faithactionreconciliation

YWAM Ireland runs the Belfast City Marathon!

2009-05-06T15:56:00.001+01:00

Jonny Clark, our YWAM Ireland National Director, was one of 5 participants in a relay-fundraiser for YWAM Ireland this past Monday. Along with Ramy, Jess, Amy, and Chris, he ran his portion of the stretch and helped to raise money for our ministry needs. Check out the video Mikael and he made last week in preparation of the marathon. New videos and photos will be available soon!

Burundi DTS Outreach Update! - by Tom Tate

2009-04-22T14:08:00.002+01:00

Greetings from Burundi!

We are a team of six people currently situated in Bujumbura, Burundi on the DTS outreach. We've had a busy time so far of being involved with a lot of different ministries including working ina hospital, an orphanage, running reconciliation seminars and courses and also playing a lot of football with streetkids! Things have been busy for us, but good.

As a team we have been so aware of God's hand of protection on us as we travel through the centre of Africa. We have been blessed by health (for the most part) incredible ministries to be involved in and some incredible contacts (now friends) who have welcomed us more warmly than we could have imagined or expected.

Rwanda and Burundi are beautiful countries that are blessed with natural resources and sunny climes, but that have also seen a history of conflict, hatred and division that has scarred the land and the people here over the last half century. As a team, our prayer is that we will be a group that brings Christ and his healing forgiveness and gift of reconciliation to these places. We know that there is nothing within US that can do this, rather, we are simply here trying to be willing vessels of his power, authority and grace to the people living here. We are blessed and privileged to be used in this way, and it is a gift to be here and see God choosing to work through and use us.

With four weeks left, we are heading to the middle of Burundi today to work with Youth for Christ at an orphanage they run. Our team was there last year and had an incredible time of ministry and getting to know the children and workers there. Please pray for us as we continue on our journey and seek God for us and for those we are meeting!

DTS outreach reports back from Durban, South Africa

2009-02-21T06:53:00.004Z

YWAM Ireland's Closkelt DTS is half way into their outreach in Durban, South Africa. Below is a letter about what they've been up to so far! Enjoy!

*****

While working with YWAM Durban, we were able to go with them into a township called Burlington. While there we cleaned houses for some of the Grandmothers who have never seen a white person clean before, many of them were amazed that we were even there. In the afternoons we were able to play with the children there, they were so sweet and playful, they taught us new kinds of games and even helped us learn more Zulu. We are all thankful that God has given us the chance to show these kids his love.

While staying at YWAM Durban also we had one week of lectures. One of the staff members of the Durban location, Geoff Kingsford, taught us about relationships. It was a myriad of different types of relationships and how they all come together. It was both a challenging and an encouraging week for all of the students.

We next arrived at Missions Ablaze on February 8th and by February 9th we quickly found out how the next week was going to be. Currently Missions Ablaze is a place that requires a lot of physical labor. Everything from taking care of their property (using machetes to trim overgrowth) to helping make the food they serve in and around Durban
(They serve about 5000 per week). They are also in the middle of building an orphanage to hold 100 kids that they would like to see open by June 1. We were involved with all these things and are very excited to see what the last 3 weeks of outreach bring us.

More to come later on!

Update on the Nomad's DTS

2009-02-18T04:30:00.000Z

Greetings form YWAM Ireland!!

Thank you so much for your interest in our DTS here in Ireland, the Nomad's school. I appreciate that some of you have been waiting to hear information and I'm sorry that we have not been able to be quicker and more exact in our communication. The reason there has been a hold up is due to a bureaucratic error on behalf of the British Immigration service. This service has been undertaking a major shake up in the way they process visa applications from people coming from outside of the European Union. Due to this mistake, YWAM Northern Ireland cannot bring in overseas nationals until April time at least - at the moment- the timing is unsure....SO...

We are having to make a suggested change to the Nomad's school. We are now going to split the 3 month DTS lecture phase into 2 segments. The first phase will be 6 weeks, and will be in YWAM Harpenden, in England (www.ywamharpenden.org), Most of the second phase will be in Belfast, Northern Ireland for 6 weeks, but we will also visit our other base, Closkelt, and maybe even do a week of lectures on the road!! At that point the DTS will probably split into 2 teams, one team will travel and do outreach in Ireland, and the other group will be in Europe. There will also be an option for those who want to, to take part in a 2 week trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories. The DTS will start on the 5th April so time is short.

I think this change will actually make this school very exciting. It will merge the benefits of two very different works. YWAM Harpenden is a well established large beautiful property 30 minutes north of London by train. YWAM Belfast is a cutting edge ministry in the heart of a troubled urban neighbourhood - every student who comes here will have the opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus to some of the neediest youth and families in the UK and Ireland.

This change now means that YWAM Harpenden will process your visa application. What we need to know is whether you still want to go ahead and join this school. If you do, then we will be in touch with you immediately, and if your application is complete we will let you know if you are accepted. You will then need to book your flights and to apply for your visa. This is a process which we will walk you through. At this stage just stay in touch with us, and we will direct you when to start communicating with YWAM Harpenden. We will handle questions, and processing your application. Harpenden will deal with your visa.

Once again I'm sorry for this change, and the delay in making a decision. Unfortunately what has happened with the visas has been beyond our control But we believe that it has forced us to engage in a partnership with another YWAM centre that could be very fruitful, and will lead to a very exciting DTS.

Blessings,

Jonny Clark
National Director, YWAM Ireland

New! YWAM Ireland's DTS goes nomadic!

2008-12-23T22:23:00.003Z

YWAM Ireland is excited to be offering a new type of DTS on the Emerald Isle - a Nomad's DTS starting in March 2009! J.R.R. Tolkein wrote, "Not all those who wander are lost", and we are in full agreement. The Nomad's DTS will be divided into 3 phases, each phase taking place on a different part of this beautiful island.

The first phase (6 weeks) will be at our training centre in rural Closkelt overlooking the Mourne Mountains while the second phase (6 weeks) will take place in urban Belfast. The third phase (8 weeks) will take place in different cities around the island - possibly Dublin, Cork, Galway and (London)Derry.

This school is a great opportunity for those who have a heart for this island. You'll have a chance to be a part of a variety of ministries both in the north and the south.

If you'd like an application or more information on this school, please visit our website soon! There is still time to apply!

Reconciliation Discipleship Training School...by Tom Tate

2008-10-27T09:57:00.000Z

In no less than 4 days time the first of 12 students will be arriving in one of Belfast's two airports. Laden down with luggage, we will welcome them into our community here in YWAM Belfast.

Next Monday begins the 7th DTS to be run in Belfast (at least this time around! I keep hearing rumour about a DTS that was run here in the 1970's….) and I think the 4th to have a distinctly Reconciliation focus.

So what's that all about? Why "reconciliation"? In many ways, reconciliation is becoming one of those buzz words, thrown out there to sound impressive though no one really knows what it means. Here in Belfast, we long to be serious about it. In a world where anger, violence and revenge are often the "go-to" tactics in conflict situations, we wonder whether there is another way?

We believe yes, and we're going to be spending the next 7 months exploring this idea with this group of 12 students. YWAM's motto is "To know God and make Him known" and one of our foundational values is "Do first, then teach". There's something special about knowing something personally before you move on to ministering out of that. In this time, we want to share with the students the God who came to them, who has reconciled Himself to them, and from that place of knowing God as a reconciler we can move on to trying to mirror His image and be peacemakers in these situations that surround us.

During the DTS students will have lectures, be involved in local outreach in the local community, have a chance to hear stories from people affected by conflict and learn from them, and also engage in a 10 week trip to a post or current conflict area to put what they are learning into practice.

Our vision is for a group of people to emerge from this DTS, trained in both discipleship and an awareness of their relationship to God, but also skilled to speak into conflict situations, to speak out "this is NOT the will of God!" To cry peace in a land of war, and forgiveness in the midst of revenge.

After all, we've been told to get on with it: "All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:18). We have a mandate…. This DTS exists to raise a generation of people willing to live it… Those willing to give up everything to see it come into being.

Discipleship Training SOON...by Mikael Kristiansen

2008-09-25T17:02:00.001+01:00

This weekend we're receiving ten new members to our YWAM Ireland team, arriving from a few different countries to take part in the Discipleship Training School which starts this coming Monday in Closkelt and runs through until the end of March next year. During that time, they will work along side us in our ministries, as well as receive training and guidance in missionary work and their relationship with Christ.

With only hours left to prepare, the staff in Closkelt are busy with the preparations for their arrival, cleaning and painting and typing and praying a week's worth of work into the little time remaining. The students are essentially doubling the size of the team in Closkelt while they're here, so the community is buzzing with the excitement of impending new arrivals.

We're currently operating with lower numbers in Closkelt than usual, and thus also a smaller DTS, but we're excited to continue to be a participatory part in what the Lord is desiring for our local community and around the island. Through training of teams for outreach, individuals for missions, and in reaching the local area, we're happy to continue serving in His vision to reach all people with His gospel of forgiveness, love, and reconciliation. This coming DTS will be participating in kids' ministry in our local area (rural Co. Down), as well as working with Outreach N.I. in Banbridge, reaching out to weekend party-goers through the local Nightreach initiative. Come January, the DTS team will also spend two months in South Africa, working alongside YWAM and local ministry contacts of ours, the latest in a string of outreaches we've sent there over the last few years. In this, we hope to continue to build important bridges between Northern Ireland and South Africa, recognizing our shared experience of conflict and of trying to answer questions of forgiveness and reconciliation.

'The Sea'....by Charles Dennison

2008-06-02T13:11:00.001+01:00

Hi! I’m the newest staff member in Belfast. The following is a poem that was written while I was doing some reflecting while preparing to make the move from the States to Northern Ireland. Enjoy!

Cheers,
Charles

“The Sea”

By Charles Dennison
29 March 2008

It has been a long season upon dry land

My sea legs ache from lack of rolling sea

Waves smooth as silk and others that roll hard

The taste of salt in the air, a fondly remembered friend

My heart longs to be once again out to sea

To go where the winds take us forward

To navigate by sun, moon, and stars

The compass and sexton are every sailors’ faithful friends

My love is again calling out to me

To the life I was meant to live

Full of adventure, both far and wide

Once again, upon the sea I long to be

India & Burundi...by Heather Clark

2008-05-16T18:23:00.007+01:00

Right: Erin and Heather pose for a self portrait in Mombassa, Kenya - with the Indian Ocean right at their feet! Recently, I returned from a 6 week trip to India and Burundi where Erin Seibel and myself visited the Belfast Outreach teams. What a trip! Not only did Erin and I have so much fun visiting each team, but it was an awesome experience to be able to get out of the office and just get my hands dirty...literally.

INDIA OVERVIEW
Visiting the team in India was a great way to start our trip. While we were only in New Delhi for 3 weeks (the team had been in Mumbai for 2 weeks prior to our arrival and then headed onto Kashmir after we left), it was all I needed to fall in love with India. The team was involved in a variety of ministries there:
- helping out some Canadian business bakery owners who needed some marketing done in their neighborhoods as well as some serious cleaning behind their business building
- relationship building with Muslims in a local university
- working in slums sharing about Forgiveness
- leading worship at churches and youth groups (they did great considering the language barrier!)
On top of all this, we were kept quite busy by Indian hospitality. If we weren't invited to someone's house for a meal, then it was a wedding! Erin and I got to experience 3 weddings in our 3 weeks in New Delhi. What an experience! Take a look at a few photos from our time in India.

The team cleaning up behind the bakery.

The team at a wedding! Crazy!

The team leading a time of worship and then a teaching.

BURUNDI OVERVIEW
Left: Memorial site of 100 children who were killed during a genocide in the 1990's. Just so you know, I had a great time in Burundi with the other Belfast outreach team. We spent time at an orphanage in Gitega (centre of the country) with 23 orphans, their 'mothers', and the orphanage workers. We did some manual labour there to help build a health clinic and from there, our team split in two to cover different ministry needs in different locations. I went up to Kayanza (spelling??) in north Burundi where we stayed with a couple who works for Food for the Hungry. We got to visit a pilot project for a Fair Trade Coffee Washing Station! What a great experience! It was great to meet all the coffee workers and see how coffee is produced. If only I liked coffee! I'm a tea drinker, through and through - I don't even like the smell of coffee! Sorry, all you coffee lovers! The team in Kayanza also shared in a couple of different churches (with a variety of denominations) about Forgiveness and Reconciliation. The feedback was tremendous with many invitations to return to Burundi to teach more on both subjects...this is quite significant considering the church is extremely divided in Burundi. It was encouraging to hear the different denominations asking us to teach them how to love each other and live peacefully with each other. Northern Ireland has a lot to offer the country of Burundi.

Playing with children at the orphanage.

Teaching about forgiveness and reconciliation.

Being prayed for by the children at the orphanage before we left. This was the most powerful prayer time of my life, hands down.

Western European Leadership Consultation

2008-02-27T20:56:00.003Z

So some of you reading this may not be part of YWAM and some are but wouldn't call yourselves leaders, but I guess I wanted to add a paragraph on an upcoming event that I'm helping to organise. YWAM was founded by youth, zeal, vision, perserverance, and a simple call from God. Any organisation or club started in such a way faces the challenge of becoming institutionalised. Amazingly often the successes of the past can imprison the future. The many buildings bought in the 70's and the strategies and programmes initiated by YWAM back in the day, can in some ways restrict a new generation of leaders now.

