Wrapping up 2012

Okay, one last post to wrap up the year. December was fun. Not only did our daughter come to visit but we had an invasion from Belfast, North Ireland. Pastor Alan and Karen Taylor came down with 11 people from the church to help us. They were amazing. They made the 5 hour drive down on Friday night after everyone got out of work, so they didn't arrive until after midnight.

Seven people from the team stayed with us, and since we only have one guest room, these guys had to blow up air mattresses before they could get some sleep in our living room.

The next day we went downtown and hit the streets. The streets were packed with Christmas shoppers so it was a great time to hand out flyers, witness and do some music and testify. Three of them rapped and sang and kept quite a crowd despite the on and off rain.

 

 

 

After a busy day and a quick supper we headed to the community center where we had a Christmas concert. We were so excited to have more than 20 visitors and 5 decisions. We are so blessed to have such great friends who will sacrifice so much to see the church established here. Thank You!!!

For Christmas we drove up to Belfast to celebrate with the Taylor and Sealy families. It was a real treat as our kids are far away and we didn't have any plans in Cork. We had a lot of fun - eating, talking, and playing games. On Boxing Day we didn't go shopping (I heard that the stores were just as insane as Black Friday in the States.) We went for a great walk instead.

Chris and Angela Sealy and their family will soon be moving back to London from Dublin. We're going to miss them, but I know they'll be a great blessing to the church there!











Well, Happy New Year to all of you! I'm excited to see what 2013 will bring.

Where did I go???

Yes, I'm still here. I didn't actually go anywhere. I've just been suffering from blog-lag. What's blog- lag you ask? It's a common malady. I've seen it happen to other bloggers from time to time. Blog-lag is when you don't know what to write. So you don't. But last week a friend from far away e-mailed me and encouraged me to begin again. (Thanks Regina!) So, I've been thinking about what I want to do with this blog, and I'm inspired for the new year.

Here's a bit of an update as to what's been going on here since I last posted. Thanksgiving can be a strange holiday when you're not in the States. It's just a normal workday to everyone else. We weren't sure what to do since the kids wouldn't be with us. (Carly and Desmond are in Holland, and Brian is in Arizona.) I didn't want to miss such a special day, so we decided to host a Thanksgiving party and just invited a bunch of people that we'd met here in Cork. None of them knew each other, but it was great. They all had heard lots about the great American tradition, and we were happy to introduce them to turkey with all the trimmings, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie, and of course, the most important part, to tell them who we are thankful to! I forgot my camera until the end of the evening, but here is one shot of Keith and our guests.

The next "biggie" was a visit from Carly! She came for a quick visit - only 2 days - but it was such a treat! (thanks for sending her Des! You're definitely my favorite son-in-law!) We had a great time showing her the sights in Cork.

 

                                   Here she is at Blackrock Castle showing her baby bump!


We took her to Kinsale. It's a cute little harbour town about 30 minutes away. It was a beautiful day. While there we discovered "Desmond Castle" so we had to take some pics for her hubby.

 

posing with our Irish palm trees

 

We took a wrong turn as we were leaving Kinsale. We were trying to find a restaurant that I'd read about on-line. Our GPS (who we've nick-named Maggie) got us totally lost! But it turned out to be a great thing as we ended up on the other side of the harbor where there was the most amazing view. My photos don't do it justice at all.

I love it when a seemingly wrong turn, turns out to be the right turn! The only problem with this view was the road that you had to take to leave:

       Narrow and steep doesn't even begin to describe it! I closed my eyes most of the way down!
We've had a few other fun things going on that I'll post about later this week. Until then, I wish you a very merry Christmas! We'll be going to Belfast to spend it with friends there.