Acts 1:8 "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth.”
Naomi gave me her update from Ireland. She wanted me to share it with all of you since so many of you prayed and supported her on this trip.
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First of all, I want to thank everyone who helped support me on this mission trip. Whether it was prayers, through odd jobs, or donating money, I am truly grateful.
For those of you who do not know, I went to Ireland for the first time during the summer of 2022. I was there for two weeks and served alongside the Slaters and Staleys for their summer camp. That was my first overseas mission trip. To top it off, I planned the trip and traveled alone. Needless to say, I was super excited, but also nervous.
During the last three years, I have really worked on growing in my relationship with God. He has worked on my heart being receptive to the call of missions. Ever since I was six years old, I have wanted to go into ministry as an overseas missionary. While looking for missions trips for this summer, God put it on my heart to look into going back and serving with the Slaters again. I wanted to get hands-on experience in the mission field serving alongside a missionary. God provided both a church and missionaries to gain that experience this summer!
I flew out of Chicago on the 17th of June and touched down at the Dublin Airport on June 18th. I then caught a bus, train, and ,finally, arrived in Mallow four hours later. The Slaters were so welcoming and it felt as if I had known them my whole life. In the two weeks leading up to camp, I helped wherever I was needed. This included helping with worship on Sundays, building and painting a gagaball pit (which turned out really cool), loading the van up in preparation for camp, among with many other tasks. Finally, the teams started showing up. We toured the Cliffs of Moher, Blarney Castle, Cork, and Dublin when the final group from Florida arrived. We had the last youth night before we left for camp on Sunday.
They turned this fountain into a shrine to Mary. It is located in a cemetery and people will bring belongings and photos of loved ones who have died.
When you have groups in from America during the Fourth of July, you do "American" things like have s'mores, singing the National Anthem while facing America with a picture of a flag on a phone, and have sparklers.
This is the best cheese I've ever had!
Camp:
Camp started on July 6th and lasted until July 11th. Camp was definitely the highlight of my whole trip. I was privileged to serve alongside not only the Slaters and Satleys, but also the interns and church groups who came to help. It was so impactful. Serving Jesus with like minded people who have a passion for the youth and teens is something that I am so blessed to have experienced. We had 21 teens from Mallow come to camp this year, which is a smaller group than normal, but that made it easier to connect with each and everyone of them on a much deeper level. Our days were filled with amazing food (Thanks to Emily, Amber, and Lindsay), fantastic worship, uncomfortable (in a good way) sermons, games, and fun activities. I got to lead quite a few of the girls' small groups. It was so wonderful to see how God worked through them and see how they opened up throughout the week. We also played a game called human safari which is basically where the counselors hide and the campers will try to find us and when they find you, you can either give up and walk back willingly or resist. It leads to a lot of creative hiding spots and lots and lots of bruises. Despite all the fun games and good food, worship had to be my favorite part of camp aside from the community of students and leaders. Though the group was small, every service gave me chills listening to everyone praising God louder than some churches full of hundreds of people do.
I wanted to catch a bird the whole time I was in Ireland, and I finally got the chance at camp.
Baptisms:
After church camp, I was lucky enough to witness three people get baptized. Ruth, Arek, and Micha, who is the Slaters third oldest. It was such a cool experience getting to witness baptisms in another country. Though the baptisms were similar to how we do it in America, the people face different challenges in how people will perceive them In Ireland after they are baptized.
Outreach in Fermoy:
The missionaries at Mallow Bible Fellowship are planting a church in Fermoy, which is about a 30 minute drive away from Mallow. To help with this new church plant, this summer we did some outreach there. That included a Holiday Bible Club (VBS for us in the states), Teen night, and a Q&A night. We had a church from Virginia fly to Ireland to help with all these events. They were such lovely people and I am so blessed to have been able to meet them and work with them. Before those events started, we had to spread the news that we were having these events. We did that by going house to house and handing out flyers about our upcoming events. It was a long, but fun process. It was also very rewarding when we saw the outcome in our events. During the three days we held the Holiday Bible Club, we had a total of 20 children show up for the event. It was such an amazing experience to see them all interacting with the lessons, participating in the games and singing the songs and dancing to the videos. For the teen night, we had 10 teens show up and we got to talk with them all, explain why we came to Ireland from America (they were shocked that we would want to actually visit Ireland), share what we believed, and just get to know them while having pizza. For the Q&A night we did not have anyone show up, so instead, we just had a worship session. We were able to spend time giving God the glory for all that He had done that week. Christianity is viewed as a cult in Ireland, so having such a great turnout for both events was a blessing.
After we had finished all the church activities for the week, we were having dinner at the Bed and Breakfast the church group was staying at. I was being taught how to do a handstand and cartwheel by one of the girls who was with the group. I successfully learned how to do both a handstand and a cartwheel, but, unfortunately, not too long after I had learned, my career and future as a gymnast was stripped away. I fell on my shoulder and ended up tearing my rotator cuff (whoops, lol). I went to the hospital the next day (that was not on my 2025 bingo card). Thankfully, I had no broken bones so they sent me on my way and I had a followup appointment when I got home informing me that it (thankfully) was not a full tear and all I needed was some PT and it should be good as new.
After all that we had one more full day left with the group, we went to Blarney Castle and Cork. We went to sightsee all around Cork and we got to see a cathedral and all sing a hymn together there.
Three years ago I served with Delaney and we coincidentally served together again in Ireland!
In between our big events, I was able to take the train and go sightseeing by myself. Here are some of the pictures.
These are traveler's horses that I spotted on my run. They take their horses and animals to pasture in random fields.
I stayed a month at a bed-at-breakfast. My favorite time was mornings when I could do my devotions and have a cup of tea.
During the last week and a half I was there, I was able to help in the children's church, the crush (nursery), and I was able to help with some outreach for the Mallow Holiday Bible Club that was going to happen August 5th-8th. The last church group came on the 2nd of August and we prepared for the Holiday Bible Club. On the 4th of August, I packed up and got ready to leave the next day. I boarded my train for Dublin at 9:45am and navigated my way to the bus and then through the airport with one arm (that was not too fun) I made it onto my flight with no issues and flew the 8 hours back to America. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends in Chicago! Mrs. Tiemens picked me up and let me stay at their house overnight before I had to leave the next morning for my flight back to Kentucky. I had another smooth flight and eventually got picked up by my parents and arrived home.
I showed them "Stack the States" and they were enthralled. I became like a big sister to them.
This is where Lydia put a net over her head, pretending to be a fish that I caught.
I am so thankful that I was able to experience missions firsthand for such an extended period of time, and with such amazing missionaries. I am so thankful for God bringing the Slaters into my life. They have been such a blessing getting to know over the two months I was in Ireland. They also let me stay at their house for the last three weeks of my trip to save me money, which was such a blessing because it saved me a ton of money which I am now using to pay for my college classes this semester! The Slaters were always willing to step up and help whenever and did so much for me while I was there. It was so amazing to see their love for Christ shown through John and Emily's actions not only toward me, but to their children, to each other, to the community, and their church. It was truly a blessing to work alongside them and the Staleys. I cannot wait to return to Ireland in the future and work with them again.
Thank you to everyone who came alongside me in prayer for this trip. I am very blessed to have such a good community.
Upcoming Events (What's Next?):
- I just started Bible college and I am so excited to see where God takes me with that.
- I also have a missions trip to Guatemala in October with my church
- I have a missions trip to South Asia in December with my school.
- Please pray for me as I continue to seek the Lord in the direction He wants me to pursue as a missionary.
