Merry Christmas, everyone!
I'm just passing along the link to pictures taken here throughout December... some fun times :) As well as some sadness as it reached the end of the only semester for a few friends...
I'm off tonight to spend Christmas in the Netherlands with a friend from last year! So expect some lovely pictures-- this is a country I've never been to : )
I will catch you up before I leave for Romania in the new year...
Vrolijk Kerstfeest!
(Merry Christmas in Dutch:))
Leah <><
View the photos HERE!
Thursday, 21 December 2006
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Romania? Me??
"Ask not how little but how much can love give?"
--Amy Carmichael
Dear Everybody,
Main points:
1.) I got the job! Thank you for the prayers!
2.) I've been accepted to work with ROCK in Romania! Thank you for the prayers!
3.) With only a month and a half until I go, I'm needing timely financial support...The goal is to raise $1000.00 by January to go towards the costs of accommodation and flights!
The Job:
I'm sorry it's been so long and I virtually "left you hanging" in the last email! A huge THANK YOU for your prayers about the job interview. It was honestly to my utter surprise and delight that I was successful and was asked on staff at Parallel Options a week or so after. I read in paperwork later that my position usually calls for 2 years previous experience in the field, of which I have none at all, proving all the more certainly that it is by prayer alone... Since then I've been in training whenever time allows-- which makes for some stressful weeks and some heavy workloads, but I'm thankful. I've been interested in the Social Work side of things for years now and this, supporting vulnerable adults, feels like a little foot in the door.
I love that it's not a "normal" behind the counter part-time job. It's, in essence, a ministry of love. But I'm aware that such work brings with it its own variety of difficulties and, to be honest with you, I have very little experience with the mentally disordered, with their trials and joys and hopes and fears. Training has been intimidating thus far, the mental issues I'll be in contact with and behaviours associated with them rather scary, to be plain. I sometimes want to turn right back around and run the few miles back to the safety of my little room at college : ) But I'm trusting that He will equip me with whatever graces needed to represent His love in every dark place... I long to be compassionately understanding and to go in there humbly knowing that I stand to learn more from the people I'm working with than I have to give to them...
The Placement:
So, I've got a job to "put feet to my prayers" (right, Carol? :)) and earn the money desperately needed for this student/missionary lifestyle, but do I have the placement I wrote to you pleading for prayer about?
I heard back from ROCK yesterday and after a rather drawn out and involved application process and numerous hitches, I AM HEADED TO ROMANIA throughout January and February 2007!! This is still rather unreal to me, as Romania seems like the edge of beyond and those babies have only existed in my thoughts and prayers...
It feels like God just keeps confirming my place there-- despite the very real hardship that awaits me. Right now I'm studying for an essay due in Pastoral Care about emotional maturity and the writers are talking alot about child development, as our personalities are primarily developed by age 7. John Powell says that in the first 2 years of life, "the chief need of infants is for tender love, which is communicated primarily through the sense of touch'"-- and I think of the Romanian babies tied to the bars of their cribs to keep them from thrashing about and I think of the babies I saw in that video as a young teen so overwhelmed by human contact after months of the very barest of minimums that they turned away terrified but seemed frozen in horror.
And I wonder why I happened to be born to the parents I was born to, the father who saw to my every material need and held me securely cheek to chest, the mother who fed me, bathed me, loved on me during the day and rocked me to sleep in love each night, the older sister and brother who carried me about like a ragdoll and showered me with kisses and hugs and almost TOO MUCH attention! I can only conclude that I was born into what I was born into to be a platform to reach out from to those who weren't...
"Who can take away suffering without entering it?" --Henri Nouwen
The Plea:
I'm praying for everyone who can to catch the vision and feel a burden to pray and to give. I'm praying for the help of at least $1000.00 by the beginning of January and then putting forth everything that I can on my own as well. I'm praying for prayer warriors who will walk through this time in Romania with me-- starting from now as I strain to raise support and on through the journey as I dive into the culture and swim through the emotional turmoil of the nature of the work I'll be doing with ROCK.
Thank you for how you bless me, each of you in your own ways. I look forward to hearing from you, to knowing how He's moving in your lives as you so often hear how He's moving in mine : ) Thank you in advance for how you'll band together to help me in prayer and in sponsorship in these next few months of His years-- 2006 turning over to 2007. Thank you for understanding the gravity of all this, the life or death nature of this world's need for love as expressed in the faces of these abandoned children of Romania-- and gathering about me to do what we can to enter into that suffering and be His hands and feet...
His,
Leah <><
"Love eachother dearly always.There is scarcely anything else in the world but that:to love one another..."-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
--Amy Carmichael
Dear Everybody,
Main points:
1.) I got the job! Thank you for the prayers!
2.) I've been accepted to work with ROCK in Romania! Thank you for the prayers!
3.) With only a month and a half until I go, I'm needing timely financial support...The goal is to raise $1000.00 by January to go towards the costs of accommodation and flights!
The Job:
I'm sorry it's been so long and I virtually "left you hanging" in the last email! A huge THANK YOU for your prayers about the job interview. It was honestly to my utter surprise and delight that I was successful and was asked on staff at Parallel Options a week or so after. I read in paperwork later that my position usually calls for 2 years previous experience in the field, of which I have none at all, proving all the more certainly that it is by prayer alone... Since then I've been in training whenever time allows-- which makes for some stressful weeks and some heavy workloads, but I'm thankful. I've been interested in the Social Work side of things for years now and this, supporting vulnerable adults, feels like a little foot in the door.
I love that it's not a "normal" behind the counter part-time job. It's, in essence, a ministry of love. But I'm aware that such work brings with it its own variety of difficulties and, to be honest with you, I have very little experience with the mentally disordered, with their trials and joys and hopes and fears. Training has been intimidating thus far, the mental issues I'll be in contact with and behaviours associated with them rather scary, to be plain. I sometimes want to turn right back around and run the few miles back to the safety of my little room at college : ) But I'm trusting that He will equip me with whatever graces needed to represent His love in every dark place... I long to be compassionately understanding and to go in there humbly knowing that I stand to learn more from the people I'm working with than I have to give to them...
The Placement:
So, I've got a job to "put feet to my prayers" (right, Carol? :)) and earn the money desperately needed for this student/missionary lifestyle, but do I have the placement I wrote to you pleading for prayer about?
I heard back from ROCK yesterday and after a rather drawn out and involved application process and numerous hitches, I AM HEADED TO ROMANIA throughout January and February 2007!! This is still rather unreal to me, as Romania seems like the edge of beyond and those babies have only existed in my thoughts and prayers...
