Tonight is our last night before we head to our seperate towns. We just finished a birthday dinner for Andrea who turned 17 today. Everyone is still in high spirits and homesickness has been between nothing and almost nothing. (YEah!)

Training has finally ended. It was way too much information and really, really long. Everyone was sick of sitting in the auditorium and listening. That said, it was good and needed.
We all met our hosts last night and will be going with them in the morning. (Saturday) Where I am going is quite exciting. It’s a town that is smaller than Armada but has no youth ministry to speak of. 4 local churches have gotten together to host us… which has never happened in the history of the town. The minister I am workign with, Daphne, is very kind for an older lady. 🙂 She has a heart to reach the teens of her city but doesn’t have a clue where to begin. We’re hoping to give them a shot in the arm. She’s asked me to fill in for her next Saturday the 31st… so I’ll make my NI debue in the pulpit!

At this point, we’ve all melded into our groups and almost lost our Romeo identity. That is actually pretty cool. We’ve all made the hurdles past jet lag and there really isn’t much left to do except go.

I’m not sure how consistent my e-mail access will be. (OK, so I negotiated with her to give me internet access if I would preach for her! I like to negotiate.) I think I’ll be giving Dawn my blog password so she can make updates.

Today we learned all kinds of fun things NOT TO SAY or words that don’t translate very well. I learned that a slip is a dumpster, candy floss is coton candy, a fanny pack is…. um a sanitary napkin…. slagging is cuddling or making out… slogging is giving someone a hard time…. the fun just goes on and on. LisaB reminds us that when they say “shoot” [like a gun] it sounds a lot like a 4 letter word!

MInistry wise… we’ll all be doing different types of ministry. Lisa is doing drop-in centers in Monkstown and most of us will be doing that plus children’s ministry. [Except me… I’m just teenagers]

I realize this isn’t making a lot of sense. Look for a bit of a video update Sunday morning. We all took little videos while siteseeing that I’ll be sending for broadcast Sunday AM.