JROMISSIONS

2008-11-26T02:20:00.003-05:00

2008-11-26T02:20:00.001-05:00

test posting ta da

New Covenant it is!

2008-07-09T00:07:00.006-04:00

And the new name is. . . . . . . . . . New Covenant Presbyterian Church

Wednesday at 5:00 AM Time to Go Home

2008-07-09T00:03:00.002-04:00

Hello from Jeff:

IT is 5:00 AM-and we are leaving in 30 minutes to catch the bus to the Airport. Everyone is well and we will see you soon.

Carol Agate is coordinating with parents who want to come to the airport-feel free to meet us. We get in at 6:35 PM on American airlines Flight AA 4159 from Chicago.

See ya soon.

Jeff.

Monday Monday -Good to Me

2008-07-07T21:36:00.004-04:00

Hello from Jeff.

Today we painted yet another room with 13 foot ceilings. We split into two groups. One took a half day off to see the rest of the city. There is a hop on and hop off bus that loops the city constantly. The tickets are good for 24 hours so half the team went in the afternoon and the other half will use the same tickets tomorrow morning.

This evening was the launch of the festival- the first performer was------[warning-moms may need a hanky for the following]-----Jordan. She had an informal audition and they loved her. So, the artists asked her to start off the show. She did great, and sang for 15 minutes. Followed by three professinonal acts.

By the way, we have loads of added pictures, but they take all night to load and then at the last minute there is an error code--so I am setting up another album to run. There are still about 300 more pictures to add from my camera, and hundreds from the kids' cameras. We may have to just make them available on a dvd when we get home, but I will continue to try to add some.

Tonight we also had a great bible study focusing on our relationship with Christ. The kids all have homework assignments to journal their thoughts. Dawn Zeta and I will be meeting one on one with them tommorrow afternoon. Please be praying that they can grow in their faith and honestly think about their beliefs. I have to tell you that I have seen some of the kids grow a lot on this trip. It has been very gratifying.

Tonight was very special as the kids sat around and enjoyed each others company at the arts festival.

By the way-the church service has been posted to the web. I am not getting it on my mac here, but maybe you can listen. The link appears to be: www.rte.ie/radio1/religion/1202777.html

Let me know if anyone figures this out.

Goodnight folks, and thanks for letting me take your kids to Ireland,

Jeff

Sunday - Spectacular!

2008-07-06T15:08:00.001-04:00

What another amazing day in Dublin! Hi everyone, this is Dawn. It's my turn to post, and I can't wait to tell you about our spectacular day.

We walked over to Abbey Church this morning at 9:45 a.m. for a practice run through of the worship service. This morning's service was broadcast live over RTE international radio and Alan Boal, the pastor, was very excited we were here. Their congregation is too small to sing loudly enough for the microphones to pick up the words very well and they weren't familiar with the praise song, "Arise, Arise My Soul Arise." The gentleman from the RTE radio station, who continued to refer to us as "The Yanks", kept telling us that we needed to sing louder. As 10:45 a.m. and the start of the service drew near, we all quieted down and waited in silence for the "we are on the air" signal. I quietly prayed that we would be able to minister to perhaps a shut-in or someone who was elderly or ill through our worship broadcast. Alan had a beautiful service, clearly spelling out what a mess this world has become and although we deserve God's condemnation, Jesus has given us His wonderful grace that we don't deserve. After the final prayer, we all waited in silence again until the "we're off the air" signal. It was amazing to think that God's plan might be to use Alan, this church, this congregation, and our mission team as his vehicle to reach and bring to Him even one of the millions of people who could listen to this broadcast. The RTE guy said that he thought this worship service was the best put together service he has ever seen - and we also sang great! It was spectacular!

Alan also stated that this broadcast will be available for the next 10 days on the web. I'm not sure exactly how to get to that broadcast, but the Abbey church website is http://web.mac.com/abbeychurch might have the link if you are interested in hearing our beautiful voices :).

