by bob | Jul 22, 2012 | Dublin | 2 comments
Last July Liz & I attended a Sunday morning service at the Vineyard in Dublin as part of our “is this really what God is doing in our lives trip.” Today Brenna, Liz, Méabh and I showed up at our new church home. Everything was great…the people were wonderful…it is just a weird experience to show up and sit in the back again…to not know most of the people…to not know many of the songs.
One of the things I love about the church is that it is right next store to the Bald Barista, where you can get a really good cup of coffee. And today I noticed that just down the street place that was voted best cup of coffee in Dublin by Lonely Planet…we’ll see next Sunday.
After worship, a group of people usually head out to Stephen’s Green and has lunch in the park (weather permitting). A small group went out today including 3 people who have just gotten connected to the Liffey Valley Vineyard in the past several weeks…One of the guys is from Dublin, the other 2 (brothers) are from Latvia.
A very cool story…
The Liffey Valley Vineyard was released as a church plant on St. Patrick’s Day 2011. That was the same day Liz & I met with our church council and the told us that they sensed God was sending us to Ireland. How’s that for cool!
The reason the guys from the LV Vineyard were there, is because that plant is not yet holding Sunday services, so everyone from there meets at the Dublin Vineyard on Sundays.
Our housing drama…Déjà vu all over again.
Afterwards we drove home (with a quick stop @ Starbucks) and started working on our living situation strategy.
So, remember the whole not being able to find a place to buy in Trumansburg story? Well, now we seem to be encountering a repeat of that story. On Thursday we showed up for to see two apartments in one complex. One had already been rented by the time we got there. (The other is the one we made an offer on). The next place we went to, you might remember, the agent didn’t show up because he couldn’t find the key.
We were scheduled to see another place tonight @ 6. I looked online today for a bit more information about it & noticed that it has let already. Good thing we looked because the landlord didn’t bother contacting us until 90 minutes after we were scheduled to see the place. (We actually turned down tickets to see Dublin win the Gaelic Football championship today because we were going to see this place…we could have been there along with 69,000 other people watching the hometown team win…I’ve wanted to fire off an angry email to the landlord, but I’m behaving myself. I’m not too much of a fan of the realty people here so far…)
At this point there are 3 furnished 3 or 4 bedroom rentals in Clontarf. (1 unfurnished, but we need furnished at this point). The one we put an offer on…the one the agent didn’t show up for…and one that looks a bit sketchy.
There is a part of us that is thinking, maybe we should check out another neighborhood…seems to be what everyone here is suggesting…the thing is, we believe God is directing us to Clontarf…maybe we’ve heard wrong, but we aren’t quite ready to give up yet.
So here is our new strategy…we’ve called the agent where we made the offer asking for a response soon. At the same time, we made an appointment to see a place in Raheny tomorrow @ 11 am. The place in Raheny is one of the few in the area that would let us rent on a month to month basis. That would allow us to wait for something to open up in Clontarf & still be in the area.
We’d appreciate prayer for clarity as we work through this.
So Far…
Yesterday I asked Brenna if the transition so far has been harder, or better than she imagined. She said “Way better!” For each of us, the past 5 days have gone amazingly well. In part that is to our hosts…and it probably helps that the 6 weeks prior to our leaving NY were probably 6 of the hardest weeks our family has gone through…so by comparison, this has been easy:-)
It also helps to have so many of you praying for us…thank you!
One other quick prayer request…with things settling down a bit, we need to get back to raising support. With the craziness of the previous 6 weeks, we accomplished basically nothing as far as monthly support. Please be praying as we get that rolling again.
Until tomorrow…