My roommate and fellow GAPper Chrissy and I got to cook dinner for our host family on Tuesday night and it was a pretty great success. We made homemade macaroni and cheese because the kids have NEVER had it before! I guess it must just be an American thing... Anyway, they were really excited to try it--and they ended up loving it! Thanks mom for the recipe. :)
I had a meeting last night with a bunch of 18ish year olds who are planning on starting a college outreach group called Ignite. Last night we just got together to toss some ideas around and see what everyone's thoughts were. Although the meeting was a bit unstructured and wasn't very productive, it was great to see that a group of young adults were so passionate about starting a college group here in Dublin. I hope and pray that the Lord will bless this new group and help us plan it in a way that follows His will. Keep us in your prayers as we determine a good location for the meetings.
I've been doing a lot of prep-work for the youth group kickoff event that's coming up on the 30th of September. This event will involve all three youth groups, ages 7-17, and the schedule is looking pretty full for the night. I'm hoping for a good turnout and a very Spirit-filled evening. Please keep me in your prayers that I remain sane and organized during the planning and prep for this event!
In addition to all that, I've started working at Spirit Radio on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Last night was pretty interesting...I came into the station at around 1:30pm and didn't leave until just after 8pm. In addition to a little bit of administration work, I helped conduct a "radio listening survey" by calling a bunch of people in the Dublin area and asking them some questions. The questions started off with "Did you listen to the radio yesterday?", and then I asked them to list 3 stations that they listen to...what age bracket they were in...and at the end I asked them if they had ever heard of or listened to Spirit Radio. This was quite an interesting experience. It started off kind of fun...talking to all these different people, but then it got a bit boring and people started to be pretty rude. The first part of our conversation was me telling them that I was calling to do a quick "radio listening survey" and that it would only take 30 seconds (it really did only take 30 seconds!). People would then come up with all these excuses about how busy they are and how they haven't got the time. Who doesn't have 30 seconds? Well anyway, I talked to some really interesting people. One woman interrupted me halfway through my sentence and asked if I was Irish. When I told her no, she sounded disgusted and said, "Okay, goodbye" and she hung up on me! Haha...I was a bit offended, so I asked one of the men in the office to please teach me how to do an Irish accent. I couldn't do it without laughing though. :) I think my favorite part of the evening was our little pizza party break in the office. One of the ladies that works at Spirit Radio ordered in three huge pizzas for us, so I was so excited to take a break from all that talking and eat some pizza. I had been craving it for a little while! It tasted soooo good. :)
Today was another long day at Spirit Radio and I felt like I did sooo many different tasks but only completed a few of them. It seemed like every time I started a new project/task, someone would come by my desk and drop something else off that was "more urgent" and needed to be done before I finished the other thing. I just kept going back and forth between different things today...it's a wonder I didn't lose my sanity! Praise God...He is the calm in the storm.
Chrissy and I walked around quite a bit tonight after we left the radio station. It felt so good to get some fresh air and exercise after being in that office all day! We then went into the Dublin City Centre to hang out with Paul, our host brother, and some of his friends (the ones that are starting the Ignite group). Today is Arthur's Day, which is "the celebration of the remarkable legacy of Arthur Guinness, the creator of GUINNESS. This year will see an incredible lineup of Irish and international music stars raising a glass to Arthur in a series of intimate gigs in select venues and pubs across Ireland on a day of music and celebration." Long story short, it's an excuse to get out and drink Guinness beer. We went to a pub and just hung out for a while there. It was pretty fun and much better than my first pub experience here. The first place I went to was a lot busier, louder, and....well...not very pleasant. The place we went to tonight was much less crowded. :)
Here are a few pictures from this week:
My host parents, Peter and Ciara, took Chrissy and I out for an afternoon to have lunch and have a "GAP program" conversation. This was right outside the place we ate at...nice!
They served soooo much food at this place--and it was all so yummy! I ended up taking a good portion of the food home with me, plus I split that chocolate cake with Chrissy. I didn't eat it all myself!
"Janey Mack!" is a common phrase here...I found it in an Irish slang book and was pretty excited. I thought maybe just my host family said it. :)
Here's Chrissy and I during one of our adventurous walks around the neighborhood. :)
I hope you are all doing well back home. Please know that I am praying for you and I trust that the Lord is blessing you and keeping you safe. I would love to hear from you...please feel free to contact me while I'm here. My contact details are on my Contact Me page. :) If you have any questions about my GAP year or the work I'm doing here, I'd love to answer them. If you just want to say hi that's great too! If you'd like my mailing address, send me a quick email or Facebook message and I'd be happy to give it to you. Thanks and God bless you!
No comments:
Post a Comment