In a blink...

I am afraid to blink because if I do I feel as though I will miss out on so much! My life in Northern Ireland is so busy and absolutely wonderful. I really need to update this blog more so the posts are not as long. Since I barely wrote while I was in Belfast I am going to simply highlight a few things. We spent so much time listening to people speak to us about Reconciliation, the conflict, and what they are doing to promote peace. I was absolutely blown away!!! Then at night our group bonded very quickly in a little hostel called Arnie's backpacker. I learned so much in this week and my life was completely changed. One day in particular changed my life and I will put my journal entry on here (I will try and shorten it some)

January 12, 2011

Today changed my life. I never again will view ministry or my life the same! Right now I am sitting in the garden of Arnie’s looking at the sky lit up by the building lights and I am in awe of the glory of God. 

Then we went to a Methodist church and a man spoke to us again. What he said will stick with me for the rest of my life. He quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury and said, The Church is the only society that exists for the benefit of those who are not its members. WOW. This was said in the 1800’s and so it breaks my heart because this truth is not lived out. He also said that we don’t meet the needs of people in order to convert them or make them into “us” but rather you meet their needs because they have them. This immediately brought to mind that Jesus said when we visit people in prison we visit Him and when we feed the hungry we feed Him. He did not tell us that we feed the hungry and bring Jesus to them but rather we feed them because we they need it and recognize that Jesus is already there.  We also went to a Catholic church today and heard a man speak of what it was like, he told us that before the wall he was able to get to his wife’s house by 12 different roads and then the wall went up and he had 4 gate options and they were very difficult to get through and when he married his wife, because she was on the “other side”, many of his family and friends did not come. That wall separates and divides. It is a way to take care of the behavior issues but the real feelings and issues of the conflict are not addressed. It is a cover on top of boiling pot and is only a remedy to the surface issues. This man we met told us that he hopes one day that wall can be torn down, but right now it is not ready to be. The people do not know each other so if it was torn down nothing would change and hostility would rage. Children can be playing the same game separated by a couple feet of brick but they might as well be miles away. The way people are trying to achieve reconciliation is by taking care of the needs of the community. By uniting churches, both protestant and catholic, and reaching out. It is by recognizing the dignity and humanity in “the other” and listening to their story and actually meeting them! The Catholic Church we visited has multiple initiatives to bring about reconciliation and to take care of the needs of the church. This is what the church needs to look like.

The church is a place to go out and seek justice in the world. It is to benefit those that are not part of it. To reach the world. But not to bring them Jesus but rather to take care of their needs. The Holy Spirit is active in this world and if we don’t recognize that he is present and that he is working we deny God. Ministry is to be about serving “the other” to recognize the outcast and to love the world. It is easy for me to sit here in Northern Ireland and to see this and to see the need for reconciliation and to see the need for unity within their community. But their churches here, in the neighborhood we visited, are more united than the churches I have experienced in America. Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Protestant, etc gathered together to create an initiative called Heat or Eat because many people have to make the choice whether they are going to heat their house or feed their family. They came together to provide the needs of the people. Can we say that about our church in America? The churches in America are divided just as much as here. We have so many denominations and yet we seek the same Jesus Christ.  Churches split and fellowship is broken and God weeps. Where is the united body? Where is the unity seeking out the Kingdom of God? It is so easy to see in other cultures what needs to change but we fail to recognize the influences of our own culture and the evil in our own country. We come to church on Sundays get “fed” and then go home. We may go to small groups or bible studies but is the church meant to feed you or is the church meant to feed the needy? Has church become about the individual? I believe that the church is to be a community center a place where Christians come to bring about the Kingdom of God through united fellowship. I think churches need to come together to recognize the needs and depravity of their communities and work together to obliterate them. The church is to raise up people who seek justice and who actively love self-sacrificially. “The walls which separate do not reach to heaven!” this is the front of a card I received from the Catholic Church. On the back is a prayer that is said everyday they go out and interact with “the other”. It moved me to tears when we read it together. It is applicable to every division we create in our life. 

Lord Jesus,
Who on the eve of your death, 
prayed that all your disciples might be one,
as you in the Father and the Father in you,
make us feel intense sorrow over the infidelity of our disunity.

Give us the honesty to recognize, 
and the courage to reject,
whatever indifference towards one another,
or mutual distrust, or even enmity,
lie hidden within us.

Enable us to meet one another in you.
And let your prayer for the unity of Christians,
be ever in our hearts and on our lips,
unity such as you desire and by the means that you will.

Make us find the way that leads to unity in you,
who are perfect charity,
through being obedient to the Spirit of love and truth.
Amen.

This prayer and that day changed me. I so desire to see the unity in the Body of Christ. I went to a Catholic Mass on Sunday and they spoke of this very thing!!! So good!!!

Now onto Derry. I left the Bethel group on Monday morning early and saying goodbye was extremely difficult. I became so close with people and shared so much that it was like I left some of my heart with them. I sit here now and think about it and I still miss them so much! It is different now than it was. I finally got moved into my dorm on Monday and met the other 6 American Young Women that will be studying abroad with me. I have not met any of my flatmates and I am excited to meet them at some point. As a group we have traveled to see the bogside which is where Bloody Sunday happened and today we went to Giant's Causeway. It was absolutely spectacular! So beautiful. I put a TON of pictures on facebook so check them out!

I have been bonding really well with the other Young Women from America and I am having lots of fun! It is just different though. I haven't found a Christian Community yet here and I miss my Bethel friends. I miss talking and being affirmed in my faith instead of being shot down. Something I know I will learn this semester is how to be in the world but not of it. I am really excited to see how God uses this semester and I am excited to see how I am changed from this experience.I want to remember and fully experience every little thing. I want to remember today when I took my first trip by train and I want to remember how I got motion sickness from riding backwards on a bus. I want to remember how it feels to breathe in the brisk air and even the smell of my room. 

I am going to update this blog more often and with little random things so that they are not super long posts all the time. thank you for reading this! I am on skype whenever I am online so if you every want to chat just let me know (sarah.mikul) a good time is usually at 6ish MN/WI time.