The Lord's Day - July 20
[The wedding was over, and there's a strong sense in which everything could only go downhill from here! We had three more days in Ireland, but on Sunday our week-long rental of the Castle Rock house concluded, so we spent the morning hurriedly packing up the car between yawns and getting ready to say our sad goodbyes to Sarah and Logan.]
[A few last photos of the rental house . . . which we would highly recommend! A very fair price for a lovely, beautifully furnished and excellently organized home in a great location.]
"We were up, packed, and ready to leave for church and leave the house around 9:15 am. We exchanged hugs with Sarah and Logan and stufed the partially-dried laundry from the dryer into plastic grocery bags and into the trunk. We couldn't find the grocery store soda bread we'd been planning to eat for breakfast in the car, so we stopped at Ruth's bakery one last time and picked up a few fresh ones, as well as a cup of take away tea for me. The girls happily stuffed that delicious bread down!
[I don't care for my tired, sad face in this photo, but let's not be vain . . . ]
"We were at least ten minutes later than the 10:30 start time at Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church in Newtownabbey, where we were hoping at least to see the Donnellys! But when we pulled into the car park and there was not a soul or an auto in sight, we grew concerned that we had made this trip for nothing! A few minutes later, a young man cruised in on a bicycle and explained to us that there was no Sabbath school in the summer, only a prayer meeting at 11 before the 11:30 service. And sadly the Donnellys were away at an international conference in Scotland. However, everyone else welcomed us warmly and we'd had a lunch invitation even before we went inside! As Ruthie very quickly became unmanageable, I spent most of the service in the cry room with a kind lady named Jill who was keeping her 14 month old granddaughter, as well as two other young mothers. The Psalm singing was underwhelming from the cry room, but we did our best, and the preaching was from Isaiah.
"Afterward, we followed our kind hosts, David and Susan Wright, to their home in Ballyclare! They had a very comfortably furnished typical smallish British house and were all ready with toys for the children, as well as a high chair and pack n play (thankfully they have grandchildren and are used to this!). They were extremely kind to us and fed us a wonderful meal of soup, ham, broccoli/cauliflower, potatoes, beetroot, and rhubarb crisp with custard and icecream for dessert, and tea and cookies later before the evening service. They introduced us to the Jonathan Mark books, which Gemma loved, and we read their entire collection of 6 or 7 of them to her that afternoon! [Oh, how they outdo us in hospitality over there!]
"We had told them of our intentions to visit their sister congregation in Ballyclare that evening, and we learned to our surprise that not only was their home literally around the corner from the church building, but Mr. David Wright and Mr. George Wright of the Ballyclare church are first cousins. :) AND Mr. David Wright is the brother of Mrs. Donnelly! So it was a very quick journey to evening worship, which Ruthie certainly appreciated. Gemma was out cold during the first prayer, but with Ruth we were not so fortunate. She was so rebellious that John kindly took over her care early in the service and ended up sitting with her in a Sunday School room listening to a sermon on his phone while I sat in the actual service, undistracted. The preaching was on Pontius Pilate's question "what is truth?" and once again everyone was extremely welcoming and kind.
[Back in 2007, Derek and I had hoped to visit Pastor Donnelly's church, for this precious servant of God has preached at many of our conferences in the U.S. in the past, and it was under his preaching that I believe I was converted. Time constrained us back then, and we made it to to their sister church in Ballyclare, where Mr. and Mrs. George Wright had kindly invited Derek, Jenni and me over afterward. We maintained a skeleton of a relationship with them over these years and contacted them ahead of time. They very sweetly invited us over after the evening service again. I only hope we may have opportunity to return the favor some day!]
"We had been greeted with a 'holy kiss' by George Wright in the car park when we first arrived, and we followed them back to their home in Ballymena afterward. The children played on their swing set for a little bit before we went inside and then they played with the toys they had there. They served us tea, sandwiches, and a vast array of sweet things and we squeezed in friendly chatter between wrangling our tired children. They also had an enormous rocking horse which Gemma was very very happy to ride before we said our goodbyes after 10 pm. It was 12:30 or 1 am by the time we arrived at the Hilton in Dublin, quite exhausted."
[Gemma adored this horse, but was a bit shy of Mr. Wright, as our blurry iphone photo shows. What a Lord's Day, though! We were truly humbled by all the kindness, and leaving a little pot of maple syrup here and some knitted fingerless gloves there didn't seem like enough. But even if we are never able to host them in return, we look forward to fellowship in heaven with these loving saints!]
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