Hi everyone! This is Sarah- (I'm the one on the right in this picture - this is at a 'cell meeting' - read on) I thought I'd share a bit about what's been going on here for the past seven weeks! Yes, it's been seven weeks already- and actually, it feels like it's been much longer.

It's interesting to see how things are beginning to settle now that we have our initial business (like getting our GNIB cards, a bank account, etc.) taken care of. Dad has lead the morning service at church a couple of times and Mom is helping out with the "Mums and Tots" group put on by our church for ladies in the Ballycullen area.

Despite the fact that I have zero athletic ability =), I've been helping out with the weekly basketball program for kids (also an outreach for kids in the area). So that's been a stretch, but it's good. We've also had the opportunity to host the mid-week Bible study/prayer meeting in our home with our little church family.

The Cell group Bible Study at the Joneses house (about 1 hour away by bus) has been a great thing for me to be involved in. It's a meeting of people (upper teens to early twenties) who genuinely want to dig into the Word; I love the great conversations and also just having fun hanging out with my "cellmates!" I've also enjoyed learning to find my way around the city getting to know Dublin. It really is a fun city! So I'm learning a lot and I really feel extremely blessed!
Thank you for your prayers and love to all!!! Sarah.

This is a brief SITUATION REPORT' for the purpose of gathering fervant prayer; I know most of you are are willing to do spiritual battle on behalf of the church in Ireland and I am very grateful for each of you.

The Irish Bible Institute in Dublin is an outstanding training ground for future church leaders and is led by a very gifted man named Jacob. He and his wife Lori have been experiencing attacks of the enemy for several years now via the health of their 17 year old daughter, Alish. She has been battling cronic fatigue syndrome since at least 2003 and is now no longer able to be in school.

Jacob is also an elder in the church plant in Ballycullen (SW Dublin) where we are attending for this first year. We just learned on Friday, that Jacob & Lori's oldest child, Kieran, has now been diagnoses with glandular fever (mono). He (Kieran) is 18 and doing an important intership at our church and is being used to assist with key youth related outreach projects, among other things.

Please do battle on behalf of Jacob and Lori through intense prayer on behalf of their children; it seems that mono was how Alish's CFS began. Pray that Kieran will recover quickly and that Alish will be encouraged and get well. Pray for spiritual and physical strength for this key leader and his family. They also have twin 12 year old daughters and are very tired - they need their spiritual family around the world to hold them up to the great physician. Thank You So Very Much.

Two 'big deals' this week to share . . . Kathy and I are now back in school!  You read it correct, we are taking a night class at the Irish Bible Institute (IBI) in downtown Dublin.  'The Gospel and Irish Culture' is a class we knew we wanted to take, and as usual, God took care of the details.  Two Mondays ago we went to visit IBI to find out the class start dates and . . .  whaala, the class was going to start THE NEXT NIGHT.  We were able to complete the paperwork and showed up for the 7:00 PM to 10:00 class on April 1st - and that's not even an April fools day joke!  Pray that we will be able to make these 'long out of school' brains work in a classroom setting!

Also, The Lord provided a car for us this week!  We mentioned to our church planter mentor, Craig, that we would be looking for a car before too long and that our max price range would be about 10,000 Euros.  A few days later Craig called and said he 'remembered' that a friend of his was looking to sell a 2001 Renault Scenic that had only 44,000 miles on it.  He told me to get on the web and pull up a picture of the kind of car to see if we might be interested.  I did and we were!  It holds 5 people and still has room for luggage - a big deal when you want to pick people up at the airport!  I asked Craig if he knew how much the car would cost and he said 5,000 euros, hald what we thought it would cost to get a reliable car!  Praise the Lord with us once again for His brilliant provision for us!  Pray for the other drivers as we learn to drive with the gear shift on the left and the steering wheel on the right!