the face of love

Today was my last Sunday at Whitehouse Presbyterian Church. I'm flying home next Sunday morning, too early to mention, so this was my farewell service. Liz gave me the priviledge of choosing the hymns, the scripture and speaking. I was really nervous and have been agonizing over my message for weeks, but I wanted to use the time to really communicate how thankful I am for this year. The time of preparation taught me how much goes into a Sunday service. But I also learned that it is a beautiful process of working intimately with God to seek out what he wants to share through you. I found myself taking my random bits of the service that came to mind before Christ and working through them in a prayerful way. It was a humbling and growing experience. Below is my "sermon."

My first year teaching I was doing a brilliant lesson on the hemispheres of the earth. I was going to use an orange, cut it into halves and use it as a model for the hemispheres. Unfortunately, I forgot the knife that morning. So I sent a responsible student to the cafeteria to ask for one. Several minutes later she returned and said, “They told me to tell you they don’t give knives to children.” I took the comment in stride and it quickly became one of my favorite “first year” stories.

That first year teaching there were so many times when I felt like I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I carried with me the years of teacher training I had in university and a strong passion for sharing an enthusiasm for learning with children, all children.

Last year I felt God’s insistent nudge to stretch the boundaries and try something new. I applied for the Young Adult Volunteer Program because 3 separate times it had come up. So I thought I would push on the door and see if God opened it. I was interviewed and went to Kentucky to discern where God was calling me. I saw pictures of God at work in Belfast and I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing, but I quit my job, left my family and came here to Northern Ireland. On my first night in Belfast I wrote the following prayer in my journal.
Protect those I love
Heal our grief at loss
Connect our hearts and souls
Focus me on your task
And help me to lay it all aside
To follow you
Lead me Lord

God knew. God knew what was ahead for me before I even thought about putting a foot on a plane. Alec Motyer says, “The Lord is completely different from humans in what and how he thinks and in his ways of action.” His ways of action are not how we would operate.

When I first arrived here, it took me awhile to understand the unspoken bits of conversation. I found it so interesting how Liz could so beautifully orchestrate a conversation to end up with that person coming round to her point of view or volunteering for something. Little did I know then when that tactic would be used on me occasionally! But God’s way of thinking and acting is so much more masterfully orchestrated. We cannot even conceive of his methods. My roommate Alison calls it “divine mischief.” What mischief has God been up to in your life today? Because his ways are immeasurably higher than ours.

In Isaiah 55 we heard, “As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Rain, Motyer says, is a heavenly gift. It produces transformation, making the earth flourish, and turns deadness into life. God sends rain, as a free gift, to transform the earth and turn death into life.

I love this passage. I love it because of the natural imagery and because of a piece of music I once was priviledged to perform that used this text. In the piece, the orchestra sounded like rain with staccato, succint notes. The “rain” of the orchestra grew in intensity much like a rain storm, to a crescendo that showed the flourishing of the earth that rain promotes. The choral music had long fluid notes that were dependent on one another. No one section could have sung the piece and one missing voice or instrument would have ruined the affect. It also seemed to me that those long fluid notes showed how insistent God’s voice is in this passage. Just like the uncompromising flow of water from the heavens, so is God’s word, God’s breath alive in His people that goes out from His mouth. So is God’s voice in His children. He sends us out for a purpose and we will never return empty but accomplish the very thing He sent us for. I love this passage. I rest in it on the days when I don’t have a clue. And this year I know it to be particularly true.

[Here I read a short story called "The Teachers" that Doug shared with us during the year. It's about the surprising teachers in our lives and how we should never be afraid to be touched by the very people we seek to reach.]

All year I have been humbled by the teachers in my life. I have been transformed by the free gifts of your love and the Father’s love reflected in each of your faces. I have been taught to see. You have taught me to see the beauty of Northern Ireland by taking me on outings and into your homes. I’ve learned how to see my boccia ball flying out of bounds and also see it hit the jack, with lots of practice. You’ve taught me to see people from their heart outward, and to truly see through the eyes of sincere, loving, Christian fellowship.

You’ve taught me to walk with my hand gripping firmly the hands of other disciples, to give direction and new depth to my personal walk with Christ. The members of the PHAB clubs also taught me a lot about walking. Walking behind a wheelchair, how to push it in the sand and on bumpy roads. The humility of having a fully functioning, healthy body.

Care. My friend Andrew, who was in Argentina as a Young Adult Volunteer, told me once in an email, “Jesus said to give the hungry something to eat, the thirsty something to drink, invite in the strangers, give the needy clothes, take care of the sick. In your year, you will receive all these things and it is so humbling.”

You had me into your homes and took me out to delicious meals, I was a stranger and you invited me in to your fellowship and you always made me feel welcome, like we were old friends. When I was sick I had people tucking cough drops into my hands and B vitamin tonic in my handbag. You gave me lifts all over the place! You gave me the best Christmas I can remember since I was little kid and you had no reason to do it. What did you know about me? What had I really done for you? You have freely given and my life has been transformed. The deadness of homesickness and being in a foreign country all vanished in the face of love you showed to me.

