the grease and boiled our clams and mussels in it. The mussels were really tasty, the clams weren't too bad and the worst part was that you had to crunch a few grains of sand, but it didn't matter much. However, while we had been digging up mussels on the beach, Stephen pointed out the limpets and decided we should try eating them too. He had never had them and figured they might be just another something to toss in the pot. Check the link if you don't know what they are. As far as eating goes, they taste a lot like clams, but the texture is so freakin nasty! The suction cup was hard and chewy, the back looked and felt like and eyeball and the side had this tough snail-face looking thing. I will never eat one again. I washed it down with water and our s'mores. We melted the chocolate on the digestives on rocks near the fire and devoured three whole bags of marshmallows. After eating, we built up the fire and messed around, jumping over it and such. Stephen got the great idea of jumping over it in quick succession, me going third. Seeing only Stephens back, I made a blind leap, caught my foot on a branch and tumbled headfirst... on the other side of the fire. It wasn't a big deal at all, but the video makes it look like I died in the fire. Pretty hilarious looking.

We hit the sack around 3 AM and were up by 6:30 to pack up and meet Willy on the shore. Willy called before we were ready and we ended up running across the island trying to hop barbed wire fences early in the morning while laden down with luggage.
Despite the fact that we missed the bus in Clarinbridge and had to wait another hour, we made it back all right and it was one of the best camping trips ever however short it may have been. Best location anyway... I wish I could do it again sometime.

Parents Weekend

The fam came in to Galway on April 19- it was a welcome break from hectic work because we had just finished giving our presentation for our World Area Missions class and we still had another paper for Contemp coming up, plus work was getting rough.
Mom, Dad, Brian, Aunt Carolyn, Uncle Dana, and Lindsay all came in and we went out to Da Roberta's for dinner (yes, I go there far too often ;-) ) The next day, we all had lunch at the cafe and I showed them around Galway- the cathedral, shop st, etc. and finally we headed out to the Cliffs of Moher!
Driving was a fun adventure- following my directions I know from walking places (which means I don't consider one way streets), Mom getting all flustered, Dad giving advice and Brian being... Brian. We made it to the Cliffs in one piece after stopping off in Kinvara where I had ridden my bike to last Monday and saw Dungaire Castle. I hadn't been to the Cliffs in two years and really they looked pretty much the same, but this time I went on the top of the cliffs and peered over the edge- pretty thrilling.
I was able to do the same at the slightly lower but no less stunning cliffs of Dun Aengus on Inis Moor in the Aran Islands on Friday. Dad, Brian and I biked out there and enjoyed the view, but not the hills it took to get there: we're all pretty out of shape since we last did TOSRV, but our bikes were pretty rickety too, so we can't take all the blame. I decided to take everyone to Clifden since cell group was canceled and I got to see that castle that Ben Kelsie and I had missed the first time. We ate dinner in the same place as I had last time and made it back to Galway well after dark where we said goodbye.
It was nice seeing them all and getting a break from work, but I could tell they had all been on vacation together for a while and it was a bit stressful. I'll be glad to be back home where the stress of travel isn't such a factor on everyone.

A castle on the bay

Six months without bicycling and 37 miles all in one day. That's right, on Monday the 14th, I found a nice sunny (and warm) day to rent a bike and ride to Kinvarra. You can see on that fine map my route around the end of Galway Bay- 18.4 miles each way and let me tell you, I was dying on the last couple of miles.

But it really was a great ride. I had such amazing weather and I was plenty warm. I was such a fool when I left though- not only did I forget normal clothes to wear over my biking jersey, I forgot my map and my camera! Ugh, what a fool. But I didn't get lost and I just wandered around Kinvarra in my awkward clothes and didn't care.
The beginning of the ride was stressful because of all the traffic and people trying to kill me. Apparently riding on the Galway-Limerick Road on a bike is such a grievous crime that it warrants the death penalty- only there are no judges or juries, just lots of little executioners riding their weapons past you as fast as they like. I enjoyed the smaller roads to say the least.

When I got to Kinvarra, I found that I had been to Dungaire Castle already with my previous ISP trip- amusing and frustrating. I chilled in town , eating my lunch and declined to pay 3 euro to climb to the top of the castle, then headed back.



As I was nearing Oranmore (the last town before my home) I was beginning to lose stamina... coming past the Dueling Field up Robber's Hill (where highwaymen would rob traders' wagons coming into Galway in the days of old) I saw why the theives chose the spot because one cannot go up it very fast, let alone after riding 30 some odd miles in my out of shape condition. Fortunately it is the 21st century and there was no ambuscade.

I did actually make it back in only a little longer than I took to go out- 1 hour there, 1 1/2 hours to get back. The guy at the bike shop was impressed I made it that far in that short of time :-) All in all I'd say 37 miles in 2 1/2 hours was not bad for having gone so long without biking and I really enjoyed seeing Ireland from a bike.

The rest of the day was spent recovering, eating pastries with friends and walking miles on the prom- my legs got quite to workout but I was not sore the next day... hooray!

Pictures Maren took of me as I headed out on my rented 21 speed:

Geneva Part IV

As I told you, I parted well with my roommates with a nice breakfast and thankfulness that God had provided me with such unexpected friends. Little did I know that this theme was still to continue (as it has this entire spring break!)

The English speaking Lutheran church I had scoped out earlier in the week was in the old part of town in a square next to St. Pierre's Cathedral, so I used my free public transit pass to lug myself and my suitcases all the way down the lake shore and into town. I was pleased with how close I was able to get myself by switching trains and buses- it's like I was almost familiar with the system in this city!

I arrived to church early and saw the German speaking service getting out and a nice little old lady approached me and said something in German, then asked me if I knew Jesus in English. I smiled and said, "Yes, in fact I'm about to go to the English service here!" And she tottered off with a smile that looked like she had just saved my soul... hahaha so funny.

I didn't see Marian, but I went to the office she had directed me to and found their music minister there (a man from Michigan) and told him that Marian said I could leave my luggage in their during the service. He helped stow it for me and led me back to the sanctuary where the English speaking members were gathering. It was such a random mix of people! As the lady from Kentucky sitting next to me explained, English is kind of a lingua franca for a lot of peoples and while it's not their first language, a lot of people know it better than they know French or German, so we had piles of Asians, Africans, and even some from South America.

