Family Update

It’s been quite a while since our last update to you all, and I’m sorry about that. It has been a crazy season for us as a family, but it also means that we have been settling into life here in Northern Ireland, and for that, we are thankful.

Since we last sent out an update, more than two months ago, the kids started school and things started getting busier for Danica and myself as well.

The kids had a roughish start to school and struggled to settle in initially. There were some counts of teasing and bullying. But we caught it early, and it got sorted really quickly. We are thankful for a school where the teachers look out for the kids and really take their safety, not only their education, seriously.

School is different than what we’re used to. Both our kids are already started learning 3 different languages (Sign language, Irish and Spanish) along with Ulster Scotts dancing. It’s so cute to see the videos that the teachers post on our “wee” comms app. The kids are settling in and making friends, which is the most important thing for us now.

Danica started taking more responsibility at the Global Cafe. We have been graciously given time to settle and to ease into our roles here at EN Belfast. And the more we get settled into life here, the more we find our feet to really get stuck into what we are here for. So, once a week, Danica runs the food distribution to the families that we help with food and essentials. This takes organising, driving around, setting up, but most of all it takes a whole lot of love. And that is something that my wife has in spades. It has been my privilege to see her come alive when she can help people, in whatever way, big or small. Christ has really given her a heart to reach out and touch people with His love through serving.

As for me, I have the honour of ministering alongside and amazing group of talented friends and musicians. They have been so accepting of us and we feel like family. I’m looking forward to things opening up a bit more so that we can start with songwriting workshops and worship braais etc. Lovely, lovely people. God is busy digging a well here at EN Belfast, and there are faithful people co-labouring.

As a church, we are so delighted that we will be moving to a bigger venue starting this Sunday. The Methody Chapel is part of the Methodist College campus here in Belfast. This is where we used to have church before lockdown and churches weren’t meeting or allowed on school property. But, praise God, we got the green light and we are heading back this weekend. This venue will enable us to grow more, as it can accommodate almost 4x what the previous room could.

The Methody Chapel used to be used during the “Troubles” as a place where Protestants and Catholics could come together and pray for unity. It is also affectionately called the Unity Chapel. Our heart here at EN Belfast is for unity in our city. Religious walls to be decimated and Christ to be the Ons in which we are one. So we believe that this is a significant space for us as a church to be.

This is by no means all that we have been busy with, but to mention it all in one post would be a little overkill. 🙂

We just want to say thank you for every message of encouragement, every video call and every prayer. We are covered and carried by your support. We love and appreciate you all. I’m going to try and get better at making more regular updates on our Instagram page (follow along here https://www.instagram.com/ireneillfamily/ )and then a bigger overview update here on this blog.

Please let us know how we can pray for you.

Much love,

Brian, Danica, Noah and Zoë

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