It feels like God just keeps confirming my place there-- despite the very real hardship that awaits me. Right now I'm studying for an essay due in Pastoral Care about emotional maturity and the writers are talking alot about child development, as our personalities are primarily developed by age 7. John Powell says that in the first 2 years of life, "the chief need of infants is for tender love, which is communicated primarily through the sense of touch'"-- and I think of the Romanian babies tied to the bars of their cribs to keep them from thrashing about and I think of the babies I saw in that video as a young teen so overwhelmed by human contact after months of the very barest of minimums that they turned away terrified but seemed frozen in horror.
And I wonder why I happened to be born to the parents I was born to, the father who saw to my every material need and held me securely cheek to chest, the mother who fed me, bathed me, loved on me during the day and rocked me to sleep in love each night, the older sister and brother who carried me about like a ragdoll and showered me with kisses and hugs and almost TOO MUCH attention! I can only conclude that I was born into what I was born into to be a platform to reach out from to those who weren't...
"Who can take away suffering without entering it?" --Henri Nouwen
The Plea:
I'm praying for everyone who can to catch the vision and feel a burden to pray and to give. I'm praying for the help of at least $1000.00 by the beginning of January and then putting forth everything that I can on my own as well. I'm praying for prayer warriors who will walk through this time in Romania with me-- starting from now as I strain to raise support and on through the journey as I dive into the culture and swim through the emotional turmoil of the nature of the work I'll be doing with ROCK.
Thank you for how you bless me, each of you in your own ways. I look forward to hearing from you, to knowing how He's moving in your lives as you so often hear how He's moving in mine : ) Thank you in advance for how you'll band together to help me in prayer and in sponsorship in these next few months of His years-- 2006 turning over to 2007. Thank you for understanding the gravity of all this, the life or death nature of this world's need for love as expressed in the faces of these abandoned children of Romania-- and gathering about me to do what we can to enter into that suffering and be His hands and feet...
His,
Leah <><
"Love eachother dearly always.There is scarcely anything else in the world but that:to love one another..."-- Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Wednesday, 25 October 2006
Please Pray...
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
--James 1:27
Dear All,
I write to you this time with a slightly different objective-- not to inform you of all the incredible things God's been up to in my life, but to call you to engage with Him in those incredible things...
I'm writing to rally your prayers-- for three things, really.
1-- My hopeful mission placement in January/February
2-- Finances for my mission placement in Jan/Feb
3-- The outcome of a job interview
I'm desperate for your prayer over my mission placement in January/February. You may remember that as part of my course here I am meant to go off on a short-term mission placement lasting 6-7 weeks each year. Last year I ended up in Belfast working at a regeneration project in an impoverished and war-torn part of the city. It was both incredible, and incredibly last minute as other opportunities along the way fell through. This year I've endeavored to get things worked out in a timely manner to alleviate a bit of the stress surrounding the whole placement experience.
One of the American students here, Kate from Michigan, put me in touch with a ministry in Romania called ROCK-- Romania Outreach to Christ's Kids (http://www.rockministries.org/) and I checked it out and almost instantly fell in love with the idea. This would mean moving to Romania for 7 weeks to hold, cuddle, care for, and love on babies abandoned to an understaffed hospital. The very thought of these littlest of God's children left there without someone to love them utterly breaks my heart... I got in touch with the administration in CA and was told that they were waiting for someone to get back in at the office and to keep praying about it and they would get back to me then. That was two weeks ago. This pressure in my heart is growing day by day. What started as a nice idea has become a burning passion. And I long to get to those babies....
I wish I could make you understand where I'm coming from on this-- how this very thought is testimony to our "God Who Doesn't Waste A Thing" (which ought to be an official name of God, I think :)). You see, it started when I was 14. I remember reading a book from my church library called "Acres of Hope" which was all about a foster family and how God moved in their triumphs and defeats. He awakened my heart to foster care then, hearts and homes open to love the children of the world who go unloved, and I've long wondered how He would use it.
Then when I was a sophomore in high school, God laid a burden for babies on my heart that went far past the "Oh, how cute!"'s and the "Oh, I just love babies." I do just love babies. Anyone who knows me at all ought to know it : ) But it's deeper than that.
"How much more there is in a baby than just sweetness and the appealing innocence of baby days," Amy Carmichael once wrote, "All the great thoughts of God lie behind that little life, all the great purposes."
In this, she expressed my very heart. He drove this home to me when my sister and brother-in-law had my niece Abby the Spring before I left for England. My niece exemplified to me all the greatest thoughts of God...
But I can remember one night as a sophomore (16, maybe?) when I was having trouble sleeping and in the wee hours of the morning I happened upon an old video cassette in a drawer. Curious about what was on it, I carelessly put it on, little knowing what I would find would move me to tears and forever after make a home in my heart. It started out as some news program from before I was born. Mom used to tape them sometimes, I assume, for when dad was working late and would miss the news. But then came this special about the psychology of babies. They did some study (over twenty years ago now, assumably) on fussy, perpetually unhappy babies and their relationships to their mothers. They found, not surprisingly, that the baby of a mother who was preoccupied with some kind of personal problem was quite distressed and wasn't connecting well with its mother, or anyone else for that matter, and was actually behind in all kinds of developmental areas. They then compared this to the development of orphaned babies in overcrowded and understaffed orphanages in South America.
The images of those babies staring out of wide, frightened eyes from between the iron bars of their cribs have haunted me since that night; the awkwardly-shaped bodies stunted in growth by the very absence of human touch; the way a baby's expression would register shock and horror as a human moved to reach out to her, and how she, in the end, seemed to just slowly lay her little face down into the mattress, overwhelmed.
My heart was broken that night.
Later, during my year at Concordia, I studied some developmental psychology and it all came back to me. In my fed up moments when I didn't think I could stand normal life a minute longer with all its selfish ambition and temporal focus, I would go searching for volunteer opportunities in orphanages in South America.... But it was always just a silly thought in the back of my mind. After all, from the viewpoint of modern-day, middle-class America, this sort of deprivation is the stuff of novels, not a reality.
But it is a reality. "The reason there are so many abandoned children in Romania," the website explains, "is when Nicolae Ceausescu was dictator, he demanded that every woman of child bearing age conceive and bear five babies. And the repercussion of NOT having children resulted in heavy taxing of the family members where the RESULTS were children who could not be fed and housed by their underpaid parents. So currently Romania has over 180,000 abandoned children."
And it's a stark reality. It would not be some airy-fairy dream-come-true placement, but hard-- perhaps more devastating than anything I've ever witnessed in my life. I'm aware that after this I can never be the same. Yet, my heart burns.
So, what I'm asking you to pray for is that God might open doors for me to join ROCK ministries for this year's placement in January and February. Please pray that the ROCK administration and I might have clear communication and we will be in good, solid, making-things-happen contact in the very near future as I have to be on placement somewhere and need time to arrange whatever it might be if ROCK isn't in God's will for me at this time (possibly working alongside church planters in Donegal, Ireland, or with an organisation that runs Christian bookstores across the UK, but I don't want to pursue these until the door to ROCK has been firmly shut in my face).
