The most common response to one's first site of Ireland is "it's so beautiful!" which is stating the obvious that I thought everyone knew already.
Of course it's beautiful!
Besides seeing the beautiful Irish countryside, we hung out mostly with a neat team of American missionaries, or "Christ Followers seeking other Christ Followers" who took the time to explain to us their vision of the world and their mission on earth. Here are some quotes, which were almost-tear-jerkingly inspirational for our team. The subjects they covered mostly related to working on a mission team and how to resolve conflicts. Here are some quotable quotes:
"Our mission is to let Jesus live in us, and to let Christ shine in us."
"I was reading John 17 with a friend, where Jesus prays that those who follow him will have the same UNITY that he has with the father. The friend will see that in our community: we love each other like that!"
"We are here to help people on their faith journey."
"Our friends NEED to see our love for one another. How to we show that? We forgive, we compromise, we don’t hold grudges."
"Because we love each other and are important to each other, we WANT to resolve conflict."
“Everyone you meets needs a deeper relationship with Christ."
“I’m a Christ follower and I’m here to find other Christ followers and walk with them.”
"I need to love people more. God loved us BEFORE we loved him."
In Ireland, we sang two concerts: one in St. Anne's Church in downtown Dublin, and one in All Saint's Church in Raheny.
a view of St. Ann's Church
From Ireland, we flew to London and sang in Nottingham and Wembley. In our free time, we visited some castles and I got a tour around London.
Wollaton Hall, aka Wayne Manor in "The Dark Knight Rises."
Our concert in London was on a Friday, and our next concert was scheduled for next Friday in Geneva, so the Chorus dispersed for a week vacation and regrouped again in Geneva.
After we sang in Geneva, the majority of the CEMistes headed to a tiny gym outside of Zurich, where our brother and sister churches convene every year for a soccer tournament! There were 8 "Professional Teams": Bern, Geneva, Vicenza, Paris, Marseille, Antwerp, Brussels and Augsburg. On Saturday night and Sunday morning, we had a worship service (translated in English, French and German) and sang songs in 5 languages. It was a fairly small gathering (a sampling of church members in shape for a good game of soccer from around Europe). The diversity was encouraging and our team's show of sportsmanship was impressive: stopping until the guy you accidentally knocked down gets up again, saying you're sorry, not being too obnoxious after scoring a goal*. We finished 4th and returned to Marseille rather sore but satisfied.
We begin every game with a prayer led by a member of each team.
Other beautiful experiences:
-witnessing baptisms!
-a big Irish, English or German breakfast every morning!
-a tour of London by night and by day
-seeing family and friends again at various stops along my journey.
-having family and friends almost everywhere
-visiting ornate palaces and churches
-having the chance to go running by the riverside every morning, without fear of robbers.
*not counting our goal against the #1 team, Paris, in which our obnoxiously loud rejoicing was heart-felt and justified.
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