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Lowell Brueckner

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Ireland Makes You Think

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 CLICK ON ANY PHOTO FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

In a corner of my mind, I seem to remember having shared the Word one time in the city of (London)Derry, traveling with our son, Dave, and that would have been the only time that I preached in Northern Ireland. David lived in Cork and we went to visit him many times and there was always opportunity to speak in churches there. We also went through Northern Ireland from Scotland en route to the republic.



May 10th, I boarded a RyanAir plane in O Porto, flying to Dublin. There, David Johnston waited for me at midnight. He and his wife, Monica had invited me to Northern Ireland and were my hosts for the week that I spent there. It was about three in the morning when we vinally arrived at their home in Ballyhalbert, a village on the east coast of the country. David and Monica have three daughters and a son, Sara Louise, Naiomi, Abigail and David III. Make room for the possibility of having misspelled those 
names… I´m not sure that I have David right :)  It was a pleasure to be in their home. Sunday morning I talked about the cross in their assembly. I couldn’t go to the meeting in the evening, due to a bad stomach, put afterwards a nice group of young people came by the house and I spoke to them about things God is doing these days.      

Elder and author, Noel, with his wife plus a Romanian family
The Johnstons had organized meetings for every day, except Tuesday, and most took place in Ballyhalbert. Monday morning I was asked to speak about family and more people gathered than I expected at that 
 hour. Wednesday, we went to Larne to visit a Romanian family that I know very well. It was a shame that the husband had to be in Romania, so we didn’t see him, but various people came to their house to sing and listen to the word for a little while. Afterwards, we went into the city to a church, where I preached about “The Faith That Glorifies God”. Thursday, we were back in Ballyhalbert and I talked about Abraham and Isaac. Friday I talked to the young people in the same place about the reality of God and the importance of recognizing the days, in which we are living.

I almost never take on the role of a tourist en my trips, but in this one the David Johnstons, father and son, had great plans for me to know the northeastern part of the country. I owe them much, because certainly I was enriched by what I learned. First, we went to see Mount Stewart, house and gardens, an estate of dukes and duchesses. While the guide has showing us a painting of a past duchess of the place, a tall, thin lady of about 60 passed by and the guide pointed out, “and there goes the granddaughter of this duchess”. ...the 10th duchess, I think she is, still lives on the premises, but the government has taken on the responsibility for the upkeep of the property. The gardens were fabulous and my camera almost overheated taking photos, as I tried to capture all I could in order to remember that beautiful place.



We also went to the shipyard in Belfast, where the famous Titanic was designed and constructed. My imagination had a heyday, trying to force me to perceive all the events and people involved in those
I highlighted the lifeboat at the front of the few onboard
first years of the 20th Century. I believe that the ship represented the great arrogance of mankind in those days, when the automobile had just begun to be put into use and just ahead there would be air travel. As in Babel, man was saying to his Creator, “I don’t need you anymore, and no matter what You say, I will do as I please!” On the photo you can see how they marked the details of the deck of the ship on the place, where it was originally constructed. The owners felt there was no need for life boats, so there were very few aboard.        

                                                                        That same day, we went to the north coast to see what the Irish call “the eighth wonder of the world”… the lava formations that begin on that coast and reach all the way to the Hebrides Islands underwater. In the museum that opens to the sight, the creationists had placed a display, giving a possible biblical explanation of the phenomenon, but now the evolutionists have removed it.

We also went to the great Balmoral Agricultural Show where, it seemed to me, all the farmers in
Ireland, as well as Scotland, England and France had gathered. There were thousands of cars parked over several acres and inside there were hundreds of animals, especially cows, horses and sheep of all sorts of breeds. There were horse jumping competitions and, something very interesting for me, a sheep-shearing competition.                                                                                                                  There was something else of great interest to me: 
We crossed the Strangford Lough on a ferry and went to see the traditional grave of St. Patrick in the town of Downs. Patrick was born in the year 400, more or less, about a hundred years after the Roman Church was founded by Constantine. Patrick was a true Christian, a preacher of the gospel of Christ, and came to be the first missionary to the island called Ireland. On a map I will show the territory that he covered, evangelizing the pagan Irish. I will also show a photo, which will give you a short version of his biography. I hope you enjoy it, as well as this entire report.







A FEW MORE PHOTOS OF IRELAND
Here is a short biography of Patrick
























My kind guides to N. Ireland, David and David, father and son.

















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