I told you all about Dublin which was a great time! Our next team adventure took place on the ground of Fore Abbey. Fore Abbey is an old Christian monastery that was built by St. Feichin in the 600's. Most of what remains today is from latter, largely the 12th century through the 16th century. It is absolutely beautiful! The leaves are starting to change colors here so the grounds are beautiful and the old building is just so amazing. To stand among something that is over a century old is not something North American's get to do often so I felt very privileged standing among the ruins. I have to say that our adventure was not all by the books. We weren't exactly sure where the path to get to the ruins started so we kind of made our own path which may or may not have included hoping a fence or two. However, we got there and had an adventure along the way so it was totally worth it. We also hiked up a little hill near the ruins and got a beautiful view of the valley in which the little town of Fore is located. It was a great little hike although I mostly slid down the hill as it was wet and I was in Tom's, not exactly the best shoes for hiking. Luckily, I made it down without any bruises, quite an accomplishment for a girl who had a giant bruise 2 weeks ago from walking around my room! Of course, because I was driving we got lost getting there which turned out to be ok because we stumbled across a cute little lake that we explored for a bit as well. It was a great afternoon. Its great to have to many cool places so close to home.
 |
| Hopping the Fence |
Last week our team supervisors, Mark and Kristen, were here to visit for a week. They come and visit about 3 times a year just to check up on us and see how we're doing. Last week was their first visit and it was awesome to have them here. We had so much fun with our supervisors doing all kinds of random things. One day we carved pumpkins and went bowling which was definitely an adventure. It was an adventure if for no other reason than because we had to squeeze 7 people into a car that does not comfortably seat 5. I'm sure we looked similar to a clown car when we all finally piled out of the car because we definitely should not have all fit in that car. We also finally visited Netti's while our supervisors were here. Netti's is a diner in town that everyone told us we had to visit while we were here in Delvin but had not had the opportunity to visit yet but we finally went and some of the best milkshakes we've ever had.
Our youth group is going really well. The name for our night 2 weeks ago was What is Faith? and it is pretty easy to guess what the topic was. We flew paper airplanes, Marie gave a talk, we broke up into small groups, had a time of prayer and then ended with a funny skit to lighten the mood before sending them home. The night went really well. The youth responded very well and seemed to have a lot of fun. Last week we had a night called Cloud of Witnesses. This was probably my favorite night yet. We made a cloud out of Halloween cotton webs and hung it up in our living room. We then put saint cards in the cloud to represent the great cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews. The night was focused on the lives of the saints and how their lives are examples of living out faith, building on our theme from the week before. We broke them up into 4 groups and had them go through 4 different stations which engaged them and taught them about different saints. One station was a mix of you tube videos and a then question and answers centered on how to become a saint. We tied in information about St. Pedro Colungsad who was just canonized last Monday who happened to be an 18 year old young man from the Philippines so the youth were really able to relate to his story. The next station was a matching game with the names of 20 saints up on the wall and 20 clues that they had to match with the names. We also had a scavenger hunt around our living room that also gave the story of St. Francis' life. Our fourth station was a prezi (which is a program online that can be used to make really cool presentations). The youth were able to click through the prezi and learn about 5 saints that made a difference in the church today which included Blessed Pope John Paul II and Blessed Mother Teresa. The youth seemed to have a lot of fun at all the stations and said they had a lot of fun. This week we will be having an All Saints Day party. We are getting the students to dress up like different saints and we'll have pizza and cake and games and just have fun with the youth. Next week we will be starting a 6 week series on Salvation History and looking at a Bible Timeline.
I believe that is all for now. As always, thank you so much for your support this year. None of this would be possible without the prayers and support of all you out there reading this blog. Please continue to pray for me and my team as we will do for you!
God Bless,
Amy
No comments:
Post a Comment