The service was so cool- traditional Lutheran liturgy in form, but all the songs and little segue music things were in various languages as well as English- really random Indonesian toungues and all sorts of stuff. Plus, they went to the tune that the people of that language would have sung it in. You could tell it was a church that was very involved in the world. An African American pastor, Peter E. Matthews, was a guest preacher, and he delivered and excellent sermon that got us all very excited0 you know how they preach with lots of response from the crowd. The Swiss may be white people but they're better at responding to a black preacher than most white Americans (specifically Taylor students).

After the service, they had the classic "gathering and meeting time" but it wasn't just tea and coffee! They had loads of good cakes and amazing cookies and all sorts of stuff. Plus about fifteen people came up and introduced themselves to me (since during the service, visitors stand and tell a little about themselves) everyone was curious about the missions minor in Ireland. I got to talking with a Filipino man name Ernesto Arellano and he introduced me to a lot of people and was just a great guy to talk to. As the morning got on, I realized that they were having a farewell luncheon for one of their elders, an American named Morgan. Not wanting to impose, I headed up to get my luggage when Marian intercepted me and invited me to stay for the luncheon, joking that I could claim I was Morgan's cousin from America. Again, such wonderful hospitality! My afternoon plans included chilling at a cafe in the train station until my boarding time.

We had some fantastic food made by "church ladies" (you know the type- the ones that cook really really well)and Ernesto and I talked with a few more people, including Pastor Matthews who took an interest in what I had to say about the missions program at Taylor and what I was doing in Ireland. He gave me his card with his website and then went on to tell me a little about my new friend Ernesto. It turns out that Ernesto is a successful missionary in the Philippines who started a phenomenal school to educate poor farmers while helping them grow their crop. It's one of the biggest "poor" schools in his country and has grades higher (on national tests) than most government run schools. I had no idea I had been befriended by a famous missionary!

However, our conversation was cut short by the farewell ceremonies for Morgan: people toasted him and all sorts of good things, but the words I most heard were things like, "Morgan you were the first person to greet me here and make me feel so welcome; I'll never forget how nice my first service here was." Morgan also caught onto the trend in the toasts and finally told the people that as he left, he was passing the torch to them and that it was their responsibility to seek out the lonely looking new people and to talk with them and make friends with them. I can personally vouch for the fact that they are already doing that very well. As things wound up, we sang a song for him about picking up our bags and leaving, then about God being in all the new places in all the new faces... something mildly cheesy like that. But it rang so true with me as the theme of my entire spring break. I kept the words to the song, but unfortunately sent them home with souvenirs with my parents so maybe one day I'll come back and edit this post with the song lyrics, but it was really very touching, especially for me in light of the past two weeks of my life.

Edit: my mom found the lyrics for me and emailed them:

When we lift our pack and go,
when we seek another country moving far from all we know,
when we long to journey free:
God is in the other place, God is in another's face,
in the faith we travel by, God is in the other place.

Through the loneliness of night,
through the sky's uncharted spaces not a sparrow falls in flight
but a loving God will care:
God is in the other place, God is in another's face,
in the faith we travel by, God is in the other place.

Sons and daughters must depart,
friends will go on other's journeys, only constant is the heart
that can trust its God to be:
God is in the other place, God is in another's face,
in the faith we travel by, God is in the other place.
In the hands outstretched to greet,
through the open doors of strangers there is love we yet can meet
and believe that Christ is there:
God is in the other place, God is in another's face,
in the faith we travel by, God is in the other place.

My train was coming soon and Ernesto walked me to the train station to say goodbye. The ride to Paris was full of me sleeping and the rest of the travel was just that: travel- tiring, awkward, stressful, and long. I saw the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, ate at a McDonald's on the Champs Elysees (purely for the fact that when someone asks me to go to McDs in the future, I can snobbishly turn them down saying that the last McDs I went to was on the Champs Elysees in Paris and I wouldn't lower myself to anything else.... nah, just kidding but things like that amuse me anyway).
I was thrilled to see Dublin under my airplane wing again (and I took a picture of all of Howth peninsula- funny how those cliffs it took us three hours to hike fit in the tiny camera frame). The bus ride to Galway was long and tedious, but my heart leapt for joy when I saw that green dome of the cathedral in the distance! I knew I was almost home... I struggled with my bags from the bus station to An Tobar Nua, climbed the stairs and collapsed on the floor. I was so glad to be back safe and sound where I speak the language and I know people well, but I was also so thankful for all the ways God provided for me when I was away from all the goodness here.

Geneva Part III

Other things I did on that Friday before I had all the nice chats with my roommates:
I headed across the lake to see the starting of le Jet at 10AM... lots of fun, the guy let this little girl push the button and up it went, the biggest landmark in the city born each morning... such fun. After my lunch, I went up in the towers of St. Pierre's cathedral for a nice view of the city and the lake, then took a bus to the east end of town where the city zoo was. It was really more like a farm yard as you will see in my pictures, but the peacocks were funny and the marmots rocked my socks. The best part of the whole Geneva zoo though was the park nearby... this park is the home of a cousin of the Teeter-Go-Round!!! I was so excited! Except I had no one to ride it with and the little kids were hogging it, but that's okay because this thing was more like a Wobble-Go-Round and didn't seem capable of handling the jokes I wanted to put it through. Here's a nice short video of how it went (my memory card was getting full at this point, that's why its so short.) So yeah, that was all before I went back and talked religion with the roomies as I told you about in the last post. Can't believe I forgot that goodness.



