Ar aris go hEireann!

Well, my dear readers it as come to the point that I must share with you a journey that I have been on for over a year. A journey that I have so longed to share with you but for various reasons it has remained a very private and personal journey until now. I am not ill, nor pregnant as most people seem to conclude when you begin a conversation like this but I will no longer be writting my blogs from the South Coast of England, a sunny place someone once told me, but rather from April this year my blog writting shall happen over the sea, on the green green grass of Ireland!

It is time for me to return home! I cannot begin to tell you the range of emotions that venture around your body when you decide to up root and move your family to a new country, leaving behind the security of a job, a home, friends, such wonderful friends! I go from laughing with excitment to struck with fear and then end up in tears at the thought of those I won't see day to day... sounds silly when we are only moving to Ireland, which lets face it - in reality is only about 2 hours away!! However I thought I would share with you our jouney, as I am sure at some point you may face the same...

Last January, 2014, when Josh and I were praying together we felt God ask us the question "If I said go, would you go?" Now I Should tell you that we were so happy in Worthing, it is a lovely, family orientated town to live in, but we knew that meant nothing if God wanted us somewhere else, so we
answered the question with a "yes!". However we followed that very quickly with a "where?"... that
question however was not to be answered for about 9 months... In that 9 months we explored various
opportunities to work with churches around England. Josh told me quite clearly he was NEVER moving to Ireland...teeheehee... but for one reason or another nothing really seemed to fit, either we were wrong or the opportunity was wrong! It was square pegs and round holes everytime. I can tell you it got quite disheartening and after another ministry decline we felt llike giving up the hunt.

God under the surface however was doing some much needed work and when a job came up in Dublin it was Josh who was most keen to apply -  2 kids in Dublin city...not for me... but being a submissive and wonderful wife, I agreed! Ok so maybe it was more to do with Josh wanting to move to Ireland than being submissive but.... let's carry on! Actually we genuienly thought it was the one! So you can imagine our upset when the phone call came, thanks but no thanks. Josh was more upset than me, that was a SHOCK! To speed on two weeks through some unessecary information, God
questioned us again and to paraphrase said "wherever you go will you always want to go back to
Sligo..." the answer for me was "yes"! I love Sligo and am so passionate about seeing the church have an impact there, to my surprise Josh was begining to feel the same.

So we prayed for a week and asked God that if He wanted us to go to Sligo then everyday someone would mention Ireland....guess what.... they did! You may want to consider this a coincidence - for me that is a little far fetched! So e-mails began, facetime calls rung and a fly over visit meant - it ws all happening! And so here we are, knowing that on April 16th 2015 we will be leaving the shores of England and making our home in Sligo!

Why the fear? because we leave not yet knowing what house we will live in, what job will provide our income, what car we willl drive... But I know that if God has brought us this far, He ain't going to leave us now - so watch this space I will up date you on how my God is answering and providing their yet unknown answers! Why the tears? because so many people in this place of Worthing have etched footprints in our hearts and not seeing them regularly is a thought I tend not to dwell on. Why the excitement? because in light of it all I know it is God's plan for our family and I cannot wait to see the effect our obidence to Him will have...