Hello friends and family and brothers and sisters in Christ!
What an amazing past 48 hours for the Dublin team. Last night we got together with the 'Irish' team from Dun Laoghaire Evangelical Church [a mixed group of youth and adults] that we will be partnering with to walk the local pier, get ice cream at Teddy's but most importantly surround People's Park, the location of our outreach, and saturate it in prayer.
Today we worshipped alongside our Irish brothers and sisters during the DEC morning worship service and then enjoyed tea/coffee and conversation with the congregation. Later in the day we again met with the Irish team, as they are affectionally known and discussed what the game plan for the week is. This Monday-Friday is as follows:
From 10am-11am we will set up in the park. From 11am-12pm we will participate in a outreach called 'Going Bananas [for God]' that includes music, drama, a story time about a person from the Bible that 'went bananas for God' and then crazy games with bananas. This time is for families and all ages!
From 2:30pm-5pm we will conduct our baseball/softball clinics on a soccer pitch [field] not far from People's Park or DEC. This outreach is specifically for 10 years plus. The youth in attendant will mostly be 14-16 years of age though.
From 7pm-9:30pm we will help Alan, DEC's youth minister, with teen outreaches. There will be different activites and locations every night. Tomorrow is baseball/kickball and should be a blast. Other activities planned are a scavenger hunt, capture the flag and other fun times where small group relationships can be built.
After the meeting and dinner we attended and participated in the communion service. Our hearts were moved by the reality of who Christ was [and is] and yet what He did for us so many years ago. We were humbled by His example of sacrifice and how He served us with His life before we even knew Him.
After our team Bible study and debriefing time we all headed off to our host families in anticipation for tomorrow!
The most important thing you who are reading this can do is go before the throne and intercede for this work. Please pray that the Lord will withhold the blessing of rain and that we will have good weather all this week but that He will send us a downpour of blessings including energy, wisdom, patience, kindness, joy and most of all love--so that we may pour it on the people of this community and those in this church so that they may be encouraged and be better ministers also.
His servant,

Alana

p.s. will probably see Graham tomorrow or Wednesday--I miss that kid...

did I ever tell you about the time that I drove to Sonic on my lunch break and when I got back to the office my truck wouldn't turn off...
and I had to go to the mechanic and he taught me to turn my truck off manually by unplugging stuff and disconnecting my battery because he couldn't get my key to turn back either...

you probably haven't because that just happend yesterday.

[when I'm doing the 10 minute process I kinda feel like MacGuyver....]

If it was opposite day I could 'hotwire' my truck...

did I ever tell you about the Friday that was suppose to be 'so good' and turned out pretty crappy?

probably not. because that is today.

on the bright side my mom is coming down tonight to hang out, meet everybody and go to the City tomorrow.

continuing paying for my funds to go to Ireland and Belgium please!
thanks!

love love love

alana

p.s.
yes, to start the truck I do have to reconnect everything and push the key forward.
no, the key has not decided to stop being stubbourn and come back yet.
yes, my truck is safe, I just took my key off my keychain and it's all locked up and the alarm is set.
note to self: if battery is disconnected--the alarm won't work.
note to self: you probably shouldn't post that online. lol

Well, the Turkey team is leaving this morning to go to the airport and fly to Turkey to run a basketball clinic for a week then play in a international outdoor basketball tournament...

Please keep Kent, Geoff, Grant, Blayne, Dustin and Andrew in your prayers! They are all super men of godly and pretty good basketball players too!
Prayer for traveling mercies, no-injury playing and that they will have the opportunity to tell others about Jesus Christ--the Lord of their lives.

May God's richest blessings fall on your head today!

Alana