In April about 200 seasoned and un-seasoned leaders of YWAM in Western Europe will be gathering in the Netherlands for a 4 day 'consultation' on how we are doing as YWAM on this continent today and what we have still to do. It promises to be a time of enlightenment, sorrow as we reflect on some of our failure and hope as we look to a bright future, a future of returning to the roots of what YWAM was founded to be...a bunch of slightly reckless pioneers, going where others had never dared to go.

If YWAM is to prosper it will be as we continue to release new waves of young pioneers, free to wander as they are led, and free to find God in the daunting but at times beautiful maze of post modern consciousness, and free to bring many others to the light that they find at the heart of the maze.

Instant human...just add caffeine - by Jessica Atteberry

2008-01-08T11:52:00.000Z

As per usual, we had to run errands on the weekend - it gets you into town though and when you live in a rural community, going to town is a big deal. Heather, Jon and I went to weigh and price packages for a friend who has returned home. We made bets on how much it would cost, of course. Who wouldn't be in for some fun? Shipping things from the UK to the States - ridiculous! The dollar is horrible right now and the pound has always been strong. Take a guess at what six boxes would cost (varying weights)….£ 300. That's right, close to $650. Crazy!

After that was finished, we went in to our local coffee shop: The Green Bean. Coffee shop on a cold, windy day - how much does that cost: priceless. (Do you here a bit of American marketing creeping in here?) Anyways, painted on one of the ceiling beams was this: 'Instant human…just add coffee'. I giggled and thought it was quite humorous. Its very true for our YWAM base and I'm sure its true for others. To kick start any day of YWAM you need a cup of joe or a cup of tea to function. Yes, we all know its an addiction, but I'm okay with my drug of choice.

Out of my skull...by Jon Hatch, YWAM Belfast Reconciliation DTS staff

2007-12-14T18:41:00.000Z

There are few things in the world lonelier than being a Christian who finds beauty in the human skull. But I do. I think they look incredible. Also, beyond their physical beauty, they are a mastery of creative engineering. In my humble opinion, a Christian who is trying to make the case for God’s creative expertise need look no further than about an inch into their own head. So much of what we find physically amazing about ourselves and others- eyes, brain, cheeks, lovely face, lips and teeth- it’s all a sack of meat without your skull.

Of course, our culture thinks of the skull primarily in its assigned role as a symbol of fear and death. Fair enough, but if you’re reading this right now, your skull is very much alive, 22 living, perfectly integrated bones supporting your face and protecting your brain and sinus cavity. And anyway, if I remember correctly, Christ told us to fear not, certainly not death.

My initial love of the skull came from being a teenager during the early ‘80s hardcore punk scene that percolated under the radar of my native New Jersey and New York. We scrawled them on our school notebooks (out of sight of the teachers in my fundamentalist Baptist school), printed them on gig flyers, t-shirts, and record covers (yes, the CD had yet to be invented). Simply put, we thought skulls looked cool and hard. More seriously, we were Reagan’s children, and many of us were plain scared of getting drafted to fight in El Salvador or getting nuked, either by accident or by political resolve.

The image of the skull is a powerful one. There’s just something about it that commands attention, something that says, hey, no fooling around; this is serious. Don’t go in here. Don’t drink this. Whatever the message is, you can be pretty certain that it’s a matter of life and death. If you see a skull, you are immediately alert. And in a world that seems to be all about keeping us in a state of catatonic acquiescence- buy, shop, spend, eat, drink, watch TV- the skull is a reminder of St. Peter’s admonishment: “Be alert! Wake up! Your enemy the devil, like a roaring lion, prowls around for someone to devour (I Peter 5:8)”.

St. Peter reminds us that we live our lives in the shadow of death, and that is possibly why we find that image of the skull so disconcerting: it is a reminder of our mortality. Unless you are a surgeon, you’ll never see a living skull, only a dead one. But if we’re realistic, death is the one aspect of life in which all will eventually share. The classical poet Claudian noted that ‘death levels all things’. In this sense, the skull is a symbol of human equality, and a perfect representation of why racism, sexism, and all other forms of prejudice are so monumentally stupid: no matter whom you are, where you’re from, or what you look like, about in inch below the surface we are all remarkably similar. And when we die, we will all look the same. You might hate blacks, gays, women, Muslims, or whoever, but don’t kid yourself; below the surface, we all have a skull.

My painting came from a discussion topic during a seminar facilitated by the YWAM Belfast Forgiveness staff team. We were asked to do an artistic representation of our feelings about whether the impetus to forgive originated in the heart or the head. In contemplating this, I wanted to represent my belief that forgiveness is often a conscious decision. It very often comes from our head, but make no mistake: it comes from the deepest part of our head; that part of the head that reflects our common humanity; that part of the head alive, awake, and alert to our own mortality; that part of our head that might be horrifically exposed if our lack of forgiveness and reconciliation ferments into hatred; that part of our head that knows how deadly serious the issues of forgiveness and reconciliation are.

And for me, that’s the skull.

We in YWAM Belfast work on the street in the Shankill Road area where, in 1969, the second death of the most recent phase of Ireland’s ongoing conflict occurred. That conflict, which springs from distorted visions of nationality, faith, identity and belonging, eventually claimed over 3500 lives over the next thirty years. Many people we live and work amongst have known nothing but fear, anger, revenge, and hate, either their own or inherited. Our work takes us to schools, youth clubs, old folks’ homes, and the streets. We talk, teach, and pray. We cry and get tired, celebrate and enjoy each other, often in the same day. It is hard but joyous work.

Where we live, the Gospel is about forgiveness; helping individuals and the community along the journey of healing, actively choosing to remember the hurt in a different way, and moving on. Until that happens, Northern Ireland will never know true peace.

May God bless you on your own journey, and may he help you as you move your heart into your skull.

India - by Jessica Atteberry

2007-11-29T12:20:00.000Z

Two months and counting. How close does a date have to be before you start counting down? I guess it depends on a person.

I feel like I've been slowly counting down the months ever since I found out that I would be leading our January Discipleship Training School (DTS). I found out in June, so its been a long time of waiting, prepping and emailing. Now I have two short months – or so it seems.

Crazy things have been happening - we have a crazy God. I was speaking to a friend the other day and she asked the question "what would you do or what would it be like if God sent you an email saying 'from now on everything will be predictable and in your timing'". Would that be pleasing to us, to me, to you? NO! I would get so bored so fast- I wouldn't know what to do. So God is a God of the last minute- the unpredictable. And that is how I like Him.

I've been having interesting staffing issues - which is what brings up that question. Having faith is more than planning. Its actually trusting God...which I'm getting a lesson in.

Something exciting: For some reason (probably God!), these past few years I've had this desire to go to India - to see the country, the people, the culture, the music, the religion, the Taj Mahal, the clothes, the dancing…need I go on? There is just something about that country that strikes my interest and my heart. I've had random conversations about taking teams there or just taking some time off and going. But now it seems that God wants to bless me and says 'Go to India on outreach'.

At this time, we're not sure if an outreach to India will be taking place on Closkelt's January school or if its something we're meant to look into for future schools. We are still in the preliminary phase of deciding on where to go should we take a team - but it's really promising. But the contacts, the students, the staff - many things are falling into place and are just too good to be true - God again. And with that comes my excitement. How many people can say that they would like to go to a country that God has placed on their heart, talk about it for years, and then one day you get released to do it?

Its pretty amazing!

Farewell, Lucky… by Jon Hatch

2007-11-05T12:26:00.000Z

While reading the paper last Saturday, I was shocked to read that South African reggae superstar Lucky Dube was murdered during an attempted carjacking. He was 43. Most of you have never heard of him, and I’ll admit that I knew about him because reggae- particularly the political variety- is one of my passions. Yet I can assure you that Lucky Dube (pronounced DOO-bay) enjoyed a level of popularity in Africa that most western musicians could not possibly fathom.

Lucky was a tireless activist for peace and social justice in South Africa and beyond. During the darkest days of the Apartheid regime, his music was regularly banned from the radio and public performance. Yet he never wavered to saying exactly what he had to say. His life and music were a testimony to the human capacity to speak truth to those in power and testify to music’s ability to act as a spark for radical social change.

His senseless murder makes him another statistic in post-Apartheid South Africa’s maelstrom of violent crime, a problem that affects all levels of society, black and white.
YWAM Belfast has often sent our DTS outreaches to South Africa, and sponsored nine young black South Africans to live and work with us here in Belfast. It is a nation and people that are close to many of our hearts. Keep South Africa in your prayers as the nation struggles against problems that would (and have) crippled other nations: violent crime, massive economic inequities, and an AIDS rate of 40%.

Now South Africa has also lost one of their greatest voices of freedom, justice, and peace.

Rest in peace, Lucky.

Breakfast and Ballerinas by Jon Hatch

2007-11-05T12:22:00.000Z

There’s a wee girl who comes to the breakfast club that we run at Malvern Primary School. The first thing I noticed about her is that she doesn’t ever eat anything.

The second thing I noticed is that she looks so sad. I don’t know why yet, and I don’t know if I ever will. But last Monday, she still didn’t eat anything, but I did get here to smile.

She was sitting on her own, over by a box of books on a far table. I noticed that one of the books on the table of her was from the children’s TV show Angelina Ballerina, which my daughter adores.

I sat down by her and opened the book.

‘My daughter loves Angelina Ballerina’, I said.

She was probably so stunned to see a grown man reading Angelina Ballerina, she burst out laughing.

One little boy just couldn’t make the connection. In a fit of comedic brilliance, he shouted at me, ‘You’re a girl!’

There are a lot of things that I could say that I do as a missionary in Northern Ireland.

As of Monday, I can also say that I make small children smile.

The big day...

2007-11-04T10:34:00.000Z

Well, the day has finally arrived! What we as a Belfast DTS staff team have been planning for has finally happened. The students have started arriving! The houses are buzzing, and the excitement levels are reaching new heights with each one that arrives.

It’s been a busy few days as we picked the different students up from the airport, and exciting to finally get to meet them in person after looking at their names and pictures on our wall for the last few months. It’s odd to put a moving face and personality to the name!

It’s been so great to see their enthusiasm, to see each one of them taking their own individual leap of faith to leave their lives in their respective countries, and come over here to spend a year seeking God’s will and plan for their lives and spend some time thinking about what it means to serve God with our everything.

Having these students arriving here has reminded me pretty strongly of MY first few days on DTS. I can remember walking through the door of the house where we were staying (which, funnily enough is now our office! I type this blog from where my bed used to be!) and feeling the excitement of this step into the unknown, not knowing exactly WHAT it was that I was getting myself into, but knowing that this was exactly where God had for me to be that year.

YWAM Belfast DTS 2003-4 on outreach phase in South Africa

I can only pray that this DTS that I’m staffing now can play in these guys as big a role as mine did for me, inspiring me to attempt to live my life for God in complete abandon, and seeking to fulfil what it is that He has planned for me. I haven’t gotten it figured out yet, and I don’t claim to! But I know I’m just that little bit further along the journey because of that year I spent seeking to “know God, & make Him known.”

Cool?

2007-10-27T13:08:00.000+01:00

I was reading a magazine the other day, (for the sake of not getting sued, I won’t mention the name!! ☺) It had an article in it entitled “Hip” in which it showed you everything that you need to be cool in the world we live in today…
According to this magazine, the things I need are as follows:

This bicycle:

An apartment in this building:

This bag:

This particular brand and bottle of water:

And the list continues… These are the things that the world around us is telling us we NEED, the things that we can’t do without, the things that we DESERVE and owe to ourselves to have.

But what does God say? What is God’s ‘check-list’ of the things that we “need”? In the New Testament, Paul lists the things that we as Christians should have:

“Love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control”
Galatians 5:22-23

Maybe these things won’t draw turn heads as we walk along the street, maybe we won’t be upheld in the eyes of this world as a celebrity or a trend-setter because of them, but I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t such a bad thing…
The things from the first list are all things that we can buy with money, but they are also things that are (as the article suggests) “Hip” right now. In a month or so these things will be “out of style”. The second list, these nine attributes (known as the fruits of the spirit) may not win us awards, but we can be assured that they aren’t going to go out of style! What they can do is help us walk closer to the heartbeat of God, see people through his eyes and keep our minds focused on Him and His ideals.

I’m not sure about you, but I think that’s better than a bike.

change in northern ireland

2007-10-26T16:43:00.000+01:00

2007 has undoubtedly been an historic year. The "chuckle brothers" are on their thrones in Stormont and change is sweeping Northern Ireland: immigration, the housing boom, the re-imaging of Belfast as a post-conflict city, a gradual closing down of illegal activities by paramilitaries, and a SLOW increase in the universal conscience of our population towards caring for the environment and the global poor at the same time as their worship of the consumer god.

One unchanging fact is the continual decline in church attendance and the steady mis-trust of religion to offer any hope for humanity.

Roy Searle of the Northumbria community, described the situation both in the UK and in Western Europe as "the church being in exile...and we’re having to figure out how to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land." This "foreign land" is Ireland, but not as we know it. We worship this God of consumerism, we feast at our computer screens, and we dine on the back of cheap Chinese labour. God is at best a delicacy nibbled on by those in the Christian sub-culture.

If we are in 'exile', how do we get out, or how do we live with integrity and relevance. The worst thing we can do while in exile is sing about how happy we are, and how great things are going, and how revival is here. If we are in exile we need to realistically assess the situation, and offer consolation to those who have lost in this exiling process, and find God in the midst of the ashes of Christendoms past achievments.

