The March Gang

Well I have finally gotten some of our pictures uploaded. I am still working on getting more up. You can view them at our Flickr.com account. Everything from Ireland is in the Ireland Collection. Pretty clever I know! We also have several of the kids Tara wants posted and those will be up in the next day or so. The Internet situation is still very slow so it makes this process a long one.

Quick Link to one of our field trips:
Belfast Transport Museum

Well It has been a little while since I have made a post.  Everyday there is something new that I think I should blog, but if I did that every time I wouldn’t be getting much of anything else done.  So sit back and enjoy, this may be a long one.

You may be wondering what is up with the title.  Well I have to give Kudos to Mr. James Ramsey for the title.  He actually made a very good joke about my Internet situation.  As you have seen in a previous post we got our phone and Internet hooked up and it was one week shy of being a month to do so. Since then my Internet has been awful.  It is DSL and slower than dial-up.  In the last ten years I have worked for two ISP’s. In no way do I know it all and will be the first to admit it.  I manged and worked with guys who were and are far smarter than me.  I do however feel I can hold my own in most situations. Well when I called tech support to discuss my speed issues I was given this answer. “Mr. March since you haven’t had your service for more than 10 days there isn’t anything I can do for you at this time. Call back in two weeks and we can see if it has improved. It takes at least 10 days before you reach your full speed potential.”  I was speechless and considered it par for the course.  I could only imagine my DSL modem as the Little Engine that could.  It is sitting over in the corner of the room saying “I think I can, I think I can get faster than dial-up”.   When I shared this story with James he said “Two things that get better with age, wine and Irish Internet”.  For all my Geek friends I will keep you posted on the Internet woes

Well now on to other things that I am excited about.  (Believe me the Internet isn’t one of them)  Church has been awesome ever since we got here. God has been doing some wonderful things and I can see the church here is getting ready to explode into revival.  I come from a revival church, good ole West Point, and I can see a lot of the same things I witnessed the last three years here at Greater Life.  That being God getting ready to take a church on a journey.  I thank God every day for Pastor Chuck and the wisdom and spirtual insight he instilled in me.  I also thank Him for taking me from working under a man of vision and putting me to work with another one.  Bro. MacFarland is awesome and he is a man with a vision.  God is getting ready to pour the Holy Ghost out on this country and I truly believe that Gilford is going to be the hub.

I have to share with you our Sunday service this past week.  It was a special service where we took communion.  It had been awhile since the church had had a communion service and Bro. Mac just felt it was needed.  I have been in a lot of communion services and I have to say this was by far the most powerful one.  The spirit of God moved in such a mighty way it was amazing.  The power of God was so great that even Simeon, who is four years old, felt it.  He was sitting in Tara’s lap and just crawled out of it and knelt down in the floor with his head resting on the seat.  He sat there for a few minutes and I knelt down beside him and what I heard made me start crying for joy.  He was sitting there just say “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus”.  He continued to do this for a good five minutes.  Like I said God was in the house so powerful that even a kid who has trouble sitting still most of the time was touched and moved to pure reverence.  I was one proud Daddy!  On the way home he told us he thought he would pray again the next time we were at church.

Well I have one more story to share with you.  Me driving on the “other” side of the road.  To say the least it has been an experience.  It for sure has been one for my passengers.  The only thing I was having trouble mastering were the Roundabouts.  Now if you look at this image it can be a little intimidating, but they are aren’t all that bad once you get the hang of them.  Anyway I have only been driving down the road once and had to have someone tell me to get on the left side of the road.  That was Bro. Mac and he was as cool as a cucumber about it.  He was looking down at his iPhone and didn’t even look up he just said “Riley get on the left side of the road please”.  In my defense it was a very narrow two lane road without a center stripe.  It was so narrow that it could have passed as a one way road.  I’m just saying!  Anyway my first time driving was with David.  He let me drive his car so that the first time I did drive it wasn’t test driving a car to purchase with a salesmen.  Yeah that was fun too.  Anyway I am driving along with David and we are talking when all of a sudden we hear something beside us.  It is at this point that I discover that I am being passed by a man on a scooter.  Yes I am ashamed to say a scooter, not a motorcycle, but a scooter.  Not only did he pass me but he just about ran off and left me.  I looked over at David and said “I am guessing that means I can speed up a little huh?” He and I were so involved in my driving lesson neither of us realized how fast I was going.  We got a good laugh out it anyway.

