Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Hey friends!

 I hope you are keeping well. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 2 years already. I must admit it feels weird to me to be writing this to you from the living room of my parents’ house rather than my usual table in Café Nero. I just wanted to write to update you on what May-June have looked like and tell you what’s ahead for me.

 May was a whirlwind for me. It kicked off with a trip to the Garda station for RISE with some of TY’s from James Street. The guards took us around the station, gave us a tour and gave the lads opportunities to ask questions. It was interactive and engaging. At the end of the tour we sat down and enjoyed biscuits, harbios, and some fizzy drinks. The lads asked really good questions and we felt that both parties left having a bit more understanding of the other. After the Garda station, Anne, Ash and I headed out to Mullingar to chat with Youth for Christ who was running RISE at their community hub and a teacher from Wilson’s Hospital to hear how they had got on with the RISE programme. It was good to hear their feedback and hear more how we can we can make the programme a better fit depending on where the programme is being run.

  After that, I spent the weekend attending and assisting with a conference called Praxis that’s held in Dublin every May. Speakers spoke about what it means to reimagine mission as an ordinary person and how in daily life we can join together to bring God’s kingdom to our communities, churches, ministries and families. It was amazing! I always feel so encouraged in Dublin when I see people who are excited about following Jesus come together from all across Ireland to worship and learn more about God. It helps me see the bigger picture of ministry.

   After Praxis, I went out to Cork for 4 days to rest and debrief the past 2 years. It was good to spend time with the team and to be out literally in the middle of nowhere for a bit. 

                                                          Serge Ireland team in Cork 

   After Cork, I went to a Dublin Street Pastors commissioning as Street Pastors has been officially launched in Dublin. Dublin Street pastors is a nighttime assistance team that goes out on Saturday nights and is there to care, listen and help. It is really an exciting time for the city with so many cool projects and programmes growing.

  I had a bunch of end of the year meetings toward the end of May and made journeys up North to spend time with friends and say “see you later!” June was spent packing and meeting up with friends for temporary last meals and coffees. Though I am thankful for my family and friends back in the States, this really has been one of the hardest goodbyes of my life as Ireland has become a 2^nd home to me. I am very passionate about the programmes I have been a part of as well, so it has been difficult to say goodbye to them and to the people I have had the privilege to work alongside that I consider friends now instead of just colleagues. It’s a very difficult transition but I’m thankful for things like plane tickets, facetime and WhatsApp!

                                           RISE Innovista team

The Innovista staff gave me a sweet "see you later" complete with donuts, crossiants, flowers and a box of Cadbury.

                    

 Fellow Serge Apprentices, Katie, Kristen and I were back in home office at the end of June. It was so good to be back in the same area again! 

What’s Ahead…………..
    As some of you already know, I have been accepted to be on a long term team with a charity called 24-7 Ibiza for 2 months starting in mid-August until mid-October. I will assist the team in investing in the community and the nighttime work looking out for the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of those on the island. I am excited to be back on the 24-7 team and back in San Antionio, Ibiza! I am nervous but also excited to see what God will do in these 2 months. I would love for you to be praying for the team and myself as we bless others on the island.

To learn more about 24-7 Ibiza, you can the follow the links here: 

https://www.24-7ibiza.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vTbOxZe96E

I will sending a small update here and there while I am in Ibiza, if you would like to be on my email list, pm me or leave a comment below.

Things to pray for:  

1. Please pray that I would use my time wisely before I head to Ibiza. I am finding that I am struggling when I am not involved in ministry related things or helping people in more tangible ways in general, the things I am passionate about (as I am required to rest for these 2 months) but I am learning to make the most of the things before me and think about how I am treating those around me. 
2. Continued prayers for transition. Though I would love to be out of the roller coaster that comes from moving from one culture to another, I'm not. I’ve been up and down over the past 2 months. I would love prayer that as I go through this roller coaster, that I would be gracious to myself and others.
3.  Continued time spent with God and praying. Please pray that I would continue to read my Bible, pray and talk with God. 

