Meatloaf and Marriage

What a busy/stressful/exciting/strange week I've had.  A week ago today, we said goodbye to one of my housemates and a fellow BVSer, Sam.  She finished her two years of service to Quaker Cottage and has impacted the lives of hundreds of young boys and girls.  She has been a part of my Quaker Cottage experience, so for her to be gone now feels like losing more than just a housemate.  I am incredibly thankful that I had the opportunity to learn from her.  She truly understands what Quaker Cottage is all about.  Outside of work, she provided me with a smooth transition when I first arrived.  Because of her, Eva, and Steffi, I never felt alone or afraid to be me.  For these things and more, thank you, Sam.

A week and a day ago today, we welcomed Becky, a new BVSer, to Quaker Cottage.  Whenever someone leaves or arrives, the house changes.  Everybody brings their own vibe to mix, and it has been interesting seeing the ways things have changed in just the first week.  We no longer have Buffy marathons, but we now have an 8000 piece puzzle in the works.  Yes. 8-0-0-0.  Looking at the masses of pieces all over our living room is seriously daunting.  It should be a fun year!

This week also brought Cooking Week Round 2.  This was my first cooking week exclusively by myself, and I would lying if I said I wasn't nervous.  I wanted to cook something fairly easy, and after much deliberation, I decided to go with meatloaf.  My supervisor had been attempting for a long time to get one of us American volunteers to cook meatloaf, and for whatever reason, no one had.  It seems like many people here have never had meatloaf, so even though it's meatloaf, it was an absolute hit with the mums.  No exaggeration!  They loved it!  Each day, I received compliments from them on how good it was or requests for the recipe.  However, the highlight of the week came when I received my first marriage proposal.  To be honest, I didn't even realize what had transpired until about 10 minutes after the conversation had taken place.  The conversation went something like this:

Mum: "That was a delicious meal. You would make a great husband."
Me: "Oh, thanks! It was a pleasure to make it for you!"
Mum: "Do you fancy getting married?"
Me: "Well, hopefully someday, but I'm not looking for that at the moment."

Can you see how in the moment I thought she had simply been asking if I wanted to get married someday?  Thank goodness I answered the way that I did!  Think about how things would have continued had I responded with "I would love to get married" or anything of that nature...

But that's not the end of it.  The following day, I learned of a second admirer.  This time, the mum was a bit more subtle and simply asked if I wanted to go to the cinema with her.  Although I liked her approach more than the previous, I had to tastefully decline.

So besides meatloaf and marriage, a few other surprises and funny moments popped up this week.  On Wednesday, for an unknown reason, the power went out for our area on the mountain at around 11:30am.  I had just finished preparing lunch, so I lucked out there.  Unfortunately, we had no idea when the power would come back on.  Our evening afterschool group wouldn't be able to come up to Quakers if the building was cold and dark, so we decided to make a trip to Belfast Castle and play games in the garden.  It was a pretty chilly night that night, and I wasn't really looking forward to going back home to a house that is cold even when the heat is on.  We do have a fire stove though, so Becky and I popped in some coal and sat with candles burning in the one warm room we had.  The power didn't come back on until 5:00am the following morning.  That was 15ish hours of no heat besides the fire we lit.  Thank goodness for lots of blankets!

The award for funniest moment of the week goes to one of the bus runs.  I was up front driving, and one of the boys we picked up was sitting behind me.  We were chatting some when out of the blue he asks, "Are you Jesus?"  Now, this could have been a really cool moment where he goes on to explain that the reason he thinks this is because of how I am kind and loving to everyone, but no.  His reason?  "Because you have Jesus coins."  .......huh?  What are Jesus coins?  I still don't know.  It was a bit scary though since I really did have a pocket full of coins, and he had no reason to know that.  Anyway, now I'm Jesus and a lady's man. 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of joining a group of young Quaker Friends for a Thanksgiving meal.  I'm an ocean away, but I still got a taste of home for Thanksgiving.  How great it is to have a family amongst (mostly) strangers!