What does this mean for organisations like YWAM and for training programmes like the Discipleship Training School that have been born out of happier times in church history. We need YWAM to be an agency that seeks to offer vibrant realism and hope to a church and society that has lost God. We need to live a prophetic alternative to the consumer God, and we need to be a catalyst to seeing more Christians do likewise whether they are YWAM ers or not. Our DTS needs to journey as society changes and be more and more relevant and not less and less.

Our hope in Northern Ireland is that our DTS' are being relevant, that they are places where seekers can sojourn with us, hear truths, apply them to their lives, see the world as God sees it, not through the lenses of blind idealistic optimists or pessimistic fatalists. But we need to see the world that is really there, and find the God who is there, and bring the two together.

In the words of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, "God is a stranger in the world. The Shechinah, the presence of God, is in exile. Our task is to bring God back into the world, into our lives."

community where?

2007-10-17T05:11:00.000+01:00

Mother Theresa said "we can do no great things, only small things with great love." I said in the previous post that there are possibly 4 great evils facing the world - poverty, ethnic and religious conflict, HIV and other preventable diseases, and climate change. Into a world facing such enourmous challenges it is striking that Mother Theresa's quote really cuts me. I find it easy to live in a world of grandiose dreams and at times illusions. Jesus is interested in us living in reality. And you know what? Reality can't be created by a graphic designer, it can't be posted on YouTube, no virtual image can be a substitution for the bare facts of life. Reality is what we walk out every day of our lives - its being a 'dreamer of the day'.

As I seek to walk out a life that is relevant, credible and meaningful I realise that I can't do it on my own. Peter Gabriel wrote a haunting classic entitled "I love to be loved". As I live longer on this planet I think I realise that that is the cry of all humanity - "I love to, I want to...be loved." Sometimes we can be tempted to think that somehow we are wrong to want to be loved, or that some how it is a mark of our insecurity...and one day when we are finally perfectly holy, we won't need anyone, except maybe God. But the truth is that we were created to be loved by God... and by others. Scripture says "God puts the lonely in families." We were created to have family, to have friends, to have community.

One of the most prophetic things we can do as individuals in the iWorld of 2007 is to live in community and to try and create community every where we go. For all of us these new communities will look different. There can be no ellaborate formula for what one is or isn't. But at the end of the day, at the simplest level, it is about human beings loving each other in small ways, and helping each other love others in small ways. For Jean Vanier this was what he tried to envision with "L'Arche", for Shane Claiborne it is "The Simple Way", for me it was a Youth With A Mission community in the heart of the Shankill and Falls Roads.

I recently heard Dietrich Bonhoeffer quoted as saying "the person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so earnest. But the person who loves those around them will create community." This is our mandate, our manifesto if you will, as YWAM in Ireland - to love each other and the world out there, in small ways, and by so doing create community. Its not our desire to create a little kingdom, but we want to be part of catalysing more and more people to make bold, risky, huge decisions to live lives that are made up of small acts of love in the midst of darkness and despair.

Coffee - the drug of Christians

2007-10-15T15:22:00.000+01:00

I am 67% Addicted to Coffee

So they say that coffee is the drug of Christians, well I am apparently 67% addicted, having done this test recommended on Donovan Palmer's blog. Click on it and take your own test...

Free Personals from JustSayHi

the J Clarks

2007-09-24T12:12:00.000+01:00

Back to work...

2007-09-23T10:32:00.000+01:00

Well for those of you who look up this blog, you'll notice that it has been entirely inactive since mid July. I guess the simple reason for that is that most of our staff take annual leave during the month of August and the start of September marks the resumption of our life, work and community here in Belfast.

There have been a number of changes since July. Most notable is that we (Jonny and Jenn) have taken on the role of national leaders for YWAM Northern Ireland. This has led to us deciding to spend 6 months living down in Closkelt, our rural training centre 45 minutes south of Belfast. While still being a part of YWAM Belfast leadership and going up to Belfast twice a week, we are as much as possible, trying to really invest our time and energy into seeing this base become more and more fruitful and integrated in Northern Iish society and into the broader vision of YWAM Northern Ireland.

At the start of September we had a staff retreat where all of our YWAM NI staff came together in beautiful Castlewellan castle, and spent time processing, listening to speakers, praying and relaxing. One significant focus of the week was to honour the outgoing leaders of YWAM NI, Mike and Ros Oman. In truth it was also an envisioning time as we realised that if we were to keep in step with the winds of change on this island, then we would need to have a vision bigger than just the six counties that make up the political state of Northern Ireland. Rather we needed to ensure that "there were not borders in our hearts" to the other 26 counties of this island, nor to the nations of the world, beyond these shores. It became obvious that as we journey as a missional community on this island that we are called to reach out to all - Catholic, Protestant, un-churched, asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants from eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. Followers of Jesus in Ireland are certainly struggling to figure out what is happening in their country: huge economic growth north and south of the border, a swell of immigrants from all over the world, and a surging distrust and disenchantment with organised religion. As YWAM we can definitely play a prophetic role in strategically reaching out and playing a role in meeting these changes with hope and self denial, rather than fear and consumerism that is becoming the norm in Ireland.

October and November mark the start of Discipleship Training Schools in Coskelt and Belfast. Both of these schools, and the one in January, will see over 40 people gather to find God's heart for their lives, for this island, and for the nations of the world. Bill Clinton recently said that he sees 4 significant challenges facing the world in the 21st century - climate change, poverty alleviation, disease (notably HIV/AIDS), and ethnic and religious conflict. As YWAM in Northern Ireland we desire to be rooted in the midst of these challenges and some how bringing the presence of God and his Kingdom to them.

12 nationalities together in Belfast to discuss faith in the midst of conflict

2007-07-17T20:59:00.000+01:00

Next Wave ship comes to Belfast

2007-06-22T23:35:00.000+01:00

My history with YWAM and boats goes back quite a way. This weekend YWAM's newest sailing vessel has come to Belfast on its maiden sailing voyage. The Lord Mayor has turned out to see it and a number of pastors, business people and lay men and women with a desire to see first hand what YWAM is up to...

But YWAM has been operating ships for the past 2 decades. In about 1975, the year of my birth, YWAM decided to purchase a ship in New Zealand called 'The Maori', it was to be the first of a number of a 'mercy' vessels that would sail around the world fulfilling the 3 core elements of Youth With A Mission; to train, to evangelise and to do mercy ministries. The year before the purchase was a year of huge PR campaigns and fund raising. By the time the ship was nearly bought practically the whole population of New Zealand knew about this group called YWAM and the ship that they wanted to buy. The end of the story was that one day YWAM's founder, Loren Cunningham had a vision of a crowd celebrating the beauty of the ship, but in the shadows lurked a neglected Jesus. Immediately Loren felt convicted that YWAM had turned their attention from God to an infatuation with a ship. What followed was a very public decision to choose humility and to stop the purchase.

Interestingly enough my parents had put their names down on the list of people who wanted to go and be missionaries on the ship...how my life would have been different. I wonder how many other families and individuals lives were drasticaly altered by that decision.

In 1978 YWAM had finally purchased a ship, and in 1982 I boarded it for my first and only time, in New Zealand. The Anastasis was a huge foating hospital, relief and training vessel. As a 7 year old I was pretty much awe struck by this organisation called YWAM that seemed to be brimming with vision, ideas and enthuiasm. A year later, my parents finally joined YWAM and I began a new life initially in England and after a year there, we moved to Northern Ireland where I have been ever since.

25 years after first seeing the Anastasis, I boarded YWAM and Marine Reach's (Marine Reach is the marine arm of YWAM now) newest ship, a 52 berth ketch that has a very real beauty about it. What's it's purpose- well unlike other Marine Reach ships, its purpose is not so much relief, mercy and development work. The captain of the ship, Brian Sloan, said that in many ways it is a living prayer for a Next Wave of missionaries from these shores that will go out and demonstrate the love of God to the nations of the world. It is a vessel that will be used for hosting leadership and discipleship training schools as well as being able to host reconciliation events on board as it sails into ports in places such as Beirut.

It is here in Belfast for just 6 days, may it be a prayer for this island, that we would once again be a nation that blesses the world.

Weekly Update With Michael Price

2007-06-18T11:58:00.001+01:00

So I like Scrubs. You know the T.V. show 'Scrubs' on NBC. well thanks to YouTube and the wonders of High-Speed Internet we can now enjoy this lovely video.

From Erin

2007-06-14T13:08:00.001+01:00

On Thursdays we all try to wear the same colours to the office, as a sign of unity.

Blog by Erin

2007-06-12T13:26:00.001+01:00

But the People Remained at a Distance

(the following is a blog I wrote for the SummerMadness website today, and I thought I'd throw it up on here, too. The preface is so you can read it in context of getting young people excited for serving in StreetReach.)

Right now I’m listening to a Rob Bell podcast, because I’m going to see him tomorrow night and thought I might just listen to a bit more of what he has to say. I really like the way he says “Jesus.” Maybe it’s his familiar-sounding Midwest-American accent. Or maybe I just like the way he emphasizes both syllables or something. But interestingly enough, Mr. Bell has inspired me about StreetReach, but also I was inspired about this idea of how to live a missional life.

He said this (regarding Moses giving the 10 commandments):

”But the people remained at a distance.”

This is probably geographical, but also metaphorical. We have been called to a divine task, and there is something within us that says, “I'm going to stay at a distance. You don't know, God, what I've done, you don't know who I've been with. I don't have the skills that that person has. I didn't grow up religious, so I'm just kinda clueless to all of this..."

…There is something deep within the bent sin-condition of a human being that we stand at a distance instead of stepping into our sacred calling to be priests and a set-apart people to save the world. Because that's God's plan.

I have high hopes for StreetReach, and what will happen in people’s gardens and hearts over the 5 day mission. But, truthfully, I have higher hopes for what might happen afterward, not so much in the gardens, but in the hearts. (Shall I make the seed analogy?) Let’s pray that we StreetReachers become missional in our lifestyles, not just in the way we radically serve for a few days in the summertime. Let’s name the fears and then scoot them to the side. What if we are in danger of becoming people who remain at a distance, though we’ve heard the call?

They’re collecting for the bonfire already on the Lower Shankill, and it’s the hugest pile of junk and wood scraps I have ever seen. The other day, when it was pouring down rain, I was walking past the enormous lot of rubbish piling up. Getting absolutely soaked. And I felt that I had the modern day image in front of me of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Elijah and Ahab were having a competition to see who had the most powerful God. They both were to build altars of wood, but not set fire to them. The real God would lit fire to his own altar, essentially.

The remarkable thing is that our God, and Elijah’s God, set the pile of wood ablaze. But he did it after four large jars of water were poured on the altar—three times! And this is what God did,

Immediatey the fire of God fell and burned up the offering, the wood, the stones, the dirt, and even the water in the trench.

God does not just the impossible, but the impossibly impossible. I thought about that as I saw the mountains of wooden crates and couches getting ready for the bonfire on the Shankill. I’d imagine, too, that the more impossible it all seems (this standing up and not standing by stuff) the more chance God has in showing up in His power, not ours.

Blog by Christy

2007-06-12T13:23:00.001+01:00

A little on good naps, zeal, the UN, and finding Jesus in the inner-city...

Somehow I seem to find myself still awake at 3am and I figure, now is as good a time as ever to write a little somethin' somethin'. I'll also try uploading a few photos...

This past week has been full. I finished my time off and got right into this past week. One of my highlights from my time off was a nap I almost took in a field full of tall grasses. I lay back to watch the clouds pass by (something I haven't been able to do since I was a kid...) and found myself dozing off. It was a great place for a little sleep.

Monday was the beginning of our new Peace and Reconciliation program, Incarnate. So far its been great! This week we listened to lectures by Jon Hatch on "The Kingdom of God". A big theme we talked about on Monday and Tuesday was what we can do to aid the poor. It was interesting to talk about issues such as dropping the debts of developing world countries, about the issue of child soldiers and, about what people are doing around the world. Man, the conversation really got going! Who knew YWAMers could get so zealous?

One thing that keeps on touching me and I just talked with Sujee about tonight is how international we are. I've become so used to it and, dare I say, even taken it for granted. As we sit about our houses or our lecture room, we represent a shocking amount of countries for such a group of people. Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Argentina, South Africa, Costa Rica, Palestine, Canada, England, Northern Ireland... its crazy, isn't it? Our director introduced our group as 'the future United Nations' and while we sat around talking about issues such as dropping the debt, this fully hit me.

So, we spent 3 days in the lecture room and 2 days working at a local Primary school here in the inner-city of Prod Belfast. This is the same school where we are a part of the Breakfast Club (we serve breakfast each morning to primary school kids) so its great to see the kids during the day and help out around their school too. We've been painting classrooms and things look great in there! Haha, we have seen some crazy side affects from being locked in rooms full of paint fumes but, we've all really enjoyed the week. One of my favorite parts about working at this primary school is the school's custodian, Roy. Roys a dad of 4 kids, is a huge Chelsea soccer fan and has a heart of gold. He really loves all the kids at the school, knows their family backgrounds and would probably do anything for anyone of them (even if it means stealing toast and adding extra spoonfuls of sugar to cereal bowls). Hes a great guy and working at the school gives us plenty of time for conversation. The thing that really gets me about this guy is that he isn't a Christian but he is in there serving, laying down his rights, loving those kids, and being an outstanding example to those of us who are Christian. Working in an inner-city school is hard - the kids are tough! - and I sometimes think to myself, man, if I wasn't doing this because I thought God has called me to it, I wouldn't be here... but heres this man. It really makes me think. He may not know Jesus personally but his heart and the way he works in his community is a picture of Jesus and that blows me away.

