Twenty-Four Days Out...

At the beginning of this year, I wrote a blog post entitled ‘Twenty-Four Days In…’. So in an effort to be poetically symmetrical, I thought it only appropriate to write this one now; ‘Twenty-Four Days Out…’. As you might guess from the title, I have only 24 days left in my YAV year. Only 24 days left in Belfast. Only 24 days left to work with WAVE and the church and the Newington Day Centre. Only 24 days left to try and perfect the Belfast accent, which proves to be an incredibly difficult accent to imitate. Only 24 days left to try and convince Chris that U2 really is his favorite band. (HA! Sorry, inside joke. Wrong audience. Anyway…) Speaking of U2 (which, incidentally is a favorite of Chris’s just not his all-time favorite) they have a very catchy, very popular and oddly enough very prophetic song called ‘Where the Streets Have No Name.’ And while I’m on a U2 promo kick, check out ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ which was written about the recently-acquitted murders in Derry/Londonderry, and actually pretty artfully describes the whole of the Northern Irish conflict. In the meantime, thank Andy for inspiring listening music and enjoy some U2 while you read.

I find myself in a weird spot; something akin to emotional limbo. I’m super excited about going home and seeing all my friends and family, hanging out at the Coffeehouse, getting some bar-b-que from the Firehouse, sucking down a true honest-to-goodness milkshake, jumping off something at Doe River Gorge, driving a bit too fast down windy two-lane mountain roads on my way to Boone and of course worshiping at Covenant Presbyterian Church with my brothers, sisters, moms, dads and aunts and uncles in Christ. At the same time, I’m planning a retreat for the FMPC youth, organizing programs for the Women’s Group at WAVE, actually looking forward to working Tuesdays at the Newington Day Centre, watching more football than I ever thought possible, participating in spontaneous theological poli-sci conversations and actively working to ‘tear down the walls that hold [us] inside.’ Whether it’s the emotional walls we put up to keep ourselves guarded or the physical peace walls that surround this city, I pray for a day when neither exist.

It seems almost wrong to be so excited about going home when my life and so much of my heart is still here. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet that this ‘going home’ business is for good. I’m not on holiday. I won’t be coming back to Belfast after a month at home. I won’t see the completion of the projects I have started and am so excited about. But in the end, that’s okay. My job here was never meant to be permanent, and it was never meant to be solely mine. My job here is much like my faith; meant to be learned, molded, rejoiced in, shared and passed on while forever changing who I was before it, who I will be after it and who I am because of it.

The things that were note-worthy twenty-four days in have become commonplace; it’s just everyday life. Double-decker busses whizzing by 3 inches from the pavement at 35mph don’t freak me out anymore. I’ve learned to weave through traffic if the crosswalk isn’t handy. I like the fact that the skyline isn’t obstructed with wires and poles. I still don’t know how the heating system in our house works, but it’s July so it’s too late to worry about that. My ear long ago lost the difference between a Belfast accent and an American accent. Words and phrases like ‘wee,’ ‘craic,’ ‘dead on,’ ‘wind your neck in,’ ‘catch yourself on,’ ‘knackered,’ ‘car park,’ ‘trousers,’ ‘wick,’ ‘what’re you like,’ ‘bunged,’ ‘pram,’ ‘that’s class,’ and the proverbial ‘aye’ are now all a part of my everyday lexicon. I can’t figure out which side of the road is the ‘right’ side and can’t imagine getting across town in less than an hour.

My friend Vince has been living and working this past year at a camp in Costa Rica. He left a week before me last August and returns a week after me this July. We’ve been pen-pals all year, encouraging one another in our respective missions and sharing stories from the opposite side of the globe. A portion of his most recent letter sums it up for me best:

May your last days be filled with the encouragement and praise of our Father and Best Friend of your faithfulness in the little things, of your keeping going to the end in the hard times and the easy times, of your taking up your cross and denying you for a year and serving Him. May your days be filled with memories of joys and sorrows, of lives changed and lives to be changed, of seeds planted and hearts bursting into bloom, of hardship and breakthrough. May your life also be changed because of this year, be a different person than you were before, knowing that in anything you have the one thing that matters, the friendship of Christ that is imperishable and everlasting and will always be left standing after any storm. And may you be filled with strength for the going back, strength and courage to face knowing that it just might not be ‘home’ anymore, knowing that a year has gone by and people will have changed or moved or gotten different friends and knowing that God had and has a purpose in that too (from one who's been there, and will be there alongside of you in the going back).

So, with only 24 days left I find myself here. Wherever ‘here’ is or happens to be. I’m not removed enough to completely de-brief my year yet, if I’m ever able to, but it was weird to realize that I won’t see the end of this month in Belfast and it made me start thinking about what I’ve learned, what I’m learning and what I’ll only realize I’ve learned months from now. In the meantime, I pray the days don’t fly by too fast.