April Accents

April has come and gone, and so much has happened. The highlight of the month - a visit from my family!!! Dad, Mom and Caleb flew into Belfast on Easter Sunday and I enjoyed a fast, but wonderful five days of their company. We spent the majority of our time touring the Ards Peninsula, a ring of land east of Belfast which surrounds Strangford Lough, a body of water which flows out to the Irish Sea. We took the opportunity to see some of the old Monastic sites: Nendrum, Inch Abbey. We also drove into Downpatrick, a town along the peninsula which hosts St. Patrick's Centre, a museum dedicated to the life and work of St. Patrick. We also got to see Down Cathedral and the alleged burial spot of St. Patrick (one of many).

Mom, Dad, Caleb and I also spent a good deal of time touring the Antrim Coast, and particularly the Giant's Causeway, a long stretch of basalt rock columns and beautiful oceanic views. The weather we had was absolutely remarkable! The coast was so clear, and we could see for miles, with Scotland visible in the distance. We even made a trip out to Tayto Castle, the manufacturing plant for Northern Ireland's Tayto crisps. Traveling to Tayto Castle also provided my family an opportunity to meet the people I work with in DFCI on a regular basis - both the volunteers and their families.

During all of this traveling, Dad received a prime opportunity to learn how to drive on the opposite side of the road. It took him about ten minutes to find the reverse shift in the rental car, and I think it took the majority of the week for all of my family members to get used to riding along with him.

What meant the most about my family's visit, however, was the fact that they got to meet, and even dine with several of the people that have been so instrumental in making me feel at home here in Belfast. Arriving on Easter Sunday afternoon, all three of my family members had the opportunity to attend an evening service at Dundonald Methodist, and there they were introduced to the majority of the congregation. My mother mentioned to me several times over how relievingly satisfying it was to be able to put names and faces together. For six months I had been mentioning the people who were caring for me, seeing to my needs, and welcoming into their homes over the phone and in emails. The reality of the warmth of welcome and fellowship I have found I know meant the world to my parents. Various families within the church had us to dinner or to share a meal, and one family from the church even hosted my parents and brother for a couple of evenings.

The warm welcome that my parents received, like the welcome that I have received over the past several months, has reconfirmed for me the unique bond that Christianity creates. No matter where you go in the world, the commonality of Christianity binds people together, so much so that the notion of "home" can be completely redefined and reshaped. As I mentioned to my parents in some reflective discussions about the year, "home" ultimately becomes the place not where we find comfort, but rather the people through which we feel God move, and how we respond to that experience.

Another highlight of the month was organizing and leading a Youth Fellowship overnight lock-in in Dundonald Methodist Church. Eight young people came together to spend a night playing board games, making pizza, playing volleyball, and learning about the Methodist church's youth mission organization, JMA (Junior Missionary Association). It was my first time leading a lock-in, and I left on Saturday afternoon, ecstatic about how the kids had expressed before they left how much fun they had had. I can't say that I got a good night's sleep, but this was well-expected, because the noise level didn't actually subside until 4.30am. What made up for the lack of sleep was the amount of fun I had getting to know better a few of the youth that attend the Bible Class that I help lead on Sunday mornings (and not youth fellowship in the evening), and, of course, the Starbucks coffee my mom brought with her on her visit helped as well.

I suppose that's all for April - May will be on the way soon!

Thank you for all of your support and prayers!

-Hannah

March Madness

Some good friends of mine here in Belfast presented me with a collection of Derry-born Seamus Heaney’s poetry for Christmas. It’s called Opened Ground, and basically outlines some of his best-known work between 1966 and 1996. Some of the poems go over my head a bit, and I have to do a bit of research to understand some of the main ideas. However, on the days when I find a spare minute to open the book, I’ll come across something that I can completely identify with in my experience here in Northern Ireland. I came across such a poem the other day:

Markings

We marked the pitch: four jackets for four goalposts,

That was all. The corners and the squares

Were there like longitude and latitude

Under the bumpy ground, to be

Agreed about or disagreed about

When the time came. And then we picked the teams

And crossed the line our called names drew between us.

