One day I read in a magazine an article about Ireland and was immediately fascinated by this country. The green island, as it is also called, was only known to me from my geography lessons and some Irish blessings on postcards. I cut the article out and put it on my desk. Every day I admired the awsome pictures of the Irish landscape and this awoke in me the desire to travel to this country on my own. This dream was soon to become reality.
I study English and German in my secondary education and the English department of my university organizes internships abroad every year. So I found out that they offered such an opportunity in Ireland in September 2008. I could feel my heart beating faster and I gladly told my parents about it. After clearing up some matters I made sure that I was going to travel to Ireland together with five other students to teach German in an elementary school for four weeks. I could hardly believe that I was really going to start on this journey and thanked God for this opportunity from the bottom of my heart!
The day of my departure came quickly and we boarded the airplane from Munich to Dublin. We arrived in the capital city late at night and were quite tired. We still had to take a bus in order to get to our hotel in the city center. I had a suitcase and a big traveling bag with me and was glad to put down my luggage in the bus. When we got off at the bus stop I was looking forward to going to my bed. But all of a sudden I realized that something was missing. In the heat of the moment I had forgotten my traveling bag in the bus! And the bus had already driven on… How could I find my piece of luggage again in this huge city? In that piece of luggage I had some of my clothes for the month and school material! I prayed God to help me in this difficult situation. In the meantime it was about midnight when we arrived at our hotel where a friendly hotel keeper greeted us. I told him about my misfortune and he promised me that he would take care of this matter. He made some phone calls and then took me in his company car to the bus terminal where the buses were parked at night.
There we entered a building, probably the lost and found office, and within a short time I got my traveling bag back. I thanked the kind man and he told me with a smirk: “In Ireland nothing is impossible!” But I knew better: “With God nothing is impossible!” Totally exhausted but with a happy and thankful heart I finally fell asleep in my bed. My stay in the “country of the blessings” started this unusual way and I could be sure that God wouldn’t leave me alone in this foreign place.
“My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalms 121:2)
The weekend in Dublin went by so quickly and we spent a wonderful time together. I also had the opportunity to talk with my fellow students about my faith and my day of rest because I didn’t participate in their activities on Saturday. They were open and understanding.
During my stay in the country I discovered something interesting concerning the Sabbath, which I didn’t know before. I did some research on early Christianity in Ireland and Scotland and hit on the Celtic church. I found out that early Christians also kept the Sabbath as their day of rest.
Professor James C. Moffatt states in his 1882 book, The Church in Scotland, p. 140: “It seems to have been customary in the Celtic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labour. They obeyed the fourth commandment literally upon the seventh day of the week.”
However, Rome eventually attacked the Sabbath-keeping Celts. A lot of members offered resistance, but the Celtic Church suffered much persecution and step by step it gave up its apostolic traditions and accepted the Sunday and other Catholic beliefs.
Historian A. C. Flick writes in The Rise of the Medieval Church: The monks sent to England (in 596 A.D.) by Pope Gregory the Great soon came to see that the Celtic Church differed from theirs in many respects… Augustine himself (a Benedictine abbot)… held several conferences with the Christian Celts in order to accomplish the difficult task of their subjugation (submission) to Roman authority…The Celts permitted their priests to marry, the Romans forbade it. The Celts used a different mode of baptism (i.e., true baptism: immersion) from that of the Romans… The Celts held their own councils and enacted their own laws, independent of Rome. The Celts used a Latin Bible (i.e., the Itala) unlike the (Roman Catholic’s Latin) Vulgate, and kept Saturday as a day of rest.”
Back to my trip: On Monday we separated because every student was to teach in a different school. Therefore, I got on the train and set off for Cork, which is 250 km away from Dublin and was picked up there by my host family. My school was located in Clonakilty, a small town on the south coast of Ireland.
My host family was a young couple and three children who welcomed me in a very kind manner. Their house was just five minutes away from my school and was surrounded by lots of green pastures. From my window I had a fantastic view of the coast and the sea! At school I immediately became attached to the students and the teachers and I felt at ease there. I had a lot of fun teaching a bit of German and to give insight into the German culture. Thus I could improve my English and take some ideas and suggestions for school life. There was still plenty of time left to explore the country, either alone or with my hosts or with my fellow students. I enjoyed the beauty of Ireland very much: the endless green pastures and hills, the lonely shores, the colorful houses and doors, the beautiful architecure of castles and mansions… During this time I often thought about God and my life. Deep inside I had the desire to speak with Him and realized how my relationship with Him became closer.
Before leaving for Ireland I had experienced something painful; I had broken off a friendship and still had to come to terms with it. I often struggled with God and couldn’t understand His ways but now I could feel how He was talking to me and wanted to heal my wound. The words in 2 Kings 20:5 became very important to me and gave me comfort: “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.” It became clear to me that God would only heal me if I surrendered to Him all the pieces of my heart. Maybe He had made this trip to Ireland possible so that I might make sense of it all and get closer to Him?!
It was also my wish to pray for an opportunity to strike up a conversation with my host parents about God, because I had noticed that church and faith were just a mere tradition for them. One afternoon my host father was mowing the lawn. All of a sudden he called all of us and asked us to help him look for something. During his work in the garden he had lost a little screw from the lawn-mower which had disappeared in the grass. But how could we find such a tiny piece? It was like looking for a needle in a haystack! I prayed silently and the words of Jesus crossed my mind: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9) We had been searching for some minutes and all at once my host father shouted: “Yippee!!” He had been successful in finding the screw! I was very happy and told him: “You know, I was praying that we might find the screw again.” He looked puzzled at me and finally replied: “Well, apparently your prayer did work!”
Manuela Di Franca