I just wanted to take the time to say thank you. Thank you so much for all your prayers and support these past 2 years, I truly do appreciate all you’ve given and would not have been able to be a part of what God is doing in Ireland without you!

Much love,

Amy Bergvall

March Update Letter: Let People Interrupt Your Life

Hey friends!

 I hope you are keeping well. For this month’s update, I couldn’t quite find the words. So instead, I wrote a poem-ish thing that captures some of what I have learned from those around me from these past 1.7 years. Now, I do not necessarily do all or even most these things.Though, I would like Jesus to help me do these things more. However, I have come across many people that do these things, people I respect and look up to. They have impacted me to share with you what I have learned from being in ministry over here. Though someone may find that some of these things are easier to do when someone is in ministry. Know that no matter what your job is, you can still do these things and look for small ways to be there for others. I have been impacted by those that are in ministry/church work full or part-time and by those that are not but just simply share Jesus in tangible ways to those around them. I hope that this can impact you today in a positive way as the people that I have come across during my time here have impacted me. 

Christ didn’t call us to only let people in our churches into our lives on Sunday mornings

He didn’t call us to clock in and out on the time we give to others on a 9 to 5 basis

He calls us to more

He calls us to open our homes when others need a space to get away

He calls us to look out for those who may be lonely

He calls us to stop and listen even when it may not be convenient

He didn’t call us to love when it suited us best or when it was easy

But to love at all times and to love even when it’s the last thing we want to do

Life is easier, uninterrupted

It’s easier to invite people in your homes when you’re ready for them

It’s easier to walk around with headphones in and turn a blind eye to the man with the coffee cup sitting on the side

It’s easier to say “no” when a student needs advice and you’re burned out, just wanting a Saturday afternoon to yourself

It’s easier to head to bed rather than stop and ask your friend how they’re really doing

Knowing well that a conversation could go late into the night

Though these things are all easier, this is not what we are called to

We are called to more

We are called to let people interrupt our lives

We are called to disciple outside of meeting for an hour in the coffee shop

We are called to walk alongside others when their life turns upside down

We are called to not walk around with blinded eyes

We are called to take notice and do what we can to make a difference

Even if it’s just a small “hi” to the man in the sleeping bag off to the side

Christ didn’t call us to be comfortable and let people into our lives when it’s convenient

He called us to let others interrupt our lives

  

Here are some things that you can be praying for this week:

11.)  RISE-Please continue to pray for Anto, Ash, Anne and myself as we close out our RISE programme in the coming weeks, in James St. Pray for the students’ projects. The two projects that the students have planned are a trip to a Garda station so the garda can get to know them better so the opinions of one another can be changed and a TY common room. Pray that through these projects they would see that they can make a difference in their community together. Please pray for our mentoring programme as Anne, Ash, and I continue mentoring the girls at Mt.Carmel. Pray that we would be able to be encouraging to them as we continue to help them achieve their end of term goals and begin chatting about self-worth and self-confidence. 

2 2.) Strength, energy and wisdom for each day. Pray that I would daily rely on Jesus to be my strength each day, and that he would give me wisdom and advice when others come to me for advice and that he would show me how I can reflect him to those around me.

3 3.)  WIRED teenagers. Pray for our teenagers at WIRED as we continue to our study through John. Pray for that all would draw closer to God (us leaders included) and for a deeper understanding of His word.

As always, I am thankful for you all and your continual prayers and support!