Youngsters shouting their heads off in a field

As the light died and they kept on playing

Because by then they were playing in their heads

And the actual kicked ball came to them

Like a dream heaviness, and their own hard

Breathing in the dark and skids on grass

Sounded like effort in another world…

It was quick and constant, a game that never need

Be played out. Some limit had been passed,

There was fleetness, furtherance, untiredness

In time that was extra, unforeseen and free.

-Seamus Heaney (Seeing Things, 1991)

March has brought with it the first signs of spring in Belfast. The daffodils have perked their heads up – something I don’t normally see at home until about late April. They are everywhere and they are beautiful. Winter rains have kept the grass a bright green. The sun pops its head out a little more frequently now, which I have to say that I am quite fond of, and if you go for an afternoon drive around Belfast on one of these days, you will probably be able to see lambs trailing their mothers.

I’ve noticed as the days have gotten longer and the air has loosened its harsh chill that football games have reemerged in Ballybeen. Young boys pour out of their home to play football in the side field of Dundonald Methodist Church. A good fifteen to twenty can be found now, normally in the fashionable tracksuit, kicking up their knees, tearing turf, and yelling up a storm about what counts as a goal. It's much like what Heaney described it as in his poem. There's a lot of imagination in it. While these boys don't use jackets for goal posts, they have somehow resurrected old wooden chairs (that I think were in the dumpster behind the church) as goal posts. Sometimes they place Coke cans out on the field to mark the boundary lines as well. Last Thursday I finished cleaning up for the afterschools program, and began my way home down the massive sloped hill on which Dundonald Methodist Church sits. To my left came shrill shouts of "Go, go, go!," and I recognized Jake, one of the boys in our program jumping up and down, encouraging his friend Sam, to take the ball in for the goal. Sam bolted down the field with a footwork that circumnavigated two attempted blocks and set him up for a beautiful score. With his back slightly arched, he raised his leg in a sharp, smooth swing (something I can't seem to develop as naturally) and sent the ball past the gloved hands of a Manchester-United-clad young lad, and through the invisible goal created by the backs of two rotting chairs. With the way that Sam went running down the field, arms raised, palms outstreched and head tilted back, you would have thought that he had scored the winning goal of the World Cup. Amused, I sat down on the curb of the church driveway to watch for a few more minutes. As entertaining as it was to watch them bicker about which side received the ball, and whether a goal had actually been scored, there was a certain peace about watching the boys move back and forth across the "field." I suppose it probably had something to do with being able to just sit outside and enjoy a semi-warm evening, something that has been pretty rare for me during my stay here in Belfast. But I think it also had to do with the fascination I had with the boys' sense of imagination - how they created something out of what we would call nothing, how time transformed into "something extra," as Heaney puts it - just as expandable as imagination. And to think that the space providing the stretch of both imagination and time was the side yard of the church - now that, was something else.