After church we walked back to Harvey's Guest House and got ready to head into town (I think we've walked at least 100 miles so far!). Jeff found a traditional Irish Pub called The Box House where we all enjoyed huge portions of authentic Irish food. It was spectacular!

The Box House Pub was close to the Temple Bar area where on Sundays a bustling crowd of people enjoy pubs, shops and random musicians who set up on any street corner and perform for passersby. We had taken our guitar along, and Jordan Agate had the privilege of playing and singing outside of one of the pubs. It was so cool to see people just stop and listen to her sing (Carol - she really should go into this as a profession - she was Great!!!). People threw euros into her open guitar case and we were able to hand out post card size announcements about more musical performances that were planned at the Abbey Arts Festival that starts tomorrow at the church. There already are or shortly will be lots of pictures of Jordan on this blog. To be able to watch Jordan perform and tell folks about the christian arts festival. . . it was simply spectacular!

After we packed up the guitar, Jeff told us we had to go to some library! We all thought . . . REALLY? But once we got there he told us that it wasn't just any library, it was the Chester Beatty museum library and that it displayed 22,000 rare and precious manuscripts, books and paintings. Sir Alfred Chester Beatty's collection is considered among the most impressive collections of its kinds in the world. He took us to the second floor and in a dimly lit room, we were actually able to stand there and look at a small piece of papyrus that had a portion of John's gospel written on it that dated back to 150 A.D! I just stood there amazed - it was truly spectacular!

Tonight at 7:00 p.m. we are all gathering with Alan, his wife, Ruth, and the summer interns to hold a prayer meeting for the Arts Festival which starts tomorrow. We have a lot of work ahead of us as we transform this huge room we've just cleaned up and painted into an art exhibit and cafe area (which we can't do until the African and Romanian churches are done using the church for their services today). Tomorrow we will be passing out more of the post card invitations to come to the festival and hopefully will get to do some more street ministry.

Well, it's half six as the Dubliners say, meaning it's 6:30 p.m. I'd better get ready for the prayer meeting. For all the moms at home, everyone is doing just fine.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Dawn

Friday and Saturday

2008-07-05T11:33:00.002-04:00

On Friday we left the house at 5:30 AM to go to Galway by train. We had a great day. Please look through the pictures for a good review of the day.
We had planned on taking the 8:00 train back to Dublin, but at around 4:30 we found out that the 8:00 train "don't run any more"-uh oh. We had to get the bus driver to motor back and let us off with about 4 minutes to spare to catch the 6:05 bus back home. Because of that, we had very little time actually in Galway, but all day out in the countryside. The most spectacular setting being the cliffs of muran.

We got to Dublin at 10:30. Bob "volunteered" to accompany the ladies back to the B&B and I took the rest of the kids into the Temple Bar area for some food. Aywhere else is long closed down at that hour. The only place open and serving was the Bad A** [donkey] Cafe. They let us in one minute before closing and insisted that the kitchen was open for us.
We had a great meal. Please see the last two pictures to see Steves Bad A** Burger and my Posh Burger with Goat Cheese (probably only need to experience that once per trip).
Today we are finishing up and getting ready for the broadcast tommorrow.
See ya later.
Jeff

P.S.

Mom Witter-I keep trying to get pictures of your daughter, but she is illusive. I snuck some tonight at dinner- and will add them to the album.

Jeff

Just another Manic Thursday

2008-07-03T20:28:00.003-04:00

Wow. We got a lot done today. The boys and I built most of the Artist display panels. We have to assemble 5 more, but must wait until Saturday to finalize how tall they have to be. We completed ten panels so far in the Garage of the B&B. We then carried them across town in the bright Irish Sunshine (i.e. it was only drizzling a little). People were certainly giving us a look at Josh and I followed Steve and Bob down the sidewalk carrying 7 foot by 4 foot display panels. Especially funny at the crosswalks.

The ladies painted the entire room in one day. We are now on a painting spree, and plan to paint a few other meeting rooms while we have the supplies and paint available. We will do that probably on Saturday because the rooms are in use tomorrow.

