Irish Skies

Heres the first in a series of photo's I'm going to be putting up on my last trip to Ireland. What's funny is how close I was to Limmerick (The city where I'm going this summer to help the church) and I didn't even know! We went all the way around it and even through it once on a buss ride. Speaking of which, I am the master at those busses. It took me three weeks but I finally got that buss scheme down to code! This picture I took while we were walking through Dublin and the sky was looking amazing (Which I hear is quite rare) So I got this picture. I love trying to put alot of darkness and light in pictures when I take them because it gives you alot to look at. But of course my Aunt was taking pictures a million times better than mine so forgive me if these shots are less than her epic-ness.

This is the sign as proof of how close we were on our buss ride. 

This is a picture of the ships outside of Howth when we stopped there on a random day. There were HUGE seals in the water and there were people running back and forth to the fish shops to throw them fish. And this is one of the crazy forests that we were exploring on our way to see a castle. The forest was called the childrens forest or something. Mainly because there were little play grounds built into in all along the way. 

The mission is as follows....

Mission status:  What is the mission of the mission?
Ireland is amazing. When I went there before I fell in love with everything about it.
Children's church is amazing. I love helping little kids find a relationship with Jesus and just over all hanging out with kids.
So whats the point of the whole trip?
Well, I assumed it was just help out where I was needed. The more helpers they have the more kids they can accept into the camp for those two weeks. Last year they didn't have enough helpers and had to turn kids away. So my being there will help more kids be able to come in! I thought, love of Ireland + helping kids =Mission.
But today I was thinking about the kids camp and I was remembering some things and I came with a new revelation.
When I was little children's church was amazing. When I look back all I can do is smile. It was so much fun being in plays with my friends and those little details are always the things we never forget. My dad in a giant praying mantis suit, purple ketchup during vacation Bible school, playing with teachers, and singing and dancing to our favorite fun kid worship songs that I still remember today.
What I think is really amazing is right around that time my family had a really hard event happen. And although it was tough and we all were heart broken I actually can almost vividly remember those good moments better than that hard time. I can actually visualize in my head peoples faces distinctly, exactly where they were standing on days in vacation Bible school. I can hear my little cousin Abby singing next to me and my little Baby sister with her fountain pony tail. All of these weird details I've been able to hold onto for all of these years. Where as the sadness of the hard time was heart breaking I seem to loose details of it more and more. I hardly remember one song of a funeral, and crying. The details of the happiness and the fun of church and being with my friends and family has managed to over power the sadness of those days. So I remember more happiness than sadness, which back then I would have never believed. But regardless of what I believed then, what I remember now is what I remember now.

The point I am trying to make is what if I could share this with other kids? What if I could give them these kinds of great memories that will over power hard times? Even when the hard times back up those good times by a week, or one night. They'll remember that church is a fun place and learning about God was fun! So when they're all grown up they'll flash back to those memories and go "Hey! That church was fun when I was little! We had a blast! Maybe I'll go visit it..." So they go and visit and they get saved and spirit filled and they bring their kids and they start buildings they're own relationships with God! They have they're whole family saved now because the one person remembers just like I did. And then he gets his neighbors saved. And he himself will feel so much better as his bad memories start to fade and he still has all of those details of him as a little Irish kid at his little Irish camp with the American teacher who only came over for two weeks to help out.
Thats the mission. Help these kids build great memories with God, and build relationships with him that will last forever.

How many lives can I change in two weeks? ;)

And God said..."Let there be Blog!!"

It's official! The First blogging post has been posted!...well, not quite because I'm still typing it but by the time you see this, it will be the first post on my blog and you will be fascinated.
Welcome to my blog everyone! And if you got this site from one of my letters then I'm glad you found it and I'll be updating all the info on my trip as often as I can!
Updates on my trip to Ireland:
I'm planning on leaving June 30th and coming back July 16th depending on flight prices. (And if I can manage to get away from all those adorable little Irish faces!) I pretty much fell in Love with Ireland the first time I was there. Mom likes to say that that I went to Ireland last spring and left my heart there, which anyone would argue as pretty accurate if you could see the glee on my face every time I talk about it. I mean it's Ireland! God has blessed me so much already so it pretty much blows me to pieces thinking he wants me to go back! >.<
"Put the madness away Brit and get back to the update!"
"Yes sanity,thank you for keeping me on the ball."

So anyways, I'm pretty excited. I've been E-mailing Mrs. Jan who's been giving me all sorts of details about the trip, which after all the math comes out to $2900 dollars. And you know what's funny? I'm not worried, I'm actually solidly confident. Ya know how sometimes you bite into a chocolate bunny and its hollow? and you get all mad because you thought it was solid but it wasn't? Well I am solid. I'm full of Solid Chocolaty confident goodness right now... I love when faith tastes like that. I mean I'm taking necessary steps like working as many hours as I can, and sending out my letters and saving my money... but the weirdest part is, I feel completely calm about the whole thing, like theres no need to worry. Like God's just put his hand on my shoulder and said "Don't worry Brit, I've called you to this." and I just melt into this puddle of "Wow God,... your so amazing..." So I keep standing on my faith and try not to nibble on my fingers... that was a joke.
And because I'm going they can have more kids come to the camp! Last year they only had a few teachers so they actually had to turn kids away! THEY HAD TO TELL LITTLE KIDS NO!
"Sorry Kids, no Jesus for you, we don't have enough teachers."
"Aw...potatoes."
So this year I'll be there so they don't have to turn away as many and we can get them saved!! SAVE THE IRISH BABIES!!!

Well, this was a random post. I'll put up some actually useful information about my trip very soon. This one was mostly a silly post as a test run to make sure my blog is working. Thanks for reading!
Britny McElfresh
-Full of Solid Chocolaty confident goodness