Organizations, Bible Schools, Friars, & Horses...& Snails

Here I am, a week after our midterm outreach weeks, finally done with my book report! At last I can update, and there are so many things to say! As that could be rather lengthy, I will try to keep it comparatively brief.

For those of us who went to Dublin for a week, we have universally agreed that if we wanted to sum up the outreach in one sentence, we would say, "We met a lot of people." That seems so generic, but that is really what we did for the entire time. We did help out with a youth group at the Presbyterian church in Lucan on Monday, helping set up a game for the kids, and then telling a little about ourselves and where we were from, and sharing a Bible verse that meant a lot to us and why. That was particularly cool, because we were told the kids were from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, which is close to our heart of reconciliation between the two groups. But the rest of the week was geared toward connecting with people from different churches and ministries.

We met people who had already gotten their unusual missions up and running, like a man who had started a coffee shop called Third Space as a way to provide a space for people to hang out comfortably, and a bridge between high-rise office buildings and a rough-and-tumble neighborhood. The heart of the coffee shop is Christian, yet they function as a secular business, and the people in the community have accepted it as a safe place to call their own, even pitching in money to buy patio furniture. (It's really quite remarkable.) And then we met people who had grand ideas for unique ministry, like a pastor whose church owns a nearby building that he wants to turn into a place of art ministry, including a dance school. We ran into Amnesty International representatives on the street, raising awareness to combat FGM, and we met with a representative of ACET who works with people and their families who have HIV. We visited the Irish Bible Institute, and they ended up introducing us to Tear Fund (which was in the same building), which teaches poor people in Africa a trade (so they can work to feed themselves) instead of just feeding them. We met a representative from a ministry that is telling street kids about Jesus and taking them under their wing, as well as starting family camps to be more intentional about ministering to families. And we met Phil Kingsley, a member of GEM, an old friend of my parents, a teacher at the Bible Institute, and someone I had been in contact with about Ireland before I joined YWAM.

There were a couple days, as well, that we helped around the Lucan Centre itself. The Centre is getting all its ducks in a row (so to speak) so it can house retreats, and we wanted to do what we could to help. Mostly that involved reorganizing and data entry.

As you can see, our exposure to different types of ministries in Dublin (and Lucan) was rather broad. And at the Lucan Centre alone, we met Irish, South African, and American staff. So, we experienced lots of diversity.

Then we drove back up to Rostrevor (about 3 hours?), had one day to sleep, do laundry, and repack, and we headed back down to the Republic (this time with our entire DTS, including the people who had gone up to Belfast instead of Dublin) to Limerick, which was even further south than Dublin.

Limerick, I think, was probably my favorite experience thus far, in the entire DTS experience. I concluded that it was, in fact, exactly the sort of thing that I came here to Ireland to do. You see, unlike the official "Midterm Outreach" week before it, the week we were in Limerick we actually had lectures, but the lecture each day was taught by a different one of the friars. Because we were, in fact, at Saint Patrick's Friary in the neighborhood of Moyross.

Now, if you have ever heard the Irish talk about Limerick, they all seem to know exactly where it is, and they all seem to know something about it that you don't if you have never been there. It seems to be an Irish culture marker of some sort, because it is far enough south and away from Dublin to have its own culture, but you can detect in people's tone that there is something there that they have found less than exemplary.

What I found about Limerick, is that it is quite black and quite white. That is to say, if you drive downtown, as we had to every day to get to and from the empty three-story flat where we rolled out our sleeping bags, you will see dozens of quaint or expensive-looking shops, and if that was all that you saw, the impression you might get would be of a much cleaner, extraordinarily tamer New Orleans. That is to say, the three- and four-story buildings are all connected and all of almost the same style, but are painted differently, and the shops vary colorfully from one another, and you (as a tourist) feel compelled to check out each one, lest you miss something unique. But the closer you get to Moyross, the more spread out things become, with wide open green fields in between, and you start seeing random rows of flats clustered together with horses tethered to the grass in between. You might occasionally see a person driving a horse-drawn carriage in a field, or a teenage boy riding his horse bareback down the paved street, with cars lined up behind him. There is, of course, also the polar opposite end of the city, with farmland and woods rolling over the hills and down to the River Shannon, the long grasses dotted with sheep and some horses--absolutely breathtaking.