Saturday was my day for hiking and yes, even though there's a part IV to the Geneva experience, I'll give you pictures now because holding out for this long is just cruel. The bus (with my wonderful free ticket from the hostel) took me to the south of town as the dude at the tourist office suggested and from there I walked about five minutes across the border into France (didn't even know I had crossed the first time... one tiny little sign and that's all). Five feet into France, there's this cable car place that sends you up for like 7 euro (heck yes, no more Swiss francs) and I pretty much spent the entire day hiking, chilling, and lounging around on top of le Saleve. Magnificent views of Geneva, I could see all the way to Lausanne, and plenty of the Alps. I fell asleep in a little meadow I found and ended up a bit sunburnt which was a little unexpected. The snow was old and mostly melted but it was still amusing to see. I found one of those lovely double chocolate Magnums- chocolate ice cream surrounded by fudge, then encapsulated by the chocolate shell. Downright glorious.
I wanted to stay there all day until the last cable car down, but I felt like I needed to get back and tie up loose ends from the conversation I had had last night with the roomies. So, I tore myself from the mountain and headed back and arrived at the hostel in time for dinner. Mahdi was of course there because the only two places he went in Geneva were the hostel and the mosque- never saw any other bit of the city. And we were lucky enough to Ejavet and Erga deciding they didn't want hostel food.
At this point, my roommates and other who know me well will laugh: we decided to have a roommate date and all go out to dinner. That's right, even when I'm only roommates for three nights and we barely speak each other's languages, I've gotta instigate a roommate date. I'm such a dork. Of course I didn't call it that in front of them... just the guys having dinner, but I knew Reno would enjoy my awkward terminology. :-)
We had pizza at a little Italian place and chatted for quite a while as we waited on Mahdi to get back from his evening prayers (he never came back after dinner and we ended up leaving without him... kinda made Ejavet mad). For the rest of the night, the Germans and I just strolled around hitting up random places to get drinks- Erga always got a couple German beers, Ejavet an espresso and me however many cokes Ejavet wanted to buy me. They wanted to get rid of their swiss francs so they didn't mind buying me a few. Trouble is, I hate coke, but I didn't want to drink alcohol in front of them and I hate coffee more, so whatever. I had loads of nasty tasting caffeine, but it was all right because Erga drank like seven beers and didn't seem the least bit tispy. He is a beast of a German after all: a big jolly guy. We all got to know each other a lot better and it turns out that Erga built his one room house into a 27 room mansion over the years, while Ejavet is a philosopher with a couple papers published and a book in the works. We talked a lot about things like justice and random things like the likeness between swans and dinosaurs. From there we got onto evolution and such and looking at the stars, marveling at the universe. At this point, I saw another evangelical opportunity and commented that the word universe comes from the Latin for "one truth" pointing toward an absolute reality and a designer, but silly me, I had forgotten that Ejavet was a Muslim who also believes in a Creator God... we agreed on everything and I laughed at myself for trying a move that is supposed to be used on atheists.
After a while, Ejavet grew quieter and moody, leaving Erga and I to talk in his broken in English. He's such an amusing guy though! I wish I could hang out with him more. We talked a bit about Mahdi and how angry Ejavet was with him for being closeminded, impolite and all sorts of stuff, but Erga and I agreed that Mahdi was a good guy at heart, just a confused kid with a crazy love interest and no sense of time. We convinced Ejavet to forgive him before we got back to the hostel.
When we got there, I saw that Mahdi had picked up my book on religious pluralism (that I had for homework). Wondering if he had read anything good, I asked him about it, but he turned at me really mad looking- Apparently the author mentions Muhammed once and I had left the book under my bed (on the floor) which really bothered Mahdi. I apologized and put the book in my bag and he calmed down and laughed and said it wasn't a big deal, but it seems apparent he didn't really read much more out of the book.

The four of us all had breakfast together the next day, Sunday as we all prepared to leave. The Germans were in high spirits (no sign of a hangover at all from Erga despite the huge amounts of alcohol he consumed) and Mahdi was looking up tickets from Libya to "the Russia" to see that girl. We all parted and told each other we were glad to have roomed with good friendly guys instead of creepy thieves or something. It was a great time.

Then I headed to church and later to grab a train to Paris- but that story will wait til next time


Pictures!

Geneva- Part II

Friday was my second full day in Geneva and I spent it hitting up all the sights around town I had missed the first day- I went inside a few of the museums that I actually had to pay for (but had decided they were worth it after sizing up the competition). I found (right by St. Pierre's Cathedral in the old city) and English speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church and I met a nice lady named Marian who told me I could come to church on Sunday with all my luggage and store them in a locked office. Nice to know I had some sort of plan for later days!
I bought some Swiss chocolate, looked at them time on my Swiss watch and wished airplanes were cooler with knives so I could have pulled out my Swiss army knife, but I knew I had it back in Galway. The Swiss do those three things and not much else, but they do them very well.
After ogling the Ferrari and Maserati dealership across the street from an overly symbolic and new-looking Catholic church, I headed back to the hostel for dinner since I knew I could get a balanced meal for cheap since all I had been living on for the past few days was cheese, bread, and PB&J. I met up with my German roommates and we had dinner together- it was really nice. Ejavet was in Geneva to apply for a job with the Red Cross and Erga, his childhood friend was along for "companionness" as they called it. Erga didn't know nearly as much English as Ejavet, so I talked mostly with Ejavet and learned that he was actually Turkish but had lived in Germany since he was an infant. Erga made a few jokes now and then, but he was mostly hard to understand but it was still cool. After dinner, I went to watch a few more chess games then game back for an early bedtime since I knew I planned on hiking the next day.
As I lay in bed, reading my Bible, Mahdi and the Germans came back in and they noticed I was reading a Bible. Mahdi proceeded to tell us about his Muslim prayer rituals (in fact I accidentally walked in on him once- that was embarrassing) and he and Ejavet started to get into some arguments about Islam (Ejavet is a nominal Muslim having been born in Turkey but raised in German Christian culture). Ejavet is very well educated and knew his stuff, but Mahdi definitely practices it all regularly and I could tell the each looked down on each other. Soon enough, Mahdi started talking about Isa in the Injils (Jesus in the Gospels) and wanted me to know that Jesus predicted the coming of Muhammed. Fortunately (the better and more accurate word here is blessedly), I knew exactly what he was referring to, having talked about it in our classes back in Galway. Turning to John 14:16, I read the words of Isa that Mahdi was referring to and he got very excited to hear me "confirming" what he said. But I went on, reading that this Counselor would live in us and I asked him how Muhammed as a human being could live in other people. Mahdi read the words over and over again and got kind of confused and so I tried to tell him that the Counselor could not be a man like Muhammed but a spirit, the Spirit of God. At this point, Ejavet interjected saying that it was wrong to believe that God would live in a person then Mahdi said, "Oh but I think something divine lives in this girl I met... oh how I want to go to the Russia to see her..." and our theological conversation was effectively ended as the other guys started making fun of him. I was excited about the door God had opened though and hoped I had planted some seeds. I prayed that night that God would use me to reach my roommates throughout the trip and that I would be able to follow His lead and not mess things up. Little did I know where that would bring me...


And again, I pause for an intermission for my homework and your attention span. Yes, I know there are no pictures yet: I still have much of the story to tell and I don't want you distracted by the Swiss Alps (oh yes there are Alps, where did you think I'm going hiking?) while I'm trying to tell you all about how God used the situations with my roommates and all the people I met.

Geneva- Part I

Sorry it has taken so long to post this one. I had a big presentation to give, then my parents came and I got behind on my homework again.