Alright... its 3:20 and I imagine I should try to fall asleep. Tomorrow morning is a busy church service. My dear Sri Lankan friend is doing a fund raiser at a near by church and I volunteered to help. We're cooking Indian curry during the service and then serving it as people leave the church. And man, Sujee's curry is wonderful! They're (I'm!) in for a treat!

Oh, and just as a little tid bit... I'm still off to Israel and the West bank as of July 15th. I'll be there for two weeks and will be part of a peace and reconciliation project there. I'll be working at an orphanage, riding camels, but am most excited about helping out in a refugee camp. I'll write more about that soon!

Lots of love,
Christy

a few photos:
These were taken at a little village near Gitega in Burundi...

These are the men of the village, trained up to be drummers as an occupation from the time they're approx. 8 years old. This art is phenomenal! Really, truly inspiring and gave me some dreams for possible music ministry in the future. Through their music they preached about the importance of reconciliation and can also speak on AIDS/HIV and the Gospel of Jesus. Not only do they support their commuinity but they enrich their culture and aid their country's peace efforts as well.

Blog from Jenn

2007-06-12T11:45:00.001+01:00

My son JJ is nearly 11 months old and he laughs all the time. Seriously he does, he even laughs in his sleep. I wake up every morning at 6am to the sounds of blah blahing and doh dohing and giggles. And every morning is the same- 1. I peek around the door 2. he sees me- 3. gets SO EXCITED! 4. scrambles up the crib to meet me, and Im sure pees his pants a little.

What a greeting.

I think one of the reasons he's so happy in the morning is because he knows how things work. He knows that after chatting away to himself for a few minutes Mom or Dad will pop around the corner, give him a change and a cuddle, some breakfast. Then maybe a trip into town, followed by lunch, some play, a nap, dinner, bath, bed.

Then Mom or Dad pops around the corner and 1,2,3,4.......

Now Im the first to admit Im no perfect Mom, but there is a unique and moving connection thats made when parent responds to child in love. When he's hungry you feed him, put him down when he's sleepy...you get it.
Why can't I be as secure in the plans God has for me? Why can't I goo goo to myself in the morning instead of stressing about how money will work or.....well any variation of the money thing really. Wouldn't it be great just to kick back in the big old pram of life and let God wheel me around? Every once in a while pulling over for a change and a cuddle and some mashed potato?
But then I would be out of control. I wouldn't sit back and be wheeled around at all, I'd struggle up to see where we were going and that if we turned left here we could really miss some traffic. Not such an enjoyable stroll after all.
And for some reason I think control is more fun than a ride through the park in the arms of my Abba.

Hmmmm

Well I'd love to write more, but you know who's calling at 6am.

Goodnight my friends
Mama JC

Fundraiser for Palestine

2007-06-08T10:58:00.001+01:00

DTS Gone - Blog by Mikey

2007-06-08T10:57:00.001+01:00

What changes have been going on around here?! The DTS is OFFICIALLY OVER, :( Incarnate has just started, :) and I’m watching the days go by until the summer comes and many staff and former students leave. I’m currently trying to compile all of the lectures from this past school and fit them onto discs for the students. It’s crazy just how many weeks went by and what amazing times we had. Here’s a quick view of most of our lecture topics and speakers:

1. The Father Heart of God
2. Catholic Theology P.O.V.
3. Reconciliation
4. Nature and Character of God
5. Salvation and the Cross
6. Jesus and the Emerging Church
7. Relationships
8. Holy Spirit
9. Adoption-Fellowship-Conflict Resolution
10. Celebrating the Banquet of the Nations
11. Post Modernity and Evangelism
…and so much more

Not to mention our many Reconciliation Tuesdays and our local outreach and trips we took. This was an amazing DTS and we all grew in so many ways. Ok, I got to go help set up lunch now.

pura vida

--mikey

Blog from Amy

2007-06-08T10:46:00.000+01:00

So this week brought a wee change for me- a friend who works as a teacher at my kids' school needed someone to look after her 14 month old for the remainder of term. her regular childminder had to quit and gave 1 days notice, so i've stepped in to mind him for the next 4 weeks! and whoa, i've not changed a poopy nappy in 2 1/2 years! but, it's gone well so far :)

in other news the kids and i are going up to corrymeela this weekend as part of the interface area samba band i've sort of joined. we're going to bond, practice more and apparently make sparkly t-shirts...not sure how i feel about that last bit. in fact it kinda scares me. the kids are excited to go because the really enjoyed it the last time we went, although iain and i are quite gutted we'll miss Doctor Who saturday night. boo hoo...

Blog from Becki

2007-05-10T14:37:00.001+01:00

Pádraig, the man I work with has a new pair of jeans. Flowery ones. I laugh at him. He says the jeans have a point... It's all about the love!
This week in Northern Ireland has signalled political leaders who have previously sworn to not engage with each other enter into government with jokes, laughter, assurances of political collaboration. A miracle. It's all about the Love.
I'm aware that Forgiveness, for all the technicalities of who, when, why, how long, etc. is all about the Love.
But I'm still not going to admire Pádraig's jeans!

Talk to you next week... Becki.

Blog from Pádraig

2007-05-10T14:35:00.000+01:00

We were out at a youth group last night, doing the third of six Forgiveness Journey sessions with them... this week we were looking at Revenge. We spoke about Revenge as being violent, or subtle, causing damage, or causing hurt, in response to a hurt that's been experienced. People spoke about how Revenge always needs to get the person back in a manner that is more hurtful, or more artfully malicious than the initial hurt. In our discussions together, it seemed that many people felt it was important to stick up for ourselves... The question was put out - Why do we take Revenge? What is it about us that feels that the way to validate our hurt is to take Revenge?
Adam Philips, a London psychotherapist, and seemingly well known amongst the psychological community, speaks of Revenge turning our "Rupture into story". Somehow the ability to bounce back and "get them back" with a "taste of their own medicine", whether quickly, or "as a dish best served cold" makes us feel like we are alive. It makes us feel like we have worth. It is saying "I have worth because I have the ability to hurt my perpetrator back".

A fascinating rationale! It is using violence to validate the rupture caused by violence. Yet, I know in my own bones that I can seek this ironic (and dangerous) sense of validation.

Forgiveness calls us to validate our pain in another way. It calls us not to quick or violent responses, but rather to sink into the ground of our own dignity. it calls us to consider that the person who has hurt us is a person. Even if they are depersonalizing themselves by acting inhumanely, Forgiveness always calls us to recognize the dignity, personhood & humanity of each individual and gain our identity and assurance from that as a fact, rather than our fleeting capacity to hurt them with greater magnitude than they hurt us. We will not gain any true self assuredness by returning violence for violence. We must sink deep into the ground of our heart and find dignity where it was placed - in the gift of life, in the breath of God that animates our bodies. We must rise from the dust of revenge and live as creatures of bone & flesh with hearts enlivened by the Spirit of God who loves us dearly.

The Great Porn Debate - Blog by Mikey

2007-05-07T11:46:00.001+01:00

I was checking out the latest blog by XXXchurch recently on their myspace when I came across an interesting debate that was happening in the Blog Comment area. If you're not familiar, XXXchurch is a moving church body who openly tackle the issue of pornography. They host mens breakfasts, open debates and even attend Pornography Festivals spreading out tracks and offering prayer. Their slogan, "We're not telling you what to do or not do here, but if you think you have a problem and you want help, we're here for you." (ok so it's a long slogan but who can knock that?!)

On their latest myspace blog, X3church told about the recent protesting that went on at one of their Great Porn Debates. I guess a lot of people showed up with picket signs to protest such a topic. Dealing with this issue will of course bring up conflict within the Christian body but my question isn't, "Why are we arguing?!" but rather "How are we arguing?"

It's hard to recall just how many people I have meet through the years, who have been burdened and hurt by the Church. Just last summer I was in downtown Belfast, skating in the city square when I started talking to these two kids. They noticed a picture of Jesus hanging on my key-ring and asked me if I was a Christian. "Well...yes." I said "I am a Christian. Are you two?" One of the boys said his mom is and the other paused...."I hate Christians", he said.
After talking with the kids a bit longer I found out that both of them were bi-sexual and both have had a lot of problems with the Christian Religion. "If who I am is such a 'sin' then why should I believe in your faith?" I was amazed to find out how well they spoke their Christian jargon with me. These boys have obviously been around Christians before, but..in Northern Ireland it's hard not too. I spoke with them for awhile longer and to my surprise, they sure had loads of questions. "What about hell?" "Is it okay to be gay and be christian?" "Does Jesus still love me if I'm gay?" "Why are you still talking with us?" That last question threw my back a bit. These kids were shocked to see that I haven't done either of what they expected; I didn't tell them to Turn or Burn, and I didn't walk away. I sat with them and I listened to their stories and I tried to handle their questions.
I left later that day knowing that I probably just gave them the greatest thing they could of asked for from a Christian...I gave them my time. I think that...some people want answers but everyone wants time.

So whether you're Craig Gross, debating the issue of Porn with Ron Jeremy in front of hundreds, or you're confronted by an angst teen about Homosexuality, or maybe you're talking about Abortion to a new friend in a coffee shop. I encourage you (and myself) to give the best gift you can give in those conversations...your time.

to find out more about XXXchurch and the Great Porn Debate please visit these sites:

www.xxxchurch.com/
www.porndebate.com

--
--mikey

Blog from Becki

2007-05-04T14:24:00.000+01:00

So this week has been quite crazy but good. The lads at Belfast Boys Model School can be quite insightful about their city. We have been posing the question about what Belfast would look like if the people here would stop taking revenge on each other and start forgiving each other. Many said it would help bring down the walls and one lad in particular said that Belfast would seem bigger. We asked what he meant and he said that the city would be bigger for him because he would be able to go anywhere instead of only being able to go into the areas on his side of the wall. Quite a deep thought for a 13 year old boy - "the city would be bigger".
That comment will stay with me for awhile and I will probably tell this story over again for a long time. Thanks for reading. Cheers.

Samba Mama - Blog by Amy

2007-05-04T11:53:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was a brand new experience for me- I joined a samba band! It took me ages to figure out how to do the bells I was playing but I finally got it. The band is part of an initiative for women from interface areas of Belfast. Living in North Belfast pretty much automatically qualifies me. The other ladies in the band have been doing this for 5 weeks already but I felt pretty okay because they messed up every now and again as well. The first weekend in June will be a residential up at Corrymeela- woo hoo!!! I'm also looking forward to practicing with help from Jon, my drum playing hubby. I want to do this right!

Blog from Pádraig

2007-05-03T10:01:00.000+01:00

I'm in Harpenden, north of London, for a few days, talking with a "Peace & Diplomacy Internship" being run by the YWAM centre here. We have been attempting to examine how it is that people of different creeds, with different ideas of the necessary outworkings of those creeds can engage in meaningful dialogue together, where the individuality of each is respected, but also where the deep ground of our common humanity is honoured & shared... I've been very impressed by the writings of Reuven Firestone and thought that I'd put some of his quotes here.

A Jew speaks to Muslims about the need to listen to Jesus

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus declared blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. The term children of God does not ring well to Muslims, because it suggests that God has children and partners in the godhead. Suggesting such a thing is called shirk in Arabic, or Association. …but the term in Matthew is a metaphor, and it is fair and honest to read it as such. Jesus does not suggest that God has children or partners. The suggestion, rather, is that as humans created with the divine image, when we make peace awe active our greatest potential of emulating God, the merciful and compassionate. The Qur’an teaches that, even if your most bitter enemy should show signs of moving in the direction of peace, you must do the same. “and if they incline toward peace, you must also include toward it”. Judaism teaches the same in Psalm 34”13-15.

Love, although the greatest of emotion,s is not always possible. we are only mortal human beings, only flesh and blood. Sometimes we just cannot love those whom we perceive as hating us. But if you cannot love them, you can still argue with them. Speak, talk, discuss, drink tea with them. Take your people to visit their mosques and churches, and invite them to visit your own. let them know how you feel. If it does not go well, keep arguing. Complain, explain, dispute, and bicker. Organize others in your cities and towns and villages to do the same. Always keep your argument and your discussion leshem shamayim. Do it for yourselves, for your communities, for your future and the future of your children and your children children. Do it for God.

Just Another Manic Monday? - Blog by Mikey

2007-04-30T15:37:00.000+01:00

I'm just getting new to this whole idea of 'Weekly Blog' and to be quite honest...it's scary! I mean, sure I enjoy my own writings from time to time and I've dipped my hand in poetry on more then one occasion but to have a dead-line of EVERY WEEK! Argh! I can feel my mind pulsating as I toil over things to write. "Should it be a work update?" I question myself, "Should I write a spiritual reflection? Or how about a poll of who prefers Blondes over Brunettes?". My mind races the clock as the day grows older. I come back and forth to this task, juggling it with my work like I'm my own act in the Festival of Fools.

Suddenly......the revelation comes! An Update: I'm starting up at Common Grounds soon as a volunteer on Wednesdays! So if you're in the Holy Land on Wednesday mornings, stop on by. :) More on that to come.

Here's a photo for your view pleasure...

