what do you call a French man in sandals? Phillipe Flop HAHA

As you can see, I have been yet again awful at posting. So to my avid readers, I apologize. Since my adventures to Egypt and Scotland I have had a bit of a hard time readjusting to Belfast. My program, The Partnership in Community Transformation, ended during my travels in Egypt. My friends and officemates are no longer officemates, and my boss is no longer my boss. It has been great to keep up with them, but the church is a wee bit lonely. So I have been doing my work from home and working on getting some additional placements. I will be starting to work at another community centre on the Crumlin Road called the Vine Centre in a week or so with the afterschool program. This centre has a lot of things going on and I am excited to be a part of the work it is doing and to add a new set of kids to my plate, yet still miss the craic of the office.

One of my main bits of work right now is planning our youth residential which will take place in Castlerock on 18-20 May. I am so looking forward to the weekend with some of my most fun youth. We are staying at a retreat centre that is on a beautiful beach. I am working on the activities but will be using a lot of Camp Illahee ideas! It will take me back to my summer home. We are having a car wash next Saturday to help raise money for the retreat, which should be good fun at least and hopefully very lucrative! haha. And hopefully we will get nice weather. Today is the first day of bad weather I have seen in the past fortnight. It has been beautiful; clear, dry, and WARM!

Last Wednesday Lindsey Mitchell, one of my dearest college friends and her friend Elizabeth arrived. They had been traveling the UK with their graduate program studying student development in the UK. It was so wonderful to have Lindsey here and to get to know Elizabeth. We spent Thursday hiking up cave hill to have a picnic and see the view. We had perfect weather! It was fun to just catch up with Lindz and chat about old friends. She was able to update me on lots of people, stilling being in Boone- she knows whats going on with lots of people. After our hike, we called into the McCormick house to see two of my youth head off to their formal! Rachel and Chris are two of my youth from Fortwilliam and Macrory and they were going to Rachel's schools spring formal. It was fun to see them all dressed up, Rachel looked beautiful! Chris, well he just makes me laugh. I still haven't heard all the details but I know they had a wonderful time. Takes me back to my prom days haha.

On our way home we called into the church for a bit, so I could do some work and they could see where I work. The church still freaks me out a wee bit in that late afternoon light. Friday we just hung out and enjoyed being lazy and catching up. Lindsey and I joke that this is what we do best together. They helped me plan my children's sermon for Sunday and work it all out. This week was the story of Naaman the Leper. Not the easiest story to make entertaining. This morning only one child was there, so I called the whole bible class down with him. haha. Good times. Friday afternoon we took the city bus tour, which I have surprisingly never done. It was pretty good, a good overview of lots of things Belfast. Although, if you really had no clue of what the troubles were, it would be a wee bit confusing. Plus, it was fun because I could point out all the things he didn't say- like the old red light district. haha.

Saturday we got up early to go to the bank to recover Elizabeth's bank card that had been withheld by the ATM because she took too long to tell it how much money she wanted. The bank told her it was automatically destroyed. Pretty ridiculous. I can see why it would suck it up and hold it, in case you get like beaten up at the ATM then they clear you out. BUT to destroy it, come on. We walked on to St. Georges Market to cheer her up, and had Nutella and banana crepes. That afternoon we headed up the North Coast on an adventure with Jonny McCormick. Jonny and I had planned to go up to Guysmere so I could see it before we went with the youth, and so it worked out that we made lots of stops on the way. We drove up the coastal road, stopped at some waterfalls I had never seen before, then made our way to the Giant's Causeway and Guysmere. We had a great time in the car, laughing and making fun of each other. For all of your information, Jonny, in his wee little car, can not make a 3 point turn. haha. Nor can he follow road signs unless someone else is telling him where to go. It made for a fun drive! The falls were really nice, and we laughed that he was taking three Boone girls who are very used to mountains and waterfalls, to see a waterfall that was minute compared to Elk River Falls, 45 minutes from Boone. BUT they were very pretty and I hadn't seen a waterfall yet during my time in Ireland.

Here are some pictures from Lindsey and Elizabeth's trip: