The past week has been a week of firsts for our little community here in Ireland. We had our first parent meeting for the Parish Confirmation Program. We had our first house-guest. And we had our first invasion by gigantic mutant Irish spiders.

That last sentence should be explained. Many people do not associate Ireland as the friendliest climate for spiders. In fact, a cursory google search of Irish spiders reveals a list of results about as extensive as that of Notre Dame victories under Charlie Weis (not very extensive). But do not be fooled. There are spiders in Ireland. And they all live in our house. And they are all roughly the size of a small giraffe. One of the great parts of living in community, though, is that we communally kill these spiders. Just kidding. The girls communally scream really loud and then I kill the spiders. But community anyway! Call me Patrick the Spider Hunter or something.* (Feel free to put nickname suggestions in the comments).

On a more serious note, the work in the parish is all going very well. Tuesday and Wednesday nights marked the introductory parent meetings for the parish’s new Confirmation preparation program. We are using a program designed by the Irish Church called You Shall be My Witnesses. Jessica and Clarisa are serving as co-coordinators of the program with other parish volunteers. The program also calls on a great deal of collaboration with the parents of the Confirmation candidates, who were eager to sign-up to help as group leaders. In both schools, we exceeded the number of parent volunteers needed—a very encouraging sign.

In other news, we had a great visit from our friend Flannery, who is working with the L’Arche community in Cork. It was great to catch-up with a friend and to be able to show our new city off a little bit.

This weekend brings our first weekend liturgical music responsibilities at the parish. Please keep us in our prayers as we begin this important part of our ministry. And from all of us at the House (including our eight-legged friends), God Bless.

*An amendment from Carolyn: “Patrick screams way louder than any of us, even if he does kill the spiders. He is more like Patrick the Spider Wuss”