28 December 2008
Well, Kevin and I are in France for our winter ‘holiday’ (I said ‘vacation’ to someone recently and got this blank stare). Anyway, I am now regretting never taking a French class. I know about three phrases: “I am American, but I live in Belfast.” “The breakfast is very good.” and “I love…” I am actually not bad at reading French (which I can only attribute to my Latin and Spanish classes). But, Kevin is actually doing a really good job figuring out what to say so we can at least order food and ask for directions, etc. Plus, he’s so darn cute when he speaks French.
We’re staying in a small town North-West of Paris called Maisons-Laffitte. They have a castle, which we toured yesterday and that I have decided will be my future home. I am pretty sure I was meant to be a princess.
This morning we went to a church down the road. I am not 100% positive, but I am pretty sure the church is Anglican, so the service was in English (although I was looking forward to worshipping in French). They had communion today, and there were a couple firsts for me: 1) Today was the first time I have ever had wine (or any alcohol for that matter) in church, and 2) Today was the first wine I have tasted in France.
After the service, we met a guy from Northern Ireland (small world) named Robby. We had a brief conversation with him over a proper cup of tea and now have a prayer partner in France. Very cool. Robby explained that the church was founded because there were quite a few British military families in this area of France, and so the church was built to serve the needs of that population. I thought that was pretty neat too.
Well, we are off to see Igor in French. Hopefully we’ll catch some of the story line. Tomorrow we will hit Paris! Pictures to come ☺
13 December 2008
Be forewarned, a lot happened this week, so this blog may be long and be a little random.
My mom will appreciate this story: Today I discovered that a little friend had found his up to our third floor apartment. That’s right, we had a mouse. I was going about my business making cookies, when I opened the bottom drawer in our kitchen to get out the cookie trays and out leapt this tiny , gray (and creepy) little fella. Without thinking, I screamed at the top of my lungs and jumped on top of a chair (am I sounding like a stereotypical woman?). Kevin did not come to my rescue fast enough, so I continued to scream, probably causing my neighbors to think someone was trying to kill me and effectively distracting myself from seeing where the mouse went. In any case, Kevin eventually came into the kitchen; I told him what had happened and then sent him to Tesco (grocery store) to get mousetraps. I wore my big winter boots around the kitchen until I was sure the mouse was too scared to come out while I was in there. Kevin kept asking me “why are you so scared of mice? They’re so little, they’re not going to hurt you.” Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t used to be. Other things don’t scare me – not spiders, or bugs, or even snakes – but mice, eww.
Tonight at youth club, a girl (I’ll call her Katie) came up to me and informed me that she was protesting. I asked Katie what she was protesting against, and she responded, disgusted “he’s going to let Catholics into a church!” The ‘he’ the girl was referring to was Chris, Fortwilliam & Macrory’s new youth and community development worker. Evidently, the kids were asking Chris whether he would let a Catholic into the youth club, and Chris told them that if a Catholic child showed up and felt safe enough to come into the youth club, he would absolutely allow them in. Well, this outraged some of the kids and they made signs and yelled stuff like “you’re a taig lover!” to Chris. Let me pause for a minute and explain something: ‘taig’ is an Irish word for ‘rat,’ and is also used as a very derogatory term to refer to Catholics. Anyway, I was not sure how to respond to Katie. I tried to play the ignorant American card and ask her why she wouldn’t want a Catholic at youth club, but she was too angry to listen to what I was saying and just continued to vent. So I let her; I just listened to her go on about how ‘pissed’ she was at Chris (her words, not mine) and how he must not be a Christian if he would allow Catholics in a Protestant club. I kept thinking, “what are you so scared of? Why would you be afraid of a child who is just like you. They’re not going to hurt you, not any more than any of the other children here.”
Fear is a funny thing. I am so scared of mice. Why? Because they’re dirty, they sometimes carry diseases, they could bite me. Have any of these things ever happened to me? No, I’ve just heard about them. And hey, my mom is scared of mice – why shouldn’t I be?Katie is afraid of Catholics coming to her youth club. Why? Because family and friends of hers may have been hurt by Catholic groups during the ‘troubles.’ Has she seen any of that in her lifetime? No. She’s scared because of what she’s heard too. Granted, being scared of loosing your life or getting seriously injured because of political differences is a lot more serious than my fear of mice, but the same concept applies: There’s no moving forward if we hold on to our fears. Sometimes we need to take chances. Kevin thinks that I should take a chance by getting gerbils to keep as pets (I am not convinced). Maybe a chance the kids at youth club can take is to at least tolerate a Catholic child or two at youth club. Maybe we’ll see that our fears really aren’t all that threatening.
Well, just in case you were wondering – Kevin and I got home from youth club tonight and found our furry friend had been caught in one of the traps. Despite the humane trap, little mousey was dead. We gave him a proper burial (okay, not really, Kevin wrapped him up in a plastic bag while I cowered on the couch hoping that none of the mouse’s relatives were going to show up for a funeral, then Kevin threw the mouse in the bin outside). Whew, what a day!
4 December 2008
What a week! So last Thursday, I hurt my back, and then I got the flu (or some sort of bug), so I stayed in bed for a couple of days. Found out really quickly that Northern Ireland and the U.S. share this similarity: their daytime TV is crappy. So, after a few hours of Judge Judy, sleeping, and drinking my weight in apple juice – I am feeling much better. I am determined not to get sick any more, since it seems like I always at least have a cold or something – so I have completely sanitized our apartment, am taking vitamins, and am washing my hands like my life depended on it.
Like many of you, people here are busy getting ready for Christmas. Lights have gone up all over the place – Belfast’s city centre looks absolutely gorgeous. I’ll try to take a picture and post it. I just found out last week that something very exciting is going to be happening at the church in a couple of weeks – we’re getting a HUGE Christmas tree to put in front of the church! Lesley, the minister here at Fortwilliam, had this dream that someday the church would put up this huge Christmas tree on the front steps and then people from the community could come for the lighting of it and sing carols and drink tea or whatever. The idea was brought up at a Covenant Counsel meeting (The Covenant Counsel is a group of people from Fortwilliam & Macrory Presbyterian Church and Holy Family Parish, a local Catholic church, that was deliberately formed to form solid, cross-community relationships between the two churches). Anyway, the counsel must have thought it was a good idea and decided not to wait, but to do the tree this year. I’m siked – I love Christmas trees and communities coming together and all that Christmas mushy stuff. So, if you’d all pray for the people planning this event and that it is truly something that can bless the community in North Belfast – we’d greatly appreciate it!
Well, I need to get going. I’ll be posting new pictures momentarily. Miss you all!
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