Travel home and transitioning to Detroit

The journey home for us was (thankfully) uneventful - though we did have an early departure out of Belfast to catch our bus to the Dublin airport. After a 4:30am wake up call, we made it through security and such in good time for our 10am flight. An easy connection in Charlotte and a releatively easy transition to connecting flights and meeting with families, it was almost unreal! 

Processing with the group, we were incredibly grateful for our hosts in Belfast, for the relationships we made, and for all we learned about the new culture, and most importantly, about ourselves. As you will have read in the reflections, the students experienced God in a variety of ways - some in common, many unique to their individual experience. It has been a pleasure walking with them! We said our goodbyes and are looking forward to connecting in a few weeks to talk about how we're processing things at home. Stay tuned for more reflections as they come in! 

Transitioning to Detroit for me was relatively easy, I had a bit of a delay but was picked up at the Detroit airport by Barb Schrag and Keegan, a Hesston College student serving with MDS as a part of his coursework this summer. The team from Belfast however had a bit more trouble... reminiscent of our experience trying to leave Chicago a few weeks ago. Their flight from Boston to Detroit was cancelled so they were able to get to Chicago and a couple of wonderful MDS volunteers drove down to pick them up... they didn't arrive back in Detroit until 5:30 this morning! So we took the morning off and will start with a tour at noon today. 

Here is a picture of the MDS Devotions which started off their day at 8am - the group from Belfast was still asleep, but Elizabeth Eichleburger, a YV participant from Nebraska here joining the team for the next 10 days was here so it was great to connect with her (on the Right) as the other MDS volunteers and Hesston College students participated in sharing and prayer this morning. 

We're glad to be here and ready for what this next time in Detroit will bring! 

Boarding for home...

We had a wonderful last evening in Belfast - a bit of shopping, a visit to a pub to hear some music from our friend Noel Maguire and his mates, and some pizza to talk over. It was an early morning today catching our bus to Dublin but we are here and through customs! Mixed feelings heading home, but glad for this experience. 

Wishing for smoother travels than our outbound trip! 

A reflection from Regina Miller

This past week has been so full of new and interesting experiences for me. I have never been to a summer camp or even just camping in general so I had no idea what to expect going into this trip. I was not scared, but I was definitely a little uneasy about how everything was going to work out. I quickly learned that I had little reason to be uneasy. As soon as the kids got to the camp everyone jumped into action. It was interesting to watch as the kids separated into their individual groups and the staff worked to get them all to mingle. I not knowing what to do just followed the example of my other staff members hoping that I would not make any mistakes right off the bat. It astonished me how many of the girls in my group were surprised when they learned they would be sleeping outside the first two nights of camp. I mean what exactly did they expect? 

As the week continued and I got to know the kids a little bit better I learned that though there are many cultural differences, 11-14 year olds have the same attitudes universally. They like to push and poke at you until you want to scream, but they can also do and say the nicest things that make you so proud of them. Some of my favorite moments were answering questions about America while watching my girls struggle to make s'mores around the fire and watching their faces light up when they were pushed outside their comfort zones and managed to survive. Though they may not know it, the kids at the camp taught me a few things. They showed me that I have an unlimited number of buttons to push, that my patience level is longer than I imagined,  and that despite being from different cultures we are all so much a like. 

It is really easy to let yourself back away from cultures that are different from your own, but when you open yourself up you can gain so much. I am so glad that I came on this trip. I am exhausted but I will be taking home so many great memories. I will miss everyone that I have met here in Ireland, but I am ready to be back with my family. It has been a crazy week, but it has been so much fun.  

Sunday morning and a reflection from Elizabeth...

This morning, after a wonderful ngiht's sleep in the Sheep Island View Hostel, and a great breakfast of course, we set out for the coastline - except this time we headed towards Carreick-a-Rede, an island connected the mainland by a rope bridge. The morning was absolutely beautiful - the coastline hike culminating in the island provided wonderful views and we enjoyed perfect weather conditions for it. 

Carreick-a-Rede was tradiionally one of the best places local fisherman found to cast their nets for the salmon season - so each season they constructed a rope bridge to cross to the island where they would lower their boats - a much easier location than the coastal cliffs that dominate the landscape. We also enjoyed a nice time of discussion on the island after a few days to process on our own some of our conversations about our time here in Northern Ireland. I've seen so much growth and learning in each of the students and am excited to hear their stories of beginning to bring these learnings home to their communities. 

After an incredible Sunday dinner at the hostel (topped off with roulade for dessert - which was spectacular) Mark picked us up and we are headed back to the Farset hostel in Belfast to check in. The evening will have a bit of last-minute shopping for some, the possibility of visiting a festival, and we may be catching some local music with a friend from SkyCamp - we are planning on enjoying every last minute of today! We leave the hostel at 5am tomorrow to catch the bus to Dublin and travel back home. 

We'll have a few more reflections coming this evening and tomorrow as we travel, but here's one from Elizabeth Eby while we're posting here. 

Northern Ireland is the most beautiful place I've ever been to. Today we went walking on cliffs, climbed across a rope bridge then sat on the prettiest grass I've ever seen just staring at the sea. I did not realize that grass could be beautiful before coming here. It's so green! Yesterday everyone walked down to the coast and those rocks are amazing. I got my little adventure hat on and climbed all over those things. The tide was coming in and a minuscule chance I would die; but it was totally worth it. This week I've gotten so much closer to everyone in our group. Together we've gone hiking, ate amazing food, and enjoyed deep conversations late into the night. It's hard to leave this place and this group of people. For one, I can no longer laugh at the inside jokes we've created. Then there's also this aspect of feeling like I'm abandoning this culture I've spent so long trying to fit into. Even bough all of us are so far away from home, I have never felt out of place here. Sure, we all had our struggles being in leadership positions or suffering from exhaustion but that's all part of the learning experience.

