We arrived in Geneva on Tuesday, March 16th at 11 a.m. after about 12 hours of travel. The only mishap on the flights happened as the plane was being pushed out of Chicago; something weird happened with the wheel so we were delayed a bit. Luckily we took off and landed safely! Waiting for us at the airport was Pam, a fellow BVSer also going to Belfast, and Kristin Flory, the BVS European Coordinator. Once we were in Geneva the goal of day one was to stay awake to begin to get over jet lag. Kristin had various activities planned for us. We headed back to the hostel to drop off our luggage and then went out to lunch. After lunch we toured parts of old town Geneva and heard more about the history of Switzerland and Geneva. We stopped for coffee every two hours…although we think that was more for Kristin than for us. After dinner, we headed straight back to bed. It was a tiring first day of transition!
The morning of the second day Pam and the two of us headed back to Lake Geneva to take a boat ride across. The true orientation began after lunch with a day full of information Kristin learned from her recent trip to our projects. Kristin informed us that our job description may be altered from what we originally anticipated. Although we never truly knew what to expect when we arrived since our job description was very vague, this was more of a change than expected. She told us that we may only be half time in the Ember (the home for the core members) and spend our other “half time” with various projects. Micah will probably focus his time in the garden that is started and they are hoping to start along the peace lines in Belfast. Lucy may be shadowing Faythe who is leaving in July. She is responsible for coordinating volunteers’ arrival and supporting them as they arrive. It was a shock originally to hear the drastic changes from our original impressions, but after letting it settle, we are excited about the possibilities and variety it may offer. We will know more after a meeting with the Faythe, Maria (the community leader) and Scott (the manager). That evening we headed to Kristin flat for a delicious soup meal.
The last full day in Geneva began with a visit to the United Nations and the botanical gardens. After finding our way to Kristin’s house, we watched movie after movie on Northern Ireland and the troubles. Despite fighting falling asleep, we learned some valuable information about the country and its past that we will call home for the next years. The afternoon was broken up with a nice stroll to France. (Weird huh?) You can see the pictures below of some lady’s cats we played with for a wee bit. The evening was capped off with a delightful cheese fondue dinner: a BVS tradition.
Our boat coming in. A view of the city across Lake Geneva.
Pam and Micah on the boat.
The United Nations.
Kristin and Micah shaking hands across the border. Micah is in France; Kristin is in Switzerland.
Off to Belfast:
On Friday, we flew from Geneva to Belfast. After much maneuvering to fit everything within weight limits, Micah was right on the money and Lucy was within a tenth of a kilo. Not bad. In the airport before leaving, Kristin led us in a game of symbols for Catholics, Protestants and both in Northern Ireland. Some examples would be: green is Catholic and orange is Protestant; Nike is Catholic and Reebok is Protestant; mustache is Protestant and Fu-Manchu is Catholic. Although they are not a concrete rule, it opened our eyes to the reality that theses sometimes “ridiculous” differences are still predominant and noticed today. Once in Belfast, Scott met us in the airport and we proceeded to drop Pam off at Quaker Cottage, her project working with mothers and children. High on the hill over Belfast, she has a panoramic view of the city, which was a remarkable welcome to Northern Ireland. We FINALLY arrived to the L’Arche community around dinner time where we found Thomas (a core member) waiting Scott’s arrival to run (very quickly as he would say). Thomas had to wait a bit longer because Scott gave us a tour of the Ember and the Ark. The Ember is the core members and volunteers home. It is the last unit in a set of row houses. Each core member and volunteer has a private bedroom with shared bath. There is also a “sleep over room” because each night one paid staff is required by law to be present. After touring the Ember we went on board the Ark where we will be living which is a wee walk down the street within the same set of row houses. The Ark is used for offices and a guest house. After hauling our luggage up the 40 stairs to the third floor, we arrived at our spacious bedroom overlooking a busy street and bus stop. (Just so you know its 27 stairs down to the bathroom.) Dinner and the rest of the evening were filled with getting to know the rest of the community that was present that evening. We slept well that night in our new home.
To explain a bit more about our new community: L’Arche Belfast currently has four core members: Larry, Thomas, Jillian and May. May just moved in last week and is adjusting to life in the L’Arche community alongside us. In addition to us, there are three other volunteers, two from France and one from Canada: Cammi, Anna, and Naomi. Along with volunteers the house is staffed with five assistants who are paid members of the community: Goshia (originally from Poland), Neil, Sharron, Jenny (these three are from Northern Ireland), and James (originally from England). Each day at least three people, volunteers or paid staff, are present in the community caring for the core members, living alongside the core members and just being friends with the core members.