One last thing…It SNOWED today.  We had some crazy weather, very unusual weather for Ireland.  It snowed about 30 min or so.  It didn’t accumulate any but it was pretty coming down.  Ireland is cold and wet in the winter, but gets very little snow.  If it does snow it usually comes during January and February.  Well if this is an indication of the winter we are going to have we are in for a treat.

I am working on getting the pictures we have so far uplaoded, but as I have already stated my Intenet isn’t making that easy.  I have a few here to share with you and hopefully will have more in a few days.

Take care everyone and know that we love you all.  Thanks for the comments too we really like those.

We are finally connected to the world wide web.  After almost a month, we got phone and internet service yesterday.  I was busy e-mailing and calling family and friends last night.  I started before we went to church and then continued after church until 3:00 a.m.  You don’t realize how much you use something until it is gone.  We have felt very disconnected from home.

Thank you everyone for your wonderful comments.  They mean so much to us.  We appreciate your love and support.  We need it more than you realize.

It has been kinda difficult to move a family of five across the country, and then to start all over again.  We have been very blessed, everytime we need something the Lord has provided.  I am coming to love charity shops.  We went with Bro. Eamon Monday to many different ones, looking for living room furniture.  After four different towns and seven different shops, we found a beautiful, like new set.  We bought two couches and a chair.  It of course had to be the last one we went to.  I did however, find bar stools and some winter clothes for us at others.  It is starting to get very cold over here, and all our winter clothes are on the container, so that was a blessing to find some warms things.

I have figured out why the Irish people like their hot tea and coffee.  It stays so cold that you need hot tea or coffee to keep warm.  I bought Riley a coffee pot, and Kirsten, Simeon, and me a tea pot.  We have come to love sweet hot tea.  Kirsten likes hers the Irish way, with some double cream in it.  Peyton, the picky one, just likes her water.  You can however, buy two liters of water here for $.34 American money.  I however, have not abandon my Southern roots, I still have to have sweet tea.  At the anniversary banquet we fixed sweet tea, not as sweet as I like, but still sweet.  One man tried it and said he did not like it at all.  Bro. Eamon thinks it is an abomination.

Our church services are going great.  Every service God is there in such an awesome, powerful way.  We had an awesome move of God on Sunday.  Bro. Larry preached on reaching out of our four walls to the lost.  He did a great job.  We were all moved to do more for the Lord.

Bro. Mac, started a series last night about “The carnal mind verses the Spiritual mind”. He first said that it would be a 3-4 lesson series, but by the end he said probably a 7-8 lesson series.   He talked about how our minds can always reason us out of the spiritual things.  That we can reason away the things God wants us to do, by thinking it is not possible or that it isn’t really God.  I’ve had several times in my life that I didn’t think it was possible.  But, the Bible says “That all things are possible through Christ Jesus”.  I am so glad that even thousands a miles from home I feel such a peace about doing this work for the Lord.  If you are in God’s Will that is where you will find peace of mind.  I truly miss everyone, but nothing can take the place of peace of mind.

I want to thank Bro. Eamon for taking us everywhere, and helping us get the best deals we could.  I also want to thank Johnny for getting us beds to use until our gets here.  Both men have helped us out greatly.  Thank you.