I'm also in dire need of sponsors. I know that when God calls, He also equips, and in my case I not only need to be equipped at the heart level, but at the financial one. I would ask that you might pass my name along to anyone you think might have a particular interest in orphans, Romania, or simply a struggling mission/ministry student aching to know the heart of God and to follow it wherever it leads... I will pass along the specific financial needs when I know whether or not I've got this placement this year, but right now it's looking like a flight alone will be around $400.00.
Last but not least, I covet your prayers over a job interview that I had this morning with an organisation called Parallel Options which basically strives to empower mentally handicapped people to live as independently as possible. My role as a Support Worker would be to, in essence, come alongside the clients and be a helping hand to enable them to achieve that independence. Because of a plan they have for student support workers, it would mean flexible hours week by week, freeing me up to put studies first-- which is vital. Obviously, I have no experience at all in this field which makes me doubtful about a successful outcome to the interview, but the fact that I got an interview must be promising, right? At any rate, I need this job, especially as placement time looms on the horizon and I must gather some money to put theory into practice and go on mission... Please would you pray that I get it!
Thank you so much for your continued prayers, for holding me up to our awesome God. You cannot know how your presence in my life across all these miles blesses and sustains me in this journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you for caring!
His,
Leah <><
"Only live for Him who redeemed you and trust Him to take care of you,
and He will."
-- Amy Carmichael, "Candles in the Dark"
(Go here to see a video from the ROCKministries website that really touched my heart...)
p.s. Jen, I'd love to talk about Romania with you in light of this!
p.p.s. If someone from Faith Baptist wants to spread this around to anyone who might be interested at church, I'd be grateful : )
to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
--James 1:27
Dear All,
I write to you this time with a slightly different objective-- not to inform you of all the incredible things God's been up to in my life, but to call you to engage with Him in those incredible things...
I'm writing to rally your prayers-- for three things, really.
1-- My hopeful mission placement in January/February
2-- Finances for my mission placement in Jan/Feb
3-- The outcome of a job interview
I'm desperate for your prayer over my mission placement in January/February. You may remember that as part of my course here I am meant to go off on a short-term mission placement lasting 6-7 weeks each year. Last year I ended up in Belfast working at a regeneration project in an impoverished and war-torn part of the city. It was both incredible, and incredibly last minute as other opportunities along the way fell through. This year I've endeavored to get things worked out in a timely manner to alleviate a bit of the stress surrounding the whole placement experience.
One of the American students here, Kate from Michigan, put me in touch with a ministry in Romania called ROCK-- Romania Outreach to Christ's Kids (http://www.rockministries.org/) and I checked it out and almost instantly fell in love with the idea. This would mean moving to Romania for 7 weeks to hold, cuddle, care for, and love on babies abandoned to an understaffed hospital. The very thought of these littlest of God's children left there without someone to love them utterly breaks my heart... I got in touch with the administration in CA and was told that they were waiting for someone to get back in at the office and to keep praying about it and they would get back to me then. That was two weeks ago. This pressure in my heart is growing day by day. What started as a nice idea has become a burning passion. And I long to get to those babies....
I wish I could make you understand where I'm coming from on this-- how this very thought is testimony to our "God Who Doesn't Waste A Thing" (which ought to be an official name of God, I think :)). You see, it started when I was 14. I remember reading a book from my church library called "Acres of Hope" which was all about a foster family and how God moved in their triumphs and defeats. He awakened my heart to foster care then, hearts and homes open to love the children of the world who go unloved, and I've long wondered how He would use it.
Then when I was a sophomore in high school, God laid a burden for babies on my heart that went far past the "Oh, how cute!"'s and the "Oh, I just love babies." I do just love babies. Anyone who knows me at all ought to know it : ) But it's deeper than that.
"How much more there is in a baby than just sweetness and the appealing innocence of baby days," Amy Carmichael once wrote, "All the great thoughts of God lie behind that little life, all the great purposes."
In this, she expressed my very heart. He drove this home to me when my sister and brother-in-law had my niece Abby the Spring before I left for England. My niece exemplified to me all the greatest thoughts of God...
But I can remember one night as a sophomore (16, maybe?) when I was having trouble sleeping and in the wee hours of the morning I happened upon an old video cassette in a drawer. Curious about what was on it, I carelessly put it on, little knowing what I would find would move me to tears and forever after make a home in my heart. It started out as some news program from before I was born. Mom used to tape them sometimes, I assume, for when dad was working late and would miss the news. But then came this special about the psychology of babies. They did some study (over twenty years ago now, assumably) on fussy, perpetually unhappy babies and their relationships to their mothers. They found, not surprisingly, that the baby of a mother who was preoccupied with some kind of personal problem was quite distressed and wasn't connecting well with its mother, or anyone else for that matter, and was actually behind in all kinds of developmental areas. They then compared this to the development of orphaned babies in overcrowded and understaffed orphanages in South America.
The images of those babies staring out of wide, frightened eyes from between the iron bars of their cribs have haunted me since that night; the awkwardly-shaped bodies stunted in growth by the very absence of human touch; the way a baby's expression would register shock and horror as a human moved to reach out to her, and how she, in the end, seemed to just slowly lay her little face down into the mattress, overwhelmed.
My heart was broken that night.
Later, during my year at Concordia, I studied some developmental psychology and it all came back to me. In my fed up moments when I didn't think I could stand normal life a minute longer with all its selfish ambition and temporal focus, I would go searching for volunteer opportunities in orphanages in South America.... But it was always just a silly thought in the back of my mind. After all, from the viewpoint of modern-day, middle-class America, this sort of deprivation is the stuff of novels, not a reality.
But it is a reality. "The reason there are so many abandoned children in Romania," the website explains, "is when Nicolae Ceausescu was dictator, he demanded that every woman of child bearing age conceive and bear five babies. And the repercussion of NOT having children resulted in heavy taxing of the family members where the RESULTS were children who could not be fed and housed by their underpaid parents. So currently Romania has over 180,000 abandoned children."
And it's a stark reality. It would not be some airy-fairy dream-come-true placement, but hard-- perhaps more devastating than anything I've ever witnessed in my life. I'm aware that after this I can never be the same. Yet, my heart burns.
So, what I'm asking you to pray for is that God might open doors for me to join ROCK ministries for this year's placement in January and February. Please pray that the ROCK administration and I might have clear communication and we will be in good, solid, making-things-happen contact in the very near future as I have to be on placement somewhere and need time to arrange whatever it might be if ROCK isn't in God's will for me at this time (possibly working alongside church planters in Donegal, Ireland, or with an organisation that runs Christian bookstores across the UK, but I don't want to pursue these until the door to ROCK has been firmly shut in my face).
