Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am missing you all - but don't worry, Doug is having all of the YAVs (and a few others) over on Saturday to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast. I just wanted to share an article with you that I wrote for the church's magazine. Enjoy!:
When I was a little girl, I was taught this about Thanksgiving: In a quest for religious freedom, the Pilgrims sailed from England on the Mayflower and settled at Plymouth Rock in what is now known as Massachusetts. They wore all black with white bonnets for women or black hats with buckles for men (please see pictures on the left for an example). Their first winter in Plymouth Rock was very difficult, and many people in their new settlement died. The next spring, the Pilgrims befriended friendly Native Americans who taught them how to plant and harvest corn (among other vegetables). That autumn the Pilgrims had a great harvest, so the Pilgrims and Native Americans sat down together and had a great feast to thank God for their harvest.
This story, although lovely, is hardly reflective of what truly happened or why people all over the U.S. really celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Most people in the States would say that Thanksgiving is the day where we give thanks (to God or whatever “higher power” in which you may believe) for all that we have. We tend to ignore, though, what was truly in our history – taking land from the Native Americans, brutally killing tribes of people, forcefully making them move hundreds of miles away from the homeland of their ancestors. Isn’t that a little ironic? We thank God for the bounty we are given, but conveniently forget that our “blessings” have come at a great cost to others.
Personally, I like to remember the romanticized version of the story; it brings back memories of past Thanksgivings where I would dress up as a Pilgrim girl and my brother would wear a paper head band with feathers on it and a vest made out of a paper bag and sit down to dinner as a Native American. I think it’s only human to want to remember the good and try to forget the bad. My hope is that some day reality and ideals meet; that someday my kids, or grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren, will be able to look back on Thanksgivings of the past and be thankful that there is truly reconciliation between people of different races, ethnicities, religions, political parties (God help us!), and so on. That is the prayer of this American on Thanksgiving this year.
23 November 2008
Yesterday (Saturday) was the best day I had in Northern Ireland so far. Melanie, a woman who goes to the church, took us up the Antrim coast to see the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-rede. It was GORGEOUS! Melanie’s friend Heather also came along – and the four of us had a great time. I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard or as long as I did yesterday in a loooong time. Melanie and Heather were great tour guides, and just nice to be around. I really appreciated having a day where I did not have to think about anything associated with volunteering, and I came back exhausted, but refreshed and ready to tackle the ‘American’ breakfast fundraiser Kevin and I organized for this morning (I put up some pictures from the excursion on our ‘pictures’ page – so check them out!).
This morning before church we had a breakfast to raise money for The Point (that’s the church’s youth group). It was advertised as the ‘American’ Breakfast, so we tried to make it as American as possible serving chocolate chip pancakes, Aunt Jemima’s syrup (which we had to get shipped to us from a shop on eBay), brewed coffee (they more often drink this nasty Nescafe stuff over here – yuck), eggs, ‘streaky’ bacon (they eat more of a Canadian-style bacon here), and sausage. People liked the food and as far as I know no one got food poisoning, so all in all I would say the breakfast was a success! We raised at least £140 too, so that will help us pay for our retreat this coming April. Our next fundraiser will be to cut Kevin’s hair – should be fun ;-)
I think that’s all I really have to say right now. I’m trying to determine where I should go for grad school next year. I’m pretty sure that’s what I want to do once I go back to the States, but not sure where, so if you’d keep praying about that, I’d appreciate it.
16 November 2008
Highlights from this week:
Monday
- Chris (the church’s new Youth and Community development worker), Kevin, and I got to go to Clements for lunch. Clements is a coffee shop place with really good paninis and soups and stuff – its one of my favorite places to go here,
- I got my haircut. I went to a beauty school in town and the first person I see is one of the moms who attend the Parents and Toddlers group I help with on Thursdays. It was nice to see here AND I really like the hair cut!
- By chance, Megan (another YAV) was in the city centre the same time I was (also getting her hair cut), so we got some coffee and caught up.
Tuesday
- Nursery. Always a highlight – I love working in the nursery school at the Trust. One of the women working there, Anne Marie, is letting me borrow a really pretty dress (plus accessories!) for the Christmas formal I am going to in December. Now we just have to get Kevin sorted…
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Wednesday
- Afterschools. I played a game of football with a couple of boys, which was really fun, and it seemed like we bonded, even just a little.
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Thursday
- My schedule worked out really well. I was supposed to have a parents and toddlers group all morning and then go to WAVE Trauma for the afternoon, which stunk because I needed to print the church magazine and had no time to do it. However, only one parent/toddler pair showed up for the group in the morning, so I was off the hook for that, and I just got kind of an introduction at WAVE, so I only had to be there for like half an hour, giving me plenty of time to print the magazine.
- WAVE. This was my first week at WAVE trauma. It’s an organization that was started to help people who have been effected by The Troubles. I found out that I would be able to help with their weekly women’s lunch. So, I’m pretty excited about that.
Friday
-Dinner with Megan and Emily (two YAVs). Megan’s church did this 24-hour prayer thing from Friday to Saturday. Emily, Kevin and I agreed to help cover some of the early morning hours, so we were praying from about 2:30-7am on Saturday morning. It was actually really neat – they had different stations set up for adoration/praise, thanksgiving, confession, intercession, and supplication; and there were different resources at each station to help guide and enhance our prayers. I prayed for about 2 hours and didn’t even get to all the stations – it was a really great experience.
