Nov 6, 2018

Our trip to Ireland began on an encouraging note as Sam and Patti met up with Gayle Trivits at the Richmond Airport to fly together to Dublin. Gayle has applied to join the Allgoods and Driscolls as a Community Bible Study ambassador to Ireland. Since she had made it through most of the process of being accepted for training as an ambassador, we had invited her to join us for a week on this trip to get a taste of what the ministry involves.

What a joy to learn at the airport that she had received final approval for training in the next class. The trip over went well and after a day of settling in and getting extra sleep, we were ready to hit the road running. Looking forward to the week ahead!

Gayle leads the Children & Youth ministry in the CBS class in Lynchburg, VA with Jean Driscoll and the original ambassador to Ireland, Cathy Rutman (who now serves on Gayle’s C&Y team). We are thrilled to have Gayle on the team and look forward to what God is going to do through her in Ireland over the coming years.

Who Are We?

We are young mothers, business people, professionals, ministers, tradespeople, toddlers, children, young people, students, retired folk.  We are able bodied and disabled.  Working and redundant. Some are at liberty and some are detained.

We are of different races and colours. We have different educational backgrounds from “didn’t study” to doctorate. We are folk just like you and  your family and your neighbours.

We are spread over The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, in cities, towns and villages around the island.

My soul longs for your salvation;

I hope in your word.  Psalms 119:81

We speak different languages, English, Latvian, and Spanish, and study in our own language. We are part of an international family  across the globe from Sub Saharan Africa to Indonesia, Western Europe to the former Soviet bloc.

We come from all of the Christian faith traditions, from no religious background, or from non-Christian faiths that simply want to study the Bible, which is the most widely published and studied book in the world!

Site Update

Those of you who follow our ministry blog will have noticed some recent posts that have been a little out of the ordinary … not stories of what has been going on in Ireland.

So what has been going on? Well, I have been in the process of updating our site to accomplish a few things:

• Transform it from primarily a personal ministry blog to being primarily a web site focused on CBS Ireland, but still containing access to our blog posts though not as prominent (see Follow Us … Our Blog to read these)
• Modify it to look more like the CBS-Europe and CBS-UK web sites
• Add more information about CBS for those who visit the site to learn about our studies

So click on the blog title at the top to visit the site and check out the changes. Feel free to email me at jsamallgood@gmail.com to share your thoughts and suggestions.

Blessings, Sam

Why Do We Do It?

There’s something breathtakingly beautiful

that happens when God gets hold of our hearts and minds and invites us on a journey of discovery. The big questions of “who we are” and “why we’re here” are no longer hopeless wanderings; instead, these questions are replaced with a deep knowing that God is alive and speaks with love, mercy and grace.

---

“So when it came to the lesson about forgetting the past (Phil 3: 13), tears came to my eyes how St Paul could leave his past and move on. I found it hard to leave the past, I found it hard to forgive something that happened to me in childhood. But reading how St Paul could leave the past behind and focus on the future, it was so encouraging. I got a lot of strength & hope from it. I often had hands laid on me for healing and I did get a lot of healing from healing ministries. But this was like if Jesus’ hand came out from the page and laid it on my head. I could feel a deep healing, it’s hard to explain. The Lord I think was trying to show me how the scripture can speak to us and heal us also.” ~ Galway

---

A few weeks ago a fairly new member was heard to say over coffee after the meeting “I don’t know Jesus the way the speaker has been saying”. A sister sitting next to her said “Do you want to?”. “Oh yes” was the instant reply. Immediate prayer amongst the chatter of the room, Jesus came into a life in an extraordinary way. She now shares our study in a life changing way, contributing a fresh dimension of spirituality benefiting the whole group ~ UK

What Do We Do?

We love seeing what happens in people’s lives when they discover God through the study of His Word. We have Bible studies for all age groups and stages of life, from classes for toddlers and teens to classes for adults who are single and married, studies for those with learning disorder and for those who have lost their liberty. They can be used in a church, in a pub, in a sitting room, in a cafe or in a school…anywhere. They can be used by friends or strangers, by people who have hope and those who have none. That’s our passion “Everyone in the world … in the Word.”

Together we explore the Bible and what it tells us about the God who has woven a story through the history of all creation and woven a story through my life and yours. The God who is present with us now.

As we explore together in God’s grace, so our vision “transformed lives through the Word of God” becomes a kingdom reality for all of us.

June 2017 Conference

Patti and Sam Allgood were invited to attend a conference of 50,000 gathering in Italy the first week of June. It was a wonderful time of strengthening friendships and making new ones that hopefully will open doors for expanding Bible studies inside Ireland, throughout Europe, and further abroad. Here’s a picture of one of the main gatherings / concerts.

We went a few days early to enjoy some sightseeing as this was our first visit to Italy. It was hot compared to Ireland, so we were glad to get back to Ireland and some refreshing rain.

24 May 2017 – Men’s Group

The men’s CBS Bible study group that Sam attends in Ireland celebrated the end of the study year with a pizza night. Jono, a chef, has built a pizza oven in his garden patio and taught us how to make our own pizzas. Fortunately he had already prepped the dough, but we each had to roll out our own. I couldn’t believe the pizzas only took one minute to cook … that was one hot oven! We had 10 members this year studying the Gospel of Matthew.

22 May 2017 – Dinner with Leaders

As the study year was coming to a close, Sam & Patti had a wonderful dinner with the ladies who lead a daytime Bible study group in Donabate. We ate at one of our favorite eateries, Stoop Your Head in Skerries. Antoinette and Ann have about a dozen ladies in their group this year, most of whom are from other countries.

May Holiday with Rutmans

We took off a week in May for a holiday with CBS-Ireland founders Tim and Cathy Rutman who are house-sitting for some friends in Skerries, Ireland. We went to the West Cork area and enjoyed some lovely days with just a little rain. We say a lot of sights and visited a waterfall in County Kerry that was quite robust due to recent rains. It was a great, refreshing break from a busy season.

The scenic pictures were taken while enjoying tea at a roadside / seaside cafe in a little village called Glandore.

CBS Ireland is Growing

We have grown so large, that we had to get our own bus!  Just Kidding!