Another way overdue update!

The last two weeks have been crazy busy, including trips to Wales and Newcastle and our big fundraising event, Open Mic Night.
I went home for 3 days last weekend for my sister's 18th birthday. It was really nice to see my family and friends and have a break for a few days. It was a jam-packed weekend that included a family meal at Chimichanga, a City & Colour gig with Abigail (amazing!), a party at my mother's house and going out with the girls. I keep thinking Christmas, the next time I'll go home, is so far away but then being reminding that it's actually not and will probably come around really quick.
Our Open Mic Night fundraiser went really well! Despite a lot of nerves and stress before hand the whole night came together and went rather smoothly. We had a some great local talent performing various things for us and a really good turnout, as well as raising some money for Pais! I just want to thank everyone who helped out and took part, we couldn't have done it without you!
After Open Mic Night we went down to Annalong in Newcastle for a few days (who knew there was a Newcastle in NI?!). It was our fresh training retreat and it was really nice to get away for a few days, worship and pray together while learning some great stuff, and to be refreshed in the spirit ready for the new half term! Even better was that we had the pleasure of the company of the Cork team and the lovely Donna :) We hit some storms on the way that led to the Cork team loosing a car to flash floods and us having to take another route adding about 40 minutes to our journey. But eventually we all got there safely and had a great week together!
Then we had the privilege of having past Pais worker El Gruer with us for a few days. El is now a full-time performance poet, touring around the UK, ministering through her amazing poetry. She did some training sessions with us on creativity and set us the task to encourage one of our leaders in a creative way. I picked out El's name which totally panicked me, since I'm so not creative... Or so I thought! After some prayer I felt I had something to say to her from God and had even thought of a creative way to do it. Picking El turned out to be really good for me since I knew I couldn't be lazy about it and felt like I had to put in loads of effort, resulting in a handmade photo frame with some encouraging words and a Bible verse on it. Before El came I'd heard a lot about her and it was obvious that everybody loved her, and it didn't take me long to realise why and join them in loving her!
I also got the chance to go to a meeting in Belfast about prayer spaces in schools. I'd liked the idea when we first heard it, but the meeting really inspired me to go and put it all into action! They gave us some great ideas for having creative, fun, thought-provoking prayer spaces that the students want to come to and have the chance to get to know God. Hopefully we'll start to implement some of these ideas in our mission week which is coming up soon!
Please pray for our encounter mission week (Who Loves You?), the prayer spaces and the team down in Cork where things are a little slower starting off! Thank you for your continued support! :)