Ackles Adventures: Cahir and Fermoy, Ireland

After a great month of cycling (almost 1200 miles) I met Nancy in Dublin and we are now together in Ireland. We have been given use of a house owned by the Presbyterian Church of Ireland and minister to two churches--one in the town where the house is located, that is Cahir, and the other about 30 minutes drive away in a larger town called Fermoy. Both are in the south-west of the country, with Cork being the closest city.

My responsibilities include preaching and teaching a Bible study in each church, but I also come along and do whatever I can in their prayer meetings and a children's club in the larger setting.

The attendance at Fermoy this past Sunday was about 20 adults, at Cahir it was 4. There is a church worker (non-ordained) who oversees the work of the two churches and they have just been given leave to call a minister to replace the one who left a year ago.

My first week here really opened my eyes to the difficulties faced by the Presbyterian church in the Republic. I had served 2 other churches here on 2 other occasions, but they were in Dublin which is so cosmopolitan that it does not reflect the difficulty of the rest of the, mostly rural, Ireland, and Carlow, which had a fair number of people with northern/Protestant roots plus some immigrants whose faith was birthed abroad. Outside of such areas, in places like I now serve, while many may not practice their Catholicism it is deeply ingrained in their entire psyche, family life and community. It kind of reminds me of Mexico, only there is a large enough Protestant witness in Mexico now that it is not so counter-cultural to be one, whereas here it is...

We have already gotten to know a few people and really appreciate them, their stories, and their faithful witness. Just today we spent the afternoon with a local farmer who produces organic beef. His lands and herds are a model for the whole country, and the brief introduction just about convinced me that organic is the only way to go!

Another man in the church is a dairy farmer and times are extraordinarily difficult. The mass production of dairy products in the United States plus the world economic crisis that has led to a decline in demand in places like Nigeria has had a direct impact on this dairy producer in Ireland...Because of it he is paid 20 euro cents per liter for milk which costs him 25-26 euro cents per liter to produce. And he can't just turn off the production and wait for better times--cows don't work like that.

And in the midst of all this there is the deep faith of these people. Trying to live out their trust in Christ in the midst of a difficult cultural setting and hard economic times. I think I will learn much from them--I pray they will be encouraged and learn a bit from Nancy and me...

So far we have managed to have wonderful trips to both Carlow and Lisburn, seeing people we met there and sharing in worship at the churches we have served. We also have visited the far west coast, and stayed in a B&B at one of our favorite places, the Beara Peninsula...