February Frolicks

So, it's the end of February, and that means it's time for another post! I thought I'd pass on a story this time. I shared it with a good friend of mine earlier this week, and as small as it is, I think it speaks volumes to what's happening here in Ballybeen, and particularly within the walls of Dundonald Methodist Church. I will start with a woman I will, for her sake, call Cathy. Just before Christmas, Cathy's husband left her with four-year old twins and a two-year-old. He also left her deeply in debt to the point that she was wandering the streets with the kids to avoid using up the electricity and heat in her home. It finally got to the point where she had no food in her house, and social services was offering very little hellp. After hearing about her situation, Dundonald Methodist Church stepped in and provided relief for her family. For the past month and a half Cathy has been coming up to the church on Thursday mornings to volunteer her time, something she felt she wanted to do in response to the church's outreach. When she first arrived I found her quite shy, and rather quiet. I've had her cleaning out cupboards with me and sorting files over the past few weeks. This past thursday, though, I let her loose. I presented her with a giant display board and told her that we needed to create a display of DFCI's programs and photos. Cathy took a couple of looks at the pipe-cleaners, foil, construction paper and stickers on the table, and set to work. I walked off to make a cup of coffee for her in the kitchen. "I need a glue gun," she announced when I returned with the coffee. With a spark in her eye that I hadn't seen before she said "We're doing a space theme." She then had me sit down and trace out stars for the board. As I traced and cut, she began to glue-gun various craft bits together and she started talking to me. First she started making fun of my stars and saying that I was totally OCD because only OCD people find the need to attach miniature confetti stars to twenty some-odd construction stars that they've just spent 30 minutes making. I got cheeky back and told her that my stars were going to be the first thing people noticed when they walked into the church, and she laughed and said that was because they screamed OCD. From that I went into how I did, in fact, have OCD tendencies as a child. I told her how when I was two, my parents totally did the spoil-the-firstborn thing and took a baby pool, yes, a baby pool to the beach because I didn't like the feeling of sand on my feet, and I would have a fit if a few grains of it managed to touch my toes. Go figure. Needless to say this acquiescence of my parents stopped abruptly when my sister was born. Cathy got a good laugh out of that, and started asking me more questions about home, and work, and life. She asked me what I did in my spare time, and I mentioned some of the places I'd gotten to visit, some of the books I'd read recently, some of the outings I'd had with the other YAV's. She looked at me and said, "I'm 25, and I get pretty excited about the hour I get to spend, while my kids are asleep on Friday night, watching Lost and eating Chinese. I'm in a low-place, you know. My husband left me and my three kids a couple of months ago, and I still can't figure out why. I woke up one day and he was gone." I looked up at her, as she fiddled with the end of a yellow pipe cleaner. "You know, Cathy, I think that one day he's going to wake up and realize what he's missed." She looked up at me with a half-smile and said," Yeah, he is. They're only wee once. I'm glad I have them now." All I could do was nod my head in agreement with her and smile. I gestured toward her hand, "What's that you've got there, Cathy?" She held up her creation. Cathy had pieced together plastic and aluminum foil to create a spaceship, and inside the plastic half-cup was an alien fashioned out of pom poms, pipe cleaners and googly eyes. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I ooh-ed and aah-ed over it for a while. Before she left, Cathy proudly pinned her alien to the display board. As she walked out the door, she turned around and waved: "See you next week, Hannah!' I sat for a while after she'd left looking at that alien. I realized that the woman who brought it to life had probably, at one point, felt as isolated as the little creature inside. But I also admired her, because she'd stepped into a space that was completely foreign to her - the church. And I considered myself blessed that I had been made a part of her re-entry into self-esteem and meaning. I'm looking forward to getting to know Cathy better. February has also included some exciting events
for DFCI and for myself, personally.
On Saturday, February 14th, eight volunteers through DFCI (including myself) came together to work with Habitat for Humanity of Northern Ireland. We called the event Operation Love Shack, which turned out to be quite catchy, and quite successful. The majority of those who went were actually a part of our Youth Fellowship at Dundonald Methodist. The work site was in West Belfast, just off of the Shankill Road, and we spent the majority of the day painting and doing a bit of roofing. It was a great way to spend Valentine's Day, and full of laughs, and the majority of the youth that came asked when we could go back! Another highlight of this month was turning 23 years old! For the first time I got to celebrate my birthday in a different country! And, it was a good one. I spent the day of my birthday in Donegal, a town at the North-Western tip of Ireland. I think the highlight of the trip was getting to stick my feet in the Atlantic Ocean. Yes, it was cold, and my feet turned a bit blue, but it was totally worth it!

The Simple Life - Belfast Style

I realized the other day, that I really haven't covered one of the most important parts of my YAV year. Before I came to Northern Ireland, I vowed to live in community with the people around me, and that meant taking on a simple lifestyle.

So, what does simple life entail, exactly, especially in the highly Westernized, U.K. culture? Don’t worry – Paris Hilton and Nichole Richie are not involved. There are, however, lots of ways that I have changed my consumer habits over the past five months in my stay here, and I think most of them are arguably for the better.

For one, I have noticed that I have become much more energy conscientious than I would have been at home. I turn off lights when I leave a room. I don't let the water run.

My energy usage has been cut down not only by my own initiative, but by the selection of appliances in my house. I do not have a dishwasher. I wash all of my dishes by hand, and conserve water by washing them in a tub. I do not have a tumble dryer. All my clothes air dry on a drying rack in the spare room of my house. This saves a good amount of electricity every month.

