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...particularly Ginna's.
She just posted the really incredible story of her experience preaching in Peru - along with her phenomenal sermon.
The perma-link to that post, titled "You Took the Word and Made it Heard" is here.
Enjoy!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
When You Come Back Down
I'm now completely convinced that this is the most beautiful island in the world.
Since I spent the past week with the other YAVs on a mountaintop-experience-filled retreat in County Donegal, I figured Nickel Creek's "When You Come Back Down" would be an appropriate accompaniment.
Make yourself a cup of tea, find a cozy spot to settle in to, and read on, faithful followers!
Garnerville Presbyterian Church, where Patricia works, owns a minibus, which they've been kind enough to let Doug use to cart us around on various occasions - our retreat was no different. For Patricia alone, this vehicle carries with it strong memories of activities with her church, but it's a meaningful conveyance for the whole group - it carried us through the madness of our first week in Belfast: orientation, seminars in youth work and peacemaking, and tours of the city. Needless to say, when we piled into the minibus on Monday morning to leave for County Donegal, I knew we were in for a week of intense fellowship, powerful spiritual experiences, and good, good craic all around.
What I wasn't expecting was the feral beauty of the west coast of Ireland.
We made a stop at Lough Derg on Monday afternoon, the site of an ancient Augustinian monastery, the subject of an ancient Catholic pilgrimage known as St. Patrick's Purgatory. You can follow the links to learn more about the lake, Station Island, and the pilgrimage, but here's the idea in short form, as originally shared with me by some friends I've made here:
"Lough Derg? It's mad! You spend three days wandering the island barefoot with nothing to eat but dry toast and black tea, reciting prayers and kissing crosses and the like. Oh, and you aren't allowed to sleep, either."
As mad as my new friend made it sound, I won't lie - I might give it a go. It's just the sort of spiritual pilgrimage I've always wanted to try - releasing my struggles with the world, focusing on being in direct relation to God and creation, standing on holy ground, fasting, and being in community and solidarity with hundreds of others.
While we weren't at Lough Derg for the pilgrimage last week, I did pick up an interesting insight about Ireland - for quite a while, the island, particularly the area around modern County Donegal, was thought of as the end of the known world. It was viewed with a mystical reverence that, in the States, we often attribute to places like the Grand Canyon, the Sequoia forests, or the Badlands. This revelation set the tone for my experience of retreat - it was almost as if we were in another world, when, in reality, we were less than four hours' drive from Belfast.
Each volunteer household prepared a devotion for the group - music, readings, meditations, whatever felt most appropriate and wherever the Spirit led us, really. Rob and I kicked off the week with some YAV-favorite songs, "Canticle of the Turning," "Goodness is Stronger than Evil," and "Prayers of the People," as well as a meditation on the Liberian Bullet Crosses, and the "Marks of a True Christian" bit from Romans 12:9-21 (Sound familiar, Montreaters?). Our first night of worship led to some serious introspective on my part, and a powerful longing for that mountain-top experience.
Little did I know, I was about to get that - in a big way. After a fairly intense night of prayer, meditation, and journaling, Doug drove us from our comfortable cottage on the shores of Lough Eske to the wild and wonderful Slieve League - with very little warning of the intensity of the weather along the "Pilgrim's Path," one of the major paths to the top of the ridge.
This was the view at the summit (with an excellent view of the back of Patricia's head, as well!):
The winds at the top were strong, to be certain, and the rains came and went, with a vengeance - but there it was, in all of its glory - the mountain-top experience.
I could not have tried to find a more perfect view of the Atlantic. And as we stood there, in the heart of the elements, the words to Woody Guthrie's song "Birds and Ships" came to mind:
"But my soul is stormy, and my heart grows wild
Where might my lonesome lover be?"
Then it hit me - this was the closest I've been to home since I landed in Belfast more than two months ago. Not only that, it's the closest I've been to Ginna, as well - and there she was, past the mountains stretching towards the sea, out across the stormy Atlantic, beyond the equally wild and wonderful jungles and mountains of South America, in Lima, Peru, seeking God in somewhat the same way I was. I was reassured that I was not alone, and that God was very present in this place.