Much love,
Amy Bergvall

The 6 Month Mark

 

  6 months. The mark when the honeymoon phase ends in most relationships and lead either to a break-up or the relationship continues. Much like relationships, moving somewhere different has a honeymoon phase. At first everything seems so exciting and cool. You can’t believe you are where you are and you soak in as much as you can from this new place. You try new foods, you watch new tv programmes and you accept all the things that are different from home with open arms. Then something happens and you find yourself getting easily annoyed at small things. You ache for familiarity and you can’t understand why you have to deal with things like rubbish bins and drying racks. You think to yourself, Screw the environment, I just want to throw all my rubbish in one bin! I can’t stand that compost bin anymore. And my clothes, why does this house not have a dryer? It’s really not convenient when I need something dry but it’s still not dry. And you still miss your car. Especially now that it’s really cold. You know it sounds lazy but you just don’t want to walk 5 mins down the road to buy your groceries or take that dart into town so you can go to the gym.

  But unlike a relationship, you can’t break-up with your decision to move to this new place even though at moments you want to. You are committed to live here for a designated time. Deep down you know that you do want to be here and deep down, you care about why you are here. It just takes some reminders.

   The past 6 months have probably been some of the hardest of my life. Nothing bad or awful happened but I realized that I am way more attached to suburban Philadelphia than I had thought I was. I have missed my family more than I expected to. I thought that how much you miss your family goes hand in hand with how old you get but I have learned that’s not true. Age does not change the moments when you’re sick and just want your mom. I have had feelings of loneliness that I have not felt in years and I have felt God break my selfishness and fears over and over again and chisel away at the parts of me that I would rather not give to Him.

    Despite the things that I have found difficult though, I have come to this place at the 6 month mark that I am truly grateful to be here. I am thankful for my commute into town. I love looking over the city and seeing all the lights at night. I love listening to music as I walk about the city at night. I am thankful for the people I have met here and for how welcoming everyone has been. I am thankful for my fellow Apprentices and our nights of pumpkin carving and Boojum dinners on Thursday nights. I am thankful to be pushed into leadership positions that I would usually run away from. I like that I get to teach the teenagers on Sundays and not just lead discussion questions. I am thankful for the people in my church who put together a Thanksgiving dinner for me and even made a homemade pumpkin pie. I am thankful for meetings with ministry leaders from all over Dublin where topics are discussed that make me really think. I am thankful for game nights, nights of take away with housemates, movie nights with hot chocolate, a place up North I can also call home, carol services with mulled wine, and chats over coffee. God has been so good and has provided so much.

   I can’t believe it’s already been 6 months. Today, I am thankful for God’s comfort and reminders of His presence through songs, scriptures and others.

Here are some things that you can pray about:

-that I would continue build relationships with the teenagers

-wisdom and direction in lesson planning

-comfort for fellow Apprentices and team members. Some of us have family visiting but being away from home during the holidays can still be hard

-daily trust in Jesus and place my hope in him

-To be filled with hope and joy during dark days. Winters can be really dark and cold and I have been struggling with it. Pray also that when I am filled with hope and joy on dark days, that I could share it with others.

As always thank you for your continued prayers and support. I appreciate you all. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Grace and Peace,

Amy 

The Wait Is Over

 
Have you ever watched How I Met Your Mother? One of the main characters in it, Barney Stinson has a little catch phrase he's known for saying on the show. Everytime he has some ridiculous plan up his sleeve, he says, "it's going to be legen.........wait for it” then he pauses for a few seconds (or sometimes years) and adds, "dary!" "legendary!"
  Lately, I feel like he could narrate my life. He would say, "Amy, when x, y and z happens, your life is going to be legen....wait for it...." then I would wait and wait and wait...
  I feel like I am definitely in this time of waiting since I have moved here. I'm waiting to feel/look like my normal self. I'm waiting to find a gym that checks all the boxes. In moments of homesickness, I can't wait for the first year to be over so I can visit home. I'm waiting on friendships to grow. It's funny how you never stop and think about how much of life is waiting until you find yourself constantly waiting and constantly praying for patience and trust through the waiting.
  I was reading through some of the required Sonship readings for Serge earlier today and came across this thing called "passive righteousness" or "righteousness by faith". As I read about this type of righteousness, it struck me that there is something that we don't have to wait for, Jesus.
  Jesus does not say "just be patient and keep learning about me and then I'll be your Savior." Jesus doesn't say, "in 3 years I will be your Savior". No, he's always there. We don't have to wait to have a relationship with him. We don't have to have to wait to accept him as our Savior and friend. He’s always there.
 When we accept Jesus, we receive righteousness by faith. The thing that’s really cool about righteousness by faith is that we don’t have to do anything to earn it. It is simply a gift from God. We just accept it. It blows my mind that I can receive righteousness just by knowing Jesus and placing my faith in him.
   I don’t have to work for it or wait for it. It’s already there. It’s already “LEGENDARY”