Another appliance that is missing from my home is a microwave. I am a natural popcorn fiend. Give me a bag and I transform into a vacuum cleaner. Elizabeth and I have discovered the art of popcorn on the hob. The great thing about making your own is that you can add the amount of butter and salt that you want to it, and garlic salt, I’ve discovered, is quite good too.

My heating is on a timer, and on average runs 7 hours in a day. It is set for the morning hours, before I awaken, and in the evening about the time when I arrive home from work (6.00-ish). Occasionally, if I am in my house for an afternoon, I will turn the heat on, especially on the colder days. I’ve found, though, that a hot water bottle, a cup of tea, and blankets can work wonders.

A habit that I've picked up during my stay in Belfast is recycling. One of the nice aspects about living in Belfast is that each home is provided with a recycling bin, and biweekly the bins are collected. I’ve noticed really, it’s a matter of accessibility. At home in Virginia, the nearest recycling center is several miles away from my home. I think this produces less of an incentive to actually make a habit of recycling. Something else that I’ve noticed is that I prefer to use shopping bags rather than using plastic grocery bags. I think we have at least five of these in our house, and they have drastically help to increase storage space by eliminating the plastic bags that can cover shelves.

Another change that I've had to make has to do with my hair, yes, my hair. I like to dye my hair. I tend to go for a dark cherry-cola color. This year, I have had to give up going to a salon to keep my color, and I've resorted to the boxed hair dye on ASDA (my grocery store) shelves. Elizabeth and I discovered that we both share this passion for hair color, and as a result, we have organized official hair-dying parties.

I suppose an advantage of living this type of lifestyle is that it has, in many ways, helped me to connect with lots of people in Ballybeen. On several occasions I have had some of the women that I have met in the programmes I work with over for a cup of tea, and vice versa. I have noticed that living in the area, and particularly in a home fit with the resources typically available to the surrounding community has allowed me to connect in unique ways. I think that the people of Ballybeen who come into my home are allowed to feel comfortable because they recognize that I am living as they do. Any possibility of intimidation is erased by the fact that I live as they do, and this has opened up new and exciting opportunities to learn more about them and relate to them.

One of the new people that I’ve gotten to know in Ballybeen is a Pakistani woman, named Mehrin who lives just around the corner from me on Bute Park. She brings her now seven-month-old daughter, Sabaoon (meaning “dawn”) to DFCI’s weekly moms and toddlers program, Sticky Fingers. I struck up a conversation with Mehrin about two months ago, when she first started coming to the program, and I discovered that like myself, she too was an English major. She completed her masters thesis on Charles Dickens at a university in Pakistan and had left the country to join her husband, a professional cricketer in the U.K. She has lived in Belfast for over three years now, but like myself, she knows what it is like to be away from home and being of a different culture in a new place.

She and I have found lots to talk about, and each Friday we share a cup of tea and a biscuit at one another’s homes. I continue to learn more and more about Pakistani culture with every visit that I make. Mehrin pulls out the photo albums and traditional dishes each time I visit. This past week Mehrin asked me to teach her how to make apple pie, and we spent the larger part of the afternoon peeling apples, laughing and joking, kneading dough, and watching Sabaoon play on the floor of my living room. Soon Mehrin will teach me how to make traditional Pakistani dishes…YUM!

December's Done and 2009 Has Begun

It's hard to believe that I am already 1/3 into my mission year here in Belfast! December has flown by and 2009 comes sailing in tonight with the same speed.

December, in a nutshell has consisted of a variety of Christmas celebrations. Not only were there plenty of parties held among church family and friends, but PAKT held its own Christmas Activity Afternoon for the children of Ballybeen. Nearly forty children participated in the event, taking home not only decorated Christmas cookies and angel crafts, but also the essence of the Christmas story provided in our program.

If there is anything that is unique about Northern Ireland, it is the concept of Christmas dinners. When I first heard the phrase I immediately associated with one meal, that would be consumed, as expected by the phrase, on Christmas day. However, as I quickly discovered, Christmas dinner is an opportunity for any social group to get together to celebrate the holiday. As you can imagine, there is a plethora of social groups/church groups operating in and out of Dundonald Methodist. Needless to say, I had four Christmas dinners this year, and only one of them was actually on Christmas day.