I took the TGV from Angers to Lyons for about five hours- it was so fast, but France is pretty big. Lyons was large and confusing, but I found my way to the platform for the train to Geneve and secured my spot on the train. We wound through tall mountains I couldn't even see the tops of and there was this little kid who had just learned how to walk tottering up and down the aisles, nearly falling each time the train turned. We arrived in Geneva after dark and I was glad that I had booked a hotel the day before (as expensive as it was, this was my spring break and if I was gonna spend two nights on the streets, I could afford one night in a nice hotel). I quickly found out that even though my French is passable, if people get confused as to what I am asking, they all speak English anyway. I found my hotel, looked up a hostel, booked the rest of the time there, picked up a city map and a guide book from the tourist office, then settled down for a nice rest in a nice bed.

The next morning (Thursday) I moved out of the hotel and up the lake shore to my hostel. This was my first time seeing Geneva in daylight and it was fantastic. Such a beautiful city! The lake is clear, the air clean, the buildings tall and the weather perfect! The hostel was decent too, with lockers, clean beds and showers as well as included breakfast and a free pass to use Geneva's public transit system. And so I embarked on my spree of tourism. The guide book had lots of interesting places, so I just looked for the nearest ones and worked my way through the city. I saw monuments, museums, statues of Reformers, churches, parks, the Jet d'Eau and all sorts of sweet things.
As I was stopped at the Anglican Church, a man approached me and asked if I spoke English, which of course I do. He told me he was an Iranian professor from Tehran who was a UN refugee stuck in Geneva and he was writing a book and he wanted me to help correct his English grammar and such. At first, I was wondering how to get away from him, but then I realized that I had four days in this city and I was pretty lonely and bored already, so why not? Farad and I sat in the church and went over his papers for the next two hours- some pretty feisty stuff about Bush, then some anecdotes one about how far people will go to still have someone to talk to... I thought it was appropriate. It was nice to talk with someone for that long even if most of the conversation was confused and scattered.
The pictures will speak for themselves for the things I saw, but one of my favorite places was Parc des Bastions (where the Reformation Wall is) and where there are huge life size chess boards and pieces and bunches of old Swiss men huddling around, playing or watching the games, trash talking in French and making fun of each other. It was really amusing and I ended up watching lots of games and coming back for more.

That night, I settled back into the hostel after a long day of walking all over the city and learning my way around the tram and bus system. I met my roommates- Mahdi, a Lybian who had just met the girl of his dreams apparently because he couldn't stop talking about her and how he wanted to go visit "the Russia" where she lives. Later, Ejavet and Erga two Germans came in and settled down. There were a couple others (an awkwardly loud American and two students from Hong Kong who were studying in Britain) but the first three were ones I got to know later.

A lot happened in the next few days, so I'll break up the story for my homework's and your attention span's sake.

Angers

We had a very nice evening train ride from Caen to Angers filled with good conversation and looking out the window at France all the while Devon being more confused that I was about where she was. We past some church and she thought it was the Norman coastal town of Mont St. Michel- we were so far from there... oh Devo.
We were picked up in the Angers train station by Devon's French boyfriend, Pierre-Charles who thankfully does speak English. He drove us to his flat for dinner where we had some pizza and rice au lait from his parents' dairy farm in Bretagne. He also gave us some fresh milk which was so rich and fantastic and amazing. Being a long day, we retired to Devon's apartment and fell asleep.
The next day (Tuesday the 25th) was a glorious day of touring through Angers with Devon showing me all the famous places and her favorite spots. We saw cathedrals and old streets, her favorite parks and places to run (with beautiful spring flowers in bloom) and she took me to this cozy little restaurant that was very fancy and snobbish looking, but the prices were quite decent and we had a three course glorious French meal complete with all the things French do like bread and cheese, and the very best chocolate mousse I had ever tasted. After that we went to le Chateau d'Angers (it amuses me how the French "of Angers" looks like "dangers"!) where we toured around and saw good views of the city, tapestries depicting Revelation, and found a sweet echo spot inside of a tower where you could hear your voice as if you were miked and we sang Come Thou Fount. It was awesome.
We made ourselves a nice dinner of fresh bread and fine cheese for dinner that night along with some spaghetti and zucchini I cooked. We also happened to roll by the train station to see if I could get to Rome for the next few days to finish out my vacation, but the lady said there were no tickets and offered other (more expensive ways) to get to Rome. We told her that I didn't need to get to Rome, just somewhere nice and for cheap, so she looked and some decent tickets to Geneva popped up! Ok, so I'm going to Geneva... that's why that night as well as the next morning I spent lots of time learning about this city and looking for places to stay. My tickets were for 1PM so I mostly chilled on Wednesday morning and headed out that afternoon for a looong train ride across pretty much all of France.

Pictures:

Caen and Normandy

The train ride from Paris to Caen in Normandy was sweet because it was my first time on a TGV and they are pretty dang fast. The only trouble is I was a bit sick and really didn't feel like reading aloud parts of the Easter story like Devon wanted to. I felt bad about it, but my nasal cavties were feeling worse. We arrived in Caen and were picked up by Romain, a guy we had never met before whom Devon had arranged things with through a website called CouchSurfing. It sounds shady I know, but after looking into the website, it seems very legit and after our experience with Romain and I can tell you it is.
Romain didn't speak any English, so it was mostly up to Devon to talk and I said a few phrases. I could understand most of it, but had a hard time formulating my thoughts into a French sentence. He was such an energetic and exited young fellow who really seemed to enjoy showing us around Caen and it's chateau before dropping us off at the DDay Memorial museum. We spent most of the afternoon there going through exhibits and seeing little films, but we found that the bus service that runs from Caen to the invasion beaches were not running because it was Easter weekend. We left the memorial wondering how we would reach our ultimate goal, but tried to spend the evening enjoyed our time at Romain's little apartment. His girlfriend knew less English, but we got to know another couple who was staying with him- friend from when they used to live on a little island off of Madagascar. That had a little two year old son named Joharey who had an ear infection and despite crying now and then was a very happy and explorative little guy. Devon played some songs for them and we chatted a lot (or rather they chatted and I listened). It was a very fun evening and looking back, I don't remember it being in a different language- I still feel like I got to know them without that barrier.
The next morning we worried about how we might get to the beaches and so we mentioned our problem to Romain who promptly offered to drive us the 45 minutes to Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery. I could not believe the generosity! Not only had this man picked us up from the train station, drove us all over Caen, fed us dinner, took us in for the night, fed us breakfast and lunch, he drove us all the way to the beaches an back! What a guy! He didn't even expect a cent in payment, but we insisted on paying for the gas for the long drive.
The beach and the cemetery were very moving for me. Even the drive to the beach looked familiar from pictures and stories I have read. I've done a lot of study on Operation Overlord and this has been my one travel goal ever since... forever. It was so exciting to look out on the very sea that was once filled with the largest invasion fleet in the history of the world (even up til now), to stand on the beach whose waves were once red with blood, to look up on the bluffs that once hid thousands of Germans in Rommel's Atlantic Wall. I took a few rocks from Omaha Beach- a black heart shaped one, a red heart, and two other random reddish ones. The cemetery was the best though. I though a lot on this quote from the end of Ernie Pyle's book "Brave Men"

When we come across the dead men who gave everything for their buddies and for everyone back home, all we can do is pause and murmur quietly, "Thanks, buddy".