Saturday we woke up early, UNPACKED and rearranged our room before heading over to breakfast at the Ember. It was a great feeling to have everything unpacked and start to feel settled!! We entered into the activities of a weekend at the community. The main activity for both of us was a picnic at Lady Dixon Park. It started out as a sunny day (by the time we got to the park it was a bit cloudy and windy…we hear that is typical Belfast), but it was still a great picnic and walk. The park will be beautiful in a number of weeks when the roses bloom, but it was already green and colorful with crocus and daffodils. The afternoon was filled with our first experience with rugby. Neil played in school and explained the intricate rules to a very different game! Sadly Ireland lost to Scotland in a nail biter. Dinner was a Saturday night L’Arche Belfast tradition, fish and chips. After dinner Micah had quite an experience in city center. He accompanied Neil, Noah (Scott’s 10 year old son) and Thomas to see David Coulthard, a Formula 1 race car driver race through city center. As they were walking to find a good spot to see, Micah and Thomas got separated from Neil and Noah, which led to a problem later on. Thomas and Micah squeezed to try to find a place to see. Micah was able to see through the view finder of his lifted camera. Sadly, Thomas, who loves anything that goes fast, was unable to see because of other people. Although they didn’t have the best view, it was fun to hear the roar of the engine and see the smoke of the tires. Once the show had finished, Micah and Thomas headed to the car since the group had planned no meeting place. Micah waited for Thomas at the car. Luckily Thomas was really patient even though that is a little uncharacteristic. Later Micah and Thomas found out that Neil and Noah were wandering about the city center looking for the other two. In the crowd of 15,000 they were not having much luck, so they phoned back to the house to see if they had heard from Micah. This got Lucy and Sharron a bit worried thinking of Micah and Thomas lost in the city center and all the mess that could cause! Neil’s next step was to approach the police to see if they had seen Micah and Thomas walking around. They radioed their “mates” and used city cameras to try to spot them. After not having any luck, Neil and Noah headed to the car. Upon their arrival they found Micah and Thomas, who wanted to get out of the jammed car park “quick quick”. We were happy that we made it through the first full day in Belfast!!
Sunday was a bit slower in the community. We went to pick up a ginormous bookshelf from Scott’s shelf with the help of Neil and his dad. The bookshelf is for the newly renovated living room. We had a tiny trailer and a lot of rope to move a 6 plus ft square bookshelf through the small streets of Belfast. We only had to stop once to readjust the sliding shelf, and it made it in one piece! It looks great in the living room and organizes a lot of the books and games the house has! Later in the afternoon after Jillian returned from an afternoon with her father, we went out for a walk with Jillian, Cammi, and Anna. We walked to a nearby park where we came across a game of Gaelic football (a combination of rugby and soccer—we looked it up on YouTube before we came if you are interested). The weekend really wore us out. Although we had no real responsibility, we learned so much about the community and the members that we retired early!!
Monday was our first rest day (kind of). In the morning we had our weekly team meeting and prayer. This was the first time we met Maria (the community leader). It was a good time to continue to get filled in on routines and house structure. After lunch we walked up to a nearby mall to do some window shopping. The afternoon we had our first induction (aka orientation) meeting with Scott. We were able to find out some more logistical information and found out that soon we will know more about our job description and how we will be used. In the afternoon we planned to go for a walk…then it hailed…then it was sunny so we did. It was nice to see the neighborhood and area surrounding the community.
On Tuesday we were present in the Ember for the first time during the weekday routines. We are not observing or learning the core members’ daily personal routines yet (that will happen in our third week here) so we worked at the same sorts of work: getting breakfast ready, cleaning around the house after breakfast. The difference was at about 9:30 the core members headed off for various activities. From 10 to 12 on Tuesdays we have staff training and formation. This week it was fairly informal and more of a team building experience. We went to Holywood (a neighborhood of Belfast) and took a walk by the Irish Lock and then had a cuppa tea (you may think that drinking tea is talked up in Ireland, but we have come to find out it is quite true, drinking 6-10 cups a day!!) We were dropped off on the way back with the other volunteers down Ormeau Road (our road) to go into various second hand shops look around and just see the neighborhood some more. The core members arrived back at the Ember at about 4ish. Tuesday evenings is the house meeting and prayer, which is lead by one of the core members. Our fearless meeting leader, Thomas, checked in with each person about their past and next week and we closed with the L’Arche prayer. The big news of the meeting was that Micah is a business major, which answered one of Maria’s prayers. L’Arche is in the VERY beginning planning stages of launching what will eventually be a soup catering business, “Root Soup”. The gardens mentioned earlier near the peace walls and the catering business will all be intertwined and Micah will probably be helping to write a business plan along will doing some market research. But much more will be known in the near future! Also at the house meeting Scott informed everyone that he met another organization leader who is looking for groups to use their new industrial kitchen: another answer to prayer. Exciting times! From the beginning of the house meeting to the end it seemed to go from a hopeful idea to a real possibility that needs a lot of work, but we might see some real progress in during our time here. After the house meeting the people present in the Ember began cooking a pasta dinner together. The cooking soon became a dance party to 90s music for the girls much to Jillian’s delight who has awesome rhythm! The evening thereon out consisted of talking and beginning planning our “to-do” list of travels within Belfast, the Emerald Isle and beyond.
Today was another rest day that gave us a chance to explore Belfast and begin our to-do list. We had a brilliant plan but due to weather made a change this morning to an indoor activity! We left this morning to visit the Ulster Museum. On our rainy walk to the museum we encountered some kind of a random check point for cars. As we walked along the footpath, a nice smiling lady officer with a large machine gun told us “good morning”. Oh the experiences! Once we arrived at the museum, safe and sound although a bit wet, we were amazed at the size of the free museum. The topics inside ranged from history of Northern Ireland from prehistoric to recent history to dinosaurs to birds to geology to art. It was quite a place! We were also glad to find something to occupy Micah’s dad for at least three days during their time with us later. J The rest of the day has been a true fulfillment of a rest day.
Our first week in Europe has been filled with lots of different adventures, but we feel that this is where we are supposed to be right now. After seven months of planning, dreaming and praying, being able to experience this is truly seeing God at work in our lives. We see good things happening in this community and are excited to be a part of them. They have been so welcoming to us and have big plans for us as we begin our life here. We are so thankful for safe travels, health, the community, and a good beginning. We would ask that you pray with us as we continue to find our role in the community. We are both excited and anxious as we find out more about how we will be used. God is good!!