--El Matador Miguelito
www.myspace.com/mikeyprice

Palestine Update! - by Lidia

2007-04-27T12:33:00.001+01:00

Hi, to all our wonderful people who are reading this blog...
Blessings From our Father:

My name is Lidia Lammardo, i am called Miss Argentina, and i have been working in Ywam Belfast, since 2005
I am currently organizing a 2 weeks outreach to Bethlehem...Having been there twice, i can tell you that the experience has been enjoyable, bringing personal growth as i was available to share my time and life with the community there.

So, i thought of posting this email with more details concerning the trip to Palestine, and you can pray and consider if God is leading you to come and be part of it...

We are planing to leave from Heathrow Airport, England, on Monday the 16 of July, and come back on Monday the 30 of July.
The first week will be kind of an orientation week, listening to the stories of jews and Christian Arabs who are involved in reconciliation work, doing some prayer walks and meeting the Christian community in Bethlehem.
The second week, we will be spending time doing practical work, in refugee camps, farms, orphanage and doing some youth programs. It is going to be hot, the weather will be nice, and no rain!!! I feel i have to clarify this fact with our lovely people from the UK, who are in love with the weather here!!!
But we will do some indoor activities and try to keep the afternoons free, when the sun is stronger.
I guess, in our hearts we desire to bring some encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Bethlehem, weather by sharing with them, praying or serving their country with our hands and work.

The cost: £320. It includes transport , accommodation, food,materials for the practical work and speakers gifts.
Every participant will have to cover his own plane ticket. You can check in British Airways, for direct flights to Tel Aviv.

I will recommend you to confirm with us as soon as you know that you will be coming, so you can get your plane ticket earlier and cheaper, in case of wanting to go ahead, just let me know, and i can send you an application form by email, with your personal information.
Finally, application forms will be received until the end of May. We can take some cases in consideration but it will depend on the matter of the delay.

Hoping and praying God will guide you in His will. Chau, Lidia...

Every blessings...Lidia
www.myspace.com/lidia_lammardo

Blog from Amy

2007-04-27T12:32:00.000+01:00

what a groovy weekend. jon had to go up to the north coast to corrymeela (http://www.corrymeela.org/ ) with ikon (http://wiki.ikon.org.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ) to plan their service at greenbelt (http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/ ) this august bank holiday.

turns out that the family of another guy involved in ikon had a caravan (trailer) right down the road and a 30 second walk from the water. they offered it to us so the kids and i could go up as well.

it was a really nice time for us- we've never been anywhere as a family without any sort of agenda. sure, jon had an agenda, but the kids and i didn't and hung out on the rocky beach collecting stones and shells and throwing them back in the water, walking out on the huge 'continents'- as iain called them- and trying not to slip on the seaweed. even though the sky was cloudy the air was warm and it was just so lovely.

we also got to have our meals up at corrymeela and it just so happened that a cross-community womens' group from belfast was up there with their kids. while the women have met together over the past year or so, this was the first time their children had met. it was just a joy to hear everyone chatting and the kids playing the way all kids play. my two, iain and eilis, had a good time meeting and playing with the other kids, too.

on a totally other note, dr who was pretty good this week! since it was the first of a two parter it was more of a set up for next week, but left on us with a good cliffhanger- a human/daleksec hybrid! weird! dunno how a more easliy killled dalek is supposed to be as scarey, but i'll just have to wait to see how it all unfolds on saturday night. i'm also liking martha, the doctor's companion more every week. the doctor's also toned down his shoutiness this season so he's not nearly as annoying as last year. so, whooooo!!! daleks!!! wheeeeeeeeeee!

--
We must repudiate either one of the two: Christianity with its Love of God and one's Neighbour, or the State with its Armies and Wars...Christianity, with is doctrine of Humility, of Forgiveness, of Love, is incompatible with the State, with its Haughtiness, its Violence, its Punishment, its Wars. -- Leo Tolstoy

Boys Model Update - Blog by Becki

2007-04-27T12:31:00.001+01:00

Hello again,

So here is another update on Belfast Boys Model. We met with the same students again this week and took a look at Anger and how this plays a role in the Forgiveness Process that each of us goes through. Through various mediums such as skits, small group discussions, and video clips we were able to talk about the various types of anger and how it is important to acknowledge your anger and hurt and process through it so that you do not bottle it up. The boys really seemed to get the concepts and the feedback from them was great. They are a really interesting and diverse group of boys and I am glad for the opportunity to journey with them through this Forgiveness Curriculum.
That's it for me. I will talk to you again next week and continue with the updates on BBMS.

Cheers,
Becki

St Paddy - first anti slavery activist?

2007-04-25T17:33:00.000+01:00

I'm currently reading a compact little book called "How the Irish saved civilisation" by Thomas Cahill. It's hardly a heady historical work but is a very simple reflection on the influence that Patrick and his Christian successors in Ireland had on the world. An influence that saw the preservation of much of classical culture, history and knowledge that was under threat following the demise of the Roman empire. Central to Patrick's work of course was the creation of an organic Christian movement in Ireland that changed the face of this nation for good, and deeply impacted the history of the world Christian movement for the next 1500 years.

In the book Cahill talks of Patrick's lengthy stay in Ireland as a youth when he was brought here as a slave, years of struggle and torment. Patrick ultimatey escaped miraculously from his slavery. At the time he wouldn't have known that he would be returning to this land, of his own volition, a generation later with a determination to bring the beautiful message of Jesus to a people that had no knowledge of this first century man from Palestine. In fact Cahill believes that Patrick was the first person ever to go as a missionary to an area considered 'barbarian', beyond the reaches of the Roman empire.

At this time there were many in Britain that made journeys to Ireland to grab slaves and take them back to Britain to work for them. Due to his first hand knowledge of the inhumanity of slavery Patrick became convinced that Christians should have no friendship with any who kept slaves. He wrote a letter to British Christians imploring them to have nothing to do with slave keepers. Cahill says "the greatness of Patrick is beyond dispute: the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery". Indeed he goes on to say that "nor will any voice as strong as his be heard again till the seventeenth century" on the subject of slavery.

One of these recent 'voices' was that of William Wilberforce who was the subject of the recent film 'Amazing Grace'. He was at the forefront of the movement to abolish slavery. This abolition 200 years ago was commemorated by a month long walk down the length of England which our R-DTS joined for 4 days. This walk, in yokes and chains not only remembered the abolition of slavery but drew attention to the fact that there are over 10 million slaves in the world today, many being used to harvest cocoa beans so we in the West can eat nice chocolate. Above is a picture of our team members on the walk and it also advertises an upcoming march. I encourage you to look up www.lifelineexpedition.co.uk and think about joining this march. St Patrick walked through life consistently defying the unjust norms of the society that was around him, let us walk in his steps today in the 21st century. Peace, Jonny

My Tuesday Pentecost Reflection - Blog by Pádraig

2007-04-25T09:44:00.000+01:00

It is the season of Easter currently in the church calendar. The church calendar always gives us 50 days of celebration from Easter Sunday to Pentecost – it is because the 40 days of reflection, repentance and fasting of Lent are always followed by a more lengthy time of celebration.

And it is timely to consider the Holy Spirit. We are perhaps used to many doctrines about the Holy Spirit – doctrines which are sadly used to divide. The praying in tongues, the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit – these are often the things which are used to decide whether one is in or out.

But I want tonight, here at Springfield Road, on the peaceline between the Falls & the Shankill to bring attention to something quite different. The ministry of unity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who, the western theological tradition, is the personified love between the father and the son. The active principle of love actually personified.

No wonder then, that the promise of the Holy Spirit was something that Jesus made, as he was aware that a time of crisis was coming for his disciples. There was nothing more beautiful & encouraging to promise. This was means to be a comfort, and a strength.

Rather than the indwelling of the Spirit being determined by whether one believes in one particular manifestation of the Spirit in the Church or another, I would like to ask a different, but yet, related question: What does it mean for us to have “accessibility” to the one who is living love?

From what I heard while on retreat in Taizé, Brother Roger was a man who had not had the easiest experiences of childhood. He seemed to have a singularity of self-awareness. This level of integration sat well with a man in his advancing years, but my guess is that it would have been a burden for a child who was growing up. One of the themes frequently repeated throughout his prayers is the prayer that puts the words we need into the hands of God. He would say things like:

“God, you have the words we need. In our wordlessness, your spirit groans for us. We rest in this knowing with peace”.

John Paul II said that when a person feels the prompting to prayer they may sometimes feel a distinct awareness of their prayerlessness. This prayerlessness may cause a certain depression of the heart, and a disempowering of courage, and a silent chasm. As an alternative John Paul II proposed that we understand the impulse to prayer as always and everywhere an invitation of the Spirit who is already with us, already groaning in us. Instead of an examination which we always perform poorly at, we should rather understand it as an invitation that is always prompted by, and assured of welcome.

This then, is the ministry of the Spirit that I want to highlight for us in our evening of prayer – the ministry of welcome, of vision, of truth-telling. Of leading us, through prayer of the heart, and through action in the community, to a vision and a loving encounter with Jesus, the one who is truth. This “ministry of the Spirit” rather than being seen as the battleground for divisive doctrines should rather be seen as something closer to the ground of our being, to the love by which each human being lives their lives, the actual principle, the kernel, the nugget and heart of love at the centre of the Trinity.

Thought Control - Blog by Mikey

2007-04-25T09:25:00.001+01:00

It's spring time here in Belfast. The flowers are blooming...the butterfly farms are open...the bonfires are being built for the 12th of July...."What?! Already?!" was my reaction yesterday to seeing the wooden crates pilled high on the Lower Shankill. I'll save all my comments and opinions on bon-fires to a strictly 'off-line' plane. But soon again, flags will burn, people will drink, and communities will be warm. Here's some pics I took from last years fire. (please do not use with permission)

--mikey

update from Christy in Rwanda and Burundi

2007-04-23T17:35:00.000+01:00

YFC, Milking, and Rwanda
Hello home! I'm in Kigali, Rwanda. My team and I just arrived last night via a long bumpy taxi ride from Gitega, Burundi. The last few days in Burundi we spent at an orphanage run by Youth For Christ. The work that YFC is doing there is incredible - they are currently running a home for 13 children orphaned from the war and HIV/AIDS. They are pioneering a new mission to affect the surrounding commuinity which involves building a primary school, a training centre and an extension on the orphanage to take in more kids. Our team helped the construction by hauling bricks and then hung out with the kids too. 13 kids all under the age of 5 = some pretty good times.

Oh, and I can't forget... YFC has a bit of a farm and I was out there, helping with the milking. It was great to be out in the crazy jungles of Burundi, milking cows. I loved it! One night I was out there milking, it was dusk, just after dinner. We had just had the little calf in there drinking from its mama to get the milk started and I was sitting on a little wooden chair, my head rested against the mom's side thinking, 'man, I could do this everyday'. Africa is wonderful and I am so Albertan. Woo who!

Now our team is back at the YWAM base in Kigali, Rwanda, getting ready for the adventure here. Thanks for all of your prayers! Oh and an update on the break in and stolen items: It looks like its going to become more complicated. There are a lot of details that I wont go into here but basically the hotel is being held responsible for what happened because of the safety of the rooms and the placement of the theives (the theives that robbed us were in rooms right beside ours so it looks like an inside job). However, the hotel is not willing to take responsibility so some legal action might be required. Right now, I continue to be concerned about our team... now that we've left Burundi, it seems to be really sinking in that we've lost some valuable items, some that represent a lot of hard work (laptops), and its discouraging. Thank you so much for your prayers as we press through. I really want to ask God for a miracle - that what was lost would be recovered.

Lots of love, Christy

update from Erin in Lebanon

2007-04-23T17:31:00.000+01:00

Hi, this is from Erin's xanga (www.xanga.com/ulsterpeace), it made jenn and I cry this morning when we read it. We are so proud of our teams in Rwanda and Lebanon at the moment...

lebanon week 3 & 4
week 3 and 4.

(pictures just aren’t happening…there’s been a slow internet connection…but please don’t let that stop you from reading on!)

Much has happened! And as we reach the ½ way mark of this grand adventure, I’ve been wondering how to communicate some of the exciting things that have happened. Instead of going through the itinerary with you, how about I just give you some stories?

king’s kids camp

Last week the team and I spent our time at an overnight Kid’s Kings camp that was held in a school. Along with a team of YWAMers from here and other helpers, the camp went off well, with an emphasis on Forgiveness and walking closer with Jesus. It was definitely a change of pace, keeping up with 9-16 year olds for four days!

The highlight for me was just to get to know some of the kids in a deeper way than I’d get to if we were just doing an assembly at a school, or some one time presentation. Throughout the week, our team presented our Forgiveness Programme in 6 different ½ sessions. I loved putting new creative twists to the programme—making banners, more interaction with the kids, new movie clips, and using different aspects of faith and of the intricate story of Joseph in Genesis.

On Thursday, we took the 30 kids from the camp into the very centre of Beirut. Right now there are thousands of people camping near there, and have been for months, to protest the government. Because of the protestors, many people have abandoned city centre, and for the lack of people there, many shops have shut down. The kids felt that they should go there and pray. It was a powerful time, watching children take leadership in prayer and vision for their own country and government.

louizeh evangelical school

This week we’ve been in an evangelical private school that’s about a 40 min trip from where we’re staying in Damour. When the school read about the curriculum we want to bring, they wanted us to come and take each of the 2 chapels in the morning, and every bible class that they give throughout a week. That’s somewhere close to 20 different sessions we’ve done! (It’s given me a new appreciation of teachers—your poor feet and backs! And vocal cords!)