I took lots of pictures at the cemetery and even got one of the American flag with the sun behind it just like in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. That one and the ones with the cross with the rose are my favorite pictures.
I was glad I was finally able to make it to the DDay beaches and I really enjoyed being able to tell the history to Devon and the others. We drove straight from the beaches to the Caen train station where we emabarked on the next part of our adventure- Devon's little town of Angers in the Loire Valley.

Pictures:

Paris- the real deal

In my effort to make the last post a nice, concise, and unboring rundown of the events I totally forgot ALL the stuff I wanted to say about the things that happened there and all the things I have been excited to share since I got back. Man, am I a fool. So now that you have that handy little overview of events, you can place these thoughts in with that timeline. :-)

The whole day of leaving Greystones was rather sad- I love that town and had been delighted to return (fulfilling a vow I made in the early hours of November 21, 2005). I was also sad because I was leaving my friends with whom I had been through this whole adventure. I was excited to see Devon, but I wish I had known I wasn't gonna see Ben again when I left the room that morning because we never said a proper goodbye, but it was nice of Kelsie to walk me to the DART station.

I was terrified of trying to find my way places using the French language. Sure I can memorize the Beatitudes in French and rattle them off with a nice accent, but landing at some airport in the middle of the night, finding a bus to one of the biggest cities on the continent, then spending the night who knows where? From leaving the DART station in Greystones at 3PM on Friday to finding Devon in Gare Montparnasse at noon the next day, I was mostly lonely and afraid.
But! God was watching over me in a way that was so profoundly evident I would have had to have been in an unconscious state to not recognize it. First, I got straight from Greystones to Pizza Pino in random street number 80 billion in Paris without a single hitch. I wanted to take credit as an expert traveler and decipherer of foreign language signs, but I knew I was too tired and confused for that to be true. Not only that, but God gave me the grace to sleep at time in places I shouldn't have without getting caught. I was given a nice little seat in the pizza place facing away from everyone so I could pull out a book and studiously lean over it which so happened to be a mildly comfortable sleeping position. Random times, I felt the need to open my eyes, smile and look around. Every one of those "random" times, my waiter was just on his way over to check on me. The same thing happened with the police when I was napping in the bus stop: I got up and was rummaging through my suitcase rather than huddled in a corner with a blanket an pillow looking like quite the vagrant. And of course again in the cafe the next morning, I was woken by an unexplainable thing during my little naps to grin up at the barrista who had just then decided to glance at me.

If God's hand wasn't evident enough in the amazing and unexpected hospitality of my new friends Melissa and Philippe, you might have to check your level of awareness and see if you're conscious!

And finally, the grace to have such and amazing, accommodating, wise, understanding, fun, and amusing friend as Devon Graves studying in France, to come to Paris to visit with me and show me around, introduce me to our hosts, not to mention give me the infallible directions that got me to Pizza Pino the night before as well as plan out our French adventure in Caen and Angers for the next few days... this sentence has become too long and I don't know how to end it. But God is amazing to give me a friend like Devon and put us both in that situation!

All in all, I did a terrible job planning this excursion and it should have been the biggest disaster of my life- I mean like dead in a gutter disaster.* But God through Devon, our hosts, and His hand working in so many ways turned it not only into a survival in a big city, but a fantastic touristy trek though Paris!




* Call this poetic license of exagerration: I remind you, I was never in any real danger of my life- pickpockets maybe, but nothing life or death!

Paris

Traveling alone is rough. I understood a surprising amount of French as we got off the plane and fought like mad for a spot on a bus into the city. I got it so late that I never really booked a place to stay and just planned to meet Devon in the morning. She had told me of this pizza place that was open late, so I found my way there fairly easily and spent the wee hours of the morning slowly devouring a pizza with an egg on it. They kicked me out at 5AM when the closed and I napped in a bus stop until the metro opened and rode it around for a couple hours until a little cafe was open where I spent the rest of the morning. So yes, I didn't tell my parents or anyone else who would worry that I spent a night on the streets of Paris. Kind of. No, for you worrisome types out there, I'm sure I was never in any danger, it was just uncomfortable.
After some confusion in the train station, Devon and I finally met up, stowed out luggage, then headed out to see the city! Devon was such an amazing tour guide and I saw all the good stuff and none of the lame stuff in like five hours. It was exhausting, but I had some amazing gellato, got my picture taken in front of like forty thousand famous places, listened to her play the piano for a crowd in a bookshop, and realized I was incredibly tired and kinda smelly.
We had plans for dinner with some of Devo's friends in Paris: Melissa and Philippe. They had met in America while Philippe was studying abroad there and Melissa had come to France and they were now engaged and it was also Philippe's birthday! This meant a phenomenal meal in which I actually ate asparagus and enjoyed is (don't tell anyone, they might get ideas). Philippe also happens to be a high class French wine connoisseur, so being his birthday, he broke out some of the really nice stuff and tried to teach us a lot about fine wine tasting. It was a phenomenal experience. They ended up very generously offering to let us stay the night, so Devon canceled our other lodging plans and we settled down in their little Parisian flat. I was amazed by how much I had seen and done in one day, how much sleep I was lacking, and how incredibly wonderful our hosts were, though I had just met them.
Easter morning dawned in Paris and Melissa gave us American candy (Reese's Cups to be precise) for our Easter baskets! By this point my thankfulness for their hospitality was almost overflowing until they gave us bus tickets to get to the train station so we could make it to Caen that day. Paris and the sights were nice, but I will never forget such amazing and unexpected friends as Melissa and Philippe.
On our train ride to Caen, Devon and I got to do a bit of an Easter Sunday Bible study (since we hadn't had time to go to Easter Mass at Notre Dame like we wanted to), and we arrived in Caen sometime after lunch.

That story will wait for another time of me procrastinating from my homework, but for now, here are the pictures of Paris:

The first week of break- the Dublin experience

Even though I still have lots to do I need some way to procrastinate, so you're getting the first installment of the spring break updates.

