Sunday and Morning exploring the beauty of Northern Ireland

We knew the people of Ireland were beautiful and fascinating. Now we have learned that the physical land and natural features of Ireland are beautiful also. We have spent the past two days touring Downpatrick, Derry, and the Giant’s Causeway. En route to these places we passed through miles and miles of green fields, trees, sheep, and cows. This has made more of an impression than when on my trip to the Republic of Ireland four years ago. Perhaps being in the minivan and closer to the land, maybe we are going through more actual charming villages than four years ago.

Downpatrick is supposedly where St. Patrick did his primary work and died. There is a beautiful Anglican - Church of Ireland - cathedral that we visited. Some of our group visited the museum. The cathedral sits up on the hill. On the way down the hill I met Freddie the cat and got into a long chat with its owner. So much fun to see this touch of humanity. His owner provided me with insight into how the troubles affected those who lived outside of the cities.

Yesterday we came to Derry, about an hour and a half’s drive from Belfast, and met the Bogside Artists, three fellows who started a ministry to work on reconciliation through art. They have painted 11 huge murals in the community of Bogside that portray people and events of the troubles in Bogside, a predominantly Catholic community where Bloody Sunday in 1972 occurred. They are great people and are coming to the United States this summer to spend two weeks at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in June and July. They are availabe to talk to churches - hint,hint - while they are here, and to youth as they work quite a bit with youth in Derry. They are world-renown through their art and have also done humanitarian work in other places of conflict.

We went on to the Giants Causeway, a magnificent work of nature of which I took many pictures which you all will see when I return. it was most unusual and most beautiful.

It was a long day, but today is a new day and our last full day of work at the Centre.

Keep us in your prayers as we finish up the tasks God sent us to do.

Peace, Dottie

This entry was posted on May 15, 2007 at 3:23 am and is filed under Ireland 2007 Mission Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.