The school is very special, with a broad range of backgrounds of the students. Though it’s an evangelical school, 70% of the students also come from either a Druze or Muslim backgrounds. Knowing this, we were advised to present our programme from a secular standpoint. Some, when religion or Christian faith is mentioned from the front, will switch off. We definitely didn’t want any kids to switch off, if we could help it, as we were coming with the message that any human is capable of giving forgiveness—this is not a value saved only for those in the Christian faith.

During our times in the classes, we spoke about Northern Ireland, and used its history and reconciliation process as a neutral way to talk about forgiveness and reconciliation. Those of you who have felt it in your heart of hearts that Northern Ireland is meant to be a blessing to many nations—we’ve seen that first hand this week. Though none on our team is from Northern Ireland, we tried to represent this land we’ve come to love, as best we could. As we spoke about Belfast and the people there, and spoke out people’s stories, we heard students and teachers make connections between Northern Ireland and Lebanon. Two geographically small countries that have caught the world’s attention at different stages.

Also during our classroom sessions, we would open up the time for questions. Usually we had more questions than we could answer in the time we had. If the questions the students were asking were any reflection of the deep thought processes that were going on in their heads and hearts, I would say that forgiveness has started to take root at Louizeh’s school.

I had a few experiences this week at the school that I really want to share. One thing you must know as I write, is that this group of students is not just dealing with forgiveness on a personal level, but also on a national level. A lot of their personal hurt has been caused by bigger powers, groups fighting on their own soil. Maybe that’s different than some of us, and it definitely challenged the borders of forgiveness—how far does it go, really?

One day during a chapel with the older students, David decided instead of telling his story, he wanted to continue the discussions and processing people were doing. So for 5 minutes, the chapel filled with over 200 students started buzzing. The seven of us spaced ourselves out best as we could. I headed to the back, and as I climbed the stairs I realized I was headed into dangerous territory—the 12th grade boys.

I sat down behind a row, and five or six young men turned around. After the awkward chit-chat that has to happen when opening up a conversation with strangers, one said, “He has a question to ask you, “ and nodded toward a young man that was sitting in front of me on my right, a guy with glasses, light skin and dark hair. He was shy but direct. He looked at me and asked, “You’re American?” I said yes, and he explained that he’s from the south of Lebanon. And then he asked, “Are you saying that I should to forgive Israel for what they did last summer?” I actually attempted to answer his question, and I don’t think I finished a single sentence, but sort of rambled on…then when my heart caught up with my mouth, I froze.

When I stopped talking, I started crying. The young man said, now him with tears, too, “I saw kids without heads or hands…”

And then I said to him, trying to speak clearly, though we were both emotional, keeping eye contact, “Maybe I should just stop trying to answer your question. I think you need to know that I am so sorry about what happened in your country last summer. And I want to apologize for America’s role in the suffering.” I didn’t know where that came from! I’ve heard of people asking for forgiveness on behalf of different nations and peoples, but I’d never thought I would feel in a place to do it. But then I found myself in a hard wooden chair in a school in Lebanon, 2 feet away from someone who experienced and saw and heard things that no human should ever have to. And how could I ever ask him to forgive his enemies if I couldn’t ask his forgiveness?

(If this is hard for you to read, or hard for you to get your head around, it’s ok. It’s hard for me, too. I can’t explain or understand governments or voting processes or international relations. But I think perspectives start to change and soften when you’re close to suffering, or someone who’s suffered. Jesus was close to suffering, and he gave answers in the forms of stories about seeds, trees, houses, birds…There’s an “everyone’s welcome” feel to this Kingdom, and that’s what I base my apology on.)

One class’ question and answer period was harder than others. No one seemed to have any questions. After what seemed like an agonizing eternity, one 15 or 16 year old boy raised his hand in the back of the classroom. He asked firmly, “So what am I supposed to do with the anger that has haunted me for my entire life?”

Because we were presenting secularly, it does not mean that we do not feel the movement of the Spirit, especially when answering questions from the classes. I said something to him about how I might answer his question, if only he hadn’t said the bit about haunting him for his whole life. My heart in that moment was broken for this tough boy in the back of the class, who did not break his stare. I talked about anger, and how some things have built up over time, so that as time goes on, as 15 years has passed in his life, the haunting anger (what a phrase!) becomes more and more unshakable. I told him to take time, to give himself time with himself and with a trusted friend and a school counsellor, to just begin to help, that is—if the question was about him. Coral added brilliantly about how anger sometimes comes after you’ve been hurt, or after something wrong has happened. She challenged him to do something positive with the anger, so that the same sort of hurt won’t happen to someone else.

The bell rang and we exited the class on our way to the next one. But David shared that as he was the last one leaving the class, that same young man came up to David and look intently at him and said, “Wait, I need to tell you. No one has ever been able to answer that question before. No one. Thank you.” And he shook David’s hand and walked away in a hurry.

From the older classes we entertained a lot of questions about peace and war, about America and the UK, about forgiveness on a grander scale, and forgiveness against the disastrous things that happen in life. To the many-times-asked question, “Is forgiveness always necessary?,” we answered over and over again, “We believe it is.”

During a younger class, a boy in the front finished our time with this group of students by raising his hand and asking this question: “When all the walls come down in Belfast and Northern Ireland is totally at peace, where will you go next to fix the problems?” Another one said, “Yeah! Come to Lebanon!” We all got wide-eyed and big-hearted and just “aaaawwwwwwwww-ed” at the boy! The sweetness and innocence of a child’s hope is sometimes hard to take into our reality-coated minds.

Several students came up to us and spoke about friendships that had been renewed during the week through forgiveness. One girl found it particularly helpful that we said that “Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting.” Another young man I spoke to during one of the breaks ended our conversation with saying that this whole concept is new to him, and to many in the school. I find that exhilarating! Bringing a Kingdom principle freshly to someone is like sharing Jesus with an “un-reached people group” for the first time.

Kids say funny things, too! One guy brought me a floppy disk and said, “Here, there’s a file on here with an image of God on it.” So let it be known, someone in Lebanon fit God onto a floppy! Another young man came up to me today, extended his hand and smiled, and then as we shook hands said, “Interesting outfit!” Listen, you gotta get creative when you pack a small bag for 2 months!

letters for lebanon

After every class, we read excerpts from the beautiful letters you emailed and wrote. When we read the parts of your letters in class, I loved saying, “from Ruthie in Northern Ireland,” or “from Jan in Missouri.” We truly feel we’re representing many more than just the seven in our group. Also, people have taken the book and read it all the way through, and have been deeply moved by your prayers and words of encouragement.

Thank you for your prayers for our team, for guidance, and protection. We have undoubtedly felt led and safe. Next week we are going to American University in Beirut (AUB) to give 3 seminars on Forgiveness at a student center, again we’ll be doing this secularly.

I should really thank and honour a few people—Jihad Nasr, our host; Dr. Steven White, principle of LES; Cecilia, guidance counsellor at LES; all the bible class teachers who let us take over their classes for a week!

MOVIES MOVIES MOVIES

2007-04-20T11:37:00.000+01:00

Click on the wee Photos to watch some videos about US!

Upcoming Events

2007-04-20T11:36:00.001+01:00

Ode to Rudyard Kipling - blog by mikey

2007-04-19T18:27:00.000+01:00

Currently Listening
Kill Them With Kindness
By The Jealous Sound
see related

I'm sitting at my desk, pondering the existence of man and drinking my wonderful coffee just the way I like it; milk with honey. (hmmm...it's quiet, think i'll put on some music now) (anyone fans of The JealousSound?)

What's in an occupation? My job right now, on 'practical' terms (i don't like that word) is on-line administrator for this ywambase, handling the accounts, and trying my hardest to keep an update onregistrar. On 'unpractical' terms, or the non-physically tangible areasof my mission work, are summed up in the way that I live my life. (Letme know when I loose you.)

These last three months have really got me thinking about my life and my occupation. What does it mean to me to be a missionary? Well...if you got answers, please let me know. ;) This past easter marked the 20th year that I've been a believer in Christ. And from those 20 years, the last 15 I've set my heart onbeing a "Missionary When I Grow Up". Originally this thought was extremely scary. Being eight years old and sitting in the uncomfortable church seats, listening to every visiting pastor whotraveled through my small Floridian town, my child brain, filled with bravery and fantasy, imagined that "I'm growing up to move to Africa and am going to be chased by Tigers!!!". It's irrational now, but fora kid I faced that strong reality with faith, courage and much fear. "Ok God," I'd pray, "if you came by fire and by cloud, then you canprotect me from tigers....right?" I'd say my 'amens' with a lump in mythroat.

Now days I know it's much different. I've been in fulltime missions for a bit over 3 years now and...I've never been toAfrica. Sure I've seen my share of tigers, but they've all been behindbars, or dodgy-chain-link fences. Oh! I saw a sloth once! Uh...I was15 and it was ...slow. At any rate, 12 years after those prayers, I'mrealizing that being a missionary doesn't mean that you're going to bechased by Shere Khan. But it does mean you can still be Mowgli. Eventhough my departments are in accounts, e-mails and maintaining theweb-site you're probably reading this from, I can still live with asmuch faith, courage and fear as I once did when I was younger. I'm notsaying that I want my best friend to be a bear and I want to walkaround Belfast wearing a Loincloth but...then again talk about ahead-turner!

What I'm trying to say is that, to me, being a missionary means to behonest to your heart. To follow your heart, wherever it goes, and totrust that those desires are from the Father. That's how to beMowgli. To trust that the Lord is speaking to you through the desireof your heart and to go at it with full force. And if that's everthreatened, then don't run but turn and face your struggles with faith,courage and fear.

And don't forget, all tigers are afraid of burning bushes.

--
--mikey

never work with children or animals

2007-04-19T12:05:00.000+01:00

I was in England last week, helping to run the children's programme for 5-7 year olds at a Family conference... and one of the children said something that I haven't been able to forget. Not because it was funny, not because it was innocent, but because it was true.

I asked them to think about the things that are in their heart. The general aim was that we'd have answers like "love for my mum" or "friendship with my best friend" or "patience" or "kindness". I set the question up, even gave them a general idea of what kind of answers I was looking for. you can picture the scene - lots of human skittles in front of me, all aching to be the one asked to give an answer... I got a few answers that fit the bill, but I've forgotten them.

Then the little lad answered. Bright & sparky - he was at the back of the group, and he spoke loudly. "Loneliness," he said. "there is Loneliness in my heart. Sometimes I think it's going to break. But it's an okay kind of loneliness. I don't have many friends". He was a chirpy little chap. He loved playing with the others. I think he was realising that loneliness is a part of life - taht there is a certain part of us that will never feel like we have totally shared it with another person. But he hadn't learnt the lesson of self-censorship yet. I didn't know what to say. So I said the only thing that I could.

That's the truth.

Never work with children or animals - they're sometimes cute and they sometimes speak the truth. I haven't been able to forget this.

In our work of Reconciliation with YWAM Belfast, I think that the acknowledgment that loneliness is a part of all of our lives - whatever groups we represent, whatever community we feel is ours, whatever flag we fly, whatever our motto is, whatever group we oppose, we all know a certain kind of loneliness - and this is an aching, heart-breaking kind of loneliness, when we allow it to speak - and it somehow is a voice that while one the one hand defines us as being alone, on the other hand builds bridges of community with other lonely belonging-seekers.

Never work with children or animals. They might just break you.
Pádraig

forgiveness at the boy's model

2007-04-19T11:54:00.001+01:00

We have begun working in a school called Belfast Boys Model, running the Forgiveness Journey for pupils aged 12-14 years. We will be working with them for the next 6 weeks talking about how to live a lifestyle of forgiveness. We have met 3 of the 4 classrooms so far with one left to go on Thursday. So far they are a brilliant bunch of lads who are interested in the topic and eager to learn. Forgiveness isn't easy, as one of them said, because it is hard to let go of the anger. It will be an interesting journey... Becki

amy's week

2007-04-19T11:51:00.001+01:00

what an insane week this has been. i accidentally douoble booked visitors for the week - a friend i haven't actually seen in 22 years (sheesh, i'm old) and, well, my mum.

tabetha came over from CA, and the pull was to participate in one of our Silent Retreats. we leave for that this afternnon and i'll be bringing my mum as well. she's gonna help me with cooking the evening meal and setting up whatever else needs to be done before the participants arrive.

after this week, a retreat is exactly what i need to decompress! even though i'm actually on staff and will be working the retreat, the atmosphere and in genral and prayer/reflection times specifically are so amazingly refreshing. i alwasy feel cleansed when returning from one.

well, time to run and finish organisingv the garden and taking my mum out for the last few bits of stuff she needs to buy for my kids and me :-)

cheers! Amy

YWAM Belfast

2007-04-12T11:34:00.000+01:00

Wordless groans...

2007-04-12T11:13:00.000+01:00

"You've been leading me beside strange waters, streams of beautiful lights in the night. But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys? If I loose my grip, will I take flight?" Bruce Cockburn from the song "Strange Waters"

So as staff we're trying to add more consistent blog messages and this is my attempt to write something of wisdom here.

Recently I was asked to speak at my church on the equally tricky and encouraging passage from Romans 8:26-30. The first verse of which says the following "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."

Now I don't know about you but that verse is one of the many in the Bible that I would have a fairly compulsive need to immediately overlook out of a complete lack of any sense of what its getting at...the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with 'wordless groans'!!!

