Christianity Explored...

"Faith lives with a certain amount of uncertainty"

 Recently, this has rang true. Over the last few weeks I have become quite busy. I feel sometimes in in the position as a YAV and working with the church, I loose site of my faith. I think this is typical of many Christians. The last few weeks in the church has been all about about the course we are starting next week. This course takes you on a journey through the gospel of Mark. It has been the conversations in the preparation of this course that have led me to a deep thinking and contemplation of my faith and what faith means. Over the next 7 weeks we will venture into Mark looking ultimately at three questions... who was Jesus? Why did he come? and What is involved in following him? As the leaders went through some of the questions to bring up it really struck me and made me think about all sorts of different questions and how the majority of them have no answers. I am quite excited to work with the youth that come to this course and to help them realize that we don't have all the answers and that is ok. This course will be very eye opening and will be great to help me along in my faith journey and to grow in my faith.  So look for posts to come in the next 7 weeks about the course and how it is impacting me. 

Further updates to come!

  

All the things I have missed since my last post...

So I recently posted about Christmas.... well now I am going to go back in time and talk about how Thanksgiving, different events with my youth, Bowling Christmas parties, the first snow, the Belfast Christmas Market, and seeing John Bell went. I am sure there are plenty other things I could talk about but these will do for now.

Wow so It really is hard to remember all the way back to Thanksgiving, but one thing I could not forget if you paid me was the amazing Thanksgiving meal I had at our coordinators house. All the YAV's got together on the Saturday after Thanksgiving (since we don't get off for Thanksgiving) and we started our day by playing some American Football.

This was a great way to start the day. The next thing that took place was cooking... So me and a few other YAV'S cooked before heading to Doug and Elaine's where the huge meal awaited us. One of the main things I love for Thanksgiving are the grands biscuits... so I made from scratch crescent rolls to bring to our Thanksgiving meal. I had also decided to make a desert, so I made cheese cake as well. The day before I was lucky enough to be invited to an American family's house who attended Princeton Seminary and have been living here for 5 years.  So they had a big Thanksgiving buffet and invited all their Northern Irish friends to come celebrate. Well as I left I was given a pumpkin pie that also came with us to the dinner at Doug's house.

So at this stage we were ready to head to Doug and Elaine's where we were going to watch American football and eat a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. When we got there they had a huge spread of food, we got turkey, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, green beans, stuffing, and much much more. Then for desert there were four different pies so we were very well fed and it was truly amazing to share in the wonderful fellowship. I truly felt blessed to be able to share a meal around their table with such wonderful food and fellowship. 

So most of the other things I am going to talk about lead up to Christmas or are happened right before. First one of the roles I play while here is working with Youth Fellowship. This is a very fun endeavour and one that has me doing many fun activities. Right before Christmas we all went ice skating, and mini golfing. These were fun activities to get the youth involved and to get to know each other better. Needless to say my team won mini golf, and I managed not to fall once on the ice. 

Youth mini golfing

Concentrating hard on getting a hole in one

Jonny the assistant minister got pushed over

                         

Me and the youth on the Ice 

Moving on from youth group not to the Belfast Christmas Market. This is a international market that comes to Belfast every year. It happens for a month leading up to Christmas out front of city hall. It was absolutely amazing. There was food from all over the world, there were people selling things from around the world, there was mulled wine, and so much more. It was a very nice treat leading up to Christmas being able to go into city center and meet up with people to walk around the market. I wish they did something like this back home. 

Inside the Christmas market

Belfast International Christmas Market

The Market From the Outside

One of the many activities that I am involved in is bowling with one of the other YAV'S that lives in my house and his church on Monday nights. This has been a great treat and they have taken me in as their own. One of the traditions that most groups and workplaces due is have Christmas dinners. So I was luck enough to attend  four different Christmas dinners.The first one that i went to was with the bowling club from Monday nights. We went to a famous golf club called Hollywood Golf Club which is where the pro golfer Rory Mcilroy learned to play as a child. Another fun fact was Rory was on the plane with me and the other YAV'S on the way to Northern Ireland when we arrived.This was a very fun and entertaining dinner, one of the traditions at any Christmas dinner is you get a Christmas cracker on your plate which has a gift, a hat, and a joke in it and after you open it you wear your hat all night and tell your joke. Well another tradition for this bowling club is to give out gifts for those who had great achievements. I was lucky enough to get a little plaque for being a member of the over 100 club. So that was very exciting. Also the head from the group gets up and dresses up and tells jokes and it is all great craic! 