We also assembled several cafe tables, and generally got ready for the festival.

The folks here are very appreciative of our efforts (I think they are still a bit amazed at what we have completed so far.)

Tomorrow we are taking an Irish rail trip across Ireland to Galway for our day off. It is supposed to be the best weather day that we have left, and the kids can use the R&R (not to mention the adults). We are meeting in the lobby at "O-Dark Hundred and a Half"- 5:30 AM and walking to an electric train to take us to the train station.

I have uploaded a bunch of pictures to the picasa album.

The kids talked through what they learned from the tongue lesson of yesterday. It was a good lesson. They got some insight into how much the tongue controls and also reveals the heart. We read through James and Proverbs on point to the power of our words.

At about 8:00 most of the kids went with Katy, Becky and Zeta into town. In the Temple Bar Area, someone walked up to Steve T and said-are you from Murrysville? Turned out it was a friend of Jesse Armstrong's and a member of Murrysville Community Church. A small world indeed.

Have to get up n a few hours. So goodnight and God Bless.

Thanks for the email mom-

Jeff

Wednesday July 2-"This is how we roll."

2008-07-02T19:39:00.007-04:00

Hello everyone. It is 1:00 in the morning, but all is quiet and we had another great day today. I did not get a chance to take any pictures today, but some of the kids did and I will try to post them tomorrow.

Today was a day of getting down to business. We received a delivery of our lumber purchased the day before. Delivery first thing in the morning apparently means 3:30 in the afternoon, so we were somewhat frustrated in the AM. But we decided to get to some other tasks that we could see needed to be completed. There is an all purpose room at the church that was literally over half full with stuff, not junk, just stuff. So, we got permission to help get to cleaning and painting that very large room which is slated to be ready to hold the main art gallery and a coffee cafe. The interns were overjoyed at the prospect because they had really hoped to get the room ready in time. Alan thought that we would have our hands full in getting the art easels constructed, so he had told the interns not to expect much else from us.

Well, he did not know the power of the dynamic duo-Dawn and Zeta-and their superhero powers of organization and cleaning. We started on the room, cleaned and threw away a century of accumulated things--including dust bunnies that I am sure were witness to the lives of the Puritan Fathers. My favorite comment was “if you haven’t used it yet in the last century-pitch it!” At this point over 200 chairs have been moved aside, curtains and piles of junk have been pitched, the floors have been "cleaned" and the walls are ready to be painted. The Boys carried three "gimormous" four liter buckets of paint about 3/4 of a mile back from a paint store. The long and short of it is that we will be painting the room tomorrow. When I say "we will be painting" - I refer to two of our three teams of workers. The other will be constructing the Art Displays.

Let me introduce the three teams.

First we have “Team KT”, led by the young, athletic and Newly Wed- Katy Tigchelaar ("KT Tig"). The team reflects her enthusiasm. Its members are KT Tig as leader, Kristin Owen, Michelle Lynch, and Amy VerHill. Michelle is fairing well - considering that she is on a team of three cousins. (She and Kristin act like sisters anyway-so it’s a close team.) They spent the day cleaning (but did get a break to go and find a Starbucks), neatly coiling up a birds nest of audio cables, and moving furniture at the direction of Dawn and Zeta—again either one of whom are interchangeable known as “She who must be obeyed.”

Second, we have the "Dream Machine Team" named as an inside joke about the job that Jordan Agate had all last month running the Dream Machine in the Art Festival in Pgh. We call them the "Dream Team" for short. It consists of Becky Owen as leader, Jordan, Katelyn Witter, Sarah Finn, and Jess Armstrong. Their team cheer is to put their hands into the middle and slowly pinwheel around in memory of the now defunct dream machine art installation. They spent the day cleaning in the all purpose room described above, and also in cleaning out a conference room in “Number 5” a five story building owned by the Church. Sarah got the "opportunity" to swab down five or six flights of steps-which she did cheerfully. The doorman of the building greeted me when I went to check up on them in Eastern European Broken English—“The Kids arrr down in de room where meeting-they work very hard—I think they are guud ones.” I agree-they are a good team. It is fun seeing them work with Becky and having a good time. They also cleaned up after dinner.

