Crafts, Cake, Cut (hair) and Car trip

After lunch our One2Four people began arriving for the Bible study. Bebe led them through the first chapter of Philippians. After that, I had the craft class. I apologized for the lack of supplies and explained that it has been difficult to gather everything up. I told them about our Hobby Lobby or Michael’s stores and Mita told me that we are spoiled. Not only are craft supplies difficult to locate, the choices in the grocery are somewhat limited. A part of that may be that everything is imported to the Emerald Isle! Well, most everything. However, the women were spunky and took the offering of supplies that I had, forgave me and set about decorating lovely Christmas ornaments.

We had good conversation while we were crafting. The women had come from Downpatrick, Seaforde, Newcastle and Annalong. And!! The woman from Annalong said she can get the wool/yarn we are using for scarves much cheaper in Kilkeel and has offered to get it for us. We crafters look out for one another!

In the afternoon I baked a cake for Michelle on the team. It was a chocolate mayonnaise with a brown sugar frosting. Family and folks at Sycamore are familiar with this cake. The oven here at MH is a convection one so the cake was a bit overdone on the edges…so I just cut those off! It was a nice ending to the team’s long day.

Bebe and I joined them for devotions and a bit of debrief for the day. They had several stories of how they have been impacted by this trip. They have connected with several people on a very personal and intense level. It was heart- warming  to hear their stories.  Richie shared that they were able to build some bridges that he will continue to develop.
Thursday morning I was up and in the kitchen by 8 to set out the cereal and juice and make toast for the team.  I had my laundry in the washer even before that! The team left mid morning for Dublin and will fly out on Friday. It has been a good time with these folks from Merritt Island, Florida. We will miss their energy but hopefully will be able to recoup our own in the next few days!

As they left, Richard and Denise Morrison came in. Richard is the director at Kairos and they had come to meet with Bebe about development. I joined them after a bit. We spent most of the balance of the morning sharing about ministry. Denise is Afrikaans and Richard is German (both white). Denise is also a hairdresser so after the meeting, Richard went on to other tasks and Denise stayed to “work”. She took care of Bebe’s hair while I prepared (really just warmed up leftovers) lunch for the eight of us….staff and Denise. After lunch and dishes, it was my turn for Denise to work wonders on my hair. And she did!

Later Bebe and I planned our Friday-Saturday adventure. We are going to Armagh, Omagh, and Donegal. We have poured over the maps and guidebooks and have an agenda worked out. Several have said that we cannot do this in two days so we are going to be flexible about adding Sunday. We do have reservations for one night in a B&B. Our list of things to see and do include seeing the St. Patrick “trail” which is significant in Armagh, a linen mill (however, they may be closed for the season), Ulster Folk Park, Donegal town, and Belleek pottery. The tour of Belleek is not available on Saturday but the museum is open. Richie has loaned us their GPS so we should be all set! I know there will be some unexpected adventures in this trip!

I did get my article for The Advocate written and emailed. I took care of several bits of correspondence concerning USFWI and worked some on the Murlough House prayer letter.  Jenn is setting up her baked goods at another sale this weekend so she was using the MH kitchen to bake peach cobblers and bumble berry pies this evening. Tomorrow she’ll do the breads and cookies. That bumble berry looks so good….blueberries, strawberries, currents and red raspberries with a lattice crust top.