Miscellany

At the moment, I have a lot of random things playing around in my head.  Some of them are deep, and I'll be saving those for when I have more time to write.  The rest is mostly silly stuff that I've seen or experienced the past few days.

Random Item #1:
I suppose this isn't the best thing to be known for, but there is some truth to it.  I've been ragged on and teased about my driving many times since I've been here.  (It's not because I'm a poor driver. I want to set that straight.)  Some of the incidents you know already (the petrol fiasco, parking ticket), but most of it comes from my inability to learn the roads around Belfast.  I've never been all that great with directions and such.  That's what a GPS is for, right?  Well, when picking up the mums and children, we have to drive all over the place.  I've been here just over two months, and I'm just now beginning to learn how to get to
the right houses.  I blame part of it on the poorly placed street signs (if they're there at all) and on the fact that streets in certain areas all have the same name (Oldpark Ave, Oldpark Road, Oldpark Street, etc).  For the most part though, it's mostly that I can't remember all of it yet.

One day, one of the buses went to pick up "M," a 7 year-old boy, but was pretty late getting there due to traffic.  After apologizing to him for being late, he says, "Yeah. Sometimes when Andrew takes a wrong turn we can be late too."  I wasn't even on the bus that day! In fact, he hadn't seen me in at least a week.  Yet, he still knows that I have a reputation for getting lost... 

However, I do need to mention that "M" is the same boy who asked one of my coworkers if they wanted to see his pants (underwear).  Upon telling him that she didn't really want to see his pants, "M" says "Here look!" and pulls down his trousers anyway.  He is also the same boy who decided that he was going to change into a new Halloween costume in the middle of our afterschool program...while everyone else was in the room...and wearing nothing but his skivvies underneath...twice.  (And it would have been more if we hadn't stopped him.)

But that's not the only time one of the children has brought up my driving.  Just today a boy asked me, "Why do you drive so slowly?"  Well, first of all kiddo, I'm driving a massive bus on these tiny streets.  Second, I don't know where I'm going, and third, it's rush hour.  

Random Item #2:
Did you know that Oscar the Grouch used to be orange instead of green?  Whaaaat!

Random Item #3:
The most fulfilling part of this job is obviously working with the children, but it doesn't always feel this way.  There are times when children drive me up the wall.  Most of the time, though, things are pretty settled, and everybody is enjoying themselves.  Yes, this is nice, but the truly great feelings come when one of the children suddenly acknowledges how much you are appreciated.  For example, Sam, one of my fellow volunteers, will be leaving us on Saturday, so she has been saying goodbye to everyone.  As she said goodbye to one boy tonight, he said that he was really going to miss her, and I could absolutely tell by the way he said it that he meant it.  There have been a couple of moments like this for me too.  These moments are the reason I'm here.  They inspire me to continue working for these children because I am making an impact.  Quakers gives these children a break from the harsh reality they live in and an opportunity to just be happy, playful, and loved.  Most of the time, I won't see the impact I've made, but every now and then they give me the gift of knowing what I mean to them.

Random Item #4:
One of the babies on Monday had a cold.  Never before have I seen snot bubbles of the caliber he was blowing out.  Actually, I don't know if I've ever even seen a snot bubble in real life.  It was amazing!  I almost didn't want to wipe his nose.

Random Item #5:
Feel the nostalgia!

Guilty Pleasures

We all have our guilty pleasures.  Some people melt for chocolate.  Others are hot for soaking in the sun.  And still others nerd out for comics and superheroes.  Then there's me.

Whenever I walk past a Yankee Candle shop, I always feel a tug to wander in and sniff about.  I absolutely love it!  So many smells!  My favorite from today's visit?  Cranberry Ice.  Mmmmm!  There are always new nose flavors to experience.  I can always tell which scents my mom would choose.  (It's almost time for those candles with the spice and cinnamon scents.)  It's so much fun to smell the candle and try to guess what scent it is. 

