Spending some of the Holiday in Dublin and Belfast...

This last Tuesday we went to Dublin for the first time. It was really fun. We went to the National Art Gallery in the morning and then had the rest of the day to ourselves. My roommate Jordan and I shopped and saw a movie. The lights were on and the streets were crowded. I love the city! I thought Dublin really was a great place. I may have like it more than here. The picture of the rainbow is from Dublin. The other pictures are from last night. Since we are in Northern Ireland and not America. we still had class on Thursday. We did however get to spend the evening in Belfast after our art class at Queens. The whole city hall and city center was lit up. They had a huge Christmas tree and a Ferris Wheel that was huge and really nice. I rode it and it was my first time! Around city hall they had a fair, but it was more of a world fair and not as redneck and the ones I am use to. There were Indian Curry stations, Fudge shops, cider and wine, Greek food, licorice from Holland, sausages and burgers from all over, and the best most authentic Turkish Delight I have ever had. (Below is a picture of my and my bag of different varieties). Anyways, the whole night was very fun and the Christmas Cheer was grand. I really like both Dublin and Belfast and will miss the feel of the European city. I will be flying home in two weeks from tomorrow...crazy! I am ready to see family and friends but I know there will be things I will miss. I may not miss the socially slow weekend nights of Dundrum....but walking around Belfast during Christmas time is one of my new favorites! Miss and love you guys! oh...and there is also a picture of my school, Queens at night. Pretty huh?

A few good things

Well, to be honest...the last couple of weeks back from Rome have been a little hard. I keep telling everyone that I love being in another country and the people and culture, but the circumstances of the program are frusterating at times. I do miss my friends and family, and also miss my days of independence. But things are still going. I did something amazing today. I went to the records library in Belfast. It was there that I was able to look up and ask for Amy Carmichael's letters from India to home. I sat and held her very own hand written and a hundred year old letters. I also looked through "Amma's photos." It was all of the pictures Amy had taken of her time in India. So, tons of black and white photos of little Indian babies.

For those of you who don't know...Amy Carmichael was a missionary from Ireland to India. She lived and worked in India for over 50 years of her life. She is an amazing women of God and my spiritual hero...so this was a great day. I held the very letter she wrote on a ship on her way to Japan in March of 1893. I read her words as she described seeing "the gleaming of the long coast line of Darkest Africa." I read on in amazement at the love she had for the Lord. This is something I copied down from one of her letters:

"The light-bearers so few and far between that today millions and millions whom Jesus died to win, are left to live and die unwon. Oh that His bride might awaken to the heart desire of her Bridge groom. E're the cry rings down 'Go ye forth to meet Him.' Truely if we go on leaving 'the voiceless silence of despair' unanswered, the heathen who we might tell, untold, we shall have to 'shrek in shame before Him at His coming.'"

I don't think I could say I would write a letter like that on a ship infested with cockroaches, rolling over the crazy ocean waves on my way to Japan in 1893... Reading through letters written on thin Indian paper, seeing the heart and soul behind this woman was both encouraging and convicting.

I also put up a video of Jill and I in Rome. And here are a few pictures! Love and miss you guys! I will be home in like 26 days...wow.