There are so many “heart pictures” I will carry with me of those reflections of the Father’s love.
The girls in GB learning how to make American Thanksgiving food and my Brigaders studying the Bible with me, countless cups of tea with the GB leaders,

the “girls” at the coffee morning and how they encouraged me to keep growing my hair to donate it when I was so ready to give up,

joining together in prayer at the Healing Service and hearing Sam play the organ,
the kids at the afterschools when they would come in from a day at school and tell me about their day or when they learned to swing on the monkey bars and asked me to watch,

the members of the youth PHAB club chatting about their hopes for the club and the future,

meeting with the staff of the 174 Trust and hearing how passionate they are about reaching out to most disadvantaged in North Belfast and giving them a voice,

my youth Alpha group teaching me not to give them “the look,”
the boccia group giving me friendly pointers on how to play better and learning how to join in a beetle drive,

Billy with cerebral palsy smiling at me when he got in the bus for PHAB club on a Thursday night and feeling like the whole world was just lighting up,

Contact Club Christmas Eve, puppet sketches, Mannafest, concerts, the students at Ballygolan and Whitehouse Primary schools, playing music with the praise group and the youth, and so many more than I could ever list. It has been an overwhelming year.

I don’t know what you have gotten from me being here, because from where I stand I can only see the faces that have shown me the love of Christ all year. Faces that are my teachers, my family, and have transformed my life.

That piece of music I performed last year, my favorite part was at the end. This song that had started as a gentle pouring of rain turned into a massive swell of rejoicing. Isaiah 55:12 says, “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” There is rejoicing. God’s purpose, though we cannot see it fully, has been accomplished for this time. There is so much we have shared and experienced together. All of creation rejoices, not over me, but over God at work here in Whitehouse and in the hearts, minds and spirits of each of you.

Our Father God has so much more for Whitehouse and for you than just me, or Chris, or whoever. In those moments when you don’t have a clue he reminds us that just as there is order to the beauty and purpose of nature in the rain and snow nourishing the earth, so there is order to the beauty and purpose of your life being nourished by relationship with Him. So look around you, look for “the teachers,” and thank God for the face of love that he reflects to you each day. Thank you for sharing yourselves and God’s love with me this year. I thank my God that I will never be the same again.

and companions on the road

Flax was laid in a field to dry and had to be bleached before it was beautiful white linen. The flax flower is the new symbol of the Northern Ireland Assembly because they had to choose something neutral that represented Northern Ireland’s shared history and shared future. The children at Ballygolan could identify Ian Paisley as First Minister, but had no idea who Martin McGuinness was. Teachers everywhere have that student who they just don’t know what else to do about. “Clon” means a hill with sheep and “drum” means hill. I think that pretty much every name of a place in Northern Ireland comes from the same list, they just pick two pieces and put them together. Ballycultra, Ballygomartin, Clonard, Dundrum, Dungiven, Drumallis, just to name a few. During the gun running of the first period of the Troubles in the early 1900’s, the port of Larne was used as a drop point for gun smuggling. My haircut, that cosmetic sacrifice, was something that I shared with the ladies of the Coffee Morning and they felt that it really connected me with them. A woman who used to be a childrens’ nurse felt that it was a particularly special moment and she grew closer to me by sharing that with me. Faith journeys meet at strange moments and you suddenly realize that you are treading on the holy ground of someone’s walk with God. You realize the blessing of the intimate joy in hearing that story and it makes you walk a little more softly in reverent awe of God’s glory. It’s okay to say you don’t feel like doing something and it’s okay to want to have your decision respected. My great idea to write something in glue and then cover it with tiny sequins was not a great idea, but I didn’t realize it until my fingers were stuck together with glue. My friend Anne makes me laugh when I need it most and I want to be just like her when I’m 70. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the thought of being back in the classroom again and others I feel like I might jump out of my skin if I have to wait much longer to be teaching. The schools didn’t teach Irish history and two people I spoke to this week said everything they know about Ireland they had to learn from books they read on their own. Cookstown has the widest main street in Ireland. I wish I could still swing on monkey bars and jump rope for more than 5 minutes.

These are just a few of the things I’ve learned about myself and the place I live this week. A few, and as I was recalling each I was overwhelmed by the volumes swimming in my head and heart, the things I’ve absorbed and gained just in a few days time. How will I share all that I have learned, seen, and done this year? How will I communicate it in such a way that will do this year justice? How will I use words to paint a picture that conveys what is in my mind? It is huge to me to think of returning home and scary to think of the resposibility of sharing my year. But I feel an urgency and an excitement at the same time, because I have such a confidence in what God can do. God can extract from my experience that exact thing that should be shared with the exact listener or receiver. I know he can do it and I thank him for the times this year that I was the listener or receiver.

When I came to Belfast, I told your stories. I related to people by telling them of how you had given me the strength and courage, building me up so I could take this journey. When I come home I can’t wait to tell you their stories, of how they loved me and folded me to their hearts, teaching me more than I ever could have imagined about myself and the love of God.

When I lived in South Carolina, I talked like a South Carolinian, I thought like a South Carolinian and I reasoned like a South Carolinian. Now that I have lived abroad and loved another city I weave the ways of childhood into my present attitude. For when we see only our own community we know only our part, but when we see the world we know our part in it more fully, opening ourselves to the fullness of God knowing us through the love of others, his children.