We have been back in the United States for about a week now. We wanted to send out a blog post a little sooner but we have been putting it off because it seems so difficult to try to communicate all the things we experienced and learned from our trip into a blog that is a reasonable length. We will do our best to give you a basic overview for now and we would love to record a video in the future that would go a little more in depth. We also really encourage you to reach out to us personally! We have loved being able to process all of our thoughts so far and we want to share what we learned with our loved ones so they can be in prayer with us.
Ireland has done an amazing job at preserving their rich history. We were able to see the Book of Kells which is an intricately written book of the four gospels of the new testament. We also toured ancient burial mounds which are dated at 3200 BC, older than the pyramids of Egypt.
Irish culture seems to be very similar to what we know in the US at first glance but has some definite differences when you look closely. One of the biggest differences we noticed is that Irish people are indirect communicators as opposed to our American directness.
One of the most difficult things we dealt with was how unwelcome we felt as Americans and Christians. We felt tolerated as tourists but anything more was unwanted. Most of the interactions with others were with other tourists or people who had moved to Ireland from other countries. Our communication with multiple missionaries and an Irish pastor informed us that to do missionary work in Ireland is a very slow process that requires patience and intentionality. Later in our trip we went out to County Kerry to meet with a woman named Jade who has a ministry there. She informed us of a need for churches who will welcome in broken people with difficult pasts.
This is just a glimpse of everything we learned in Ireland. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, Fluty Adventures, for a video with more detailed information.
Prayer requests:
-The people of Ireland who have very limited access to the Gospel.
-Guidance over next steps as we can see the need but are unsure of how we can practically get involved.
-The current missionaries who have been in Ireland and continue to serve.