We had a fun time of food and fellowship at our house Tuesday night, with the Bunches and Macs.  We had a planning session for the church.  There were a lot of great ideas given to make our church the best possible.  I was given the job of having tea, coffee, and biscuits (cookies) prepared for after church services.  This is right up my alley, because I like to cook a lot, and of course eat.  I have also been put in charge of fundraisers, so it is like I’m home a West Point again.  Sis. Halley, I am going to try to do Peanut Brittle.  The Irish people have never heard of it.  Can you believe that?  Please pray for me, this is new territory.  I have made it before, just have never been in complete charge of it.

Please contnue to pray for us.  We truly need your prayers.  If you have e-mailed us and we haven’t gotten back to you, please forgive us, and send it again.  Thanks!!!

It has been a while since we have posted anything, because we have been waiting on internet.  This country is very laid back.  We called for phone service on September 29th, and we were suppose to get service on October 16th.  They then called and moved it back to October 22nd.  Hopefully they won’t move it back again.  Every time we get to use the internet we have been trying to catch up on e-mails.

Thank you God we finally got a car on Wednesday.  We have been depending on David & Farrah to take us everywhere.  They have been really great and we appreciate their help, but when you have two families of five each depending on one car that seats five it can be difficult.  I know it has only been three weeks without one, but it seems like longer when you have to walk.  We got a seven seater Vauxhall Zafira Comfort.  The vehicles over here are mostly standards.  It has been over 7 years since we have had a standard, so on top of getting used to that again, we also have to get used to driving opposite of what we are used to.  I haven’t drove yet, but Riley is having fun and making some of us (including Bro. Mac & David) nervous.  We will try to post some pictures soon of the car.  It is like a little mini-van.

I also got a washing machine on Monday.  Our laundry was piling up and they do not have laundry mats over her, so I am very thankful.  The laundry was getting so bad that we (me and the kids) started washing clothes in the bath tub.  They thought it was a lot of fun, so I tried not to spoil that illusion for them.  We do not have a dryer, but most people don’t.  We hang laundry out on the line when it is not raining, which is maybe 1 day a week, for about 30 minutes.  We then hang them inside on the radiators, which makes good dryers.  The washer is so small, I can get 5 towels or 4 pairs of jeans at a time.  It then takes 1 hour 50 minutes (I timed it) to wash.  So, by the time the washer is done the clothes are dry.  It is not that bad, just time consuming.  It is however, much better than the bath tub.

We got a kitchen table and 6 chairs made from Mexican pine, from a charity shop.  They match my cabinets perfect.  It was so nice to get something to set on. For a while we were eating on the dining room floor.  It was like having a picnic every meal.  We have a beautiful home, but no furniture.  We are trying to find some cheap, but nice furniture at the charity shops, while being on a tight AIMers budget.  They have a lot of these shops over here, but they are much nicer than our Goodwill’s.  Ethen & Lori, you would love them.  We find a lot of good deals.

We have been having some great services at church.  A couple Wednesday nights ago, we had an awesome move of God.  I was out in the foyer e-mailing some people before church started, when I felt an awesome power of God sweep over me.  I went inside and we all just started praying.  We ended up having an 1 1/2 payer meeting.  I really felt God birthing somethings in us.  We had a girl receive the Holy Ghost that night.  Every service we have, God meets us in such a special way.  Riley preached a couple weeks ago on Sunday and then did bible study Wednesday night.  He did a great job both times.

Riley has been busy helping Bro. Mac working on their house.  We they got back from deputation they discovered a bad water leak that has ruined several rooms in their home.  Riley has been using his years of experience in the construction field.  He didn’t realize how much he actually knew, until he was put to the test.  He did learn a lot from his father.  However, Riley says that ripping out floors in not rocket science.

Riley attended his first traditional Irish funeral on Thursday.  There are no funeral homes , like in the States, in this country so the body stays at the home.  The funeral begins at the home, select family and friends rotate carrying the casket while walking towards the church.  Once all the family and friends who wanted to carry or was asked to carry their loved one, the casket is then put in the hearse.  They then get in their cars and drive the remaining distance to the church.  In some cases they walk the entire way.  Bro. Kyle (a man from our church) played the bagpipes and wore the traditional Irish dress(kilt and his family tartan).  He was the son-in-law to the man who passed away.  He played the bagpipes at church for our anniversary service and he was great.  He played with such anointing.  Every time Riley hears him play Amazing Grace he starts to cry.  He is a professional bagpipe player.