Third we have the “Smurfs” consisting of the three boys and their leader Zeta, affectionately called the “Smurfette” or “Mama Smurf”. I am not brave or foolhardy enough to call her that, but the boys are sure enjoying it. They also cleaned a lot, and participated in the cleaning of number 5. The boys are called in for the heavy lifting—often by Becky announcing loudly to the snickering of her team—“Excuse me-I need a boy please.”

The boys also accompanied Dawn and Zeta as they wandered through the desert in search of paint and supplies and then carried the paint back. Their feat was particularly impressive in that they would not allow us to “waste” 40 euros to buy a dolly when they could carry the buckets back themselves (a testament to why young backs are invaluable on a trip like this). They are getting to know each other well, and having a good time together. Ah, one small point of interest - plugging a 115 volt power strip surge protector into a 240 outlet with only a plug adapter (and not a voltage converter)-might just repeatedly blow the powerbreaker of the refrigerators in a small Bed and breakfast in Dublin. I am not saying how I know this, but the boys have now received a pretty good "introduction to voltage and electrical current 101" lesson from our gracious host at the B&B, Robert.

We also cut lumber for a while and staged the jobs to be ready to hit it hard tomorrow with actual painting and building.

The day was marked for me by the joy in the face of an Elder at the Church (Robert-“the man with the List”) as he watched all of our kids and leaders getting down to business in earnest. He stopped and said, “This is great-look at what they are doing.” He confessed that he had expected a lot less from high school kids. One of the kids overheard him and said “This is how we roll!” which received the reply from another kid: “lets git ‘er done!”

We came back to Harvey’s House (the B&B) at around 9:15 and had our club time. We sang songs in the parlor with Jordan playing on the Mission Trip Guitar - that has now gone all over world ( a "Guild" guitar that my kids found in the trash and that Gary Agate has cleaned up for us a few times). We also went through a Person of Jesus Study, and the kids stayed awake through it! We also implemented a "living lesson" from the Sonship program-(which, by the way, was also originally written by Paul Miller-the Author behind the SeeJesus, Person of Jesus Study), called "the tongue lesson." Applying the tongue lesson is simple but profoundly hard. All you do is agree not to say anything negative about anyone for 24 hours. If you break that rule, you simply note it to yourself. Tonight, we are to be prepared to talk about what we learned. Even immediately after our club time, the effect was apparent. We sat around and cautiously talked.

At one point it was noted that it seemed as if we had switched to "brady bunch" dialogue. It was true, we were all hesitant and overly nice as we carefully thought about what we said. Two of the girls joined the group and said that they had not been able to carry on a normal conversation in their room, and realized how much they had been talking about everyone. One of the kids made a "your mom" comment (not really meant to discuss anyone's actual mom-but in a humorous way-I guess you have to be in the youth group to understand-but "yur mom" jokes are an art form that has been honed to perfection in the youth group. It took Dawn a while to adjust to them a few years ago, because she kept thinking that someone was making an actual comment about her ! ) As this particular "yur mom" was spoken, the guy who said it put his hand over his mouth and laughed. He said-I think it took me about 2 minutes to break the tongue rule! Tomorrow will no doubt be an interesting club time as we discuss the implications of what we have learned and read through passages on the tongue (see the 3rd Chapter of James).

We appreciate your prayers - and please feel free to post to the blog-the kids have been excited to see them.

Thanks for letting me take your kids to Ireland!

Jeff

2008-07-01T18:49:00.004-04:00

Hi everyone. This is Jeff. We had a great day. Here is an update from today written by Michelle Lynch.