And then we were off home - back to the cottage, back into the company of angels. In Doug's words, we're a group that does a wonderful job of affirming each other when we have the chance - I have to agree. Our communion service on Wednesday night made that even more clear - during our first YAV meeting in Belfast, we each signed our names to a drawing of a hand - a representation of the idea that God has engraved our names on his hands (Isaish 49:16). That image became the covering of our communion table that night, and as we took turns reading the following words from the Iona Community's "Wee Worship Book," I was affirmed more and more in our place here as YAVs - being, not doing, and most importantly, being together, in partnership:
"Lord God,
As we come to the share the richness of your table,
we cannot forget the rawness of the earth.
We cannot take bread
and forget those who are hungry.
Your world is one world
and we are stewards of its nourishment.
LORD, PUT OUR PROSPERITY
AT THE SERVICE OF THE POOR.
We cannot take wine
and forget those who are thirsty.
The ground and the rootless,
the earth and its weary people cry out for justice.
LORD, PUT OUR FULLNESS
AT THE SERVICE OF THE EMPTY.
We cannot heart your words of peace
and forget the world at war
or, if not at war, then preparing for it.
SHOW US QUICKLY, LORD,
HOW TO TURN WEAPONS
INTO WELCOME SIGNS
AND THE LUST FOR POWER
INTO A DESIRE FOR PEACE.
We cannot celebrate the feast of your family
and forget our divisions.
We are one in spirit, but not in fact.
History and hurt still dismember us.
LORD, HEAL YOUR CHURCH
IN EVERY BROKENNESS."
("A Wee Worship Book," fourth incarnation, Wild Goose Publications, p.98-99).
Always WE, never I. Always US, never ME. We are together, we are one church in spirit, but not in fact. The words of "When You Come Back Down" still ring true here:
"And I'll be on the other end, to hear you when you call
Angel, you were born to fly, if you get too high, I'll catch you when you fall."
Lord, bring us back to that church - a company of angels coming together around a table to serve together, a company devoted to the hungry, the suffering, the peace-less, and the broken among us.
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom - serendipitously, the day before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, we comfort the bereaved and honor the fallen, tomorrow, we will remember the symbolic tearing-down of a division that represented more than physical separation.
Dear Church,
Take every chance you dare. I'll still be there when you come back down.
Love and Peace (or Else),
Andy
Since I spent the past week with the other YAVs on a mountaintop-experience-filled retreat in County Donegal, I figured Nickel Creek's "When You Come Back Down" would be an appropriate accompaniment.
Make yourself a cup of tea, find a cozy spot to settle in to, and read on, faithful followers!
Garnerville Presbyterian Church, where Patricia works, owns a minibus, which they've been kind enough to let Doug use to cart us around on various occasions - our retreat was no different. For Patricia alone, this vehicle carries with it strong memories of activities with her church, but it's a meaningful conveyance for the whole group - it carried us through the madness of our first week in Belfast: orientation, seminars in youth work and peacemaking, and tours of the city. Needless to say, when we piled into the minibus on Monday morning to leave for County Donegal, I knew we were in for a week of intense fellowship, powerful spiritual experiences, and good, good craic all around.
What I wasn't expecting was the feral beauty of the west coast of Ireland.
We made a stop at Lough Derg on Monday afternoon, the site of an ancient Augustinian monastery, the subject of an ancient Catholic pilgrimage known as St. Patrick's Purgatory. You can follow the links to learn more about the lake, Station Island, and the pilgrimage, but here's the idea in short form, as originally shared with me by some friends I've made here:
"Lough Derg? It's mad! You spend three days wandering the island barefoot with nothing to eat but dry toast and black tea, reciting prayers and kissing crosses and the like. Oh, and you aren't allowed to sleep, either."
As mad as my new friend made it sound, I won't lie - I might give it a go. It's just the sort of spiritual pilgrimage I've always wanted to try - releasing my struggles with the world, focusing on being in direct relation to God and creation, standing on holy ground, fasting, and being in community and solidarity with hundreds of others.