So then, you definitely have the working class or the rich, and the poor. White and black (and I don't mean that racially).

The city government (or the City Council, as the Irish would call them--Council for short) has painted Moyross black. Looking at the gang activity and the shootings and the druggies and the stray dogs and the illegally-tethered horses and ten violent deaths in the vicinity, the Council (which owns most of the flats there) would rather just evict people and spread them to different areas, knock down the houses, and let a freeway run through. There is already only one road into Moyross, and one additional footpath from a neighboring hood separated by what must be acres and acres of grass, in an effort to protect the surrounding areas. Into the heart of this moved the Franciscan friars. Yes, I mean the guys in the long brown/gray robes with the rope belts and the wooden beads swung across their hips. Having taken vows of poverty and chastity, they moved into one flat the Council freely allowed them to stay in (which was actually three made into one), and turned another flat into a youth center for the kids of Moyross. The impact their mere presence has had on the neighborhood is astounding. Older kids began to rethink their lives. Younger kids had a place to hang out without getting in trouble. All of the above had someone to look up to, and they (and the adults as well) had someone to trust.

I must say that never in my entire life have I seen anyone serve the way these four men do. It has changed my view of servanthood under Christ forever. Because servitude is not a task or a burden for these men, or even a way of life; it is who they are. And to be served by such men is a very humbling and heart-searching experience--especially that moment when you realize they are giving you all these good things, but everything they have has been given to them, and for at least some of it they may have had to beg (their own words, though not flaunted).

Going to Limerick, we (from YWAM) were much like little children trotting at the heels of the friars, marveling at all the doors that opened up before us just because we were with the friars, whom everybody knew and loved and invited in. We could say we did yard work at their hermitage, or we weeded their back garden, or we staffed at the youth center, or we helped make dinner. But really we just joined them for things, I think. They treated us like co-laborers, and we treated them with the respect of people we know have a lot to teach us about life in general, let alone reverence for God. One could argue certain theological points, of course, such as Mary, if one was feeling particularly argumentative. But when confronted with their servants' hearts, I think, such things are rendered irrelevant, and all theological arguments are silenced.

What I enjoyed most, I think, was getting to know Irish people closer to our age (as a group), and through them being exposed to Irish culture. Drying dishes with them, walking the streets of Moyross with them, hearing them talk about their neighborhood and their experiences, meeting their moms, trying their seawater-boiled snails, getting my accent corrected (apparently you drop the "h" in "th"), and begging them to sort out for us the muddled accents of the younger kids at the youth center. I really wish we had gotten to spend more time with them, because I wanted to get to know them better, and because these were the kinds of things I wanted to ditch from my culture and learn about theirs.

When we returned to the YWAM base in Rostrevor, many people expected us to be tired, and I'm sure some of us were. But coming back from Dublin, and then from Limerick, I found myself energized, revitalized, and dreading a return to "normal" life. Arriving back from Limerick, instead of being happy to be home, a longing for the people back in Limerick settled into my heart. I missed them, I realized. They had sunk into my heart, and I now felt less connected to the people on-base than I did to the people in Limerick. I was ready to go out again. Although no fan of sleeping on an air mattress with my head propped against the foot of a couch, it was worth being away, and somehow I preferred that.

What has happened to me, that school is so difficult for me to get along with, and outreach is so palatable? This is a process that predates YWAM for me, I think. It's part of why I walked away from community college. It's that moment when you realize that what is excellent for everybody else, is not excellent for you. Maybe some people don't have that moment. But for me, it just keeps getting confirmed over and over again.