The March Gang

Well, the weekend has come and gone, but not without a few highlights.  Sunday we had a wonderful service and a few guest.  We have had for the past few weeks a Polish family who has been attending our services. Edward, Irena and, I won’t even try to spell it but roughly translated to English, Blueberry.  They are a precious family and seem very interested in our church.  Also this week we had another Polish guest.  His name is Bartosz and he works for a man in our church.  After service I handed Bartosz a Bible, which is something we do for all first time guest who doesn’t have one.  I will never forget the look on his face when I handed it to him.  He looked at me and said “For me?” and I said yes.  He said I have never had a Bible before.  He took it and just stared at it and rubbed his fingers across the gold imprint “Holy Bible.”

This got me to thinking of how blessed we are in America.  Really how many Bibles do I have laying around and on the book shelf?  A lot and yet there are some in this world who have never even seen one let alone held it in their hands. It makes me think of another story I was recently told by a friend of the McFarland family who was visiting from Zimbabwe.  Civil war has torn the continent of Africa apart for centuries and she helps in many of the facilities that have been set up to help those who have suffered from the atrocities of it.  She said when she goes into these places and ask what she can do to help them.  She has food and money available, but these people usually ask for “pages” of her Bible.  Yes, pages of her Bible.  They are lying there suffering from machete attacks so severe that they can’t even lay on there backs.  They have very little but bone left on their backs and they are asking for mere pages from the Bible.  Yeah I know it’s heart breaking and convicting all together.

Winter is here and it is cold.  So far it isn’t much different from winters back home except for the frost we get.  Ireland is a very wet country thus the reason it is so green. That and the “organic” fertilizer they spread out over everything.  We got up yesterday morning to the picture below. What you are looking at is frost and not an ice storm.  The side roads were very slick, but they had the main roads salted down good.

Well, before I sign off I want to give a shout out to all those back home who are working at Christmas At Our House this week.  Tara and I are missing being there and have been thinking of you all.