While we weren't at Lough Derg for the pilgrimage last week, I did pick up an interesting insight about Ireland - for quite a while, the island, particularly the area around modern County Donegal, was thought of as the end of the known world. It was viewed with a mystical reverence that, in the States, we often attribute to places like the Grand Canyon, the Sequoia forests, or the Badlands. This revelation set the tone for my experience of retreat - it was almost as if we were in another world, when, in reality, we were less than four hours' drive from Belfast.
Each volunteer household prepared a devotion for the group - music, readings, meditations, whatever felt most appropriate and wherever the Spirit led us, really. Rob and I kicked off the week with some YAV-favorite songs, "Canticle of the Turning," "Goodness is Stronger than Evil," and "Prayers of the People," as well as a meditation on the Liberian Bullet Crosses, and the "Marks of a True Christian" bit from Romans 12:9-21 (Sound familiar, Montreaters?). Our first night of worship led to some serious introspective on my part, and a powerful longing for that mountain-top experience.
Little did I know, I was about to get that - in a big way. After a fairly intense night of prayer, meditation, and journaling, Doug drove us from our comfortable cottage on the shores of Lough Eske to the wild and wonderful Slieve League - with very little warning of the intensity of the weather along the "Pilgrim's Path," one of the major paths to the top of the ridge.
This was the view at the summit (with an excellent view of the back of Patricia's head, as well!):
The winds at the top were strong, to be certain, and the rains came and went, with a vengeance - but there it was, in all of its glory - the mountain-top experience.
I could not have tried to find a more perfect view of the Atlantic. And as we stood there, in the heart of the elements, the words to Woody Guthrie's song "Birds and Ships" came to mind:
"But my soul is stormy, and my heart grows wild
Where might my lonesome lover be?"
Then it hit me - this was the closest I've been to home since I landed in Belfast more than two months ago. Not only that, it's the closest I've been to Ginna, as well - and there she was, past the mountains stretching towards the sea, out across the stormy Atlantic, beyond the equally wild and wonderful jungles and mountains of South America, in Lima, Peru, seeking God in somewhat the same way I was. I was reassured that I was not alone, and that God was very present in this place.
And then we were off home - back to the cottage, back into the company of angels. In Doug's words, we're a group that does a wonderful job of affirming each other when we have the chance - I have to agree. Our communion service on Wednesday night made that even more clear - during our first YAV meeting in Belfast, we each signed our names to a drawing of a hand - a representation of the idea that God has engraved our names on his hands (Isaish 49:16). That image became the covering of our communion table that night, and as we took turns reading the following words from the Iona Community's "Wee Worship Book," I was affirmed more and more in our place here as YAVs - being, not doing, and most importantly, being together, in partnership:
"Lord God,
As we come to the share the richness of your table,
we cannot forget the rawness of the earth.
We cannot take bread
and forget those who are hungry.
Your world is one world
and we are stewards of its nourishment.
LORD, PUT OUR PROSPERITY
AT THE SERVICE OF THE POOR.
We cannot take wine
and forget those who are thirsty.
The ground and the rootless,
the earth and its weary people cry out for justice.
LORD, PUT OUR FULLNESS
AT THE SERVICE OF THE EMPTY.
We cannot heart your words of peace
and forget the world at war
or, if not at war, then preparing for it.
SHOW US QUICKLY, LORD,
HOW TO TURN WEAPONS
INTO WELCOME SIGNS
AND THE LUST FOR POWER
INTO A DESIRE FOR PEACE.
We cannot celebrate the feast of your family
and forget our divisions.
We are one in spirit, but not in fact.
History and hurt still dismember us.
LORD, HEAL YOUR CHURCH
IN EVERY BROKENNESS."
("A Wee Worship Book," fourth incarnation, Wild Goose Publications, p.98-99).
Always WE, never I. Always US, never ME. We are together, we are one church in spirit, but not in fact. The words of "When You Come Back Down" still ring true here:
"And I'll be on the other end, to hear you when you call
Angel, you were born to fly, if you get too high, I'll catch you when you fall."
Lord, bring us back to that church - a company of angels coming together around a table to serve together, a company devoted to the hungry, the suffering, the peace-less, and the broken among us.