Every human being has to confront the reality of hard times, suffering, bereavement etc - there has been this crazy theory that somehow if we call ourselves Christians we get some kind of divine 'get out of jail' or 'get out of suffering' card. The reality of course for anyone who has lived on this earth for a few years is different - loss and hard times are part of life- at worst our prayer to God can be something like what Bono wrote "You gave me nothing, now it's all I got...". Of course most of us try and move on from that feeling of utter nothingness and desolation...but that process of moving from personal desolation to thankfulness, faith and hope can be a difficult one. Because it is so difficult I think many people chose the road of denial or of believing that somehow God planned our misfortune for some reason that will make perfect sense sometime in the future, and may even result in much personal wealth here on earth!!.

For myself, 2004 was a hard year. On Father's Day in June, my Dad passed away at the age of 71, a good age but still really premature for such a wonderful man who typified grace, thoughtfulness and gentleness. This event came a few years after I had sojourned through a period in my life that I can only describe as a type of 'dark night'. Both in my 'dark night' period and in the wake of Dad's death I was confronted by the harsh reality that life is not always fair, not always simple, and not always predictable. How does this get us to understanding a Holy Spirit that intercedes for us with 'wordless groans'...

Well I guess in preparing for this sermon I had to preach, I did a bit of research and reflection on the 'wordless groaner'...the conclusion I came to was that when we are having a hard time there are two ways of understanding the Holy Spirit's work as described in Romans 8, either -

1. The Holy Spirit is suspended somewhere in time and space between us and God, groaning away in a manner that somehow makes sense to God and is comforting to us (this is a weird picture to me), OR

2. Somehow in the hardest times in our life the times when we truely have no words to say, or no prayers to pray, and all we can do is gasp, sigh, or 'groan' - these groans of pain, of questioning, of "Why?!" become prayers to God that are somehow mystically infused with the Holy Spirit. In fact we could say that Paul is encouraging us that these groans are every bit as much spirit filled prayers as those we sing or pray at the most joy-filled and faith-filled moments in life.

I don't know about you but I find this outlook deeply encouraging. Richard Foster once said that faith is not the opposite of doubt, but on the contrary faith is the opposite of certainty. For faith to be faith there has to be an element of the unsure about it. The reality for all of us is that life is about journeying ahead with a deep faith, knowing that we have a Holy Spirit that is infusing our 'wordless groans' with his life and encouragement. Sometimes there seems to be darkness, but God is hearing our groans as 'Spirit-filled' prayers.

The wonderful Bruce Cockburn penned the song 'Strange Waters' and it is a typical Cockburn-take on Psalm 23. In it he sings these words - "Lord, you've been leading me beside strange waters, streams of beautiful lights in the night. But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys? If I loose my grip, will I take flight?" For me these words capture the beautiful journey of following Jesus, the journey that is sometimes marked by confusion, hurt, mis-understanding, and loss. Yet it is also a journey we take with an 'encourager', a 'counsellor', one who intercedes for us with 'wordless groans'. Peace, Jonny

P.S. This is a photo of my Dad and Mum - John and Val Clark, pioneers of YWAM Northern Ireland from 1984-1994. One day I'll see my wonderful Father again.

--
Jonny Clark
YWAM Belfast
www.belfast.ywamni.com

cities of refuge.

2007-03-11T18:31:00.000Z

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Tell the Israelites to
designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, so that
anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there and
find protection from the avenger of blood. When he flees to one of these
cities, he is to stand in the entrance of the city gate and state his case
before the elders of that city. Then they are to admit him into their city
and give him a place to live with them. If the avenger of blood pursues
him, they must not surrender the one accused, because he killed his neighbour
unintentionally and without malice aforethought. He is to stay in the city
until he has stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high
priest who is serving at that time. Then he may go back to his own home in
the town from which he fled.

Joshua 20:1-6

I woke up this morning and made myself a cup of strong milky tea and a bowl of cereal, hoping to retreat into my room for breakfast, to spend a little time with the Holy Spirit, to make a decision of solitude, even if it were only to be an hour. There is madness in stillness, though that’s where God says I’ll find him. Or is it where I’ll know him?

My expectations for time with God, and thus I am cutting into that time now by writing, are to be deeply moved by the Holy Spirit. I expect guidance from Him who lives inside me but also all around me. I expect at times to be brought to knees or tears or both. I expect vivid pictures to enter my mind and I would be open to God speaking as if over coffee. I expect my inside tsunamis to become glassy seas. I expect to be convicted like a dagger through my heart. If only the spiritual world would come and swallow me whole, then I would know my reality!

This morning I pulled an old liturgy leaflet out of my bible, and the page it was in lay open there on my duvet as I ate my cereal. And the caption of this passage in Joshua stuck its hand out of the pages and grabbed my eyeballs. Cities of Refuge. Before I read the passage I assumed what the cities must be. How kind of God to order cities for strangers, for asylum seekers, for those who have contagious diseases. I knew it!, I thought. I knew my God loves the widow and the orphan, the poor and the oppressed, the downtrodden and the marginalized. And I knew my God must also have this City of Refuge for me, when I’m feeling like those words above. My heart jumped at the idea of Cities of Refuge! I think I might have even in that moment created a ministry with the stolen name. Cities of Refuge, A Home away from Home.

Because the words in this book were inspired by the Holy Spirit, they have a way to cut through the grey matter of our beings. Even a silly two paragraphs in the Old Testament Joshua. As I read the passage I was proven very wrong. The cities of refuge are not for any of the groups that had originally come to mind. The cities of refuge are for the wrongly accused, for their protection and for the sake of justice. Why would this be so important to God? Why a whole other city, with gates and walls and elders and assemblies, and not just a room, or a day, or another law?

I think it’s because God is just and anything with a touch of injustice in it cannot be close to God. Some know more than others that these days it’s very trendy to talk about social justice and the poor and AIDS in darkest Africa. For the sake of our own social lives it’s good to know some stats to pass around at dinner parties and friends’ houses, to know to say that we love what Bono stands for and initiates, and we may even have wondered about the sincerity of our I’m-really-concerned faces. But I’m not entirely convinced that us knowing about injustice and shedding the unusual tear is in any way what the Church’s response to injustice should be.

It is the profile of the wrongly accused that I want to put the spotlight on today, inspired by my friend Joshua. Those people who have fallen into our locked stereotypes, those people who we have completely figured out—it seems that those are the people God wants to build a city for and around. (Different for all of us, but here’s a few to start us off: the mentally handicapped, the homeless, city people, country people, different denominations of Christianity, gay people, immigrants, hippies, the financially successful, Middle Easterners…)

God have mercy on them when we beat at the gate, demanding they be brought to us to be judged. Keep them un-surrendered and safe. Protect them from our easy judgements, from our loose tongues, from our suffocating boxes, from the way we love to assume we have all the perfect evidence to condemn for the sake of our comfort. God have mercy on them but also us, their avengers of blood. Because if we look to you to see how you would handle the world’s accused, I believe you’d build them a city to protect them from me.

Erin Seibel
10 March 2007

when i grow up I want to be like....

2006-11-01T14:11:00.000Z

When I was a small boy, there was a leader on a bible camp, and I thought "I want to be like him when I grow up".
Now I'm grown up.
We're friends, this man and me.
Here's a reflection he did on radio recently:
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the very good CrookedShore.

Things I Notice

My daughter told me that her cousin’s dog had eaten the New Testament. I watched her face and observed her eyes and knew she saw the funny side of it as I did and we laughed together.

The buzzard turned lazily, languidly, then fell to earth close to a gathering of wheel-shaped hay bales, before turning up at the last moment disappearing over a hedge.

I lay on his bed, side by side with my young son, his head nestled in the angle between my shoulder and my ear. My thumb stroked his hand as he drifted towards sleep. And I saw that one day, in my later years, the scene could be reversed, and he would stroke the thin skin of my old man’s hand as he nurses me to a more profound sleep.

It was late afternoon. The sun was setting directly to the left of me, casting a long, prone shadow of forty feet or more over a ploughed field. It promptly sprang to attention at the sudden appearance of a hedge.

We sat together, a brown ring inside the cup indicating my coffee was almost done and we talked long and deeply of the collected wisdom of a city florist of his acquaintance.

My wife phoned me, and spoke excitedly of how she wanted me to be the first call with her new phone. I smiled affectionately.

A friend walks around the corner who ordinarily shouldn’t be here. I stop him with a hand on his shoulder, we talk and smile, then linger over coffee and conversation till time beat us.

These are the things I have noticed this week.

And it struck me that there is sufficient in each day to sustain a person if she or he has eyes to see.

In the first chapter of the book of Genesis, as God moved through his work, the one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that as each period passed God noticed it. There was time to pay attention. To remark on how good it was.

Later, on a journey through the desert God fed his people with miraculous food called manna. It required faith to gather it each day and to believe there was enough. Enough to sustain them that day, and to gather it afresh the next, not horded or stored.

Today, TIME is our manna. Given in quantities that are enough for the day. And tomorrow it will be given again, fresh. Time in which we have the opportunity to notice and pay attention. To believe that even in the midst of apparent barrenness there is sufficient.

[BBC Radio Ulster Thought for the Day on Friday, 27 October,2006]

your brain never sleeps

2006-10-06T08:33:00.000+01:00

On the way out the door last week, I asked if either of the two boys who live downstairs wanted to come with me to the grocery store. After an acknowledged nod from mum, they were both allowed to go, but only one came. So I had a friend to walk with to the shop. He was such a little boy in every respect, mainly in the way he kept pulling odds and ends, bits and pieces of random things, out of his pockets. The simplicity of it reminded me of my brothers, and other little boys that I've baby sat over the years.

Chocolates, wrappers, notes, pens, little toys. And when we walked into the store, he pulled out a juice box, which made me laugh out loud, to his confusion.

On the walk across the vacant parking lot, I mentioned that I needed to get toilet paper, ice cream and milk, but that we could get ice cream last so that it wouldn't melt. Shopping done, baskets full, I spoke out loud--Do I have everything I need?...

Little friend responded thoughtfully, "Well, you did say that you'd get ice cream last, and you have your ice cream...so you probably have everything." Ooooo, I love logic.

We checked out. He asked the cashier if I was actually paying, or if I was just using that gold card.

It had started to rain, which is a transitional phrase for every good story set in Ireland. Hoods up.

Little friend started to talk about the wonders of burping after a big meal, to leave room for ice cream. I agreed, and chucked in that God had some foresight when He made our bodies able to burp.

And suddenly, a statement that slid off the slick sidewalk--

"I want to be up flying with the angels."

Followed by,

"Erin, did you know that your brain never sleeps and your soul never dies?"

Wisdom from the mouth of babes, from babes who have a little bit of a Belfast slur, who play with plastic guns and frisbees, who throw rocks at the neighbors' window, who take care of the deaf/dumb/blind cat named Tom, tenderly. Even though he mightn't get the chances I've had in life...I know this wee boy is on his way to know God.

luscious lidia

2006-09-26T15:34:00.000+01:00

She's our Amazing Argentinian.
And is going to be focusing on the Middle East over the next while - taking Journeys of Understanding in November & over the summer of 2007, promoting peace and understanding, as well as action and outreach.
There are a few fund-raisers for her trips coming up. Check the dates below.

Can't come, or want to invite other people? Print out the picture and give it to your friends!

luke from lucan

2006-09-19T09:55:00.000+01:00

he spent a year in gaza and bethlehem
teaching english and learning... there is much to be read
and many thoughts to think in his writings...
click on the title to read more.

it's been a while

2006-09-19T08:58:00.000+01:00

but the manchild is growing
and we are all starting up
september is the *real* january in our little part of the
northern hemispheres I think.
everything begins again.

daughter of adam or son of eve?

2006-07-26T13:32:00.000+01:00

It's a manchild.
Congratulations to Jonny & Jenn on the arrival of J.J.

oh you cedars of lebanon

2006-07-25T13:03:00.000+01:00

Hmmmm, hope I'm not breaking copyright laws by posting this letter by Jim Rice, an editor with Soujourners. Click on the title to go to their wonderful site, and sign up for weekly insights into faith & politics.

The new war in the Middle East
by Jim Rice

What is the proper, appropriate response of a nation to violent attacks by terrorists or other radical extremists? We have seen one model illustrated in the response of the British government to last year's attacks on London's public transportation system, in which 52 people were killed and 700 injured. The British rightly understood the attacks as terrorist acts, but responded in a measured manner, dealing both with the investigation of the terrible crime and the need for enhanced security in its wake. Pointedly, the British did not opt for a military response to these acts of terror.

We have also, of course, seen an altogether different model of response, perhaps most clearly exemplified by the U.S. invasion of two countries - one of which was an actual source of the terror - following the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001.

Unfortunately, it seems to be in the latter spirit that Israel responded to terror attacks in the past fortnight. Provoked by the Hamas kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, Israel not only invaded the northern Gaza Strip but also destroyed a significant portion of Gaza's infrastructure, including airstrikes against Gaza's power grid.

Likewise, days later, when the Syrian-backed terror group Hezbollah seized the opportunity to raid northern Israel and capture two Israeli soldiers, Israel responded with a massive attack on Lebanon's civilian structures, from the Beirut airport to a dairy factory, civilian buses, bridges, power stations, and medical facilities, according to reports. Hezbollah responded by firing hundreds of rockets a day - more-modern, longer-range rockets than in the past - aimed intentionally at neighborhoods in Haifa and other Israeli cities. The result, not surprisingly, has been the death of many civilians on all sides.