We live in the village of Donacloney(Donna-clone-e).  From our house to the village is about 1/2 mile.  We walk there quite a bit(especially since we didn’t have a car).  It is a nice little place.  We have a Surgery, which is the Doctors Office, a Chemist, which is the Pharmacy, a Butcher shop, a Chinese Take-away, a take away Fish & Chips, a beauty shop, and a grocery store, which is really a gas station.  We have tried the Chinese take away, and it was really good.  We have been to the Surgery already.  Peyton got bite by something and got a really bad infection on her knee.  There are many spiders here, but they say no poisonous ones, I think Peyton found the only one here.  It got so bad she couldn’t walk without it hurting.  She had 2 different spots on her knee.  The Doctor was really nice and we like him a lot.  He said the he had never seen anything like that.  She is doing much better now.  Over here anyone under 16 gets free medical help, so that was really a blessing.  We didn’t have to pay for her Dr. visit or her medication,  even though I gave them all our insurance information.  Riley says that Obama would love it over here.

Well, I think I now have you caught up in our lives.  We love you all and miss you greatly.  Please keep us in your prayers.

Well we are at the Bunches tonight.  Farrah cooked us all some gumbo and it was good.  REAL GOOD!  Well we are still hit and miss on the times we are able to check email and make post.  It is taking the phone company 20 days to install us phone and Internet service.  CRAZY!   Sorry to be so short but we have to go.  Talk to you all soon.  We have a lot of picutres to share and stories we just don’t have time right now.

Hey everyone we just wanted to let you all know that we are still alive and well.  We moved into our house on Sunday night and are now waiting for our phone and Internet to be hooked up.  I am at David Bunches house using his Internet.  We have found that the Irish don’t get in a hurry as far as services go. Once you get them up and running they are great, but it’s the wait.  They however would say us Americans are just impatient and that is more than likely the case. ;)  They also all do quarterly billing.  So not only are they not in a hurry to get my phone turned on, they are not in a big hurry to get my money either.  So I guess I can wait.  So we are going to have one really big blog once we get things lined out.  We have a lot of pics we want to get posted for you all to see.  I want to thank all of you for your comments on the blog.  Tara especially has enjoyed them.  We are going to do our best to personally respond to each of you, but like I said it is hard without Internet.  Most of you who know me realize that I am about to go crazy.  I havent’ been this disconnected since I don’t know when.  How do third world country’s do it?   Anyway thank you for your prayers and support.   We will make another update as soon as we can!

Today we started helping around the church to get ready for this weekend.  We are having a 10 year anniversary celebration this weekend.  Saturday night we will be having a banquet. Then Sunday we will have a special service.  Today we were finishing up cleaning the church and the lawn.  The lawn mower is not very good so we were having to rake up the grass and haul it away.  Simeon and Dawson were helping us pick up the piles of grass and loading it.  They were actually a big help.  The girls helped too, until they got tired.

Thank you everyone who is leaving posts.  We love hearing from you.  I had to sit down this morning and have a cry after reading them.  I love you all and I miss you.  I know this is where God wants us, but it is also a little sad to know we won’t see you for a while.

We are suffering from jet lag a little.  It is not a bad as I thought it would be.  Simeon is having the hardest time.  He been playing and working real hard, so he is taking naps, which he never does.  He however,  has a great friend with Dawson.  After 15 minutes of playing he said “Dawson, you’re my best friend”, those of you who know him, know that everyone is his best friend.  Dawson and him are getting along great so that helped me out a lot.

