Straight from the Journal:Ireland Day 5-Gardening and Worship

Definitely no break for us as we march on forward! Today was Dr. Wellum's wheelhouse lecture of "Who does Christ say He is?" and "Solus Christus". We had lunch, and Carolyn from Zimbabwe was kind enough to share her testimony with us. She was very much an encouragement to us. Most of her kids don't live here, but she and her husband came to Ireland via Zimbabwe and South Africa. Then we went to Passage West to do some gardening. It was fun, and I was totally in my element. The garden was mostly roses, so my arms are very scratched up. Despite that, gardening is always a reminder of what the Lord does in our lives. He snips out the dead parts (sin) that are no good to us, enabling us to grow and produce more fruit for the Kingdom, and we function best when we drink deeply from the Living Water. The gardening allows Douglas Baptist to do more outreach once we leave. It helps establish relationships with locals for the future.
In the evening we attended the praise and worship time that we had passed out flyers for earlier in the week. I read from Psalm 150: "Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens! Praise Him according to His excellent greatness! Praise Him with trumpet sound; praise Him with lute and harp! Praise Him with tambourine and dance; praise Him with strings and pipe! Praise Him with sounding cymbals; praise Him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!" In Hebrew, anytime something is repeated, it is to emphasize it's importance. So we can gather that it's important to praise and give honor to God. I got to speak with an older man, and an older lady named Beverly (who I actually had a lot in common with). Apparently, the man was not a believer, but we had a good conversation about gender roles, especially within the church. He was not a fan of my complementarain perspective, finding my lack of desire to be a pastor a waste of potential. So Beverly and I were able to gently explain "equal in standing and worth before God and one another, but distinctly different roles". Hopefully this conversation will help soften his perspective towards the church.

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