What an encouraging email!

This is an email from a host of one of the camps the Ireland team is working with:

Dear Brandon,

I got your email address from the UPC World Deputation blog that the
Irish team told me about. I hear you are the guy to talk to if I
wanted to send feedback on the UPC students back home ahead of them.

I am on staff at a small Presbyterian church in the suburbs of Dublin
and late in the day, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland got their act
together and let me know in advance that I was getting a team of four
American university students to help me with my 3-Day youth outreach
camps in socially deprived areas of the Irish midlands.

It turns out that these four students, Calvin, Kelly, Trevor and
Camille have been a terrific bonus to our summer ministry at a crucial
time. We were a little worried in advance because PCI had not given us
a lot of forward information. We simply didn't know what to expect
when we went to pick these guys up off the train from Belfast. But
they have been here for a week now and we are just thrilled that they
came, so thank you for sending them.

They had an excellent attitude to all the different roles we dropped
them into- from helping out with our Sunday service to having patience
with the Irish weather as it rained our camps out right through to
mixing brilliantly with our congregation. They were genuine servants
to us. Calvin's energy, Camille's questions, Trevor's sense of humour
and Kelly's maturity shone through over the last few days. Our camps
were not easy jobs for short term missionaries like them but they just
got stuck in and were eager to help out every way they could. It was a
pleasure to work with them.

There was nothing dramatic or sexy about the ministry we were doing
this week but strategically for the development of our little
congregation and over a longer term, for the development of the
Kingdom in Ireland, this kind of day-to-day work is crucial. Your guys
made that work a lot more effective.

Today they moved on into their next assignment with our parent church,
Lucan Presbyterian, where they will be for two weeks. It was great
that I could endorse them so fully to my colleagues down the road.

I hope that all of your Deputation teams are working out so well.
Thank you for running the program. Please pass our gratitude on to the
folks back in Seattle when you get the chance.

Thanks,

Kevin