Another aspect that I discovered quickly about Christmas dinner is that there is a standard menu, that every Northern Irelander knows about. First, there is turkey, lots of turkey with stuffing and ham and gravy. Then, there are usually two types of potatoes, brussel sprouts, carrots, and turnips in some shape or fashion. Together the foods merge into a moundMind you, this is preceded by a starter, usually bread and casserole or a soup. Dessert follows all of this, usually in the form of pavlova, Christmas pudding, or pie. And yes, if you were wondering, my trousers are feeling the effects. I'm hoping that will ease with the running I intend to get back into in the new year.

I spent all of Christmas day with the Camptons, and had an absolutely fabulous time eating way too much, playing several rounds of Nintendo Wi with Sally and David's sons, Owain and Ciaran, and then, of course, curling up with Mittens, their cat, on the couch for a power nap. I will confess that I was moved to tears by how much the Camptons' felt like home this Christmas. I am blessed with a wonderful Irish family here.

Post-Christmas vacation time was spent gallivanting around Dublin with my direction-savy and thoroughly entertaining housemate, Elizabeth. We found ourselves a nice bed and breakfast in the heart of the city that put us in walking distance to almost all of the sites. Some of our favorite sites were the churches of Dublin. Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral offer a plethora of history and we were astounded by their beauty. One of my favorite stops was Dublin's infamous Writer's museum, home to the works of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, and Seamus Heaney just to name a few. I really could have spent several days in that museum alone, but Belfast called me home for the New Year.

Tonight I will ring in 2009 by helping David Campton, Dundonald's minister, lead a communion service. The remainder of my evening will be spent in the fellowship with friends I have come to know and love here in Belfast, eating fondue and counting down the music hits of the year on the BBC. It would be an understatement to say I'm looking forward to it. :)

Hope you all have a Happy New Year and Many Blessings in 2009!

-Hannah

November News - From the Top

The days are getting colder and darker here in Belfast as winter begins to settle in. As rainfalls take on chilling proportions and the sun hides away, life takes on a warm vibrancy, especially inside the homes and churches of Dundonald. Over hot cups of tea and coffee (and occasionally a cholocalte digestive biscuit), Sally, Heather, John and I begin our day's work with DFCI. The fellowship I find in the PaKT programs, the Beaver Scouts and Guides, the Youth Fellowship and Bible Classes is what especially keeps me moving.

November has seen many special events for DFCI and for myself personally. On the 8^th of November, twenty-five young people came together to participate in an event called Clean the ‘Been sponsored by the Castlereagh Borough Council and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The day consisted of a debriefing brunch, a two-hour clean up of the Ballybeen Estate and a trip to Lisburn Omniplex which hosts a giant leisure pool with slides. Youth participating in the event came from a variety of community churches and youth organizations some of which included St. Mary’s Church of Ireland. I got the opportunity to do a bit of planning for this event, which made it extra special to watch come together.

It was especially nice to have some of my family come and visit me this month as well. My cousin Rob came to join me with his girlfriend (and my very good friend) Laura. I had an opportunity to travel up the North Coast to the Giant’s Causeway, a compilation of 40,0000 basalt rock columns. One of the tallest set of columns is known as the Giant’s Organ was a great day for walking around when we went, and the scenery was spectacular! (See the pictures to the side)

Another highlight of their visit included a pre-Thanksgiving meal, cooked by some of the finest chefs I know. J We also took a day trip down to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter and over to the Shankill Road which hosts a variety of paramilitary murals and Belfast’s peace wall. We each left our mark on the peace wall with a permanent felt pen, which I think we all felt was testament to how far Belfast has come since the Troubles.

November has also included a retreat with my fellow YAVs to the Crom Estate located in southwestern portion of Northern Ireland in a place called Fermanagh. All eight of us spent some much-needed quality time bonding over car rides (and sing-a-longs – yes, we sing LOUDLY), board games, and long walks around the ancient castle ruins of the Crom Estate. Some of my favorite parts of the weekend were climbing 400-year-old yew trees, singing worship songs to the guitar instrumentals of YAVs Kevin and Megan (see video), and simply resting among the people I’ve come to know and love. And, as a traditionally country girl, I will attest that there is nothing like walking down a Fermanagh country road overlooking miles upon miles of sheep and green.

