Moving to the country.....

We are still a little jetlagged, but so far our days have been jam packed full of activities and we are really enjoying ourselves.

Friday we met with the PCI staff and took an open top bus tour of Belfast, where we learned a lot about the history of the city. We also had a chance to meet the man we have nicknamed 'Rev Trev'- the one who was able to pull some strings and get us into the country. Our little adventure with immigration not only served as our first team challenge, but proved to us that we really are suppossed to be in Ireland this summer, and God is going to do amazing things through us. From what we heard, there have been hundreds of people turned away within the past month, and the way we got in was really unheard of- plus on top of it all, Trevor had only 4 of the forms left- I wonder who we would have voted off the team if he had only had 3....

Today we had 12 hours of training, where we met the teams we will be working with during the rest of the summer. It was really fun to talk to people who have worked with previous Ireland teams and hear what they had to say. Thoma walked around asking the locals if we looked American and whether or not we had accents, Lindsay scouted for her husband, Chase ran around announcing to everyone that he was an American celebrity and making fun of the way that they talked, and Tyler was absent all day. Quite productive indeed.

Even though we are in Ireland, we have definitely experienced some culture shock- getting used to the accents has been incredibly difficult. Today was rather frustrating, because we know that we should be able to understand them since they are speaking English, though often times we can't. We spent the past few nights staying in Derryvolgie hall, the residence hall owned by the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, but tonight we have moved out to the country...we are staying in Donegal for two weeks, which will actually be our only camp in the Republic of Ireland.