Catching the Vision

Our family has been in Ireland for 3 days now, at a place called Lacken House - which is the Irish headquarters for the mission group we will be working with. The intention of this trip is to meet the people we would be working with, make sure that our vision for ministry fits within the larger purposes of the work they are doing, get more detailed information about budget needs, and experience some day-to-day living in the country.

We arrived in the Dublin airport after a very long day of travel with the kids. We rented a car and loaded up (minus one missing suitcase with the kid's clothes in it - which finally showed up yesterday). We had an exciting start to our drive, as it was the beginning of rush hour as we pulled on to the motorway in Dublin. Our destination was the Irish countryside, near the town of Roscommon - which is almost exactly in the geographical center of the island. It is about a 2 hour drive from Dublin, and actually went pretty well, considering that I had never driven on the left hand side of the road before!

We arrived at Lacken House around 7pm, just as it was starting to get dark. One of the families that works here had prepared us a meal that we were able to warm up in the stove and enjoy before we crashed and went to bed. We are staying in a little chalet on the property that has a main room, a bedroom, and a loft. The next day we headed in to town (bundled up to keep the chilliness in the air at bay) and went grocery shopping.

There were some definite differences in the shopping experience, but not as great as I had pictured. Of course there were different products and brands, most things were packaged smaller, and we had to "rent" the trolley (read, shopping cart) to use. We also picked some "wellies" (read, rubber boots) for the boys since we quickly learned that their tennis shoes would not hold up long in the wet grass and mud.

And so we have been spending some time just getting to know the people who are working here, exploring the area a bit, and just doing some daily living. We are excited to see how God leads us as we start discussing more specifics around what our work here will look like. It is encouraging to see God working in this place and to talk with other believers about their journeys.

I will continue to post throughout our time here to keep everyone informed. We are scheduled to fly back to the States on the 28th.

We would certainly appreciate your prayers for our family as we look to make some major life changes in the near future! Please feel free to email us or facebook us, as we'll be able to check these regularly.