The AMazing Race (Through the AIrport!):

The real adventure began with our race from one end of the Chicago airport to the other! We got off the first flight and immediately heard over the loudspeaker, “Flight 92 to Dublin is in final boarding!” We were two entire concourses away. Someone asked Jeff, “Should we run?” Jeff said, “Well . . .” and Dawn yelled “GOOOOOOO!” Katy Luimes, Steve Turner and Amy VerHill (after taking out a guy with her backpack as she tried to squeeze between two men running at full speed) reached the gate first; Steve could only bend over trying to catch his breath, Amy said, “I don’t know what to say except STOP THE PLANE,” and Katy yelled, “we have FIFTEEN people!” Fortunately everyone got on the flight and we managed to catch our breath. The flight from Chicago to Dublin was very long but went smoothly. We even had a barf bag origami contest in the wee hours of the morning!

Once we landed, gathered our luggage and grouped up, we all boarded a double-decker bus that took us from the airport to our hotel by 11:30 a.m. Dublin time. The owners of Harvey’s Guest were very nice and welcoming, it felt like we were relatives coming for a visit. They said we needed to sleep for 2 hours and not one of us argued with their suggestion! Everyone that we met, the interns, Alan Boal, the pastor and his wife, Ruth and the others are all so friendly. While Jeff went to the “Carpenter Merchant” to buy the supplies to make the art displays and Dawn planned out the cooking for the week, we went to Trinity College and got to see the Book of Kells.

Tomorrow we are starting to build the art displays and clean the church to get ready for the arts festival. Right now it is 10:00 p.m. here (5:00 p.m. your time) and it looks like 6:00 p.m. They say the sun shines 17 hours a day here! We are pretty tired and will be going to bed soon. Don’t miss us too much – we are all doing fine!

Please remember to pray for one of our team members, Katy Luimes. Her mom called today and told her that her grandfather living in Canada passed away after struggling with a very prolonged illness. Please pray for Katy who will not be able to attend her grandfather’s funeral and for the rest of her family.

Singing off,

Michelle Lynch

WE ARE HERE SAFE

2008-07-01T06:45:00.002-04:00

Just got settled in here in Dublin. The kids are sleeping for a few hours. No problems whatsoever except having to run to catch the flight in Chicago. Airline listed the flight as delayed and then it was on time. But no big deal. We all made it without incident.

The kids seem really excited.

Will post more later. Jeff

Beautiful Feet, huh?

2008-06-30T01:26:00.000-04:00

Isaiah 52:7
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
"Your God reigns!"

We are ready to go. Thank you so much for all of the prayers, fundraising support, and encouragement.

Today we studied the above passage and noted a few things. First, we remembered that in biblical times, people definitely did not think that feet were beautiful! The lowest servant was charged with washing the feet of travelers that arrived from the dusty road. Yet, in this passage, feet are seen to be beautiful. They are beautiful because they are about the Lord's business.
The kids talked about what it means to bring good news, proclaim peace, bring good tidings, proclaim salvation and to declare to Zion that our God reigns.

As the week progresses, we are going to have a team member or two post their reflections in the lessons and events of the day. Today, my niece Katy volunteered. Now, if you are following closely the events of our preparation, you would know that Katy was not supposed to be coming on the trip. However, she is a last minute stand in for her mom (Dawn's twin sister Deb).

Last week, Debs other daughter Heather was injured playing soccer, and has a torn ACL and fractured meniscus--so mom is staying behind to help her through the surgery. As much as we will miss Debbie, Katy is a fine stand in. She is a graduate of Calvin College, a teacher and coach, very athletic, and also very recently married. So, we really have to thank her new husband Steve for letting her come along. Quite a nice thing to do considering that they have not yet even been married a month!

