here in Belfast!

OK… so the weirdest part of flying to Belfast was meeting up with Jonathon Herron at DTW. Too weird! He was like, “Hey… are you guys from Romeo?” Another small world encounter!

Here’s my update from Day one of our mission trip.

I am typing this update from a cool internet cafe` in the heart of Belfast. Belfast is a beautiful city and Jon and I just spent the last few hours walking around, snapping oodles of pictures and soaking up super cool Northern Ireland.

It has been an incredibly busy day so far. It is now 3:30 PM in Belfast and we have dinner at 5:30 and meetings after that. The goal all day has been to keep us busy enough to not fall asleep until 7ish. This should help fight jet lag.

Our flight here and the bus ride went very smooth. It was cool since everyone was spread out on the plane… it gave us all a chance to work the “LIFE” system. That is, making small tlak with people by finding out their LIKES, INTERESTS, FAMILY, and EDUCATION. I met a really nice couple from Dublin on the plane.

How is everyone doing?

Let’s see… the funny thing is that since we’re the “big group” here… we’re and easy target for ribbing. We’ve been labeled “the old group” since most of our team is past high school.

Jon…. He’s doing good so far. He’s not really come out and shown a lot of interest in anything outside of our group yet. But we havent needed him to do that either. He and I ran around shopping today and that was a blast.
Andrea… As to be expected, she is the social butterfly. Actually, on the bus ride up from Dublin she didn’t even ride in our bus. It was the 7 of us together and her all alone… happily making friends. I think she’s learned all 67 names already!
Beth… Doing great, making a lot of friends. She seems to be taking the challenge to “leave life on hold” while we are here. I know she is eager to see what God will do with this trip.
Dawn… Dawn is tired so far. While she is doing a great job I can see that she is tired. With a little sleep I am certain she will be ready to roll. As always… Dawn is awesome. One cool thing that happened was that her brother Dan called me while we were at JFK in New York. She got to hear his really nice voice mail… and he isn’t in trouble!
LisaB… What can I say? This girl is the best. She has handled everything flawlessly so far. She and I could look at each other on the plane but were too far apart to talk… we made a lot of hand signals and that was fun.
Autumn… Yeah, so Autumn doesn’t travel so well as she get’s car/bus/air sick. She’s chummed a couple of tiems so far. Please pray for her! She is healthy and in good spirits… but vomitting in front of new people doesn’t make for quick friends!
Katie… Another social butterfly. Katie is going to have an awesome trip.
As for me… I too am tired but doing well. I had my first cup of “proper tea” today at a place across from the Methodist College we are staying at…. very good. (But the coffee I am sipping right now is much better!) Some initial observations about NI. I love the weather and the vibe of Belfast. While Dublin looked a lot like Michigan geographically, up in NI… it is gorgeous! The weather patterns are incredible as the weather literally changes every 5-10 minutes. Rain, overcast, sunny, on and on. I had fun exchanging money for about 12 people. All told, we exchanged $1680 for £938. Man, the UK is stinking expensive!

The whole Summerserve team is going to be great. It’s one of those things you can just tell. Praise God for smooth travel and awesome teams. I am eager to report more as we get into ministry training Thu-Fri. Wednesday we are going on a bus tour of the north. I plan on takng hundreds of picture. I’ll post some as soon as I can. Another thing… why on earth is the keyboard different here than at home? What’s up with that?

Another funny thing. Our team has been labeled the “old team” since we have a few people in their 20 somethings and me… a geezer at 29. At JFK people anxiously looked for their team members and one girl when she found out I was the only guy in her group… looked at her friend with a frown and said “the only guy in my group is old and married… that stinks!” Too funny!

If you’ve got questions for me or the team… shoot… I’ll be happy to answer specific Q’s!