The situation is clearly complicated by the role of Hezbollah as a part of the coalition government of Lebanon, which seems unable or unwilling (probably both) to disarm Hezbollah, which effectively controls the southern part of the country. The new warfare in the Middle East is also made worse by the sinister political manipulations of both Syria and Iran, who seek to increase their own power in the region no matter the human cost.

But Israel's use of military attacks in response to acts of terror raises many questions. The most important, perhaps, revolves around the issue of legitimate self defense vs. collective punishment. Israel is indeed surrounded by sworn enemies, including many who are demonstrably willing to violently destroy Israel. But does the real need for security justify the massively disproportionate response to an act of terror? Is the collective punishment of an entire population ever morally and ethically justified? As Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, put it in statement July 14, "The Holy See condemns both the terrorist attacks on the one side and the military reprisals on the other," stating that Israel's right to self-defense "does not exempt it from respecting the norms of international law, especially as regards the protection of civilian populations." The statement said further, "In particular, the Holy See deplores the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation."

Even apart from the ethical questions raised by Israel's massive retaliation, there are significant issues of efficacy: Does it work? Is Israel made more secure by a militarized approach? Israel has destroyed 42 bridges in Lebanon this week, along with 38 roads, communications equipment, factories, runways and fuel depots at the Beirut airport, and the main ports of Beirut and Tripoli. And along with the material devastation, the attacks constitute a terrible, possibly even fatal, threat to Lebanon's fragile and fledgling democracy.

Does the destruction of much of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure, so painstakingly rebuilt after years of civil war and occupation by both Israeli and Syrian forces, bode well for future peace between the neighboring states? In sum, will the Israeli attacks bring long-term security for Israel, or will they further ensure that the next generation of Lebanese and Palestinians - across the theological and political spectrum - grow up with an undying hatred in their hearts?

The violence of Hezbollah and Hamas should be unequivocally condemned and opposed. It cannot be ignored or underestimated that the two terrorist organizations have as their goal the eradication of Israel. However, much U.S. media coverage of this new Middle East war paints a misleading picture of a tit-for-tat equivalency between the two sides: Hezbollah explodes a bomb in Israel, Israel responds in kind. While their intentions are indeed malevolent, the two terrorist groups have nowhere near the military capability of Israel, which wields one of the most powerful military forces in the world (with the aid, of course, of more than $3 billion per year from the United States). The death toll in Lebanon in the first six days of the war has been tenfold that in Israel - according to The New York Times, 310 people, most of them civilians, have died in Lebanon while Israel has suffered 27 casualties, 15 of them civilians, since Israel began its attacks. (Similarly, 4,064 Palestinians and 1,084 Israelis have been killed since Sept. 29, 2000, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the Israel Defense Forces, respectively.

One of the most difficult aspects of trying to be a peacemaker in the Middle East context is the "separation wall" of understanding between the two peoples. The very definition of what is happening is understood in vastly different ways by the two sides. Supporters of Israel see the country attacked by its sworn enemies, and see in its response a necessary and justified act of national self-defense. Others see the region's most powerful military force (supported by the world's most powerful military force) illegally occupying Palestinian land and engaging in massive, disproportionate attacks on innocent civilians.

As Christians committed to the cause of peace, our role is not to "take sides" in the struggle, in the traditional sense, but rather to constantly stand for the "side" of a just and secure peace. We can ignore neither the horror of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians (including direct attacks on school children) nor the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories (with all its "collateral damage" to Palestinian children). We must have the vision and courage to stand against the acts of violence by terrorist organizations, as well as the massive state violence by the region's military superpower, while avoiding the trap of positing a false "equivalency" between actions that are not equal.

We cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the political, strategic, and moral complexity of the situation to stand back and do nothing. A first step toward a more comprehensive resolution is an immediate operational cease-fire. But that must be followed by a new way of thinking because, as a U.N. official put it yesterday, "The Middle East is littered with the results of people believing there are military solutions to political problems in the region."

Jim Rice is editor of Sojourners magazine.

A few things that can be done:

Be consistent in denouncing the violence of both sides - especially when it is deliberately aimed at civilians (or targets where great civilian "collateral damage" will be the result).

Pray for the emergence of new political leadership on both sides - both of which seem bereft of creative, courageous, moral, or even pragmatic leadership.

Challenge any religious voices that seem utterly one-sided, completely neglecting the suffering and legitimate grievances of both sides.

Pray for new ways for Christians and our churches to join our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters in finding real and practical solutions for a just peace in the Middle East where two states can live with security and democracy.

And pray for better solutions than endless war to solve the real threats of terrorism in our world, because if we fail, all of our children will be at risk.

Of Bullies and Bonfires

2006-07-14T19:53:00.000+01:00

So the empty peaceful lot across the street is growing into a big tourist attraction. The bonfire is reaching nearly the clouds as the "black cab" tours pull up in front of it and the surrounding murals and their sort-of-nervous tourists inside listen to their taxi driver tell of the old tales. Maybe some not so old. I can't say I understand my own feelings at the sight of the tourists. Is it a little like paying to see a traffic accident? Similar to finding fascination (there is a natural draw) to something that is so damaging and destructing? Am I feeling a sort of defensiveness toward this neighborhood now? Like the double decker sight-seeing buses are actually invading my personal space, as well as that of those who have raised their families on this road? I am asking God, what is my connection to this place, and is it possible to feel a belonging here?

O, Bless the tourists.

Because in a sense, I am one too. I'm just one with "missionary" stamped on my passport, and perhaps on my heart. The process God has me on at the moment has me thinking, in general, about value. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also"-sort of thinking. I've also heard or read somewhere along the line that you show how you value you something by how much time you give it/him/her/them (is that from Purpose Driven Life?).
What do I value? What hurts my feelings? What part of my heart is close to God's heart? (Do we agree that the pain that takes place here is too much and unfair?)

For instance, yesterday I was walking over to a staff member's flat to watch a movie (instead of the World Cup...I'm such a girl...) and I ran into 2 young boys that I have known for nearly four years now, and they were around during this past week when StreetReach was on. Some neighborhood moms might be tempted to call these 2 boys naughty. I certainly have on occassion. Last night, though, they seemed cordial and willing to chat. I should make note here that I was carrying my purse, a bag of crocheting materials, and a bag of movies. I should also note that the two boys were each holding a full bottle of 2 liter soda. Really...what was I thinking?

We did actually have a lovely chat, about StreetReach, and the StreetReacher girl volunteers that they had little crushes on. Out of the blue, one of them started to shake their bottle. My head told me to run, but my heart told me to just wait, that surely after our nice talk (and 4 years of invested love) he wouldn't think of...

...he opened the lid and fizz like lava poured out of the bottle. Where was my reasoning at this point? He shook the bottle in my direction with a grin--instead of sprinting, with all the grace I could muster, I sort of fell off the curb. Rising to the sinister little laughs of my 2nd grace bullies, I left them with a weak interpretation of discipline..."That's enough guys, that's enough..." And I hobbled off with a skinned knee and a very bruised missionary ego.

But I value them, don't I?, because they were able to hurt me. And there's the lesson for us--to allow ourselves to be hurt by those we value. The experience is valuable if I can then show at least a pinch of God's grace to them. (Let me insert here, before I become a complete victim, that I have been on the giving end of hurt, recently, and have learned that it's those whom I value the most, receive the brunt of my hurting words and attitudes. Where is the sense in this, I know not. The shame, however, is enormous when I realize the ability I have to hurt.)
Have you ever been somewhere, like a summer little league game or a camping trip, where one moment the sun is shining and you're stripping down layers because of the heat, and the next moment your sweat turns to chills and clouds have appeared from nowhere? And the atmosphere is changing everything--how you dress, how you relate, what equipment you use, how you communicate, what you communicate.

The atmosphere on the Shankill Road (and I can assume other high-tension areas of Belfast) coming up to July 12th is thick with despair and hurt. It's like a change in the physical weather, it changes everything, and can't go unnoticed. Call it what you like, it's creepy. We were driving home the other day and turned onto the Shankill and I noticed the slight turn in my gut. Red white and blue flags are strung zig-zagged up the street, along with flapping Union Jacks and painted curbs. While it could seem to be a holiday that encourages community togetherness, I see it as a holiday that drives people to huddle around a flag pole. But they're nothing like confident. Their knees are knocking because they're so scared, wondering what would happen if someone took their flag.

Was walking up the road to do a bit of grocery shopping the other day with a neighbor/friend who is pregnant. We ran into another woman, holding her newborn, and my friend commented that her baby must have come early. The new mom said that yes, the baby came 2 weeks early, "Thank f***." Sorry for the nasty expletive...just thought that comment, about brand new life, says something for what is valued (or not) here. I pray for that baby who is born into a world of bonfires and parents thankful to an four-letter word for her arrival. May there one day be much more to offer her.

Living In A Belfast Summer

2006-07-14T12:42:00.000+01:00

Here's a blog I wrote about July 11th of this year. Interesting day.....

--mikey

July 11th 2006

As I sit here at the computer, I'm go over my day in my mind. It's 1:02 a.m. ....... how i can get to sleep after today. Waking up this morning I wasn't sure what the day would bring. I felt tired, and sort of a weight on my chest, the same feeling I had when I was in India. Not that I was sick or anything, just the feeling that something wasn't right......... The day started off with some coffee, shower and cleaning the room. I'm currently living on the third floor of an extension to an old Presbyterian Church that's right across a youth drop-in centre for Protestants. The Peace Wall Starts with the Church, followed by a small factory and continuing on as an actually 40 ft. high wall.
I was in my room when I heard the yelling......a few neighbourhood girls where waiting to get into the centre when some 'Tags' started throwing the rocks. (A 'Tag' here, for lack of a better word, is what the Protestants call all of the Catholics. Wandering around the streets of the British side here you might see some graffiti saying, 'KAT' or 'Kill All Tags' or the 'FPSNI' meaning 'F*$% the Police Service of Northern Ireland') So I looked out my window and some kids, ages around 15 or so, climbed over the factory from the Catholic side and were standing on top of the roof, pelting any non-catholic they could see. A fist-size rock was thrown at the girls and missed. The next one smashed the glass door to the centre. The next one.......the girl was in the hospital this afternoon having to get staples put into the right side of her forehead just above the eye..........I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Could this really be happening? I mean.....these were just......kids.... The girls ran inside the centre, and the other kids ran off. For the rest of the day I had to walk close to the Factory wall just in case any 'Tags' were there. What an awful way to discriminate.
I knew what was going to happen later on this night, I just wasn't really....prepared. The pile of wood was built even higher then it was yesterday, reaching approx. 40 feet now. Just high enough so the 'other side' could see the flames. On top, rested the Irish flag blowing in the wind. Around 10 p.m. the crowd started gathering and the marching bands came in......the alcohol was poured and the 'party' commenced. Crowds came in masses, waving their flags, singing their songs as they all waited for the clock to strike 12. I felt like I was waiting out the New Year.....in the Bronx.
At 12 the fire was lit and the people cheered. The wood burned and they were happy. By the time the flames reached the top, the heat coming from the fire was to unbearable to be on the same block as it, so the people had to cross the street and stand back. You could hear the crowd yelling and singing but as soon as the Irish Flag caught to flames, the whole area shouted as loud as they could. The bottles were thrown, the Irish were cursed, the people were happy.
Even as I write this I know that the street is stilled filled with the Shankill residences, singing their hearts out as their own personal revolutions are taking place...one wooden crate at a time.
Tomorrow is the 12th. The day of Celebration and as many Parades as you can count. I'm happy to stay in doors and continue as usual. Write a few e-mails, do some computer work, plan our up coming dates...... But does any of it do any good? Does our weekly class about Forgiveness and Reconciliation, taught to the school kids, really do any good when there are massive fires to remember times of segregation and war? Would it help if we had a march, a fire, a cheer? I'm sure in my life I've built my own bon-fires, my own walls, my own standards of what makes a person 'worthy' to be part of my life and what deems them...not. I wonder if I had a fire, which flag would I put on top? Which would I want to burn?
Christ calls us to love our enemy. To pray for those who persecute us. I'm not saying that I favour either side in this on going generational battle. All I'm saying is that we don't have it right. Stop, stop for one moment and listen to what your heart is saying. Do you feel it too? Do you feel that weight that just screams, "Something's Not Right!" "Injustice Is Being Caused" "People Are Hurting!"
As I walked home tonight all I could think of is a simple prayer....
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
--St. Francis

strum that uke

2006-03-10T07:10:00.000Z

Despite the fact that James Alison is speaking at Greenbelt' 06, this is what I'm *really* looking forward to.

Faith, Action, Reconciliation - blah, blah, blah.
Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain - oh yeah.

the genius of girard

2006-03-04T14:31:00.000Z

continued silence, and snow in belfast.

visits from old friends (the dear mike & gail who were on staff with us last year), a riot in Dublin, discussions over whisky & guinness on who is the "us" and who is the "them", a new film by George Clooney, have led me to think that some thoughts (click on the title) from a frenchman living in the united states might be of use.

realplayer, patience & interest required.

bonne chance.

still a secret

2006-02-20T17:21:00.000Z

Not even we know that we've started.

All will be revealed at a staff meeting in the future.

Experimental

2006-02-15T18:14:00.000Z

Placing our scent on a small corner of the www, hoping to gather our thoughts, gather our insights and gather a community.

Welcome to the gathering.