My dear American missionary friends, of all types and organizations:

Thank you for:

• Coming to Ireland in the first place. That first day when you stepped off the plane, Ireland wasn’t quite like it is today, was it?

• Patiently answering the question, “how were your holidays?”, when you have just come back from furlough, exhausted.

• Learning our Hiberno-English language. And our spelling. And the obligatory bits of Irish.

• Giving up some of the opportunities of caring for your aging parents – and never being totally happy about that.

• Missing involvement in a decent church with decent teaching – the one that sent you here.

• Losing connection with friends you grew up with and those you spiritually grew up with.

• Leaving a great ministry you were having in the US that nobody here much cares about and couldn’t really understand it, even if you explained it.

• Leaving the potential for promotion in the US. You could have been somebody by now.

• Living in an organisation that highly values the principle of indigenous leadership.

• Raising all the money.

• Including raising for a package of benefits that you can’t always claim.

• Seeing your salary level become variable – all depending on the vicissitudes of the exchange rate.

• Patiently listening to people here who think money grows on trees in America.

• Quietly redirecting some of your income to sponsor your Irish colleagues who seem to be under par financially.

• We think that Ireland’s missionary-sending heritage is glorious. America’s is too, but we seldom mention that.

What can I say, apart from…

Thank you for coming.