Here are Katy's reflections on our study, and please keep Heather in your prayers as she has her surgery:

Well, we are soon to be off to Ireland, and as the newest addition to the mission team, I will speak for all of us as I say, we are very excited!! I found out five days ago that I am going on this trip, taking the place of my mom, Deb Luimes, who is taking care of my sister Heather because of a recently torn ACL (blown knee), not to mention I am leaving my husband Steve, of 3 weeks. Although the circumstances are rough, I am very excited to be a part of this team as I get to share in the joy of God with my new brothers and sisters in Christ as we share the gospel with others.
This morning Jeff talked with us about feet and how beautiful they are...I don't know about his feet, but mine are gorgeous!! Anyways Isaiah 52:7 says that feet are beautiful as they allow us to go and bring good news and tidings, proclaim peace and salvation, and be able to tell people that the Lord is God! Think about that. God gave us beautiful feet so we can have opportunities, like this Ireland trip, to go and be witnesses. We have feet for a reason or else God could have made us with giant concrete bricks as legs that can't go anywhere. As a group we can hardly wait to go and use our feet (bet you never heard that before!). We will use our feet to walk right up to someone and use our gifts and talents that God has given us to help show them the power of the Lord. What I ask of you as we are gone, is to think about using your feet. I'll let you think of unique ways to do so, but remember every good thing that you do to help someone else requires you to use those little feeties of yours, so keep them moving :) See you in 10 days!

2The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

7Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

8"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."
Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

9"Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"

10Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." 11For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

12When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

**

2008-06-30T01:24:00.002-04:00

John 13:2 The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

7Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

8"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."
Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

9"Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"

10Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." 11For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

12When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. 13"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

In our second lesson we looked at the example of Christ as he taught His disciples what it means to love sacrificially. On the very eve of His death, Jesus stopped to humbly serve the disciples.
--
We discussed that we often act like "me monsters" - at the center of our world. We all agreed that we would try to serve rather than to be served (except Dawn and Zeta- who we all acknowledge are properly classified as "those who must be obeyed!") . We talked about how the temptation is to try to impress each other with great stories about ourselves rather than to serve each other. The kids were very gracious in not pointing out that I have far more stories than they do. But they also clearly indicated that they got the lesson. I am greatly encouraged by their enthusiasm to serve.

Incarnating in Ireland?

2008-06-15T02:46:00.001-04:00

Hebrews 4:15; 5:2
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. . . . He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.

Colossians 1:16
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Philippians 2:5
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant,being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross!

Last week our mission team studied the model that Jesus gave us by condescending to humble himself (entering into "humiliation") in becoming a man. Even though he was God, Jesus became "God Incarnate" and entered into the experience of being a frail and finite being, fully God, but also fully man.

Incarnation is a concept that we can pass over, but which can give tremendous insight into the way that we are to minister to others as Christians. To incarnate means to become "manifested into", as when Jesus incarnated into humanity. The effect of that incarnating is to provide us with an example of how to live a blameless life in perfect love.

Because of this, we enjoy a privilege that no other religion can claim. When we ask why God would allow something terrible to happen, we can know with certainty that our God understands. He understands because in the Person of the Son, he was pushed to the knife's edge of human endurance, and yet never failed to Love us by remaining on a Cross when he could have with a whisper called legions of Angels to his aid. He understands loss because as God the Father, he poured out his wrath on a sinless Son, so as to spare us. God understands.

We know that Jesus created and maintains the universe. Consider the extent of his love and the strength of his will as he hung on a cross, while at the same time having control of the very gravity that was weighing him down. He did not act to lessen his suffering because he continued in his humanity at all times-he remained incarnate.

What does this have to do with our Mission Trip? Incarnation is relevant to us in two ways. On this trip, we should expect to incarnate into the lives of each other as we serve together. And, we will try to use the example of the willingness of Jesus to humble himself as we try to incarnate into the lives of those people that we serve in Ireland. That is the heart of the gospel, and it is our prayer that it will be the heart of our ministry in Ireland.

It is a great lesson to learn when we are about to be faced with the inevitable problems and frustrations that will surely accompany our trip and our work in Dublin. Hopefully, we will be able to remain in servant mode, instead of looking for ways to put ourselves first.

So, please pray for us and our kids. Pray that we will learn the lesson of incarnation and that by serving, we can bear witness to the Love of Christ before those we are able to serve in Ireland.