I'm also in dire need of sponsors. I know that when God calls, He also equips, and in my case I not only need to be equipped at the heart level, but at the financial one. I would ask that you might pass my name along to anyone you think might have a particular interest in orphans, Romania, or simply a struggling mission/ministry student aching to know the heart of God and to follow it wherever it leads... I will pass along the specific financial needs when I know whether or not I've got this placement this year, but right now it's looking like a flight alone will be around $400.00.
Last but not least, I covet your prayers over a job interview that I had this morning with an organisation called Parallel Options which basically strives to empower mentally handicapped people to live as independently as possible. My role as a Support Worker would be to, in essence, come alongside the clients and be a helping hand to enable them to achieve that independence. Because of a plan they have for student support workers, it would mean flexible hours week by week, freeing me up to put studies first-- which is vital. Obviously, I have no experience at all in this field which makes me doubtful about a successful outcome to the interview, but the fact that I got an interview must be promising, right? At any rate, I need this job, especially as placement time looms on the horizon and I must gather some money to put theory into practice and go on mission... Please would you pray that I get it!
Thank you so much for your continued prayers, for holding me up to our awesome God. You cannot know how your presence in my life across all these miles blesses and sustains me in this journey. Thank you, thank you, thank you for caring!
His,
Leah <><
"Only live for Him who redeemed you and trust Him to take care of you,
and He will."
-- Amy Carmichael, "Candles in the Dark"
(Go here to see a video from the ROCKministries website that really touched my heart...)
p.s. Jen, I'd love to talk about Romania with you in light of this!
p.p.s. If someone from Faith Baptist wants to spread this around to anyone who might be interested at church, I'd be grateful : )
Sunday, 8 October 2006
Courses, Friends and Travel!
(View Pictures of the past 3 weeks here!)
Dear All,
A *quick* update (mostly just to send you the link to the bazillion photos I've been compiling-- The American girls and I have been sharing our photos so there's much more of everything!)...
This term I'm taking only 5 classes (each year the required classes becomes a smaller number while the work required for those classes grows!).
Ethics is taught by one of my favourite tutors, Rob Cook, and I soak it up. In this class we explore the "grey areas" of Christianity-- discussing issues that touch our world today, that God's Word doesn't speak directly on, to attempt to uncover a Christian ethic for the issue. Starting later this month we must break into small groups of three and create a 2 hour presentation on an ethical issue to put before the class! As you can probably imagine, I am dreading this with all my heart! My group will be exploring the hugely controversial ethics of medicine to inform the class of each side of the arguments surrounding it... CANNOT WAIT for this to just be done so I can get on with life... But the class itself is interesting, taught by a great thinker and seeker of Truth!
Pastoral Care is taught by a tutor called John Carter who comes in from another uni once a week on Wednesday mornings. I am very excited about this class! Pastoral Care is the area of ministry I am most interested in. A few examples of positions that fall under this title are things like Christian counselors and chaplains, but the skills of Pastoral Care are employed everywhere there are human relationships. The course runs all year, rather than the term or semester that most classes run, and is unlike the more theological and academic classes most plentiful at Redcliffe.
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit is taught by Derek Foster, one of my favourite tutors here at Redcliffe, I am not ashamed to admit, and has captivated me from the beginning. How multi-faceted and impossible to pin down is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit of God afterall?? We're studying perspectives on what/who the Holy Spirit is and what Jesus' giving Him to us means on a corporate level as well as personally. You can imagine how interesting the discussions are in such a place as Redcliffe with so many nations and denominations represented in one classroom! I love the challenge it is to think through all the different views and search for the one closest to God's own heart...
Psalms is, as you can imagine from the name, a class studying the Psalms!! And I adore it... It hardly feels like a theological course as I study the literary forms and contexts of the 150 Psalms, and work on a creative piece of work using a Psalm for my assessment at the end of the course! It brings up in vivid colour my fascination of the study of English Literature and does make me quite miss being an English major :) It's taught by the hilarious and brilliant Derek Foster, our Old Testament Scholar here at Redcliffe.
The Gospel of Mark is taught by Richard Johnson-- who may have just about the sharpest mind I've ever known, along with being the epitome of "absent-minded professor" : ) I love the Word of God so I take most any class that means delving into it deeper. This course will mean writing an exegesis on a passage in Mark, the study for which I rather enjoy if only I didn't feel so pressed by the study for everything else!
Somehow, there are never enough hours in the day.
Aside from study, I have been attempting to be extraverted to get to know the new people (Aside from Rachel and Kate, who are 19 year old American's from Moody Bible Institute and with whom I've become fast friends already!)-- though I burn out on that quickly. And we've been trying to make the most of Rachel and Kate's time here by finding ways to travel to nearby historic cities on Saturdays! Last week my friend Helen--whose husband is a third year-- drove us to Oxford for the day (do check out the pictures)! It was incredible to walk and touch and see the places and things I've only ever heard about and read about in this amazing historic university city. This week a new student called Polly took us to Stratford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare was born and raised. I'd been there once before when I was 14 and visiting England with my Auntie Melissa, but it all seemed brand new 6 years and a million experiences later! We spent the afternoon meandering through the Cotswolds and I fell in love with the enchanted Cotswold village called Bourton-on-the-Water (Pictures, pictures, pictures!) as well as getting to know Polly a little (who assures me she'll be my friend when Rach and Kate leave in December :))
Then today my pastor and his wife, Steve and Debs, had the girls and I over for a lovely Sunday Roast and then a Rugby match on the telly-- and it is soo lovely to settle into a family, especially one I adore so much as this one, and just feel at home amongst them. Steve, Debs, their daughters Bex and Megan, and Kate and Rach, my own little family for a day : ) It's a beautiful thing to find yourself at home when you mightn't be farther from it...
Anyway, so much for a "quick update"! Though it would be ever so much longer if I wasn't so exhausted after a weekend well-spent :) Do look through the pictures. I take everso many in hopes that I might bottle this up for you, even in its smallest measure.
All my love! I miss you so : )
Leah <><
p.s. Pictures here.
"Lord, may Your Spirit rest upon me and never depart from me. Prove your mighty power in my soul day by day, in such a way that all men will see that God is almighty to save and to keep."-- Andrew Murray, "Absolute Surrender"
Dear All,
A *quick* update (mostly just to send you the link to the bazillion photos I've been compiling-- The American girls and I have been sharing our photos so there's much more of everything!)...
This term I'm taking only 5 classes (each year the required classes becomes a smaller number while the work required for those classes grows!).
Ethics is taught by one of my favourite tutors, Rob Cook, and I soak it up. In this class we explore the "grey areas" of Christianity-- discussing issues that touch our world today, that God's Word doesn't speak directly on, to attempt to uncover a Christian ethic for the issue. Starting later this month we must break into small groups of three and create a 2 hour presentation on an ethical issue to put before the class! As you can probably imagine, I am dreading this with all my heart! My group will be exploring the hugely controversial ethics of medicine to inform the class of each side of the arguments surrounding it... CANNOT WAIT for this to just be done so I can get on with life... But the class itself is interesting, taught by a great thinker and seeker of Truth!