Our first week (March 16-21) was spent living in Greystones near the rest of the TU students. We nearly missed the bus from Galway, got stuck in the Bray DART station like usual, but Ben and I were too elated to return to our old home to care much. We were staying not at the YWCA with the rest of the group, but at a small theological college called Carraig Eden. It was really rather like a hostel situation and Ben and I shared a room that had four beds, community showers down the hall. It was so great to sit on the rocks above the waves again and climb down to the beach like I always used to. That night Kelsie and her roommate went out to dinner, so Ben and I headed to the Y to introduce ourselves to the TU crowd and have dinner with them. We got to chat with a number of people we had kind of known from back on campus and it was really nice to chat with other people from our school. Ben and I went out later that night and even bought Tesco 2 litre colas for defenestration, but the guys didn't seem too into it. The Man House had been all refurbished and lacked it's wonderful smell and character, but it was still my old home. The rock doorstops that we named two years ago were still there!
Monday was St. Patrick's Day and so we accompanied the group into Dublin for Mass at the Dublin Pro-Cathedral and the parade, but not before I accidentally got drenched by a wave that literally rose more than fifteen feet from the sea to hit me. I think God was messing with me or something because it was totally impossible for any wave in those conditions to reach me as near to the road as I was. Aaanyway... Dublin was SO jam packed for the parade. As Megan told me later "I wouldn't wish Dublin on Paddy's Day on anyone"... yet we went by choice. The parade was so weird and fantastical with loads of awkward costumes. I didn't even upload most of the pictures; it just wasn't worth it. But! Afterwards, we had a choice of going to a Gaelic Athletic games day in Croke Park or dancing. Kelsie went off with some girls for dancing while Ben and I headed off for some hurling and Gaelic football. Some sweet games and solid pics. Being a separate group from the ISP, we took the liberty of leaving early to go to dinner in Temple Bar, but we had to meet up with Kelsie who by this point was all alone and trying to find us in an unfamiliar city. Poor kid, she did well finding the Millennium Spire, but we're probably not gonna leave her alone much more. We had dinner with a couple girls who had a mutual friend with Ben, then headed back to Bray to explore to Promenade, then back to Greystones to chill at the Y.
Tuesday, we spent the morning hanging out with people at the Y and then in the afternoon, headed off with the group to Glendalough. It was great to return there also, but it's so much prettier in August when I first saw it. Again we split off from the group and did our own little hike, meeting up at the picturesque tree with the huge swooping branch so Kelsie and her roommate could take pictures of each other in front of the lake.
On Wednesday, the ISPers had to go to Irish Lit class with Beulah Baker... not wanting any part of that we fulfilled our duty to Vance and pretty much finished off Kelsie's Irish history class by giving her the grand tour of historical sites in Dublin. We took the Hop on/Hop off bus and saw Trinity College, the Book of Kells, Dublin Castle (which I had never been to before), Christ Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral, as well as Kilmainham Gaol (where we had the same fantastic tour guide I had had two years ago. We had dinner at Flanagan's on O'Connell street which shows up in the Tom Clancy book and movie Patriot Games... this wa sonly after our attempt to eat at the pub in which Patrick Pearse surrendered at the end of the Easter Rising was foiled. Coming back, we stopped off in Bray again and spent the rest of the night chilling at the Y.
Once again on Thursday, the ISPers weere in class, so we went on our hiking expedition. Walking through Greystones harbor reminded me of Sam and Frodo returning to the industrialized Shire... "This is worse than Mordor, Mr. Frodo... This is Mordor, Sam." It was sad, but it afforded us the opportunity to meet Liam the Wise Construction Worker. Just a random working man, hauling cement in a wheelbarrow, stopped us and just drenched us in little pearls of wisdom! Such a delightful man! I hope he does that to a lot of people because I feel like there are a lot of people who needed to hear the kind of stuff he had to say more than we did. Appreciate what you've got- your two legs to hike, the weather, your friends. Don't be greedy for more, it'll never satisfy. Friends are the most important thing you've got, never let go. And the like. So we had a bit of beauty before we reached the stunning view of Bray Head and the Cross over Bray and the descent into the town. From there we picked up the DART headed north because Ben had to go to Dublin Airport to pick up Lauren and Kelsie and I went to to hike to cliff walk on Howth Peninsula. On the way there, we found that we had our whole DART car to ourselves and like little kids, we ran around gleefully because there was no one there to look down on us for being foolish. It was great. I had hiked part of the cliffwalk once before with Ben, Kim, Kristin, and Kiira, but we did the Sutton half and missed the incredible cliffs on the far side of the peninsula. It was an exhausting hike, with a good bit of windblown mist in our faces in the latter half, but we made it and barely made it back to Greystones in time to meet Ben and Lauren at the Hungry Monk for our dinner. I had always wanted to go to this ridiculously nice restaurant but it's just out of my price range, so this spring break was my time to splurge. I had the most incredible and tender fall-off-the-bone Wicklow Mountain Lamb. Best way to end a long day of hiking. i was content.
In Friday, I mostly spent the day preparing to go to France that evening. I got my hair cut in anticipation of the lack of showers, I did my laundry, packed, ate lots of food at the Y and sat around reading. I caught my DART to Dublin around three, had a fun time finding the AirLink buses, realized I had to pay extra to bring my checked luggage (stupid RyanAir) and eventually was on my way to Paris that night.


Here are the pics- You can restart the slideshow or just click on the Picasa icon to go straight to the album and preview the pics at your leisure.

Back from break!

This is just a shout out to let you all know that I'm back from my whirlwind European adventure safe and sound. In the meantime, I have papers due very soon, not to mention work so the pictures and accounts of what happened will come as they may in little segments.
For those of you who don't know, we had March 16-31 off from work and for the first week (16-21) Ben, Kelsie and I went to Greystones to be with the other ISP group for St. Patrick's Day in Dublin, showing Kelsie around some of the historical sites, hiking in Glendalough and other local places.
Then on the Friday 21, we split up- Kelsie to visit friends in Liverpool, Ben to Dublin with Lauren and hiking in Scotland and me to France to visit Devon.
I went to Paris until Sunday morning took a train to Caen in Normandy to see the DDay Memorial and beaches. Tuesday night, we headed to Devon's town of Angers in the Loire Valley where we saw the sites and her stomping grounds. Here we decided based on cheapest train ticket price that my next adventure would lead me to Geneva, Switzerland and I so headed there on Wednesday, TGVing all across France and spending the remained of my days there until yesterday when I headed out for the marathon adventure of making it back here. I've been awake for far too long, traveled for 30 hours, sleeping on the streets of Paris and am hoping you will be patient with further updates. It was a trip full of amazing sights, people, and lots of unexpected hospitality.

