Coffee & Cupcakes

My lesson of humility began as I sat on the porch of a lovely wooden built house in Dingasan, responding to the question: "Would it be ok to start at 9am, just to give those walking 4 hours enough time to get here?" ... I'm sorry walking how far?! ... ... Josh and I as part of our trip to the Philippines had agreed to do some training and teaching days round the issues we had learnt from through our studies at University and work in church. On this particular occassion we were doing a training day on "Working with faith and families", looking at how the church should or could be engaging families. One way that we have found encourages families along to church is family services. Family services allow space for the family to be together and worship together. For parents who are just begining to consider the idea of God or faith, for children who have heard something from a club or school assembly, these family services are an ideal "danger-free" sp

Our Philippine journey was about to begin, we had spent the night at an airport hotel in Dublin, indulging in pot noodles, crisps and 7up. We had snuggled up in a family room, attempted to get some sleep and woke up bright and early to catch the shuttle bus to the airport. So apart from having to get up at 3am all was going well... ... until we arrived at the airport!! We were welcomed by a massive queue, confused and some slightly angry looking people & a frustated sounding woman announcing the there was a "slight" system malfunction and there will be a delay... I should say that when you are begining a journey that will take 22 hours starting it with a delay is never positive! (I was immediately blamed for it, as I joked a little drama always helps a blogger)! Rude I know! Anyway we did finally reach the check in desk after a system override but the joy of this malfunction went on... Alarms were going off every, I mean everywhere! You could not walk anywhere in the

Dear Readers, I have so much to share with you my mind boggles! Life in Ireland, parenting trials, wifely duties and our recent Philippines Trip. I hope to fill you in all of the above things in due course but as many of you are asking about the Philippines trip I will start with that. My mind is still trying to process that went on over our three week visit and there is much news to share with you and many lessons I learned! However I thought I would start by helping you align your thinking with that of a Flippino. So here are my top ten Philippines fact: 1. If you don't like Rice - don't ever visit the Philippines! Rice is the foundational food, it's served breakfast, lunch and dinner! 2. If you get served what appears a meal but there is no rice - Be Careful - this is just a snack, don't fill up, the main meal will arrive shortly. 3. There is no such thing as "just a banana"! Over our 3 weeks there I had 4/5 different varieties of banana (none o