the big two oh.

Monday was my room mate Tania's 21st birthday and my 20th birthday! It was the first year i have ever shared a birthday with someone i know, much less someone i live with! The day began with Tania and i receiving a big bouquet of flowers and gifts from our friends down the hall, Janelle and Rondi - a great way to begin our birthday. After sleeping in, since i had no classes that day, i headed over to (officially) register for classes and fill out some paper work. When i went into the computer room where everyone was registering, one of the women who was working gave me this big tall round box and said it had arrived just earlier. I opened the box, as everyone in the room sang happy birthday, and inside was a beautiful potted plant from my parents! Tania also received more flowers so at this point our room was over flowing with beautiful bouquets :)
Back in the room, we spent a couple of minutes opening all our cards and little gifts from friends and family and reading them to each other. We also received tons of sweet emails and facebook messages from everyone we know. Even though i wasn't able to be at home, the people here and the wishes from home made me feel so loved and made my birthday really really special.
In the evening a group of girls from the hostel went out to get dessert in Belfast at this really cute restaurant. Spending the evening with all the girls that we have grown close to and just getting out and into Belfast for an evening was such a great end to our birthday!
This birthday was everything i hoped it would be and one i will not soon forget!

Thanks to everyone for the emails, gifts, and birthday wishes - they meant so very much!

flowers from friends and Dad and Mom

birthday girls

Jen, Janelle, Rondi, and I

Tania with her dessert

the girls
Janelle, Jen, Zuzzana, Tania, Jessica, Ruth, Myself, and Rondi

my chocolate cake and i

all gone

once again
Zuzzana, Jen, Tania, Janelle
Jessica, Ruth, Myself, Rondi

giants causeway.

Yesterday Jen, Sarah, and I went on a day trip with about 175 international students from Queens University. Belfast Bible College is a branch of the school so we got to go on this amazing trip to Giants Causeway, Dunluce Castle, and Shanes Castle all for free :) While the castle ruins were amazing - like nothing iv ever seen in America - the Giants Causeway was my favorite part of the trip. The legend is that a giant from Northern Ireland wanted to prove his strength to his rival - a giant in Scotland [note: when i heard this story told it was complete with details including names, locations, etc...] So the Irish Giant made a stepping stone path to Scotland, however when he arrived and saw that his rival was much bigger than himself he ran back to Northern Ireland where his wife dressed him as a baby and put him to sleep. When the Scottish giant came looking for a fight and saw the baby he thought that if the baby was this big then the father must be enormous. Upon this conclusion the giant ran back to Scotland tearing up the path on his way which is why there only remains a portion of the path in Northern Ireland and the other end in Scotland.
Or it was caused by volcanic activity.
One or the other - but i heard the first theory a whole lot more than the second.
Giants or Volcano? You be the judge.
The landscape around the causeway was so beautiful - like all the scenery here. The Irish Sea splashing up to the green cliffs was so gorgeous. Of course the causeway it self is amazing, all of the stones are in all in a hexagonal shape and the eroding cliffs reveals hexagonal pillars all around the coast. Jen, Sarah, and I ate lunch on the stones and just sat admiring the place.
We all agreed that we could spend the whole day just sitting in awe of the landscape.
Although everything is wonderful and beautiful here and i am thoroughly enjoying my trip this far i have been missing my family, friends, nephews and niece, and Patrick very very much. I wish they could be here to experience everything with me.

along the path at Giants Causeway

me at the Causeway

the amazing hexagon pillars

the three of us

puddles on the rocks

the view

causeway and the Irish Sea

Dunluce Castle

Jen and Sarah being tourists

cliffs off Dunluce

{ i cant seem to stop listening to this song}

here we go.

Classes officially started this week! The past couple of weeks have mostly consisted of hanging out, trips to Belfast, and talking with people...starting school now seems so odd. Although, it is nice to have a routine and to see the campus full everyday.
The three classes i am taking are Biblical Discipleship, Old Testament Prophets, and Pastoral Care. The first one is pretty self-explanitory, its a class about what it means to be and make disciples one of the assingments is to create a deiscipleship goal and plan for a church. The class focuses on things like idnetity and personal life in Christ. OT Prophets, also an abvious one, is an exploration of the prophets in the Old Testament specfically focusing on the book of Isaiah. An assignment for that class is to outline the mahor job discription of a prophet before exile focusing on 1-2 Kings. The last class, Pastoral Care is a class that helps develop a Biblical and theological understanding of pastoral care as well as practical skill. It will transfer to Moody as my pre-counseling class so i assume there will be a lot of counseling type of material covered.
Classes start at 9am with a voluntary prayer meeting Tuesday through Friday at 8:30am. On Tuesday there is a devotional service at 10-10:50am and a prayer chapel called "world focus"- where we pray for specific parts of the world- at 2:20-3:10pm.
Every Thursday at 10-10:50am everyone breaks into their fellowship groups where we do a variety of things. For our group each member will lead the session in what ever they want be it a testimony, games, prayer, bible study, walk, etc... Its a cool way to get to know a smaller group of people that you may not have had the chance to hangout with. Besides those 4 things there is also midday prayer chapel from 12:10-12:30 Tuesday through Friday which is a time for everyone on campus to pause and pray. We also have prayer triplets (or quadruplets) that are suppose to meet about an hour a week for prayer on whatever they need.
The school is really making an effort to incorporate prayer and a strong spiritual life into the school, as im sure you can tell. BBC is really unique with things like that. I dont know of any other school that would make the students spend over 4 hours per week in concentrated prayer/devotional time. The fact that it is scheduled into the school day, that there are specific times when there are no classes just time for prayer, says alot about the goal and mission of Belfast Bible College.
During one of the first chapels the speaker said that ones prayer life is a direct reflection of their personal walk with God. Iv been challenged by that and these past few days, to make prayer a foundation for not only my walk with God but for my life.

