Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Worship, Patience and Majesty

It's been a couple of days since I have had a chance to post about our adventures. A lot has happened in the last three days, so read on to find out what has been happening in our lives.

Sunday was a Sabbath for the group. We had the wonderful privilege of getting to worship with a fellowship of believers at Portstewart Baptist Church. It was an awesome service and our students had an opportunity to have tea and donuts with members of the church after church. It was fun to see them interacting with other Christians from another culture.

Monday morning was an early morning, as Laura (my wife) and I dropped the students at a local station to take the train to our next destination. This 45 minute trip is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the world through pastoral settings on one side and the ocean on the other. The train took them to Derry/Londonderry, where I met them to walk through the history that led to the Troubles, along the walls of the city, seeing the murals of Bloody Sunday - the start of tumultuous period in Northern Irish history and then to the Irish woolen shop where many purchased things to bring home.

After Derry/Londonderry, we began to make our way to County Fermanagh. On a side road part of our trip my wife's van ran over something in the road that left it with TWO flats! This began 3 1/2 hours on the phone and waiting. It's amazing what a group of college students in a natural history course can come up with to do! The snail racing was my favorite. The students were great through all of the waiting. God has His purposes in the whole affair. Some
we may never know, but one was a chance to interact with a taxi driver who came to collect us ( our van was not fixed until today). We had a great opportunity to minister to Eddie, hear his story of Christ beginning to work in he and his wife's lives though a miracle that happened in their family (ask the students about it!). We finally arrived at our destination and settled in.

Today we walked through one of my favorite forests, right across the street from where we are staying. I'm sure these gigantic old trees have many stories to tell!  The forest surrounds a manor house and looks out across a mountain. The flowers and birds are wonderful here and sound fills the air.

The afternoon took us to the base and lower slopes of  Culcaigh (pronounced "culky") mountain to study  the unique geology of this place (similar places are only found in Michigan and the Baltic states). Here the bedrock lies on the surface and creates a unique ecosystem. On up the slopes from there we were able to study the a blanket bog. This bog type is only found on the sides of mountains and is most likely the result of ancient farming gone bad. These bogs are now being protected, though some are still used for harvesting peat.  We ended the day with a traditional Irish birthday supper for one of our students. Speaking of peat, we might light a peat fire in the fireplace tonight. Tomorrow we go underground!
(More pictures coming)

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