Saturday
- I had a really great conversation with one the girls at Youth Club. The kids were talking about being in the “bad book” at school, so I started asking some questions about what that meant, and how they got in the bad book, and what their punishments were and things like that. Anyway, one girl told me that she was put in the “bad book” because she had written that her teacher was (excuse the language) a “cheeky bitch.” I asked the girl why she had written this and she said that the teacher had told her that her story wasn’t good enough. I said that it must have been very frustrating to have worked hard on something and then it not be good enough – she said it was and that she told her teacher she wouldn’t do any more work for the rest of the year. We got talking about some of the girl’s feelings about school and stuff, it was really cool – another bonding experience.
Sunday ¬
- After church, one of the members of the congregation that I had not met came up to me and offered to take me and Kevin on a drive up to the North coast of Ireland to see the Giant’s Causeway and the Antrim coast and stuff, which we have not yet done but have really wanted to.
Tomorrow all of the YAVs and Doug are going on a retreat to County Fermanagh for a few days, so I’m looking forward to that. That’s all for now!
9 November 2008
Doug was reading my blog and made a good suggestion about adding some things to my re-telling of the Northern Irish history, so this is for you Doug ☺: The modern-day Protestants are decedents of Scottish and English settlers who came to Northern Ireland during the years the entire isle was part of the United Kingdom. At some point, the U.K. thought it may be in their best interest to allow the Irish to rule their own country. Naturally, the settlers (who were the minority on the island) felt vulnerable – they would no longer have the protection of or close connection to the kingdom that shared their values, religion, daily routines, etc. and would be at the mercy of people different from them. They would really be on their own. So, they fought to remain part of the United Kingdom. They became known as unionists, and even more extreme, loyalists. The other side, the nationalists or republicans, fought for their right to rule themselves and not be ruled at a distance by the government in England.
I got to thinking about this yesterday while I was sitting at the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s Peacemaking conference. When people feel vulnerable, it is a natural tendency to act aggressively, or defensively, or whatever – basically overall negatively. Let’s look at the history of the U.S. When might have this been true in my country’s history? I thought of the country’s first settlers – they were so far away from their mother county, in a land that was dominated by tribes of people who’s practices, values, rituals, religion, etc. were so different from what they were used to. So what did our ancestors do? They took the Native Americans’ land and either forced them to Christianize (is that a real word? I mean to become just like the settlers) or killed them. They felt vulnerable, and so they did things to the “other” (in this case, the Native Americans), that were really not good.
Think about it on a more personal level – if you break up with your boyfriend, “guys are stupid.” If a girlfriend cheats on you, “girls are mean.” We group people, and judge them by how we see the members of the group we come in contact with. If someone who is catholic bombs your church, what might you feel about a group of Catholics?
One of the speakers at the peacemaking conference said, “every one of us is a bigot,” or as Prof. Smith at Eastern would say, “we all have issues.” Although I’d like to think so, I’m no exception. When I feel vulnerable, I react the same way the Protestants in Northern Ireland and the settlers in the U.S. Here I am, in a new culture, in a place where people do things differently; where the routines, norms, values are different from my own. What did I do? I got very critical. Every little thing about Northern Ireland and the people here bothered me. Most of the time I felt angry and annoyed, which is not the way I wanted to spend my year here. Once I realized what was happening, it was much better to put things in perspective and be at peace about them. Am I a bigot? Well, I guess we all are at times, especially when we don’t feel like we are in control of our situation or are particularly vulnerable. I think what really matters is how we decide to handle our emotions and negativity.
I hope this made sense. It’s hard to put thoughts down in writing when they’re not fully developed in my head. Miss you all! Hopefully by the time I get home I'll have a
1 November 2008
Kevin and I just got home from a trip to Dublin. It was fantastic! We got there late morning on Friday and had lunch. Then we bought tickets for the hop-on/hop-off tour (do that if you ever go to Dublin!). Anyway, we did the self-guided tour of the Guinness factory in the afternoon and enjoyed the complimentary pint at the end of the tour. Don’t worry, I learned something from the tour too. We explored the Grafton Street (a good street for shopping) and the Temple bar area in the evening – it’s this little district in the city that has a bunch of restaurants, pubs, shopping, etc. There were a couple of Halloween parades. And yes, I saw some leprechauns! There were quite a few people busking (playing music for money), which made the whole atmosphere really festive and fun. We ended up turning in really early, like a lame old married couple, but I am going to blame it on having to get up so early. It was hard to fall asleep though for two reasons: 1) Kevin wanted to watch “America’s got talent” and 2) it’s pretty common for people to set off fireworks on Halloween in Ireland (and in Northern Ireland for that matter), and evidently our hotel was really close to a spot where someone was setting them off.
Saturday we went to the National Gallery, Trinity College, St. Steven’s Green, and Christ Church Cathedral. So we had two pretty full days! This might sound stupid, but I also really liked riding the bus from Belfast to Dublin – it gave us a chance to see different parts of the island.
Let’s see, other than that, nothing new is really happening. Check out our pictures from Dublin! Just click on the link on our ‘pictures’ page. Also, if anyone was thinking about visiting us, it may be cheaper to fly into Dublin or London than into Belfast. Now we know how to get you to Belfast from either of those two cities. Alright, that’s all for now. Night ☺
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