"do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
- Philippians 4:6-7

"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him."
- 1 John 5:14-15

p.s. sorry for no pictures this time.

castlewellan.

Wednesday to Friday was spent at the beautiful Castlewellan with the students of Belfast Bible College. The castle was "only 150 years old" which is very young to people from the UK and ancient to Americans like myself. The castle is situated on a very large park with a giant lake a couple smaller ones. Its really neat because there is a big trail around the lake and a bunch of smaller more rustic ones all through the woods. The grounds and castle have been converted into a Christian retreat center where youth groups and other events happen.
The trip to Castlewellan was really for students to get to know each other in a casual setting and it worked quite well. There was also three sessions where a speaker came in to do some devotionals on unity and to have some worship. Mostly though we just all hung out and walked through the woods, looked at the stars, explored the castle, played games, and talked until the wee hours of the morning. The meals were exceptional - they were kinda like classic irish meals. One breakfast was ham and potato bread/cakes and one of the dinners was a roast and a lunch was fish and chips - cant get much more UK than that.
On Thursday i got to hike and swim in the Mourne Mountains with some friends which was phenomenal. We climbed for about six miles each way even though we werent quite dressed for the climb. On the way up the mountain we stopped along the river and went for a dip in the freezing cold water, on a 60 degree day.
All in all i got to meet alot of people and get closer to everyone who lives here at the hostel which was awesome. The scenery was breathtaking, the people were great, and the trip was one i wont forget.

Castlewellan

Reflection on the lake
The gate to the trail

Jen and I on the Mourne Mountains

Gorgeous view about half way in our hike

Our group

Today is the last day of orientation and this afternoon were off to Castlewellan till Friday! The past couple days have been packed full of sessions and meetings from 9 till about 4 or 5. There is always a tea break at 11 and 3 as well as lunch at 1 so the day gets broken up pretty well. People here are crazy about tea, i think iv had a cup of tea about 3 or 4 times a day since iv been here.
Not only are the people into tea but they are also really nice. Even students who have been here already are really eager to meet new students and make friends. I feel like i could start talking to anyone or sit with a stranger at lunch and have a great conversation. The whole feel of things is much different than Moody. Since there are only between 180-200 students here its easy to get to know pretty much everyone where as Moody has 2,000 - and i thought that was small. Its quite funny telling people how big Moody is, they are all shocked by the size until Jen and I explain that its really really small for America.
Here are some pictures of the school. Belfast Bible College really only has 6 buildings. Riverside and Wellesly House ( i live in Riverside), the canteen, the worship center, the library/computer building, and the mainhouse or Glenburn House.

This way to school....

down Glenburn Road....

to Glenburn House.....

and across the bridge......

to where i live! (top window on far left...behind the tree)

"Glenburn House" the main house with all the offices and administration stuff.

entry way of Glenburn House

discovering lisburn.

Lisburn is a town in the opposite direction as Belfast from Dunmurry - also about a 15 min bus ride. Lisburn is really cute, its a little village and doesnt have a city feel like Belfast at all. There is an area of the town that is just for pedestrians with no cars at all and there is also a little square with a really cool cafe in the middle that was an old green house. Theres also some really old buildings there and a cool museum as well as a big park called castle gardens -although there isnt a castle there anymore but there was at one time.
The town reminded me of a very classic Irish village with mostly local irish people, green hills and little houses in the background and little pubs lining the street. Its nice to have both Belfast and Lisburn so close with tiny Dunmurry right up the street.

city of belfast.

Yesterday i went into Belfast with some girls from the school. Its a super cute little town, compared to Chicago but compared to Dunmurry its very big. It has a very European feel to it, mostly very old buildings, no real tall ones or anything. The streets are all over the place, not like how we have very mapped out blocks in America. We took a short bus ride in - about 10 min. - and then walked all over, we first found a cute sweet stand (two bags of sweets for one pound!) then we went to city hall and to a really awesome old library (dad you would have loved it!) and of course to all the clothing shops and boutiques. By the end of the afternoon our group had split up, one girl went back to school and two went off together so i was with Jen - a girl from Michigan who also goes to Moody. We ended the afternoon in a little diner type of restaurant where i had my first fish and chips.








And yes, all the cabs really are the old fashioned cars with suicide doors, just like the movies.

I left Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at 5:00pm on the 9th. After a stop in New Jersey, dinner, a movie, attempts at sleeping, and breakfast i looked out my window and saw the shore of Ireland. As we flew over the country all i saw was green blocks with tiny white houses. I think flying over any land is beautiful but looking down at Ireland is amazing. The land looks so lush and peaceful.

Around 9:30am on the 10th i cleared immigration and was officially in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. I was met by two women from Belfast Bible College who took myself and two other girls back to the school. Driving through the country and into the small village of Dunmurry (where the school is located) was surreal. I cant believe that after all the planning and anticipation im really here. Iv just been getting to know some of the early comers today (more will be coming in the next days) and took a brief walk to Dunmurry.

Right now i feel like i could fall asleep while typing since my body thinks iv been up since 9am wednesday (and its 12:30pm thursday in america) but im determined to go to bed at a normal time so that i will be ready to explore a bit of Belfast tomorrow.


Take off....

Bye Bye Cleveland!


Welcome to Ireland.