Wandering but Not Lost: No news is good news

Hello again!

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit, but when that happens it's safe for you to assume I'm just busy. Which is very true. It has been a jam-packed few days. Monday, Fiona played tour guide for us and took us to Titanic Quarter. It was beautiful there and super interesting. She took us to Dock Cafe, which is lovely Christian cafe in the area and then to Wolfe's which is a gourmet burger place. She was a fantastic guide. She also took us to her house and C.S. Lewis' house, "Little Lea." It was a day full of craic. We made it back just in time to go to our Holiday Bible Club in Clough, which is a rural town about 45 minutes out of Belfast. It was really good to get started working with the kids. I was assigned to cooking being the little domestic child that I am. It ended up just being decorating gingerbread cookies, thank goodness. I sat with the P6's (5th grade in the U.S.) and we had a splendid time. One girl told me she loved my accent which was very nice of her. Anyways, it was fun, but pretty hectic, we had about 75 kids.

We found out that nobody says "dang it" here so that's strange.

Continuing....Fiona came after bible club and Nikki made some delicious burritos and we hung out way too late, but it was very fun. Fiona's a blast.

Tuesday, we had to go to the PCI office inside Belfast so we trekked down there where we had meetings and lunch and planned our holidy off with Graeme. We are going to Scotland for the first wee bit before heading down to Dublin for a few days. After a lot of logistics and figuring things out, we think we can do it. We spent about an hour walking around Belfast, we saw city hall, Nikki and I bought crew necks. Then it was back up to Clough for us. I sat with the nursery and P1's this time (preschool and kindergarten) which was manic. There was this little boy with glasses who introduced himself as "Robbie Scott." He made faces at me and was pretty much just adorable, but also quite the handful. After bible club, Fiona brought some friends over and I made us late tea.

Today, we found a starbucks to make our first American coffee run (but it wasn't the same...Seattle wins in the coffee olympics). We met Helen and Jessica for an insider tour of Queen's University which was simply stunning. It's designed to look like Cambridge and Oxford...I may look into studying abroad there. The school has a really fun feel. Apparently it is pretty normal for Student Union buildings in Europe to have pubs in them...this one had three. Such a different culture surrounding drinking. Then we came back to DV and met Johnny and David for a tour of Sandy Row and the Frienship House...we'll be there for about a week and a half in August. We met some kids and members of the team that we will be working with. That's probably going to be our most challenging week, but also the most rewarding. The closest thing I have to relate it with is the migrant camps in Mexico. It's a largely unchurched, rough, Protestant area that has been kind of hardened by the conflict in Northern Ireland. The kids are honest, rough and in deep need of love. Start praying for us now, because we are going to need it. Clough was chill tonight I think the kids are getting tired.

My contact may be more sporadic now as we move into camps and away from Belfast. I'll update as much as I can, but if you don't hear from me, I'm not dead.