My gift from my Christmas Cracker

The Lovely group of Bowlers

Bob in his outfit to give out prizes

Me receiving my prize

After this Christmas party I went to one for The LINK, the Thursday club at the church, and the Church Staff Christmas Lunch. Now we all know why I need to go on a diet after all this Holiday eating. 

My street after the first snow

The First snow fall

So I know most of you are getting snow at the moment but our First snow fall was Dec. 4th. We all got very excited and went out and played in the little bit that we had. We have not had snow since. I guess rain is more typical... oh well. 

So to finally bring you up to date... Last night I went to see John Bell in what is called a Big Sing. So there were about 100 people in a room and we went through hymns from the Iona community and he taught them to the big group on the spot and taught us in parts. He is extremely well spoken and told some great stories about where the hymns came from and why they were created. It was an absolutely delightful evening and we were all able to make a joyful sound. 

So I think that is me pretty much caught back up... currently I am working away at graduate school applications in my free time and just staying busy with work and the church. Thank you all for your continued love and support. It is great to know that I have people that care even when I am in a completely different country! Miss and love you all. Keep in touch. Lizzydot711@gmail.com 

P.S. Below are the pictures from my last post. 

Church Decorated for Christmas

Advent Wreath the I lit every Sunday 

The windows in the church Decorated for Christmas

The Tree in the vestibule

A time of Advent and Christmas

So...I am sorry for not being able to post for the last while... Unfortunately I have not had a computer. I found out before Christmas that my computers motherboard died. :( Sad day! But after getting on the phone to Santa and telling him that Grad School applications needed to be done, it was my dads birthday, and Christmas was coming...I was lucky enough to get a brand new computer brought over with my friend who is visiting from home. So the next few post might take a bit of time to catch up on but bear with me!

 So the last I talked about I had been travelling with my church and the YAV's to different retreats. Since then I have gotten to experience such new and exciting things. I got to experience advent, I got to experience running a whole children's service ( which included a mini sermon from me), I got welcomed into someone's home for Christmas dinner, and I rang in the New Year in Dublin.

So Advent is a time about Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. In Regent Street Presbyterian Church advent was done not to much different from home. I found out that it was not until a few years ago when one of the previous YAV'S brought the advent wreath to the church. From then to this day the wreath has been a part of advent. Which since the YAV brought this tradition into the church they keep it the tradition of the YAV to light the candles  and read about that candle. So during advent I lit all the candles except for the one Sunday which was the children's service.

 So as advent was lurking around the corner I was asked to lead the children's service. This was something I was not sure what to expect but said yes. In the church the children split into three Sunday school classes... Since I'm not positive of the ages... it is basically chresh...which is the babies.... then the young Sunday school class... then the middle age group then the high school kids. So I thought about how to include everyone in the service and in the end... The little ones read poems about Christmas and sang songs... the middle age kids did a skit called Michael the Mouse which was about the nativity story... and the older kids did all the parts of the service and I was luck enough to do the reflection. So all in all it was a very well done service and it turned out lovely all the kids had a great time and the congregation loved it.

Christmas in Northern Ireland... where in the states Christmas services are a huge deal here in Northern Ireland its not that they are not a big deal but they are done a bit differently. In my church here we have both a   Christmas eve service and a Christmas day service which both are very informal. They involve many hymns and are basically just a typical service. Christmas day gets quite chaotic because all the children are running about and it is welcomed. There was one child who was running up tot he front of the church banging on the drums and would be followed by his father.. so it was very informal.  But none the less it was very lovely. The church was all decorated and everyone was in a great Christmas spirit. After the service I was invited to Gordy's (who is my boss at The LINK) family's Christmas dinner. It was absolutely lovely. A full spread of turkey and Ham and potatoes and veggies and then cheesecake for desert. It was wonderful. During Christmas everyone in the church was wonderful.. I think maybe for about three to four weeks leading up to Christmas I was getting gifts from many different church members. It was lovely, and it made me feel at home.

After Christmas, I was lucky enough to have a friend come visit me from home. She came and stayed for three weeks and so we got to travel around and we rang in the New Year in Dublin. It was grand, two other YAV'S were in Dublin for New Year's  so we all went out for food and then went to a pub to count down until the new year. The pub gave everyone a free glass of champagne. It was a beautiful New Year.

Well I will continue to post more  about the recent times so look forward to the next post which will cover things from before Christmas and into the New Year. The photo upload is not working right now... So I will post them when it is working again. :) Miss and love you all!

LIZ