Since the last blog post, our team has spent two more days in Ireland before returning to Sheffield in time to attend church at The Crowded House. We have one more week of travel ahead of us, as we will be traveling to Leeds for a campus evaluation on Tuesday and to London for holiday from Thursday to Saturday.
The last two days of Ireland were incredible. Friday was personally one of the greatest days of my life. The beauty of Ireland defined this experience. The road trip to the Cliffs of Moher was about three hours long, and most of that time was spent peering out the windows in amazement as we watched the Irish country side, full of green hills and mountains, pass by in the distance. In the morning we stopped at the Bunratty Castle, which also had preserved houses from people in that time period. After we had taken enough pictures and raided the gift shop we set off for the Cliffs of Moher - as pictured below.
The cliffs were breathtaking. We spent multiple hours on the cliff walking along the paths, seeing as much of the cliffs as we could. It was a worshipful experience for our team, as we saw some of the beauty and massiveness of God. Psalm 8:3-4 reads:
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
To think that the God who created everything in and around this planet cares about us puny humans is unthinkable. He who made everything that we can see, touch, smell, and breathe loves his children and is intricately involved in our lives. That truth is amazing and should bring us to worship.
Before the day was finished, we took the long way home to see the limestone fields. The country side was covered in large limestone fields that went all the way up the sides of the mountains. There were also hand-made rock walls that seemed to stretch forever that apparently have been there for hundreds of years. We made a quick stop to see another castle, and afterword stopped in a city called Galway to find some food we happened to stop and listen to a few street performing musicians, and requested a song from one of them. We got back to the amazing place we stayed past midnight.
For our last day of holiday we went back to Dublin to see a few attractions that we weren’t able to see our first day there. To save some money we had a picnic in the park with the team, and then we took a tour through an old jail called the Kilmainham jail, which was fascinating as well as incredibly humbling. Afterword, we had to return our rental cars, get through security, and get on the plane back to Leeds airport. As we boarded our plane, everyone was sad to leave the beautiful county of Ireland, but excited to come back to Sheffield and the campus once again.
Since we enjoyed it so much the first time, we spend the night in the Leeds International Airport as we waited for our 5 a.m. bus to arrive. We arrived back in Sheffield at about 7:30, passed out in our beds for two hours, and then woke up to go to church. This was just a quick snapshot into our busy, but unforgettable three day adventure in Ireland.
-Kevin Langmade