Today is Remembrance Sunday in the United Kingdom - serendipitously, the day before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, we comfort the bereaved and honor the fallen, tomorrow, we will remember the symbolic tearing-down of a division that represented more than physical separation.
Dear Church,
Take every chance you dare. I'll still be there when you come back down.
Love and Peace (or Else),
Andy
Sunday, October 25, 2009
the week in brief
Coldplay is good - my old A Cappella group at William & Mary is better: I present to you "A Message," performed by W&M's One Accord - solo by Chris Newman, '12.
Also, HAPPY HOMECOMING, WILLIAM & MARY! HARK UPON THE GALE!
While you enjoy that, read on - much has happened for you all to be filled in on.
Sundays, on par with all others working for the church, are no longer the relaxing day involving verandas, sweet tea, and rocking chairs (I may be shamelessly stereotyping the South right now, but it's also what I'd love to happen on a Sunday afternoon in Belfast). A Sunday morning at Kilmakee Presbyterian, so far, has been attending church, joining a family for lunch/hill or river walking/and a nap. There is no sweet tea, which is sad, but it is "relatively" peaceful until the evening...which is when the real adventure begins. Our Youth Fellowship ("the rowdies," as they are affectionally called by other leaders) meets at 7:30 on alternate Sundays (the other Sundays, I join a church small group, and on those weeks, the youth meet on Saturday night). A Sunday night YF often consists of group discussion of spiritual things, tea/coffee (commonly referred to as a "cuppa"), biscuits ("bickies"), and good times had by all (approximately: "good craic"). It's good stuff.
Another aside: "craic" is pronounced "crack." Hilarious consequence of this - wanting youth to enjoy ministry activities usually results in leaders praying for "crack." Particularly, "good crack." Think about that one for a second.
Mondays are either free days or YAV meeting days, where the nine of us and Doug Baker gather to talk about our feelings and really awesome lives, or free days, which have often become "Tourist Mondays with Patricia," where Patricia Cope and I wander around the city, exploring all of the incredible/kitschy bits of the city - good craic all around. This is also the day Ginna usually can find time to get to a cabina (please correct my spelling, Ginna/Peru YAVs/South America Enthusiasts) for internet access, better known as Skype-date time. It makes Monday even more of something to look forward to.
Tuesdays are the long day - I join the volunteers at Friendship House South Belfast in the early afternoon to work with an after-school drop-in, then head back to the flat for a quick dinner and then head across the street to help out at Kee Kids, Kilmakee church's evening Bible club. That makes for about seven nearly-contiguous hours with P1-P7-age children (four-to-eleven-year-olds) - a bit much compared to my previous experience, but my elementary school teacher friends and family (Mom, Erin, Meghan Atkins, this means you) probably find this a little sad. Seven hours is really nothing. After Kee Kids, I meet up with a pretty fantastic guy named Jordan to lead our Youth Drama team - something spearheaded last year by Megan Buff (read about that experience here).
To be honest, on first approaching this ministry, I was thoroughly apprehensive - Megan minored in Theatre in university, had an article written about her work with this group on the PC(USA) mission connections website, and wrote and staged a one-act play with them in June. Big shoes to fill, if I say so myself.
Thankfully, this fantastic Jordan individual decided to step up and grab the reins of the Kee Youth drama team. This is wonderful for two reasons:
1) PC(USA) Mission co-workers and Young Adult Volunteers work in partnership with the communities they live in. Read more about it here, but essentially it means that we coexist with these communities, whether geographic, social, or spiritual, and empower their members to build the kingdom of God on Earth. Cool stuff.
2) I have no idea how to lead a drama group. I have some experience being IN drama groups, but very little practical experience in leading them (BCM@WM skit team is a different animal all together). This part of my placement is in the realm of "things people tell me to do, so I do them."