Pastoral Care is taught by a tutor called John Carter who comes in from another uni once a week on Wednesday mornings. I am very excited about this class! Pastoral Care is the area of ministry I am most interested in. A few examples of positions that fall under this title are things like Christian counselors and chaplains, but the skills of Pastoral Care are employed everywhere there are human relationships. The course runs all year, rather than the term or semester that most classes run, and is unlike the more theological and academic classes most plentiful at Redcliffe.
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit is taught by Derek Foster, one of my favourite tutors here at Redcliffe, I am not ashamed to admit, and has captivated me from the beginning. How multi-faceted and impossible to pin down is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit of God afterall?? We're studying perspectives on what/who the Holy Spirit is and what Jesus' giving Him to us means on a corporate level as well as personally. You can imagine how interesting the discussions are in such a place as Redcliffe with so many nations and denominations represented in one classroom! I love the challenge it is to think through all the different views and search for the one closest to God's own heart...
Psalms is, as you can imagine from the name, a class studying the Psalms!! And I adore it... It hardly feels like a theological course as I study the literary forms and contexts of the 150 Psalms, and work on a creative piece of work using a Psalm for my assessment at the end of the course! It brings up in vivid colour my fascination of the study of English Literature and does make me quite miss being an English major :) It's taught by the hilarious and brilliant Derek Foster, our Old Testament Scholar here at Redcliffe.
The Gospel of Mark is taught by Richard Johnson-- who may have just about the sharpest mind I've ever known, along with being the epitome of "absent-minded professor" : ) I love the Word of God so I take most any class that means delving into it deeper. This course will mean writing an exegesis on a passage in Mark, the study for which I rather enjoy if only I didn't feel so pressed by the study for everything else!
Somehow, there are never enough hours in the day.
Aside from study, I have been attempting to be extraverted to get to know the new people (Aside from Rachel and Kate, who are 19 year old American's from Moody Bible Institute and with whom I've become fast friends already!)-- though I burn out on that quickly. And we've been trying to make the most of Rachel and Kate's time here by finding ways to travel to nearby historic cities on Saturdays! Last week my friend Helen--whose husband is a third year-- drove us to Oxford for the day (do check out the pictures)! It was incredible to walk and touch and see the places and things I've only ever heard about and read about in this amazing historic university city. This week a new student called Polly took us to Stratford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare was born and raised. I'd been there once before when I was 14 and visiting England with my Auntie Melissa, but it all seemed brand new 6 years and a million experiences later! We spent the afternoon meandering through the Cotswolds and I fell in love with the enchanted Cotswold village called Bourton-on-the-Water (Pictures, pictures, pictures!) as well as getting to know Polly a little (who assures me she'll be my friend when Rach and Kate leave in December :))
Then today my pastor and his wife, Steve and Debs, had the girls and I over for a lovely Sunday Roast and then a Rugby match on the telly-- and it is soo lovely to settle into a family, especially one I adore so much as this one, and just feel at home amongst them. Steve, Debs, their daughters Bex and Megan, and Kate and Rach, my own little family for a day : ) It's a beautiful thing to find yourself at home when you mightn't be farther from it...
Anyway, so much for a "quick update"! Though it would be ever so much longer if I wasn't so exhausted after a weekend well-spent :) Do look through the pictures. I take everso many in hopes that I might bottle this up for you, even in its smallest measure.
All my love! I miss you so : )
Leah <><
p.s. Pictures here.
"Lord, may Your Spirit rest upon me and never depart from me. Prove your mighty power in my soul day by day, in such a way that all men will see that God is almighty to save and to keep."-- Andrew Murray, "Absolute Surrender"
Friday, 22 September 2006
First Week Back in England
"Where our depravity meets His divinity, it is a beautiful collision."
-- unknown
Dear All,
This past Saturday I arrived back at college and I now write this from my same lovely bedroom overlooking the vast back garden with a slightly warm autumn breeze wafting in through the open window. It's a whole new sort of strange this year. I smiled sleepily this time around touching down in London as the sights were familiar and somewhat mine. There was a polo match on the grass of a city park, horses, helmets and all. The porter called me love as he thanked me for his tip upon setting my gargantuan luggage down by the gate of my bus to Gloucester. I felt so calm, so aware, even though sleepy!
My friend's Beth and Paris (a mum and daughter from Wales) met me at the bus station in Gloucester with the two younger kids, Georgia and Isaac. Big hugs all around and many, "I've missed you"'s and some tears : ) I am so blessed. How different this year to arrive to the greetings of dear friends rather than completely lonely newness! And that was only the beginning! Once at college there were more greetings to be made and more hugs to be had and it truly felt a sort of homecoming which so eased the pain of having just left family and home again.
The new strangeness is in the emptiness of college without the dear friends from last year that haven't come back (though, thank the Lord, many people did-- there are also many who did not and it changes everything :(). This year's student population is the largest it's been in all of Redcliffe's 116 year history (last year I was the only American student-- this year I am 1 of 6! Including two really sweet new friends from Moody Bible Institute :)) but even so there is an emptiness : ( God in His grace knew my fragility upon leaving home to come so far away and placed people in my life last year who cannot be replaced and for whom I will be forever grateful. The new crop has a few gems of it's own, I'm finding, but it is a slow discovery having come out of a year with such a family feel and into a new one that feels far more institutional. It's been such a short while, though. God has much to delight me with in the coming year!
It seems increasingly clear that my life's story is meant to be written into Europe as I find it increasingly difficult to imagine going back to live in the States indefinitely. I am captivated by the people here, the cultures, the histories, the needs... I've only been back 7 days but it can somewhat feel as if I never really left as I settle seamlessly back into my Redcliffe life. It feels good to be back in England. My heart has come home here even as it left home in America. And I feel different this year. It's hard to explain yet it's almost tangible. I feel a new sort of freedom in my Christ, a new sort of boldness and confidence. Trust. He is a firm foundation and somehow this year I feel I know it in my heart like never before. He is bathing parts of me in peace where before I have known only anxiety and worry there. He is teaching me to rest in Who He is more than what He does. I have the undeniable impression that He is up to something (not that He's ever not up to something : )) and I can't help but feel excited and honoured and delighted and joyful and thankful that He's letting me be privy to it : )
I so want you to know what I mean. The beauty of it is that He's not a secret God and He doesn't do things in the dark so I know that anything I share with you about Him and what He's up to is open for you too to know and experience for yourself. And that's what I so long for everyone sweet enough to read my massive scribblings-- that you'll seek to know this God (either for the first time or just better!) and His unexplainable Love and illogical grace and inexpressible mercy. I know I call Him "my God" but He was always meant to be yours too : ) Don't miss out on that incredible gift...
