soon and very soon

Another good week under our belt. We met Ange's parents at the Shannon Airport and then drove down to the village of Tralee. It was beautiful and we heard (and participated in) some great traditional music. The next day we toured the Dingle peninsula and saw lots of ancient huts and forts. We also saw some "unreclaimed land" - land that had not been made fertile by removing the rocks. It's amazing how rocky the terrain used to be. It occured to me that we have no idea of what it would be like to work on one field for one's whole life, gradually taming it and making it useful. It makes the Irish bitterness towards the English seem a bit more understandable. What would it be like if my father or grandfather poured their whole life into a plot of land, making something out of almost nothing, and then some foreign power came in and gave that land to a rich foreign man.

After Dingle we drove to the Rock of Cashel and then on to Kilkenny Castle and Glendalough (an ancient monastic site). That one was interesting too -- what was once a vibrant community of Christians is now literally a huge graveyard where people fight to bury their loved ones near the grave of a saint (Saint Kevin). Ironic, I think.

This weekend has been fun. Lot's of little children running around and leaving doors open. I wrote a song for the weekend about 1 Samuel 16:7 - "Man looks at the outward things but the Lord looks at the heart." It was a fun challenge to write a children's song and then teach it to them. I hope it was as fun for the kids...

Anyway, we now only have three weeks left!!! What in the world?!? Pray for us as we try to squeeze every drop from these last days. We love you (well, most of you, probably).

Mark

N.Irish phrase of the day: "Flip! That's a brave distance!" = "Wow! That's a really long way!" One of the girls at camp said that about the distance an ambulance would have to drive to get to our village (24 miles, about 45 minutes). I thought it was hilarious.