A Great Week!

So - we are in Galway, a cool city in the NW of Ireland - here for a day off after volunteering at a Catholic youth festival. We finished tearing down the festival last night.  It was a busy time of helping - 250 people came to the festival. It was a great time of building bridges. There was a REALLY good reconciliation night and a fella from West Belfast spoke...people washed their hands in basins as a symbol of forgiveness and letting go of things and we were there to dry their hands to show how we all need each other. It was a moving time.

We all stayed in giant tents with the joyousness of teenagers yelling until 2 in the morning so we’re a bit worn out, but feel it was important for us to be there and we built some great relationships by volunteering, doing our best, great connections for more to happen in the future.

We got to connect with the Psalm Drummers who are based out of Belfast and love to worship and do workshops with drums - it was grand! 

An amazing part of this week was the day we arrived in Knock we had the afternoon free to drive to Foxford where Joey’s ancestors came from...so the two of us went on a journey to search out his relatives who are still living in Foxford - We went to a pub and asked about the name we knew - Frankie Devaney - and the guy next to us had his cell phone number and gave him a call. So Joey got on the phone and explained that they were related and Frankie came to pick us up and brought us to his house. We had a good chat and tried to figure out the family tree, then he called up all his family -a bunch of really lovely folks who took us out to dinner and invited us to come back! We felt like it was a great gift from God!

Tomorrow we are back to Belfast for a week where we are hosting a coffee/sports/music venue at a youth event called Summer Madness.

God is teaching us more and more how to love and giving us a bigger picture of His heart and purposes for us, for this island and for the Body of Christ to live in unity - Thanks be to God for His infinite love!

Here's Joey at the River Moy - where his Great-great-great and Great-Great Grandfather's used to fish!

Thanks a million for your prayers and friendship!

LOVE,

Joseph and Christy