I can't seem to grasp the fact that I'll be in Ireland in 28 hours...

Wow, I can't believe I'm finally leaving for Ireland. I've been working on making this trip possible since this past August... and now I leave in 12 hours. I don't think it's really struck me yet that not only will I be spending the next two months in one of the most beautiful places in the world, but I'll be an ocean away from EVERYONE that I know. It feels a little daunting, but liberating at the same time. Not that I don't absolutely love all of the amazing people that God has placed in my life, but it will just be nice to not care even slightly what people think about me for once. I'll spend two months with these strangers, and then more than likely, I'll never see them again. This is awesome from the "I don't need to do my hair today because I don't care if these people like it or not" stand-point, but it's very heavy from the "I only have two months to try and share my faith with these people" stand-point. I know that God is sending me to Ireland for a reason, and while my internship will be an awesome résumé builder, letting God use me to win souls to Christ will be my most important task. Prayers that I can keep that perspective and that God will give me boldness would be much appreciated :)

So here's a little summary of what I'll be doing in Dublin. I'll be there for 8 weeks. My first week I'll be taking an Irish history course at University College Dublin. After week 1 I'll begin my internship with Volunteer Centers of Ireland. VCI puts people who are looking to volunteer in touch with local non-profit organizations and volunteer groups. I'll be doing marketing/PR/communications for one of the local volunteer centers. This includes preparing press releases, press packets and publicity plans; coordinating media competitions, listings, and interviews; and dealing directly with potential media contacts... honestly, I have little to no idea what all that means, so this will be an adventure :) The VCI website is www.volunteer.ie if anyone is interested in checking it out.

This is what I'm hoping this blog will look like this summer... It's my goal to post one picture to this blog daily with a little description of the picture. I also want to do one written update a week. I want to tell everyone what I've been up to as well as try to be an encouragement by sharing how God has challenged me/helped me to grow over the week. We'll see how it goes :) The best way to contact me would be through facebook. Also, I would love love love to skype with people! My skype username is samgephart (creative, I know). I'm going to miss everyone like crazy this summer (especially this guy named Chris), but these next 8 weeks will be over before I know it. I would absolutely love it if people would leave comments or just message me on facebook. I tend to get lonely pretty quickly, so this whole "I don't know anyone" thing will probably start to get to me soon. I'll be praying that everyone has an amazing/safe summer, and like I said before, I would really appreciate prayers for boldness/opportunity for sharing the gospel with the people I meet. Thanks sooo much for reading!

Sam