  This is just a small picture of what I have been learning about lately since moving here. Waiting is hard but in the midst of the waiting, I am reminded that I don’t have to wait for Jesus. He is with me when settling in moves at my pace and when settling in is still a process. A process that most people go through no matter how far they move. I can kick myself in the head at times and think I should have tried moving out of state first before moving out of the country but it is what it is. He is still with me in that too. He is with me when I see things in ministry moving and when things are moving at a slow and steady pace.

 So today if you're tired of waiting for things in life, tired of being patient with yourself or things in life, know that Jesus is there. You don't have to wait for him. He's there with open arms, ready for you. If you have trusted in Christ as your Savior, remember today that you have received righteousness just because you placed your faith in him. You don't have to depend on yourself because you can depend on what he has already done for you. How freeing it is to stop trying so hard to gain his approval and just accept the gift that God has given.

"What is more, I consider eveything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."-Philippians 3:8-9

This is my story, this is my song

Have you ever heard the hymn, "this is my story, this is my song?"have you ever been singing it and just thought about how this is your story this is your song and made it about yourself carrying out the Gospel to others? When I hear the hymn it's easy for me to think "my story" "my song" hey, so this must be about me. But I forget that 2nd part the part that goes "praising my Savior all the day long."

When we think of ministry we often think of the things that seem worthwhile. We think about how many people we can get to come out to this event or how many kids can we save at this Bible Club. That's not real ministry though. Sometimes ministry can be the things that don't seem worthwhile at first. Sometimes ministry is baby-sitting the pastor's kids so he and his wife can have a night out. It's doing yard work for the youth pastor who has a lot on his plate. It's not about getting teens saved or even getting them to go to church but giving teens a space to ask questions about the God or the Bible.

It's the little things that you feel aren't worthwhile but later on you learn were helpful. It's not about the numbers in a church but a church's willingness to genuinely love their congregation and invest into them and point them to Jesus.

See, "our story" or "our song" needs that second part. As the hymn goes "praising my Savior all the day long" is "our story". That is "our song". Praising our Savior doesn't mean the things that bring us the most glory or make us feel the most useful or comfortable. Praising our Savior means doing whatever is going to bring him the most glory even though it may not feel like it at the moment.

It's been a heck of a summer, and I am processing so much. I've learned to surf, met refugees, consumed more ice cream on a daily basis than any human being should, had great conversations, sang VBS songs over and over again and had late night dance parties complete with facial masks and crisps. There's been a lot of ups and a lot of downs but God has been faithful to our team and has worked in all of us. The American interns fly out this Thursday. Please keep all of them in your prayers. Pray for the bittersweet goodbyes and smooth transitions back home. Pray for our Irish, Northern Irish and American interns and that they would not forget all they have learned this summer and that they would continue to fix their eyes on Jesus.

As always thank you for your prayers and support!

Grace and Peace,
Amy

Hello From Across the Pond

Hey friends!

I am finally in Dublin! Here is a small recap of what the past week has looked like:

 Last Tuesday, Katie, Kristen and I left Philadelphia International Airport with 2 years' worth of stuff in a hiking backpack and one giant suitcase or 2 large suitcases.

