Highlights from Gartmore, RP International Conference

Youth plus Group 

• Meeting so many amazing a lovely people 
• Catching up with my friends from Senior Camp
• Psalm singing with everyone and in the youth plus group especially (better acoustics)
• Being a 'yellow person' (aka, helping the parents with young children at meal times)
• Family Worship 
• Highland games
• All age group activities in the evening
• Getting excited about saying the alphabet backwards the quickest, but not being able to do it in 4 seconds
• Collecting people's life stories
• Playing the 'Intriguing questions' game with people
• Going to the prayer meeting in the mornings and speaking with the older people afterwards
• Late night chats with my roommate
• The CRAZY games in the youth rise program
• Kenneth Stewart's talks, especially Implications for Faith (Peter) 
• Meeting people's families
• Hanging out at the cabins and playing games there
• D&M's with people
• Learning how to play rounders
• Sitting with and meeting different  people at mealtimes
• Worshipping with RP's from all over the world

It was a blessed week filled with many grand things, good craic, deep and meaningful conversations, meeting people from all over the world, and being blessed. Already making plans to come back in 2018 Lord Willing!!

"From all that dwell below the skies, O let Jehovah's praise arise! And let His glorious name be sung in every land by every tongue! Great are mercies of the LORD, and truth eternal is His word; ye nations, sound from shore to shore Jehovah's praise forevermore!"

Highlights from Senior Camp

I really enjoyed the Senior Camp that is organised by the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland. I was really blessed by the people that I met, the things that I did, and the fun times had. Here are just some of the highlights

- Meeting new people
- Getting to know my room-mates

Best Room-mates EVER!

- Eating meals with different people and getting to talk to them
- Worshipping together with RP's from a different part of the world
- McCollum's Madness - messy and somewhat disgusting gamres
- Learning to play bucketball
- Teaching people how to play Ultimate Frisbee and ARF (Australian Rules Frisbee, otherwise known as the triangle frisbee game)
- Phillip Moffett's talks: Christ and His people - identified with Christ, Organised by Christ, Worshippers of Christ, Growing in the Sacraments of Christ, Witnesses to Christ, Living for Christ, and Looking to Christ. Each day I thought the one we did was the best, but the 3 that I found most challenging and helpful were: Growing in the Sacraments of Christ, Living for Christ, and Looking to Christ.
- Psalm Singing on the Lord's Day evening. Robert McCollum explaining the psalms (taking off the apple tagline: there's an app for that) as there's a psalm for that. For every situation in life there is a psalm.
- Making up a cheerleading routine in our teams as part of the Monday evening Game Show
- Having everyone sing along to the song that I wrote during the concert on Thursday evening
- The party - especially learning new dances
- Bus rides to and from camp and to and from activities/outings, getting to talk to people
- Staying up late chatting and laughing with several of the girls
- DMC (or as we in Australia say D&M's) with people, especially on the night walks and the long walk on the Lord's day
And there were so many more fun and exciting times, but overall I was just glad to meet a group of lovely young people, and spend a week getting to know some of them better. I am looking forward to seeing many of them again at RP International at Gartmore in a week and a half!

Why the airport was my favourite part of Paris

So before you read my reasons, you have to understand  something. Vietnam and Paris for me were just a means to an end. Kind of like Dallas and L.A. when we head back to the states, I'm sure they are great places, but I just REALLY WANT TO GET TO INDIANA! So, I really wanted to get to Belfast, that was my destination, the places in-between were just a means to an end, just places to stop to make the journey the cheapest way possible. So with that introduction, here are 8 reasons why the airport was my favourite part of Paris: (in no particular order)

1. I got free WiFi for 15 minutes when I first got there so I could update my family and friends on my travels
2. It doesn't cost anything to use the airport toilets.
3. There was a red piano to play
4. All the staff were VERY friendly and helpful
5. I got to eat a real fresh chocolate croissant and drink coffee
6. As I was boarding my flight to Belfast I heard the Irish accent which finally made me excited as I thought about my Northern Irish friends
7. The above cafe had free unlimited WiFi so I got to see everyone's comments on my 6 hours in Paris facebook post.
8. I found out that on my flight to Belfast I would have a window seat, my first window seat of the journey, and it means I can see Northern Ireland from the air!

Just so you all know, I did visit Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower - just the outside, I didn't go up it, I walked around A LOT! I wanted to hire a bike, but my bank cards didn't work, so I took a train into and out of the city and walked a lot. I wanted to go to a cafe for lunch, but in the end I wasn't hungry and I just ate back at the airport, a fresh chocolate croissant and coffee were the only things I ate in all of Paris. Unfortunately I didn't buy a souvenir :( because I kept thinking I would find a cheaper option, but in the end I ran out of time. It was a bit lonely with no one to share it with, and no one to help me find my way around (which was fine, I had a great map, but things were further away than I thought) So overall, I am glad to say that I've seen the Eiffel Tower, but it would have been better with a travelling friend.