Amanda's Adventures : Last Weekend in Belfast

This past weekend I had the beautiful privilege of going to Belfast to join our team there for a special mission day for St. Patrick's Day. I'll let the photos do the talking, but the team definitely made the most of the celebration to interact with young adults in the community! St. Patrick's Day is obviously significant to the Irish, but it has often been a day for drunkenness, violence and division. What we saw however were mostly bored young adults who'd started drinking by 10am (if not the night before) and only had plans to watch Ireland beat England in rugby and then go out and party some more. That in turn provided a bit of opportunity to talk with people as they really had no agenda for the day, with plenty of time for us to share God's love with them. It was a cold day for sure though and the free hots drinks we provided passersby were also incentive for people to stop and chat with us.

The Belfast team--2 Americans and a Brazilian

Joseph dressed as a leprechaun, which drew attention to us and gave us an opportunity to talk with people. He also quite creatively used chocolate gold coins as part of his costume which he then used to tell people the parable of the Lost Coin, sharing with them that they are precious to God in the same way the lost coin was precious to the woman in the story. It was really clever!

Some of the young adults we met along the way. St. Patrick's Day is definitely an excuse to go a bit crazy!

Emily & Paula trying to keep warm while serving people hot drinks!

This guy hung out near us for hours! Sometimes chatting with us or sitting with some friends across the street, but I think he was out in the cold with us from beginning to end.

Some of the young adults our team work with who joined us for the mission day.

Serving hot drinks to anyone who passed by! #loveisahotdrinkonacoldday

On Sunday, I got to join the team at their church for the morning service, which the young adults led entirely! It was so cool to see them prep, lead worship and preach the sermon, sharing their youthful enthusiasm with their church family!

Me hanging out in the team's office as they helped their young adults prepare for Sunday.

These two lovely ladies preached together on Sunday morning. The one on the right has grown incredibly since the team arrived in September. She was very shy and hesitant at first, but she continued to step out of her comfort zone and push herself and she now joins the team on outreach, praying for people and she's started preaching!