In The NewsSeth helped with a fundraiser for the local radio station (one of our teammates does a show on Sunday nights) and Seth's picture ended up in the local newspaper this week! Today we'll be putting posters up around town to advertise an event that the church is putting on called "Helping Hurting People". The speaker is John Stephenson, a strong Christian from Canada who lost his wife and daughter in a car accident in '93 and ended up writing a book called "From Tears to Triumph". That will be on March 5th, which just happens to be Seth's birthday!
We praise God that we have had opportunities to meet several of our neighbors as well. It seems like this neighborhood is going to be a great place to get to know people! We're probably also going to join the local gym and Jess is going to try out a Mum (I did not misspell that) and toddler club that several locals have recommended to us. They all say it's a great way to get to know people! Pray for us!
If you'd like to see the whole newspaper, it's online at www.youghalnews.ie
We Can Stay!
we went to see the immigration officer today in a nearby town and thanks to our teammates, we had no trouble being accepted. Our teammates already have a good relationship with the immigration officer for our area, so one of them came with us and once the officer knew we were with them, he barely even talked to us - but he gave us permission to stay! We'll have to re-apply every year, but that's just the way it goes. To celebrate, we ate at McDonald's. I know, I know, it's not a very "Irish" thing to do, but the milkshake was good, so hush.
Creche
Jessica got to keep the nursery at church today for the second time. It's not called "nursery", though - it's the "creche". Along the same lines, if someone is "nursing" a baby, that just means they are holding and loving the baby - not feeding it. So Seth can nurse babies now.
To give you a taste of our church here, last week the creche had children who spoke three different languages!
Back Online!
yes, we finally got connected! It's not from the internet provider we've been trying to get - a random coincidence pushed us to another company who just happened to have lower prices anyway... we also tried to get some things for the house and ended up at the wrong store by accident, which just happened to be having a 50% off sale on a bunch of things we needed...
who says God doesn't care about the little things?
speaking of little things, our fridge is little. And so is the microwave. But we did get our container full of all our things! God answered all our prayers - we had plenty of help, sunshine (it rained after we got it all inside!), and a place to put it all! We've already got most of it unpacked, actually :)
Update
We are in the house and loving it, we finally got a bank account, our container is set to come tomorrow and we've got help to unload it! Life is good.
We still don't have internet at the house, though, because we haven't recieved the right bills in the mail that will satisfy the internet company that we actually live there (they are harder to satisfy than the bank!). So, Seth is writing this post from an internet cafe in town and future updates may be a bit slow in coming.
In other news, Jessica drove on the left side of the road for the first time (without any trouble), we burned sod in the fireplace like good Irish folks, and we got to go to church in Youghal!
Progress
House: Thank you for your prayers! The landlord agreed to do the work that the house needed, and should have finished it today. That means we're moving in tomorrow!
Car: We couldn't drive the car home without insurance, and at the last minute the company we had an agreement with backed out because of a technicality! But while we were on the way to pick up the car with one teammate, another teammate was on the phone wrangling a deal with another company so that by the time we got to the car lot, we did have insurance... whew! What a great team to be on!
Other stuff: We still don't have a bank account, cell phones, or internet of our own because we can't get them without proof of address. Only a few things are accepted as proof, but some of them should be in the mail. Maybe we'll have them soon? The good news is that the container full of all our things is supposed to come next Tuesday!
Slow Going
getting set up in Ireland is no sprint... it's more like hurdling.
For our lease agreement on the house, we were supposed to have Irish bank account details. But to open an Irish bank account, you have to have a bill or bank statement that was sent to your house to prove you live there. Catch 22? Thankfully, we have a great teammate who got things figured out for us. Even though we don't have an Irish bank account yet, we were supposed to move into the house today - but it's not ready. A few important things are broken and the place needs cleaning. The landlord is coming tomorrow to take care of it. Pray that he does everything that needs to be done!
Now for the car: they included an inspection with the purchase, and they told us it should be ready to pick up tomorrow. That's fine, because we are not allowed to drive it without insurance, anyway. Pray that the insurance comes through (at a not-too-terrible rate - we're classified as student drivers here, for a while!) so that we can pick up the car and start driving ourselves around!
