genesus and exodus and numbers

We had a great time on our latest round of visits. The meeting with our accountant friend went well. Aside from being a great chap, he was very helpful and gave us some good input. After that we drove north and west to the little town of Buncrana, where we met Mike and Aster Mullins of Operation Mobilization. They are doing some really neat things up there. They have a big red double-decker bus that they take around and do Bible clubs and stuff for the kiddo's. They're also really neat people. Mike is so enthusiastic about everything that I think he could sell anything. We enjoyed talking with them and meeting their team. Those four couples make up the only evangelical church in Buncrana. That's pretty wild.

On Wednesday, Mike took me along with him on a visit to the Exodus, a "Christian nightbase" for young people in Coleraine. It was really slick. They have bands playing every Saturday night and all kinds of kids come in. They do classes similar to the Alpha Course, and they also organize lots of summer missions trips for the kids that are interested. It was pretty neat to see. I took a bunch of pictures which are on the online photo album.

I feel very priviledged to have been there. It was neat to see the Exodus, but also neat to listen in on the conversations in the car ride of over an hour. The reason for the visit was that a wealthy businessman in Buncrana is opening a similar kind of keep-the-crazy-kids-from-boozing-their-brains-out center for youth to hang out. He wanted to talk with the Exodus guys about a partnership for the purpose of getting EU grant money. It was fascinating, though, because he is a staunch Catholic and very suspicious of anything that's not.

So there's that. We're wrapping things up here. Cleaning the house and getting ready to pack our things. On Tuesday we're heading south for some time in Dublin and then Cork before making our way back to Shannon for our flight on Saturday. It will be bittersweet.

Mark

Taste-of-home of the day:
We didn't expect it, but it happened. Like a thief in the night.