PS Traveling alone is cool because you have so much freedom to do what you want, but it also sucks because it's so lonely. I miss you all and can't wait to talk to you in person again.

Historians take note!

On Saturday we took a "religious history tour" of Galway. This was not some fool guided tour with a bored kid with a memorized script. Mike knows this guy named William Henry who is probably one of the smartest men I've met (outside of Dr. Ringenberg and a few others). He was a fascinating and hilarious Irish man who's written loads of books (seemed like one on almost everywhere he took us, but the more famous ones are this book and this book, on Galway and WWI. It was wonderful to have this tour because he showed us all these fantastic historical and archaeological things that have been right under our noses this whole time. Did you know that the building I live in was once a barracks for the infamous Black and Tans? He took us to an ancient 6th century monastery that you would expect to be hidden miles out in rural Gaeltacht Ireland, but no St. Odram's monastic settlement of Roscam is a mere seven minute drive from city center! Buried in an old cemetery on Michael Collins road in Ballybane are revolutionaries from the war for independence. Surrounding it are imposing and modern apartment complexes threatening to consume the history within it. St. Augustine's Holy Well holds stories of Christianized Druidic practices from the 5th century as well as a brawl and a brush with the Gardai in Willy's childhood as he and his friends realized that coins were tossed in the well!

We heard so much in such a short time, there was no way even if I had taken notes that I could have remembered it all. Truly a remarkable man keeping alive the memories of a fascinating town in a historic land. He was so passionate about his work- especially the parts on remembering the Irish who fought in the trenches of WWI and were hated for defending their land when they returned to the anti-British revolutionary climate of postwar Ireland.

Here are my various pictures of the afternoon.

Nuns make me smile

I had the joy of washing our outside walls yesterday morning and as I was scrubbing away, I was approached by a little old nun who kept telling me that I was a good man, keeping things clean like that. She went into our bookstore for a little bit and when she came back out she came up to me and said, “Would you scrub my soul clean?” Not knowing what to say I said, “With soap and water? That’s not the trick.” And she replies “Oh I know, but wouldn’t it be easy if that were the way?” Then she tottered off. It was a very interesting experience.
Then today, we went to Mass with Aine at Poor Clare's Convent on Nun's Island and there was one nun who couldn't stop grinning throughout the whole Mass. It was great.

In other news, we're going on a history of Galway tour tomorrow, we have one more week until spring break and I'm planning a 37 mile bicycle trip to a castle on the other side of Galway Bay. Should be sweet.

Here are some pictures I've been neglecting to put up:

Claddagh Church & Cafe


Swans on the Long Walk

Irish weather

I was told of a Mountaineering Club at NUIG, so we might look into hooking up with one of their hikes to get out more.

The rest of the week was pretty classic- work and good jokes and such. Ben and I got to reconnect with Alan on the bridge and I sat there quietly while they talked in Spanish and we found out that he doesn't have a job because he doesn't have the right papers to work in Ireland, so we talked to Mike to find an organization that works with people in his situation to get it all figured out.
Then tonight while I was out wandering about I met a guy named Jason from Bray who wanted some spare change because he was "sleeping rough tonight". Having been taught not to give cash to just anyone and everyone, I got him a kebab and invited him to come our cafe sometime, even showed him where it is and he was thoroughly impressed by our prices so we plan on having lunch tomorrow. Apparently I just attract these people or God just lands them on me, but I do what I can.

We walked home from church this weekend which was really nice because it was sunny. Today I walked around a lot and got rained, snowed, sunned and winded on. The weather was very shifty today.

I sometimes fight an urge to jump in the river.

Moinin na gCiseah

This morning I was excited for two things- first in place of our staff devotions time in the morning, Deidre was going to give a talk on the Stations of the Cross which promised to be both enlightening and meditative. However, because of the second thing I was looking forward to (going with Mike and Paul into a school for evangelism) we had to be ready to go earlier and I had to miss out on Deirdre’s presentation. We gathered together a notebook and some DVDs in a Catholic Evangelism packet that Mike has called “Youth caFE” but I never did find out what the awkwardly lettered “caFE” stood for. On the way there, we previewed a song we plane don discussing with the kids: a rap about the Trinity and Jesus as our God. I found it not quite as embarrassing and awkward as most Christian rap I’ve heard, but it was still Christian rap. I wondered why Mike and Paul chose it, running though my head the theories that kids these days identify with rap but also taking note that kids often find that when they are presented with something that doesn’t come natural to the presenter, it can come off as contrived. Seeing how Paul and Mike are not accomplished rappers nor do they listen to the genre, I wondered if there weren’t some genre that both we and the kids could identify easily with. Anyway we got to the school called Moinin na gCiseah which was a secondary school attached to the community college. After being ushered in and setting up in the library, we began playing the song to three boys hoping that more would give up the basketball match that had robbed us of most of our usual crowd. By the time the song was over, we had two more and when were finished discussing the Trinity, two others had joined us. Irish kids are much like American kids- you have the one who is solid in his faith, but nervous about answering all the questions so he doesn’t look like a prude; there’s the kid who plays like he doesn’t care, but you can tell is actually searching because he’s confused; there are the ones interested only in goofing off and the quiet ones who conceal there thoughts and are a total mystery. We discussed confession and why we are encouraged to do it. They had some decent answers with a little bit of prompting. We began to play a second song but as it was about to finish up, the bell rang the boys were out of there… just like all my friends and me when we were in the eighth grade. We wrapped it up and headed back to the café, discussing most of what I have mentioned above. It was a really interesting time and I'm glad I was able to go.