Wednesdays are generally a pretty relaxing day (when I don't lose a lens from my glasses, which happened last week - very frustrating to try and find something transparent when you can only see things that are strikingly different colors from their surroundings). On alternate weeks, Kilmakee hosts a senior citizen's luncheon for the Seymour Hill community - I generally help out by serving meals, making the speakers feel welcome, and sometimes providing a bit of music. Most Wednesday evenings , I find myself at KeeNote practice (notice a naming theme, anyone?), helping operate the sound board for the youth-ish (it's about 50/50, really) praise band, which leads worship on the first and third Sundays of the month. They're also gearing up for a trip to Thailand next summer, helping out with Compassion projects there.
Serendipitous moment of the year: The leader of KeeNote, Alastair, recently traveled to Peru to visit children he sponsors through Compassion. His group stopped by the Collique site, where Ginna spends some of her time during the week.
Thursdays, I usually find myself catching up with the various ministers I work for/with, Tom at Kilmakee Presbyterian, John, the minister at Dunmurry Presbyterian, and Mark, Dunmurry's youth worker/minister (haven't quite figured out exactly what to call him yet, although I'm definitely leaning towards minister). After any (or all) of these shenanigans, I head down to Dunmurry Village to help out with the Anchor Boys and Girls' Brigade from Dunmurry church. The Anchor Boys range from about four to eight years, and are the loudest, craziest bunch of children I work with all week (until Friday night, that is). I usually get just enough time with them to play a game or two (some kind of freeze tag/dodgeball combination, usually) and lead them in a song (they're rocking Bruce Springsteen's version of "This Little Light of Mine" right now), then I head downstairs to lead Bible class for Girls' Brigade Juniors. A much quieter (usually) group, I've been working through the provided 'Encounters' scripture course. Afterwards, I join the full Brigade (girls 9-17/18-ish for a bit of choir practice (so far, good craic). We're currently preparing for their 'enrollment service.' I'm not entirely sure what that means other than showing off how cool they look as a group in their blue jumpers, but I've succeeded in bringing the great tradition of African-American spirituals to the youth of Northern Ireland in the form of "Wade in the Water." We're starting on the cool solo bits next week. We also started on "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing" this week - which is apparently a new hymn to most of Northern Ireland. And here I was, thinking it was an Irish tune (UPDATE: It's not. It's totally American. Read the first paragraph on the Wiki).
A third aside (or shout-out, in this case), in the form of a letter:
Dear Youth of FPC Richmond/Conferees at Montreat Youth Conference '09 Week 5,
Every time I sing this song with the Girls' Brigade, I CANNOT GET "POUR OUT THE GRAVY" out of my head. Thanks, Garrett. And maybe some credit to Jack, as well.
Love,
Andy
Fridays are also a Dunmurry/Brigade-filled day. I spend these nights with the Juniors' section of the Boys' Brigade from Dunmurry church, an even more raucous/violent/competitive group than any I see the rest of the week. Also, they're all (as are all young people outside of the States, at least relatively) REALLY GOOD AT FOOTBALL (soccer, to those of you not in the US. Which is most of you). I'm trying to implement some of Abby's awesome training advice in that arena (she's only the best NCAA Women's Soccer player ever), but primarily, I've been tasked with providing a twenty-to-thirty-minute structured program for them each week - which is currently building and playing drums. I haven't decided yet if it's a good or terrible idea, but they had a lot of fun this week, and hopefully when we meet again after Halloween, I'll be able to teach them all some drumming basics, and start a regular Fife & Drum corps.
Since I'm *usually* done with the BB at eight, I find some time to do my weekly grocery shopping at the Tesco in Dunmurry. Being the grocery fiend/foodie/hippie/yuppie that I am, Tesco isn't quite the experience of a Trader Joe's or Fresh Market, but it's the best I've got in walking/biking distance. And it has definitely satisfied our grocery needs so far.
Then I discovered my new Saturday morning tradition, with the help of Amy, Madeline, Lynnea, Stephen/"Phen", and Nathaniel: St. George's Market. It blows any Farmer's Market/Grocery Store/Fair Trade Festival/Richmond Folk Festival out of the water. Primarily because it's all of them, combined. Live, local music, local produce, delicious food, random fair-trade/recycled crafts (Even down to the rain-skirt, made of recycled tents. Best idea ever). Laura and Abby, we bought crepes freshly made by an actual French man. They were amazing, even for non-francophiles, so I'm sure that you two would have died in ecstasy.