   I thought I was a pretty minimal packer until I tried to pack enough to clothes to cover all the seasons. It was quite a struggle but thanks to Mama Bird and her packing skills, I was able to fit what I needed for the Spring/Summer and Fall at least.
  I said an incredibly, difficult temporary goodbye to my family then walked to my gate and sat for about an hour then boarded the plane. After watching Birdman, falling asleep, and watching half of 22 Jump Street to prevent myself from openly sobbing on the plane, we landed in Dublin.

Tom (not pictured), Vicki (far left) and the current Apprentice, Jes(far right) greeted us at the airport.

   After we dropped off our bags to the Lucan Centre where we would be staying Tom and Vicki took us to get our LEAP cards for transportation, Irish SIM cards and shopping for groceries. After running a bunch of errands and going over the schedule for the week, a very jet-lagged and emotionally exhausted Katie, Kristen and Amy collasped into bed around 9 pm with the help of our good friends ZzzQuil and Melatonin.
   The following day, we got to meet with some potential ministry placements and discuss potential housing placements. Please be praying that things will get finalized with our potential ministry placements. After meeting with potential ministry placements, we all met up with Jes and Stephanie, who recently joined Serge's metro team in Dublin for dinner then attended a lecture about the Ethics of Jesus at Trinity College. The next few days were spent getting to know our way around Dublin, getting to know each other better, discussing Encounter and spending time with our other team members, Tom and Vicki Gilliam, and Bruce and Kathy Alwood.
  We are excited to meet the American interns (this week) and Irish interns (next week) and begin Encounter! We would love some prayer as we continue to adjust to life here, deal with homesickness(I think it's hitting all of us what 2 years away from home will be like), and prepare for the interns' arrival. Pray for our interns, both Irish and American and that they would trust God with the summer ahead and that we would be unified as a team.

Thanks for all your prayers and support!

Amy

 

The Hardest Season of Goodbyes

   I’ve said a lot of good byes in my life but nothing has ever hurt so much as this season of goodbyes. I know that I will be home in 2 years and will even get to come home for a little bit my 2^nd year but it all still hurts so much.

    Next week is my last week of work and believe it or not I am going to miss the kids I work with. I’m going to miss rejoicing in small victories. I’m going to miss their quirks and sense of humor. I’m going to miss all the ridiculous things they say and do. I’m going to miss learning from them. Each of them have taught me so much and it is because of them that I am a better person. They’ve taught me to be patient and selfless. They've taught me what an alley-oop is, the names of all the Ninja Turtles, why Hulk is the best Superhero and the importance of dancing when it's Friday. They’ve opened my eyes to their world and reminded me time and time again to remember that there are so many lives outside of my own and that the world does not revolve around me. They've made me laugh, cry and scream. They’ve reminded me what I am passionate about and though I am sad to say goodbye to them I am excited to bring what they’ve taught me to Ireland and am excited to hear the stories of the children I will work with over there and learn from them.

      I think that when you are leaving people you care about you feel bad that it hurts so much. You feel like it shouldn’t hurt this much and it should not be this hard if you are truly excited for what lies ahead but some friends reminded me that the fact that it hurts to leave is a good thing because then that means that something worthwhile was built. It’d be easier to peace out of work with a “good riddance” attitude but then if I had that attitude then that would mean that there wasn’t anything worthwhile built. So the fact that it hurts I have learned is a good thing and is okay because it shows me that something meaningful was built.

    I would love some prayer as this week comes up and I say goodbye to my kids, their families, and their teachers. Pray that I would trust God with what will happen to them in the future and who will take over for me. Pray that Katie, Kristen, and I would have peace as we prep for what is ahead next week and check off the endless To-Do list of paperwork and packing. I am also excited to share with you that I now have 98% of my funds! I only need $28.18 on a monthly basis to be fully funded. Please be praying that I can be fully funded by May 30^th

As always thank you for your prayers and support! Let me know if there is anything I can be praying about for you.

Grace and Peace,

Amy Bergvall