Éire

If you told me a year ago that I would possibly be going to Ireland for 4 months while I was in college, I would probably laugh and say, "I wish." I mean, I fell in love with the rolling green hills, expansive fields of wheat, and ruins of monasteries and castles when I visited in the summer of 2010, but I never thought I would be going back so soon. However, God works in mysterious (albeit magnificent and wonderful) ways, and it seems that right now, He is calling me to Ireland.

At Westmont, each student has the opportunity to study abroad, either through one of the 6 Westmont run off campus programs or through the other 54 off campus programs that are approved by Westmont but run by other Christian schools in the nation. Taylor University, in Indiana, offers a trip each semester to study and immerse yourself in the Irish culture in a little village about 20km south of Dublin called Greystones. I actually visited there while on my trip in 2010. So when I found out that this program was Westmont approved, that my scholarship would go towards my time off campus and that it would cost less than coming to Westmont for a semester, I was sold. On top of all that, I had actually been, of all places in Ireland, to this town on the Eastern shores of the land of luck.

So right now I am praying for wisdom, if it truly is where God is calling me, as much as I want to go on this amazing semester abroad, I have to pray hard about the big decision. I am going to apply, see if I am accepted first before I expect too much, and then I will really need to consider what I am doing. I ask that you pray for my opportunities, wisdom to know what the right thing to do is and that God speaks to me clearly and precisely about it. I'm so looking forward to whatever the Lord has in store for me in the next few years of college, and I am hoping that Ireland is part of that plan. For now I wait, seek the answer in prayer and do my best to focus on serving the Lord on campus and home.

Below are a few photos from my last trip to Ireland. Enjoy:

On top of an abandoned building

Mmmm... a photographer's dream

View from Charles Fort, Kinsale, Ireland

University College Cork (my dream school)

God Bless,

Max