So thankful for this extraordinary time He's given me in my life to soak up and learn and take in and experience, for the lessons learned through good times and the lessons learned in bad ones... Please pray that whatever each day may bring I won't waste a moment of this grace-drenched life!!
Much love,
Leah <><
p.s. If you'd like to, please pray for wisdom in discernment in choosing which classes to take and that He will provide a job that is "just right" to bring in some finances without taking away from my studies. Expect info on what classes I decide to take this term someday soon, as well as new pictures of the start of my new year once I get around to taking some : )
-- unknown
Dear All,
This past Saturday I arrived back at college and I now write this from my same lovely bedroom overlooking the vast back garden with a slightly warm autumn breeze wafting in through the open window. It's a whole new sort of strange this year. I smiled sleepily this time around touching down in London as the sights were familiar and somewhat mine. There was a polo match on the grass of a city park, horses, helmets and all. The porter called me love as he thanked me for his tip upon setting my gargantuan luggage down by the gate of my bus to Gloucester. I felt so calm, so aware, even though sleepy!
My friend's Beth and Paris (a mum and daughter from Wales) met me at the bus station in Gloucester with the two younger kids, Georgia and Isaac. Big hugs all around and many, "I've missed you"'s and some tears : ) I am so blessed. How different this year to arrive to the greetings of dear friends rather than completely lonely newness! And that was only the beginning! Once at college there were more greetings to be made and more hugs to be had and it truly felt a sort of homecoming which so eased the pain of having just left family and home again.
The new strangeness is in the emptiness of college without the dear friends from last year that haven't come back (though, thank the Lord, many people did-- there are also many who did not and it changes everything :(). This year's student population is the largest it's been in all of Redcliffe's 116 year history (last year I was the only American student-- this year I am 1 of 6! Including two really sweet new friends from Moody Bible Institute :)) but even so there is an emptiness : ( God in His grace knew my fragility upon leaving home to come so far away and placed people in my life last year who cannot be replaced and for whom I will be forever grateful. The new crop has a few gems of it's own, I'm finding, but it is a slow discovery having come out of a year with such a family feel and into a new one that feels far more institutional. It's been such a short while, though. God has much to delight me with in the coming year!
It seems increasingly clear that my life's story is meant to be written into Europe as I find it increasingly difficult to imagine going back to live in the States indefinitely. I am captivated by the people here, the cultures, the histories, the needs... I've only been back 7 days but it can somewhat feel as if I never really left as I settle seamlessly back into my Redcliffe life. It feels good to be back in England. My heart has come home here even as it left home in America. And I feel different this year. It's hard to explain yet it's almost tangible. I feel a new sort of freedom in my Christ, a new sort of boldness and confidence. Trust. He is a firm foundation and somehow this year I feel I know it in my heart like never before. He is bathing parts of me in peace where before I have known only anxiety and worry there. He is teaching me to rest in Who He is more than what He does. I have the undeniable impression that He is up to something (not that He's ever not up to something : )) and I can't help but feel excited and honoured and delighted and joyful and thankful that He's letting me be privy to it : )
I so want you to know what I mean. The beauty of it is that He's not a secret God and He doesn't do things in the dark so I know that anything I share with you about Him and what He's up to is open for you too to know and experience for yourself. And that's what I so long for everyone sweet enough to read my massive scribblings-- that you'll seek to know this God (either for the first time or just better!) and His unexplainable Love and illogical grace and inexpressible mercy. I know I call Him "my God" but He was always meant to be yours too : ) Don't miss out on that incredible gift...
So thankful for this extraordinary time He's given me in my life to soak up and learn and take in and experience, for the lessons learned through good times and the lessons learned in bad ones... Please pray that whatever each day may bring I won't waste a moment of this grace-drenched life!!
Much love,
Leah <><
p.s. If you'd like to, please pray for wisdom in discernment in choosing which classes to take and that He will provide a job that is "just right" to bring in some finances without taking away from my studies. Expect info on what classes I decide to take this term someday soon, as well as new pictures of the start of my new year once I get around to taking some : )
Wednesday, 13 September 2006
And I'm Off!
"Let's not pitch our tents in the realm of the norm. Knowing our King is an endless frontier of discovery, passion, and depth. To pursue Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength is to experience the fullness of joy."
-- Eric Ludy, God's Gift to Women
Dear all,
It's been quite a while since my last "dear all" letter : )
Just writing to inform you that I'm off to England again for my second year at Redcliffe College! I fly out Friday morning (September 15th) to arrive in London Saturday morning (Septermber 16th-- around midnight our time) but I leave Park Rapids tomorrow (Thursday, September 14th) morning to spend one last day with my niecey and my sister and my mom and probably my Grandma.
My heart's just not quite ready to leave everyone again, even while being psyched to get back to England and to friends and life there. I wonder at His plans. To think that He allows someone like me-- sooo attached to my family and friends, so shy in new friendships, so close to the ones I've been gifted with-- to move such great distances for such long periods of time is... somewhat hard to understand, but Europe has captivated me since even before I first stepped foot there when I was 14. So I pursue this : ) But this year I have an idea of what I'm getting myself into and if it resembles last year even slightly than I am bound to make some amazing friends that become like family and broaden my every horizon in ways I never thought possible-- while being challenged sometimes beyond what I think I can bear up under.
I still don't know of a specific direction career-wise for this education. I just know the experience will not be wasted, cannot be wasted. If I learn nothing else from my three years studying Him, His Word, and His ministry there in Gloucester, I will have learned how to cling to the God who knows it all and is happy to guide me along if I press in close to Him and trust.
So... here's to pressing in close and learning to trust!!
I'll be sure to send a more comprehensive report of the goings-ons once I've gotten resettled in : )
Much love!!
Leah <><
p.s. to continue in the fine photo-sharing tradition, you can see photos from my summer in the states here.
-- Eric Ludy, God's Gift to Women
Dear all,
It's been quite a while since my last "dear all" letter : )
Just writing to inform you that I'm off to England again for my second year at Redcliffe College! I fly out Friday morning (September 15th) to arrive in London Saturday morning (Septermber 16th-- around midnight our time) but I leave Park Rapids tomorrow (Thursday, September 14th) morning to spend one last day with my niecey and my sister and my mom and probably my Grandma.
My heart's just not quite ready to leave everyone again, even while being psyched to get back to England and to friends and life there. I wonder at His plans. To think that He allows someone like me-- sooo attached to my family and friends, so shy in new friendships, so close to the ones I've been gifted with-- to move such great distances for such long periods of time is... somewhat hard to understand, but Europe has captivated me since even before I first stepped foot there when I was 14. So I pursue this : ) But this year I have an idea of what I'm getting myself into and if it resembles last year even slightly than I am bound to make some amazing friends that become like family and broaden my every horizon in ways I never thought possible-- while being challenged sometimes beyond what I think I can bear up under.