After all the joy of the Saturday market, I got hopelessly lost on the public transportation system coming home, ended up in Lisburn, the next city down the road, instead of my small village, and made it home just in time for the Kilmakee Youth Fellowship's Spiritual Gifts inventory testing and viewing of "The Bucket List." After lots of internet failures, we finally got around to getting the young people through the questionnaires, and then I proceeded to cry my way through the last years of either Morgan Freeman's or Jack Nicholson's life (I say "either" as to not spoil the plot). WHAT A GOOD MOVIE.
Final aside: According to the youth, I look a lot like Sean Hayes. I disagree. What are your thoughts?
On the other Saturday nights, I meet with FUSION, which sort of sums up the reason I wanted to come to Northern Ireland in the first place. They're a group of youth interested in simultaneously building cross-community relations with Catholics/other non-Presby-Protestants and building that same sort of community within Kilmakee church and the Seymour Hill community. Sadly, we haven't had too much time to meet up to this point, because our leader Daphne (the wife of the minister at Kilmakee), injured her back pretty severely, and has just this week made it back to work. But, we have great plans for the future, including presenting at the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's (our denominational mission partner) Peacemaking Conference on November 7th, as well as fundraising for a trip to Berlin to learn more about the infamous wall and it's tearing-down there, to compare it to the "peace lines" of Belfast (Don't worry, friends in Germany, I'll let you know when we're coming!). Also, check out the Berlin Twitter Wall for some cool insights on that historic dividing line - brought to you by my awesome cousin - he was THERE when it came down.
And then we come back to Saturday night. What a week. The nine Belfast YAVs and Doug will soon be going on a retreat to Donegal - which will be my first foray into the Republic of Ireland (even though it's really contiguous with Northern Ireland/Province of Ulster - odd politics abound, which is probably the reason we're going there).
I continue to lift all of you up in prayer and thanksgiving, and as always, your prayers, support, and stories of your current adventures are much appreciated - and PLEASE bother me constantly about blogging more often - given the schedule, it may be the only way you get to find out about anything I do!
P.S. Sally, just because you didn't get direct blog shout-out in this post a) doesn't mean I don't think you're awesome, and b) means you get a paragraph all to yourself!
Also, HAPPY HOMECOMING, WILLIAM & MARY! HARK UPON THE GALE!
While you enjoy that, read on - much has happened for you all to be filled in on.
Sundays, on par with all others working for the church, are no longer the relaxing day involving verandas, sweet tea, and rocking chairs (I may be shamelessly stereotyping the South right now, but it's also what I'd love to happen on a Sunday afternoon in Belfast). A Sunday morning at Kilmakee Presbyterian, so far, has been attending church, joining a family for lunch/hill or river walking/and a nap. There is no sweet tea, which is sad, but it is "relatively" peaceful until the evening...which is when the real adventure begins. Our Youth Fellowship ("the rowdies," as they are affectionally called by other leaders) meets at 7:30 on alternate Sundays (the other Sundays, I join a church small group, and on those weeks, the youth meet on Saturday night). A Sunday night YF often consists of group discussion of spiritual things, tea/coffee (commonly referred to as a "cuppa"), biscuits ("bickies"), and good times had by all (approximately: "good craic"). It's good stuff.
Another aside: "craic" is pronounced "crack." Hilarious consequence of this - wanting youth to enjoy ministry activities usually results in leaders praying for "crack." Particularly, "good crack." Think about that one for a second.
Mondays are either free days or YAV meeting days, where the nine of us and Doug Baker gather to talk about our feelings and really awesome lives, or free days, which have often become "Tourist Mondays with Patricia," where Patricia Cope and I wander around the city, exploring all of the incredible/kitschy bits of the city - good craic all around. This is also the day Ginna usually can find time to get to a cabina (please correct my spelling, Ginna/Peru YAVs/South America Enthusiasts) for internet access, better known as Skype-date time. It makes Monday even more of something to look forward to.
