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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Family Services
During most Sunday services at our church here in Youghal, everyone stays together for the singing and prayer time, but during the sermon the babies go to creche (nursery) and the children go to kid's club. After the service we have tea, coffee and biscuits (cookies). There's no Sunday School at a separate time, like most churches in America would have. Once a month we have a "family service" where everyone stays in and the sermon time is geared for the whole family. This year we are using the family services to go through a time line of the Bible. Last week we talked about God's promises to Abraham, and at the end of March, Seth will be sharing about how God worked through all the unjust suffering of Joseph to bring salvation to His people. Kind of appropriate, seeing as that will be close to Easter when we celebrate Someone else who suffered unjustly to bring salvation to us!
Irish Family Study
Recently an in-depth report was published about changes in Irish families over the last 20 years. The study itself is huge, but this article gives some of the highlights. Some of the findings are surprising!
Book Review: Tactics
Seth was recently given a copy of "Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions". The book is basically an apologetics manual, but it takes a unique approach. Instead of giving you the specific arguments defending Christianity, "Tactics" teaches you how to argue in a winsome way. It gives extremely practical advice on how to start conversations about spiritual things, how to listen to what other people are really saying, and how to respond in ways that get them to actually think through the issues. Most of the tactics are simple to remember and easy to use in any conversation, the book is short, and the price is low. What are you waiting for?
Life In Ireland: The Car
Of course, the most obvious difference about driving in Ireland compared to America is what side of road you are supposed to be on. A lot of times we are asked if switching sides was hard. Honestly, it wasn't - the hard part was getting used to which side of the car to get in to. Every now and then we still walk to the wrong side first. It's been a long time since either of us got in only to find the glove box, though.
There are two things that were much harder to get used to than driving on the other side of the road. One: parallel parking. Two: narrow roads. In the cities, two-lane streets are often one-lane wide. People still parallel park on the side. But the city planners rode horses, so how can you blame them? As you can see below, the roads don't get wider in the country:
Finally, the vocabulary: trunk = boot hood = bonnet windshield = windscreen (and you wipe them with the windscreen wipers) turn signal = indicator gas = petrol highway = motorway parking lot = car park
Valentine's Goodies Yesterday we had several ladies at the house making loads of Valentine's Day goodies - everyone took a plate of the miniature works of art home, plus we have several plates left that we will be able give to friends and neighbors.