Elizabeth Eby

Saturday - from South to North

Saturday morning we woke up in Newcastle to an empty house, which all week had been filled with the noises and smells of 40 11-14 year old kids and staff... while we missed out friends, we'd be lying if we didn't say we were glad for some peace :) 

After a wonderful breakfast down in Newcastle, Mark picked us up and we headed north, stopping quick in Belfast and then on to the north coast of Northern Ireland... our first stop was the Giant's Causeway... and I think for the rest of the day I'll just mention an few words and then later on, with a better connection, I'll post more photos. 

After Giant's Causeway, we checked into the Sheep Island View Hostel and had a short rest before dinner in Portrush. It was a wonderful evening with our hosts and some really good dessert :) The group then took a hike along the coast... after getting down to the coast we went our separate ways and had some time to explore, read, or just take it in... this morning, the group agreed that it was the best night of sleep we've had so far! 

Now Sunday morning we are about to leave for a rope bridge and another nice walk along the coast before Mark picks us up to head back to Belfast for the afternoon/evening. There's a festival going on that we might see, and a friend we met at SkyCamp is playing music too- so we might try and see him too. 

Not sure we're ready to leave tomorrow! But it will be good to begin sharing these memories with friends and family in person. 

Reflection from Mark

The first 3 days of our trip was touring around Ireland and at the same time was also learning about their history, part of the missions training where we need to learn everything about the irish language and accent, slang, how they interact with each other and more. The second day right when we got to Belfast is when we met up with the exchange people and sat down with them for basically all day to do all those learning so both sides can learn because because the American exchange people are also from different places like  Pennsylvania, Alaska, Indiana, and Illinois where we all have different cultures.

 We were surprised to find that our words for different things and our  accent is also hard for the Irish people so we can all work together as a teams especially if we're gonna be dealing with the irish kids and all those before we actually got into the real objective. Our work is to be in a camp were we help out and be counselors for the kids as they call it camp leaders in Ireland. Sky camp was hard for the kids also as they're coming from different places in Belfast were there is a lot of tension going on between Catholic and Protestant; some people would say the tension between two sides is because of the politics and some  because of religion. 

Sky camp's purpose was to be the middle person and peacemaking were kids could become a better person and know how to make they're  country better in the future because as other people say " kids, young kids is the future". I definitely experienced God through the camp on how He let us travel just to be a good examples for the kids, that no matter what religion you are or what culture you are we all have in common and that is to love, compassion and more for one another.

Mark Alcantara 

SkyCamp

How can you possibly wrap up a week into one blog post? 

We've been up at SkyCamp this week here in Northern Ireland - as was previously stated, we haven't had access to wifi to keep the blog up to date so now we find ourselves at the end of a long week full of stories and trying to find the best way to communicate them. So... we're going to take a stab this way. Below is a bit of an overview of what our week was like, and in the next few days you'll get to read a reflection from the students about their experiences over the week and in general on the trip thus far. 

** I tried to upload this yesterday and it failed, since then, I was able to post a reflection from Selah Judge, so don't miss it! Look for posts from others in the next day or so. **

Students arrived around noon on Monday for 5 days and 4 nights of camp! The students came from different areas of North Belfast... Kids from Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, from a variety of financial and family situations, all with a common city and a group of youth workers who invited them to camp. There were 39 youth in all, and 19 of us leaders in different capacities... some full-time through the North Belfast Area Project, some volunteers through their Youth Working In Communities program, 2 from the Belfast Activities Center (running activities of course), and the 7 of us Americans. The variety in the group was one factor that stuck out to everyone there! 

Daily activities included 4 meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper - a bedtime snack), a morning group activity, afternoon adventure activities (rotating through kayaking, bouldering, mountain biking, and hiking), and an evening cultural activity. Throughout the week the students learned more about their own shared Ulster culture (the region consisting of the counties of N Ireland plus two counties in Ireland), and then countries the YWIC students have/will be visiting: France, Australia, and the United States. Culture nights included hands on activities, Q and A's, food, etc. 

One very important design of the camp was to give students a foundation of a shared identity - helping them to realize all their similarities and modeling what it means to be proud of all aspects of your culture without needing to demonize another. Hearing the stories and sensing the realities that the young people exist in was an eye-opening experience for each member on the team - it brought our historical education in Belfast over the weekend to a new reality. These kids are incredible - we enjoyed building relationships with them, laughing, trying new things, and learning from one another along the way. 

Being in leadership in this setting brought its challenges too - discipline, respect, and communication are all unique experiences to a culture - and the differences between what we were used to and what was needed for this past week challenged us to step up, get a little loud, and have a little fun! Or was it patience? For me, it was unique too walking with each of the YV participants as they navigated these differences and uniquely lived into their roles for the week. We have a great team! 

Speaking of which, we've got to get back to Ardaluin and get some rest... tomorrow we head north to see the Giant's Causeway and enjoy what the northern end of the island has to offer! A few days to rest and see more of this beautiful country are a welcome transition as we near the end of our time here. We're grateful for the relationships made and experiences had so far, we have some incredible hosts and have been blessed to be a part of some awesome youth work here in Northern Ireland. 

Please check back in over the next few days as students share their reflections!

Peace,

John