Some things you might like to know

It’s always nice to start the week off right with a good day. This is the first time since I have been with An Tobar Nua that we have had a school retreat come into the café for a day of testimonies, drug/alcohol talks, and ministering by Mike. We spent a good bit of the morning in prayer for the group of kids in their last year of school (like high school seniors in America). We prayed over a passage about rescuing children back from the tyrant (Isaiah 49:25) and Megan mentioned the David Crowder song “Rescue is Coming” which just happened to come up on my iTunes on full random. Basically, God was in this day in a big way. We served the kids cookies and hot chocolate in the late morning, cleaned up as they had another talk, then served them lunch, finishing just in time for the lunch rush. We had lots to do in the kitchen and on dishes and I tried to use my extra few minutes of “stand around time” before the actual rush to help put away the mountain of dishes. As it turns out, the retreat was very effective and Mike told us that 13 of the 25 kids made a public commitment to Christ at the end of the day- very exciting stuff! Solid

Also, on a more personal level, some of our prayers for ourselves were answered. Dr. Harbin came to visit and see how the practicum was going and to help iron out the troubles with our new class. If you don't know, we had been originally registered with a prof who was on sabbatical and we got a new prof a month into the semester. Being a industrious young professor he wants us to work and I've heard from friends back on cmapus that the very class (Contemporary Christian Belief) is quite rough over there too. Unfortunately he wanted us to do all the same work even though we're starting a month late, have twice as long a spring break, end weeks earlier, and work 20 hours a week, plus 7 other credits of class to complete. It was not going to happen and I sent him a nice long email describing so. And so, today his boss, the dept chair (who was in Ireland anyway, mind you) came to visit us to work it out. Such a weight has been lifted! Our papers can be shorter, our due dates are flexible, and we have until May 23 to finish. Granted it's still gonna be rough, but it's at least feasible.
Dr. Harbin is also such a sweet guy that he invited us out to dinner (on TU of course) and so the three of us, Leanna and Cat headed up the road a bit to an Italian restaurant none of us had been to. It was great! the canal flowed underneath it and we sat next to a window that displayed a huge waterwheel at work as we dined on fine Italian foods and homemade ice cream. Such goodness!

In other news...
I was invited to come along with Tommy, Paul, and Mike as they go to one of the schools in the area for something shorter and more informal but similar to what the retreat was today. I asked what the school was, but I couldn’t pronounce it let alone spell it. But tomorrow promises to be another good day and I look forward to observing this new aspect of the ministry.

Weekend

I had Saturday off which was really nice. Except I did homework most of the time. But! Maren took me to the Saturday market which is my new favorite thing. Piles and piles of goodness: I got some chili con carne for lunch with a huge roll stuffed with cheddar and onions, then I bought some fresh strawberries and clementines to eat during the week. Here it is Monday and they're almost gone. Gosh.
Saturday night we went out to Oranmore for a worship service which was pretty cool and we met a lot of interesting and friendly people. Megan and Paul got mistaken for Americans and I got mistaken for an Irishman. Hilarious. We came back and got chips and Paul messed with Ben and we got amusing pictures: you know the classic late night jokes.

I went to bed and got up again and then what happened was worth putting in my practicum journal, so I'll copy and pastes it here for you:


I didn’t work today, but something happened that I felt was worth journaling. First it needs a bit of the back story to explain it: Last week, I was walking down Shop Street and I encountered a man who was clearly mentally unstable, but he was begging for change and despite the feeling that I should help him in some way, I ignored him and walked by. Later in the week, I was having my quiet time in a church and praying and I felt God telling me that I should go out and look for him or someone to help and the feeling was so strong that I actually got up and left the church, headed toward Shop Street to see if that guy was still there. On my way over, however I failed again: a drunk man stumbled toward me and I felt a twinge of guilt as I thought to myself, “He’s not the guy I came looking for; I can’t stop.” Within minutes I knew I had ignored the opportunity God had dumped in my lap and I futilely turned around to look for the guy I had passed. Frustrated, embarrassed and upset with myself, I confided in my roommate back home that I needed prayed because I was struggling to follow the things God was leading me to do. But tonight He gave me another chance and I almost blew it again. Coming back from a Christian conference/gathering of some sort in Oranmore, we drew close to our café and as we passes the bridge, Ben threw some change at a guy huddled up against the railing while I tried to ignore the thought that this was another chance. A couple hours later after hanging out with friends, getting ready for bed and even almost falling asleep, I remembered the man on the bridge. Determined to not fail again, I got over the fact that Ben would think it was really strange of me to get out of bed in the middle of the night, get dressed and go out. I grabbed some of the left over bread we had gotten from the café at the end of the week and went down to the bridge to give it to the guy. He was there and I handed him the bread and asked how he was doing while he looked startled and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I stood up and said, “Well, I’ll be praying for you!” and left feeling like a fool. I made it back to the café and realized that what God wanted me to do was not just be that rich kid trying to be generous and thinking I had done my good deed by being cliché and promising prayer, but he wanted me to befriend the guy. Again, faced with the awkward prospect of going back for no apparent reason, I grabbed some lunchmeat I had, flashed Ben a confused grin and headed back to the bridge. This time I sat down next to the man instead of crouching next do him like a father would to a little child and I immediately felt more on his level. I told him that I remembered that I had lunch meat and wanted him to have it too. The next hour turned out to be one of the best of my week. His name is Alan and he’s from Montenegro and doesn’t speak very good English (whereas I have no idea if Montenegrese is even a language or how it sounds). I remembered Ben and Kelsie talking with the Brazilian sisters in French and Spanish, so I asked him if he knew any other languages hoping he might know French, but his specialty is Spanish. The last time I took a Spanish class was in fourth grade so through my broken Spanglish we got to know one another. He has two small children, Alan Jr. and Laury and a wife who I think are all staying with an Irish friend nearby. So he’s not homeless, he just doesn’t have a job and is pretty poor. He’s Greek Orthodox and told me he had to get to bed so he could go to church tomorrow and he wanted to make sure that I knew that he doesn’t drink and thinks alcohol ruins families. Every now and then locals roaming from pubs or parties would come by the bridge and almost everyone had a spare coin for his little paper cup. Alan is a very grateful man, always said thank you and kept telling me how nice and generous the Irish are (though he said he had to watch out for the Gardai because they would take away all the change he had collected). Eventually he looked at my watch and announced he needed his sleep so he could be in church tomorrow and I agreed, so we got ready to go. I had tried to invite him to come to our café, but he never really seemed to understand my Spanglish invitations. I asked him if I could find him there tomorrow night because I wanted to bring back Ben to translate for us. After a good bit of confused words, I got out “Viernes noches, aqui” and so I talked with Ben and we are going to meet Alan on the bridge on Friday night. Hopefully with clearer communication we’ll be able to learn more about him and possibly find this Orthodox Church and go with him and his family. It was very fulfilling to know that I had finally stopped refusing what God was asking me do and it was great to make a new friend. Sometimes we can be very serious about our own prayer life and the little things we go through to ensure our own growth, but at times I find myself being such a hypocrite and not following some of those terrifying words of the New Testament that remind me that Jesus is the least of our brothers who we clothe, feed, or visit. I pray that God can take this breakthrough he’s made in me and make it concrete so that I can stop messing it up so often.