Tuesdays are the long day - I join the volunteers at Friendship House South Belfast in the early afternoon to work with an after-school drop-in, then head back to the flat for a quick dinner and then head across the street to help out at Kee Kids, Kilmakee church's evening Bible club. That makes for about seven nearly-contiguous hours with P1-P7-age children (four-to-eleven-year-olds) - a bit much compared to my previous experience, but my elementary school teacher friends and family (Mom, Erin, Meghan Atkins, this means you) probably find this a little sad. Seven hours is really nothing. After Kee Kids, I meet up with a pretty fantastic guy named Jordan to lead our Youth Drama team - something spearheaded last year by Megan Buff (read about that experience here).
To be honest, on first approaching this ministry, I was thoroughly apprehensive - Megan minored in Theatre in university, had an article written about her work with this group on the PC(USA) mission connections website, and wrote and staged a one-act play with them in June. Big shoes to fill, if I say so myself.
Thankfully, this fantastic Jordan individual decided to step up and grab the reins of the Kee Youth drama team. This is wonderful for two reasons:
1) PC(USA) Mission co-workers and Young Adult Volunteers work in partnership with the communities they live in. Read more about it here, but essentially it means that we coexist with these communities, whether geographic, social, or spiritual, and empower their members to build the kingdom of God on Earth. Cool stuff.
2) I have no idea how to lead a drama group. I have some experience being IN drama groups, but very little practical experience in leading them (BCM@WM skit team is a different animal all together). This part of my placement is in the realm of "things people tell me to do, so I do them."
Wednesdays are generally a pretty relaxing day (when I don't lose a lens from my glasses, which happened last week - very frustrating to try and find something transparent when you can only see things that are strikingly different colors from their surroundings). On alternate weeks, Kilmakee hosts a senior citizen's luncheon for the Seymour Hill community - I generally help out by serving meals, making the speakers feel welcome, and sometimes providing a bit of music. Most Wednesday evenings , I find myself at KeeNote practice (notice a naming theme, anyone?), helping operate the sound board for the youth-ish (it's about 50/50, really) praise band, which leads worship on the first and third Sundays of the month. They're also gearing up for a trip to Thailand next summer, helping out with Compassion projects there.
Serendipitous moment of the year: The leader of KeeNote, Alastair, recently traveled to Peru to visit children he sponsors through Compassion. His group stopped by the Collique site, where Ginna spends some of her time during the week.
Thursdays, I usually find myself catching up with the various ministers I work for/with, Tom at Kilmakee Presbyterian, John, the minister at Dunmurry Presbyterian, and Mark, Dunmurry's youth worker/minister (haven't quite figured out exactly what to call him yet, although I'm definitely leaning towards minister). After any (or all) of these shenanigans, I head down to Dunmurry Village to help out with the Anchor Boys and Girls' Brigade from Dunmurry church. The Anchor Boys range from about four to eight years, and are the loudest, craziest bunch of children I work with all week (until Friday night, that is). I usually get just enough time with them to play a game or two (some kind of freeze tag/dodgeball combination, usually) and lead them in a song (they're rocking Bruce Springsteen's version of "This Little Light of Mine" right now), then I head downstairs to lead Bible class for Girls' Brigade Juniors. A much quieter (usually) group, I've been working through the provided 'Encounters' scripture course. Afterwards, I join the full Brigade (girls 9-17/18-ish for a bit of choir practice (so far, good craic). We're currently preparing for their 'enrollment service.' I'm not entirely sure what that means other than showing off how cool they look as a group in their blue jumpers, but I've succeeded in bringing the great tradition of African-American spirituals to the youth of Northern Ireland in the form of "Wade in the Water." We're starting on the cool solo bits next week. We also started on "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing" this week - which is apparently a new hymn to most of Northern Ireland. And here I was, thinking it was an Irish tune (UPDATE: It's not. It's totally American. Read the first paragraph on the Wiki).
A third aside (or shout-out, in this case), in the form of a letter:
Dear Youth of FPC Richmond/Conferees at Montreat Youth Conference '09 Week 5,
Every time I sing this song with the Girls' Brigade, I CANNOT GET "POUR OUT THE GRAVY" out of my head. Thanks, Garrett. And maybe some credit to Jack, as well.
