Hello friend! It’s been a while but here we are writing once again. We went to Belfast last week and had a great time. We stayed in these flats which were nice. We were there to do community work (picking up garbage, painting a mural, painting a fence, cleaning a church yard). The weather was great and it was so good to see how we were helping the city of Belfast.
Belfast is amazing where religion has a huge impact on the city. The Catholics and the Protestants are literally divided. There is a lot of peace there now but reconciliation is something that still needs to take place.
Where we were staying is known to be the roughest area in Northern Ireland called the Shankill. Some people that live in Belfast haven’t even gone there. Being there was a great experience.
Our next adventure was going to Dublin for St. Patrick ’s Day. One word CRAZY! This was maybe the most random day of our life. We couldn’t stop laughing at the people. Everyone was dressed in green (some as leprechauns). Also there was no way of getting directions because the people were either foreigners or drunk. All and all it was a good day of laughs, dancing and singing.
We are doing really well and are enjoying the time here. It’s getting warmer and the flowers are blooming. We have posted some more pictures. Good bye for now.

We are still alive

We know it has been awhile and we just wanted you to know we are alive and are doing great. Each week is getting better. There has been a group of girls that we have really connected with and there they are in the picture, plus Korina. This is one of our Friday sleepovers, a time when we watch Lost, eat junk, listen to good music and laugh. Good times.

The other school is coming back on Wednesday and we will be able to talk to the Serbia team. It is going to be a packed and crazy week. We will update in about two weeks, after our week in Belfast and the weekend in Dublin.

Feel free to email us because we love you and want to hear from you.

Tollymore Forest

Laura and I just got back from Tollymore and it was BEAUTIFUL! I can see how our friends C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were inspired by the forest. It was great, we walked along paths, climbed trees, ate by the water and took a lot of pictures. It was so peaceful and magical.
This week has been good. On thursday we had movie night. This was really exciting because we are not aloud to watch any movies or t.v. However, sneaky as we are, we have found away around that little rule. There are a few other girls that love Lost as much as we do and so we watch it when all the staff people are watching their movies. Sometimes one just needs to be rebellious.
In March we found out that we will all be going to Belfast to do street reach for a week. But we will fill you in on that when we know more.
Our tickets have been bought for Serbia and we are leaving April 22. It's almost certain that we will be staying in the Church apartment there. We were also assigned duties. Laura is in charge of housekeeping and I am responsible for grocery shopping with another girl. The leaders are hoping that we will be able to go to Turkey as a vacation while we are there. So we will see.
Well that's all for now. You are pretty much caught up to what's happening in the lives of Laura and Alex.

We Got Mail...

So we received our first letter in the mail yesterday!! Mark Gunther, this is going out to you. Mark made our day, no no no, our week. Now we don't want to make you guys do anything you don't want to, but we just wanted to say that Mark is a great example to you all!!!!

Getting Into The Swing Of Things

This post is going out to Lauren, who reminded us that it has been a little bit since we last posted anything. Reasons for this is because there hasn't been anything too crazy this week. We have started to get into the swing of things a bit and each day we are feeling more comfortable with things. Last week we had a speaker from Ireland who spoke about the cross and this week we had a lady from England who spoke about identity. The first speaker made us think about how we view others and that we should never judge people. A quote that he said that we like was, "Be kind to everyone, for each person is fighting a great battle." This week on identity has been great, let us just say that we have a better handle on who we are and why we are so weird, haha. We just found out that on February 11 we are going to Tollymore forest where CS Lewis got his inspiration to write Narnia, so we will spend the day there and have a BBQ! A bunch of us are also looking into going to Dublin for St. Patrick's day, how cool is that? The group here is fun and when we aren't doing stuff for school we just hangout, play games, go to the pub down the road (which is really nice and has a lovely fireplace.) Tonight we have celebrity dress up night, we aren't sure who we are going to be yet, someone else picks the celebrity and outfit, so we will see. Well until we write again. Hope you all are doing well and we look forward to hearing from you.

Outreach..

Hey, so we just found out today where we will be going for our outreach! We are both going to Serbia! Our team is great and we are both really looking forward to it. We will be building relationships with University students who are trying to learn more English. We are told that the people from Serbia think that everyone from the States/Canada has a beautiful singing voice and they will be expecting us to sing to them. So for all who have heard us sing, you know that they are in for a treat, haha. Everyone here got their first choice, which is really cool. It was so great to see where everyone was placed. I know coming into this we were both pretty sure that we would be staying in Ireland, but it was interesting to see how our hearts were changed. So this is pretty cool and we wanted to let you all know.

First Week

We have just had one full week here and it has been pretty good. The couple of days that we had for team building was interesting. There isn't too much to say about that, we did things like building a raft, zip line, ropes course, sharing life stories and that kind of stuff. We are getting to know people pretty well already and for the most part they are all normal.
We found out what we will be doing for our local outreach and we both got the same one. We are doing what is called the hangout and we pretty much go around Banbridge on Saturday for a few hours and hangout with teens at coffee shops and get to know them. That will be starting next week and we look forward to it. We also got assigned work duties, Al is in the kitchen four days a week and I am on the hospitality team with two other girls. The hospitality team takes care of the guest speakers, cleaning their room, baking them goodies, making them cards and whatever else we can do to make them feel welcomed.
Yesterday we spent the day at Belfast, which was a lot of fun. We went with our friend Korina and met up with our friend from England. It was a great day, we walked around a lot, had a beer and watched the soccer game. It was the life!
During the week we had an Irish history lesson, we got attacked by birds, I got electrocuted, and all is great! In terms of school schedule, we have to keep weekly journals that will consist of different assignments, we have book reports to do and we will have lectures daily. So all that combined with our local outreach and school duties will keep us pretty busy.
Well we miss you all and will write again later!