I still don't know of a specific direction career-wise for this education. I just know the experience will not be wasted, cannot be wasted. If I learn nothing else from my three years studying Him, His Word, and His ministry there in Gloucester, I will have learned how to cling to the God who knows it all and is happy to guide me along if I press in close to Him and trust.
So... here's to pressing in close and learning to trust!!
I'll be sure to send a more comprehensive report of the goings-ons once I've gotten resettled in : )
Much love!!
Leah <><
p.s. to continue in the fine photo-sharing tradition, you can see photos from my summer in the states here.
Sunday, 21 May 2006
Update from Belfast!
Dear All,
(See pictures of my time thus far-- here!)
It's the beginning of my third week here in Belfast and I'm finding a home for myself, slipping into a roomy routine, and, for the most part, managing the accents : )
Having come here with the view of being put to use within the Children's work at Oasis, it's been a disappointment to have still not received back my criminal records check giving me the legal okay. But perhaps it's a blessing in disguise (He often seems to know what He's doing, after all : )) because in the meantime, I'm delegated to the Oasis coffee shop bussing tables. I have no complaints about the coffee shop (it is exactly the sort of place that I would want to frequent with my friends or my studies), the people I'm working with (Phil is a kind, young Christian guy who manages the whole place with impressive efficiency and knows most customers by name and Angela is a darling single mother of three who grew up in East Belfast and has a lovely gift-- as I find many of the Irish do-- of gab!), or the work, really. It's nice to know I'm needed and to feel helpful. But it was even nicer when I viewed it as a temporary position before moving on to working with the kids. Clearing away dirty dishes and rinsing out half-drunk mugs isn't exactly the first thing I would think of in terms of ministry : ) Still, I think there must be no better way to get to know the average East Belfast person trying to make their way in this part of the world than to actually get right in there and work alongside them...
I spent one morning helping out in the playgroup of 3-4 year olds back when we assumed that would be my position in only a matter of time (CRB check) and it took no time at all for the darling little children of Inner East Belfast to win my heart. Imagine the petite, lisp-y voice of a three year old and then throw in a very generous helping of thick Belfast brogue and see if you can resist adoring them as they draw you into their carefree world of play : ) The facility was impressive as well, with stations of educating play set up in an accommodating church hall and two patient ladies running the show. I felt immediately a "yes" in my spirit; "This is it. I fit here" --so ready to move in and love on these precious kids who will be the next generation of souls surviving in this troubled part of the city.
But instead I'm learning to humbly and happily step in where needed-- the coffee shop-- and cherish each and every experience here in Northern Ireland as a dear gift and a piece of life's puzzle.
My experience with Oasis is not at all limited to the coffee shop or children's work. Cliff, the executive director, though he at first didn't seem to know what to do with me : ), magnanimously invites me to every meeting he thinks might be informative. I have sat in on a managerial meeting for one of Oasis' projects called Imago, which reaches into the mental health issues to be found in East Belfast, and a sort of sales pitch of Oasis itself to a board of professionals. I've been able to (and will continue to!) shadow a dear sweet lady called Isobel who heads up a branch of Oasis called the Good Neighbours Project, which reaches out to the isolated elderly of East Belfast. Last Tuesday she and I spent our morning at Stormont Castle, where the Northern Irish parliament meets (think, Capitol Hill in DC), rubbing elbows with Members of Parliament at an Age Concern meeting highlighting pensions for women in Northern Ireland. It was such an unforgettable delight to be welcomed in to an official meeting with representatives from organisations all over Northern Ireland and indeed the UK-- dressed up, footsteps echoing down those wide, elegant halls, lunch in a regal, high-ceiling-ed room overlooking the expansive front lawn, and sweet Isobel to tag along with.
My greatest struggle, if it can be called that, is just feeling isolated. I miss friends! But the people I do get to spend time with are lovely. And in my freetime, I'm going out and discovering what I can of this city, especially this particular part of it. If we remember anything at all about Belfast, it's usually sketchy rumours of The Troubles. But East Belfast is the birthplace of C.S. Lewis and what was once his grandfather's church is just up the street from where I live. Interestingly, the doorhandle to the parsonage next door is in the shape of, can you guess?, a lion's head : ) East Belfast is also the home of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company, the very one that built the Titanic, and the two giant cranes that dominate the Belfast skyscape from most any view (my favorite one being from my hallway window!) are affectionately known as Samson and Goliath. I hear that the shipyard has been shutting down bit by bit over the years, adding vast unemployment to everything else the people of East Belfast are trying to overcome.
And the more I learn about all that needs overcoming, the more compassion I feel and the more I appreciate and respect Oasis' presence here-- reaching out to these people and attempting to regenerate the community. I'm continuing to reach a fuller understanding of the situation here and the needs presented in that. Each conversation is another chance to be educated, whether it be with one of my awesome housemates at who-knows-what-time of night, with the little snowy-headed man cleaning up the church steps on the corner who resembles quite distinctly the image in my head of what little old Irish men are meant to look like and so wins my heart immediately : ), or with the chit-chatty ladies in the coffee shop on a break from work. I feel so privileged to not just be studying about these people or their situations, but to actually be in it with them, walking their streets, hearing their stories, and bringing my own to exist alongside theirs... God is very much using all that I'm seeing and doing here to shape and form my heart and, I feel, my future, as I taste what this Christian Ministry stuff is about. And I hope He's using me to point to Him...
Again and again He is laying on my heart that it all goes back to Love. His Love-- translated through Grace. All the great things Oasis is doing in this community (for it is great; I have so much respect for and belief in this organisation as I've come to see it up close!) would be nothing without His Love.
"'The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church,' says Gordon MacDonald. "You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.' MacDonald has put his finger on the church's single most important contribution. Where else can the world go to find grace?"
I've been reading Philip Yancey's What's so Amazing about Grace--incredible book! And I've been thinking about His unending Love. I've been so challenged looking around me at this situation in Northern Ireland-- the seemingly solution-less problem causing such deep-seated hate and hostility... Even the very week I arrived a 15 year old catholic boy was brutally beaten to death by a group of protestant boys in Ballymena, reminding us that though things are better, they are far from healed... Already in two weeks time I find myself frustrated by how little I can do about anything. It just seems such hopeless foolishness from the outside looking in. And Northern Ireland’s situation is just one in a world of such foolish injustices; and a collective case to boot—He has the added frustration of knowing the very heart of every one of us, and who knows what kind of situations far outweighing the Northern Irish one He must find in there. I wonder that His love doesn't run out. This book has been His timely whispering reminder to me that it's His grace that makes that Love possible, a grace so deep and so distinctive...