Love,
Andy
Fridays are also a Dunmurry/Brigade-filled day. I spend these nights with the Juniors' section of the Boys' Brigade from Dunmurry church, an even more raucous/violent/competitive group than any I see the rest of the week. Also, they're all (as are all young people outside of the States, at least relatively) REALLY GOOD AT FOOTBALL (soccer, to those of you not in the US. Which is most of you). I'm trying to implement some of Abby's awesome training advice in that arena (she's only the best NCAA Women's Soccer player ever), but primarily, I've been tasked with providing a twenty-to-thirty-minute structured program for them each week - which is currently building and playing drums. I haven't decided yet if it's a good or terrible idea, but they had a lot of fun this week, and hopefully when we meet again after Halloween, I'll be able to teach them all some drumming basics, and start a regular Fife & Drum corps.
Since I'm *usually* done with the BB at eight, I find some time to do my weekly grocery shopping at the Tesco in Dunmurry. Being the grocery fiend/foodie/hippie/yuppie that I am, Tesco isn't quite the experience of a Trader Joe's or Fresh Market, but it's the best I've got in walking/biking distance. And it has definitely satisfied our grocery needs so far.
Then I discovered my new Saturday morning tradition, with the help of Amy, Madeline, Lynnea, Stephen/"Phen", and Nathaniel: St. George's Market. It blows any Farmer's Market/Grocery Store/Fair Trade Festival/Richmond Folk Festival out of the water. Primarily because it's all of them, combined. Live, local music, local produce, delicious food, random fair-trade/recycled crafts (Even down to the rain-skirt, made of recycled tents. Best idea ever). Laura and Abby, we bought crepes freshly made by an actual French man. They were amazing, even for non-francophiles, so I'm sure that you two would have died in ecstasy.
After all the joy of the Saturday market, I got hopelessly lost on the public transportation system coming home, ended up in Lisburn, the next city down the road, instead of my small village, and made it home just in time for the Kilmakee Youth Fellowship's Spiritual Gifts inventory testing and viewing of "The Bucket List." After lots of internet failures, we finally got around to getting the young people through the questionnaires, and then I proceeded to cry my way through the last years of either Morgan Freeman's or Jack Nicholson's life (I say "either" as to not spoil the plot). WHAT A GOOD MOVIE.
Final aside: According to the youth, I look a lot like Sean Hayes. I disagree. What are your thoughts?
On the other Saturday nights, I meet with FUSION, which sort of sums up the reason I wanted to come to Northern Ireland in the first place. They're a group of youth interested in simultaneously building cross-community relations with Catholics/other non-Presby-Protestants and building that same sort of community within Kilmakee church and the Seymour Hill community. Sadly, we haven't had too much time to meet up to this point, because our leader Daphne (the wife of the minister at Kilmakee), injured her back pretty severely, and has just this week made it back to work. But, we have great plans for the future, including presenting at the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's (our denominational mission partner) Peacemaking Conference on November 7th, as well as fundraising for a trip to Berlin to learn more about the infamous wall and it's tearing-down there, to compare it to the "peace lines" of Belfast (Don't worry, friends in Germany, I'll let you know when we're coming!). Also, check out the Berlin Twitter Wall for some cool insights on that historic dividing line - brought to you by my awesome cousin - he was THERE when it came down.
And then we come back to Saturday night. What a week. The nine Belfast YAVs and Doug will soon be going on a retreat to Donegal - which will be my first foray into the Republic of Ireland (even though it's really contiguous with Northern Ireland/Province of Ulster - odd politics abound, which is probably the reason we're going there).
I continue to lift all of you up in prayer and thanksgiving, and as always, your prayers, support, and stories of your current adventures are much appreciated - and PLEASE bother me constantly about blogging more often - given the schedule, it may be the only way you get to find out about anything I do!
P.S. Sally, just because you didn't get direct blog shout-out in this post a) doesn't mean I don't think you're awesome, and b) means you get a paragraph all to yourself!
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