We went and looked at a house today, and we sign lease papers tomorrow.  I am very excited about it.  It has 4 bedrooms.  The kids all picked out their bedroom today.  Simeon picked out the master suite, which he is not getting, but it was a nice try on his part.  It has a huge kitchen with (Thank you Jesus) a dishwasher. YEAH!!!!!!   It has a big nice stove, bigger than my old one.  They are going to provide us a washing machine.  Over here they hang out their clothes instead of using a dryer, so I will try this for a while.

Please keep us in your prayers.  We love you all so much.  We will be praying for you.  I will get off now.  I have to sit outside to post because the wireless signal does not go through the walls of the AIM Flat.  I can see my breathe, and my fingers are starting to freeze it is 42 degrees tonight.

We are here! Our flight only took six hours thanks to an 110mph tail wind. We actually almost missed the flight due to a gate change, early boarding by Continental and us eating dinner. If it wasn’t for a airport employee and his “super sonic” golf cart we wouldn’t have made it. It is 9:43pm right now and we are getting ready to hit the hay. We felt pretty good when we arrived but it is catching up with us. We will post a little later when we can think straight.

Love ya all and thanks for the prayers!

Well I am currently sitting in a Pear Tree Inn across the highway from the St Louis airport.  We are leaving for Ireland in the morning at 10:00am.  We have a couple lay overs and we should be arriving in Belfast around 9:00am on Tuesday. We have a 4hr layover in Pittsburgh and a 3hr one in Newark NJ.  Then it is an all night ride to Belfast.  I just sent David and Bro. Mac an email telling them that they may need to bring a semi-truck to haul all the luggage back to Gilford. With three women in the party you can imagine the things we had to pack.  Before Tara gets on to me Simeon and me have a few things packed as well.  Ok maybe a little more than a few.  It is amazing what it takes to move a family of five half way around the world.

We are so excited about what is getting ready to happen in our lives.  Keep us in your prayers, and we will make an update to the blog as soon as we can.

You can track our flights in real-time if you would like…
STL to Pittsburgh
Pittsburg to Newark
Newark to Belfast

Well it has been awhile since I have posted anything.  Tara has really gotten the hang of this blogging thing and She has been doing a great job.   I have some great news to share with you and Tara told me I had better get it posted. :)  So here it goes and it’s a long one…

 

 

It looks like we are going to be leaving the end of September.  We got a call Wednesday night before church that has changed the dynamics of our time line.  We have someone that is sending us a $10,000 check.  This is  from a couple that used to attend our church here in Doniphan, and are in South Dakota getting ready to plant a church and reach out to the local Indian reservation.   These folks are not rich by any means, and we know this was a sacrifice.  They were blessed themselves and told me they wanted to share the blessing with us.  They said that they were looking forward to what God was getting ready to do in Ireland.  Words can’t express what they have done for us.  I know that not only is God getting ready to do wonderful things in Ireland I also know he is getting ready to do wonderful things in South Dakota.

 

 

Tuesday of last week we loaded up pretty much all our possessions and took them to the shipping container in Effingham IL.  Maybe I should clarify that all the possessions we were going to be able to take with us.  Which due to space and practicality wasn’t much. :)  That’s ok though.  We had a full day and I have a few pictures to share.  We spent about 9 hours organizing all the personal effects and items of our, the Bunch’s and McFarland’s stuff.  We have a 40ft container, but with the building material that is being sent over for the new sanctuary space is limited.  Bro. Dan Dollan, who is over seeing the loading and the purchasing of the building material has this thing figured down the very inch of space.  He drew a line on the floor of the container and said “you can’t go past this line with this stuff.”   Well we accomplished the task after several packs and repacks.  Tara and I had my Dad and our Youth Pastor, Kevin Raposo, helping us out.  My Dad proved to be quite the packer as did Kevin.  I think these guys could move a family of six accross country in nothing but a Ford Pinto.

 

 

Sis. McFarland if you are reading this I have a picture of one of your trees.  We set it outside and I guess the worms got to it or something. ;)  Just kidding! We took the limbs off so they woudn’t get smashed.

 

 

That is all for now.  Keep us in your prayers.