And so, resting in His truly amazing Grace and reaching out through His unending Love, I am cherishing the challenge of this fantastic placement, taking it all into my heart, and falling more in love with Him by the day as I come to know and love this wee country and the people of it-- the only thing that can make any lasting difference here (or anywhere!). Thank you so much for your prayers...
His,
Leah <><
(p.s. Pictures here they will be updated off and on as I take more!)
(See pictures of my time thus far-- here!)
It's the beginning of my third week here in Belfast and I'm finding a home for myself, slipping into a roomy routine, and, for the most part, managing the accents : )
Having come here with the view of being put to use within the Children's work at Oasis, it's been a disappointment to have still not received back my criminal records check giving me the legal okay. But perhaps it's a blessing in disguise (He often seems to know what He's doing, after all : )) because in the meantime, I'm delegated to the Oasis coffee shop bussing tables. I have no complaints about the coffee shop (it is exactly the sort of place that I would want to frequent with my friends or my studies), the people I'm working with (Phil is a kind, young Christian guy who manages the whole place with impressive efficiency and knows most customers by name and Angela is a darling single mother of three who grew up in East Belfast and has a lovely gift-- as I find many of the Irish do-- of gab!), or the work, really. It's nice to know I'm needed and to feel helpful. But it was even nicer when I viewed it as a temporary position before moving on to working with the kids. Clearing away dirty dishes and rinsing out half-drunk mugs isn't exactly the first thing I would think of in terms of ministry : ) Still, I think there must be no better way to get to know the average East Belfast person trying to make their way in this part of the world than to actually get right in there and work alongside them...
I spent one morning helping out in the playgroup of 3-4 year olds back when we assumed that would be my position in only a matter of time (CRB check) and it took no time at all for the darling little children of Inner East Belfast to win my heart. Imagine the petite, lisp-y voice of a three year old and then throw in a very generous helping of thick Belfast brogue and see if you can resist adoring them as they draw you into their carefree world of play : ) The facility was impressive as well, with stations of educating play set up in an accommodating church hall and two patient ladies running the show. I felt immediately a "yes" in my spirit; "This is it. I fit here" --so ready to move in and love on these precious kids who will be the next generation of souls surviving in this troubled part of the city.
But instead I'm learning to humbly and happily step in where needed-- the coffee shop-- and cherish each and every experience here in Northern Ireland as a dear gift and a piece of life's puzzle.
My experience with Oasis is not at all limited to the coffee shop or children's work. Cliff, the executive director, though he at first didn't seem to know what to do with me : ), magnanimously invites me to every meeting he thinks might be informative. I have sat in on a managerial meeting for one of Oasis' projects called Imago, which reaches into the mental health issues to be found in East Belfast, and a sort of sales pitch of Oasis itself to a board of professionals. I've been able to (and will continue to!) shadow a dear sweet lady called Isobel who heads up a branch of Oasis called the Good Neighbours Project, which reaches out to the isolated elderly of East Belfast. Last Tuesday she and I spent our morning at Stormont Castle, where the Northern Irish parliament meets (think, Capitol Hill in DC), rubbing elbows with Members of Parliament at an Age Concern meeting highlighting pensions for women in Northern Ireland. It was such an unforgettable delight to be welcomed in to an official meeting with representatives from organisations all over Northern Ireland and indeed the UK-- dressed up, footsteps echoing down those wide, elegant halls, lunch in a regal, high-ceiling-ed room overlooking the expansive front lawn, and sweet Isobel to tag along with.
My greatest struggle, if it can be called that, is just feeling isolated. I miss friends! But the people I do get to spend time with are lovely. And in my freetime, I'm going out and discovering what I can of this city, especially this particular part of it. If we remember anything at all about Belfast, it's usually sketchy rumours of The Troubles. But East Belfast is the birthplace of C.S. Lewis and what was once his grandfather's church is just up the street from where I live. Interestingly, the doorhandle to the parsonage next door is in the shape of, can you guess?, a lion's head : ) East Belfast is also the home of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company, the very one that built the Titanic, and the two giant cranes that dominate the Belfast skyscape from most any view (my favorite one being from my hallway window!) are affectionately known as Samson and Goliath. I hear that the shipyard has been shutting down bit by bit over the years, adding vast unemployment to everything else the people of East Belfast are trying to overcome.
And the more I learn about all that needs overcoming, the more compassion I feel and the more I appreciate and respect Oasis' presence here-- reaching out to these people and attempting to regenerate the community. I'm continuing to reach a fuller understanding of the situation here and the needs presented in that. Each conversation is another chance to be educated, whether it be with one of my awesome housemates at who-knows-what-time of night, with the little snowy-headed man cleaning up the church steps on the corner who resembles quite distinctly the image in my head of what little old Irish men are meant to look like and so wins my heart immediately : ), or with the chit-chatty ladies in the coffee shop on a break from work. I feel so privileged to not just be studying about these people or their situations, but to actually be in it with them, walking their streets, hearing their stories, and bringing my own to exist alongside theirs... God is very much using all that I'm seeing and doing here to shape and form my heart and, I feel, my future, as I taste what this Christian Ministry stuff is about. And I hope He's using me to point to Him...
Again and again He is laying on my heart that it all goes back to Love. His Love-- translated through Grace. All the great things Oasis is doing in this community (for it is great; I have so much respect for and belief in this organisation as I've come to see it up close!) would be nothing without His Love.
"'The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church,' says Gordon MacDonald. "You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer grace.' MacDonald has put his finger on the church's single most important contribution. Where else can the world go to find grace?"
I've been reading Philip Yancey's What's so Amazing about Grace--incredible book! And I've been thinking about His unending Love. I've been so challenged looking around me at this situation in Northern Ireland-- the seemingly solution-less problem causing such deep-seated hate and hostility... Even the very week I arrived a 15 year old catholic boy was brutally beaten to death by a group of protestant boys in Ballymena, reminding us that though things are better, they are far from healed... Already in two weeks time I find myself frustrated by how little I can do about anything. It just seems such hopeless foolishness from the outside looking in. And Northern Ireland’s situation is just one in a world of such foolish injustices; and a collective case to boot—He has the added frustration of knowing the very heart of every one of us, and who knows what kind of situations far outweighing the Northern Irish one He must find in there. I wonder that His love doesn't run out. This book has been His timely whispering reminder to me that it's His grace that makes that Love possible, a grace so deep and so distinctive...
And so, resting in His truly amazing Grace and reaching out through His unending Love, I am cherishing the challenge of this fantastic placement, taking it all into my heart, and falling more in love with Him by the day as I come to know and love this wee country and the people of it-- the only thing that can make any lasting difference here (or anywhere!). Thank you so much for your prayers...
His,
Leah <><
(p.s. Pictures here they will be updated off and on as I take more!)
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