Lets Go Race The Tide

Dear Family and Friends,

I have greatly enjoyed my time back in the States. The 8 1/2 months I lived in the Philippines were life changing, and gave me a different out look on life and somewhat a different career path. What did not change is my passion for Ireland and the church in Galway. God is doing some AMAZING things here. Some of their youth finished their first international (Lithuania) mission trip a few weeks ago, and they have some new missionary families in Galway and Sligo. 

  On September 29, I will fly with a team from my church to Shannon, Ireland where we will make the journey north along the west coast to Galway City. We will continue to build on the relationship we have with this amazing church. I cannot wait to worship our Savior along side these wonderful friends again, as well as attend the church retreat with them. 

  The team will also spend some time in Sligo, which is two hours north of Galway, to volunteer at a local Alzheimer center, and put on a charity golf tournament to support this center. We will walk around the Sligo town center, doing some surveys asking questions about the opinion of the catholic church and mass attendance. We did this two years ago and had some really good conversations. The end of our time in Ireland will be the 6th annual Galway City Church- Church Retreat! This is my favorite part of the trip, because I get to spend time with people who are practically family to me and also get to know new people and start building a friendship with them. 

  As always I need your help to go. I cannot convey to you the amount of prayer I need for this trip. All I can say is PLEASE be praying for me and the team I am going with, as well as the missionaries there and people, especially strangers, we will come into contact with. And because everything cost money, I will need $2,800 for the trip. This covers all my needs while there. If you would like to send me a note saying that you are praying for me, just send me an email at beautifulsoul.photos@gmail.com and if you would like to support me financially you can mail a check made out STONEBRIAR COMMUNITY CHURCH with my PC#5702 in the memo line. You can also give online at the website below. Be sure to let me know if you give online, they only post twice a month, so I want to let them know to be looking for your gift. These are both tax deductible ways of being apart of the trip. 

I am floored that once again God would choose to use me in Galway. I always think that surely there is someone better equipped to be on the team, and God still uses me. God can use you as well and I hope that even if its praying me, that you would choose to let God use you on this journey.

Sarah-PC#5702

MAIL CHECKS-

Sarah Bailey

8990 Highpoint Drive

Prosper Tx 75078

 GIVE ONLINE-https://stonebriar.onlinegiving.org/donate/login

   -CHANGE THE GIFT FUND TO MISSIONS

   -PUT MY PC#5702 and NAME IN THE GIFT DESCRIPTION 

This is Missions

I recently read a blog article called "This is missions" and it talked about the different things you could experience, like eating ants in your rice and trying to cross the road, to seeing people accept Christ or at least start understanding what Christianity really is for the first time. I decided to write my own.

 Missions is finding ants in your rice and eating it any way. Taking cold bucket showers with used water, because you don't waste the water and always having clean clothes or a towel fall in the toilet because thats where showers take place. Its sleeping with the lights on so cockroaches don't fall on you at night, but having other bugs and lizards on your bed instead. Its eating weird food like Balut and chicken intestines or goat.  Its perfecting the art of crossing the road and grabbing a jeepney or hobble hobble. Its always feeling out of place because of your skin color and gender. Its going to the market and trying to barter, but having the price doubled because your long nose or the shock on their faces when they realize you 1) know what they said about you and 2) you can respond in their dialect. Its missing holidays, birthdays and weddings. Its eating yummy food. Its street kids running up to you and putting their hands in your pockets to find money or trinkets. Its being around beautiful beautiful people.

Missions is also crossing through sewage to a bible study, because it is very important to the people who attend. Missions is sleeping on a 6 hour overnight ferry to a neighboring island, followed by a 4 hour jeep ride(no ac), to visit churches town apart by Typoon Yolanda and to show a remote church how to effectively share the gospel. Its a 95 year old lady crying in your arms because she knows the real Jesus now. Its going into below poverty stricken areas to teach the young children and share the gospel, then later seeing their parents come Christ. Its working with short-term teams and seeing the excitement on their faces as they experience what you experience every week. Its building relationships with women coming out of sex-trafficking. Missions is watching the church wrap their arms around a community that was destroyed by fire, and doing everything they can to help them. Its watching 2 girls embrace and cry together, because one of them lost everything she got in America on a sponsorship trip, but rejoicing because she and her family were unharmed. Its watching the youth in the church step up, lead, and step out in faith. Its watching 4 girls memorize a total of 42 scripture verses!

This is Missions and it is probably the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced.

Nouns, Adjectives, INTERJECTIONS...OH MY!!

I love going to Opao {means bald} Elementary School, Monday-Thursday, to help these kids with their English. I'm working with 40 students a week, 10 each day. Usually I get about 20 of the 40, during the week and some of the kids come twice during the week. We just finished the parts of speech, and will start on sentence structure until school ends. We do this for the first 30 minutes of our hour, and the next 30 minutes I read to them from one of my favorite books, The Chronicals of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. They love it! At the end of the school year, we will have a party and watch the movie. I have very sweet kids, and love seeing them throughout the week. 

Awe! Sweet Sharmane! 

This is my Wednesday group. People say it's not nice to choose favorites, but this group is amazing. They are always here and on time, they listen, they are respectful, and they work so hard. 

As you can see I am still the craziest one in the group. This is my Tuesday group and they struggle the most out of my kids, so keep them in your prayers.