I think that what has been extra special about November is that I’ve come to recognize and fully appreciate the support I am finding from the people here in Belfast and those at home. As we all know, Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and Christmas isn’t too far behind. A couple of families at my church found out about my turkey celebration day, and offered to jointly prepare a feast for myself and any of the other YAVs who might want to join on Thanksgiving day. Needless to say, I will be one stuffed and happy American on Thanksgiving evening in Belfast, and I am looking forward to it!

Another thing I've noticed in the past month is the impact my presence has had here already in Ballybeen. Several of the kids approached me after my absence at my retreat last week and demanded "Where were you?" some more forcefully than others. Some of the moms from the Sticky Fingers program see me regularly walking around Ballybeen and a few of them acknowledged that they had missed me on Wednesday morning. It's exciting to know that my presence is beginning to fit into the pattern of peoples' lives here. I'm continually amazed by the number of people I come in contact with weekly, and am truly grateful for all that everyone here and at home is doing to support me.

October Happenings

I cannot believe that a month has gone by so fast! Time is flying here in Belfast, but it has been full of fellowship and fun for me. One of the highlights of October was a tour that I was invited to attend with David. A group from Florida came to visit their sister church, Springfield Road Methodist, and they decided to take a tour of Northern Ireland monasteries under David's guidance. So, I tagged along as the "intern," and found that my tagging was extremely beneficial. Not only did I get to hear about Irish religious history, but I actually got to see it. Yes, it was in its very remnants, but the theological foundation upon which each site was constructed was absolutely fascinating. Our stops ranged from the alleged buriale site of St. Patrick in County Down to the healing springs of St. Patrick. My favorite site was our first stop at Nendrum. Nendrum is a monastery that was founded in the 5^th century by St. Machoai. Structured in three concentric rings, Nendrum held a variety of life and was able to flourish on its own until invaded by Vikings in the 7th century. Within the outer ring (or wall) was the agricultural sector of the community – where livestock flourished and farmers harvested produce. The middle ring was the business sector of the community. Blacksmiths, weavers and produce sellers would have presided within the walls. And, at the center of the community was the church, where the abbot and clergy would have lived. People could come and go from one area to another and life was woven together in a series of circles. Celtic monasticism held that faith was interlinked with all areas of life, from the tilling of the soil to worship in the church, and unlike traditional monasticism it did not advocate for a complete separation from the world in order to draw closer to God. The idea was that God was at the heart of everything. I think that there is a lot to garner from this Celtic theology especially when it comes to living through each day. There are days here in Ballybeen when I am very tired, when the rain seems to get the best of me, but I think that visiting Nendrum was an enlightening experience in that it got me thinking about all the different levels in which God moves through our lives -even on those wet, miserable days. I think sometimes we tend to confine Him to the 2 hours of worship on a Sunday morning. It's easy to think that our worship of God is separate from our professions, our relationships, our daily tasks. But really, as Nendrum demonstrates in its concentric rings, He's in everything - in every conversation we have, in every task we perform, in everything we think and feel. And somehow, these people, thousands of years ago, somehow understood this so much so that it literally shaped their lives. A main question that has pervaded my mind during the last month has been: Can we, and if so, how do we live in response to the knowledge that God is at the center of everything? And I've discovered that it's simply a matter of opening our minds to the smallest of things, that could easily, in a world that demands our time and attention, get overlooked. It takes some slowing down, and some reflection. Because for me, He's in the construction paper that evolves into a Halloween card, given to me by a Scout on one of my loneliest days. He's in the sausages and toast, and sippy cups of juice that bring smiles and satisfying burps from the toddlers in our Sticky Fingers program. And, yes, as hard as it is for me to admit, He's even in the never-ending rain showers, that makes the earth a breath-taking emrald-green when the sun shows its face. I'm a beginning learner at this mentality - it takes a lot to look beyond circumstances and immediate demands to watch Him moving. But I've found when I do stop for a minute that I am moved in a such a way that I am forever changed. Thank you for your love, support and prayers.