Tayto Land!

The team is all safe and sound and complete again in Ballygawley! That's right, Elise, Mrs. Susan, Libby, and Brianna all arrived in Dublin today, early this morning. When we met them this morning I couldn't have pitied them more. I would have been absolutely miserable if I had just gotten off a plane, lost six hours of my life, and then went to a theme park.

 

Ireland is known for potatoes, so it's natural that there would be a potato-themed adventure park, right? Right!

 

Tayto Land has everything you could want: various rides including but not limited to mechanical bull riding, zipline, and a giant slide; a restaurant; a zoo; a petting zoo; and a tour of the factory itself.

 

I'm not much of an adventurer myself, but I watched the others do zipline. Unfortunately, a few of our Ballygawley friends, Jonny and David, exceeded the weight limit, but Brianna and Libby and Katie and Kerry went (later Libby and her mom went again).

 

I did go on one ride: a kind of sky-rope thing where you get harnessed in and you walk on these rope things in the sky and all this stuff and stuff. I'm honestly more of a sit-down-and-read person (which I actually ended up doing for the last three or four hours of the day).

 

By the end of the day we were all rather haggard and exhausted, but we did survive, and we did manage to talk at least a little bit with some of the Irish people. I spent a good twenty or thirty minutes talking to a nice man named Trevor, and I know the other Americans had fun catching up with their old friends as well.

 

The six of us have been divided into pairs for the week: Elise and Mrs. Susan are staying with the Campbells (I'm unfortunately not very familiar with them). Libby and Brianna are staying with the Cootes, who hosted Libby last year. They have a son named Daryl who Libby and Katy grew very close to last year, so I'm sure they've had lots of fun today. And then Katie and I are with the Hardys, who happen to own a huge home. There are three kids: Katie, Amy, and James. They're all adorable and hilarious.

 

Tomorrow we will be split again as the rest of the team go to the church in Ballygawley and Katie and I go to the church in Ballyreagh (pardon my spelling?). Chill time in the afternoon, then church again at Ballygawley and some hangout time afterwards. I will try to keep you posted!

 

--Dexter

 

What you can pray for: Pray for some rest for the other four of us who just arrived, that they would adjust quickly to the new timezone and get over jet lag. And pray for all of us that we would stay healthy throughout the next two weeks. Also for the kids we'll be ministering to, not only in the Holiday Clubs but also the schools we'll be visiting. And also the teens we'll be hanging out with as well.