"I smell lemon. Or is that orange?  It's definitely something citrusy." 

However, this was the first time that I felt that the names of the candles were just getting lazy.  What is the difference between Clean Cotton, Soft Blanket, Fresh Linen, and Fluffy Towels? Well, I'll tell you! Soft Blanket is "wrapped in sweet dreams...a lullaby of clean citrus, luxurious vanilla, and warm amber" whereas Fluffy Towels is "the fresh scent of clean towels warm from the dryer with notes of lemon, apple, lavender, and lily."  And what in the world is Turquoise Sky?

BUT WHO CARES! It all smells so good! You hit a literal wall of aromas upon entering the shop.  The smells punch me in the nose and keep me there until I can't smell anything anymore.  Ahh...I love it!


On a side note, I have been craving a Dairy Queen Blizzard for weeks now.  This is even my second time mentioning the delicious frozen treat in just 6 posts.  Sadly, I have another 10 months before this craving is satisfied. 

Never Growing Tired of Smiles and Hugs!

You never know what to expect with children.  One day will be full of one crying baby after another, and the next day will explode with giggles of glee.  I can say that my feelings for the children are accurately portrayed by this cat:

Yesterday was a bit hectic.  It was our first day back after a week off, and things seemed to be going a million miles per hour.  But today was excellent!  Everything went better than usual.  The babies were calm and smiley (although extra drooly).  The toddlers weren't plotting their escape during lunchtime.  It was an all-around good morning, and the afterschool group was just as excellent.  We had a new young girl come today for the first time.  I can tell already that we're going to be good friends.  She was quick to laugh at all of my nonsense, and she offered some of her own right back.  Apparently, I have Smurfs living in my ears.  I'll have to get that checked out...  And the other children were just as delightful this evening.  I'll never grow tired of a child giving me a hug out of the blue!

There's not much better than smiling babies and laughing children!

Pick up the phone - God is calling

I’d like to share the story of how and why I found myself in Northern Ireland.

In the days before BVS orientation, I was an absolute wreck.  I had spent two months of the summer trying to figure out where I wanted to go for a placement.  My top three were in Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio.  Just enough change from what I was used to but not too much.  I didn’t want to take too big of a risk and find myself someplace that I didn’t feel reasonably comfortable… 

And then I received a phone call from one of the BVS staff asking if I would be interested in going to Northern Ireland.  A spot had opened up at a placement in Belfast, and it was similar to the work that I had listed in my application.  I told her I would keep it in mind, but at that time, I honestly thought there’s no way I was going to volunteer abroad.  And that’s when it started.  A quick phone call turned into a passing thought and then a bit of research and finally full blown chaos in my head.  Before I knew it, I was fully considering going to N. Ireland as an option, and that was killing me because it didn’t fit the plan I had going into the year.  Of course, I still had the others as my top choices, but in my head, it was a coin toss as to which country I would end up in.  

If you know me well, you’ll know just how huge that was for me.  There was too much risk.  Too much change.  Too much unknown.  I...I don’t like those things. Like at all.  Seriously.  For me to even consider volunteering in another country is a testament to how much I had grown in the past year, and that growth came from two places.  First of all, it came from my girlfriend at the time.  We had countless talks about the future and our goals for the coming years, and these talks often ended with me becoming upset because she didn’t really have a plan, something which I couldn't really understand.  How can you go about life without planning out your next step?  She helped me realize (although I wasn’t aware of this realization until after our relationship had ended) that taking a step of faith into the unknown can bring fantastic things.  She taught me that things have a way of working themselves out.  If it weren't for her, there is absolutely no way I would have chosen to volunteer overseas. 

The second piece of the puzzle was a two word phrase: Let go.  My family has a fairly new tradition at Christmas time of picking a word or two that you would like to work on for the coming year.  For example, two years ago I chose the word initiative.  For this year, my phrase was “Letting go.” Letting go of control.  Letting go of my plans.  Letting go and letting God.  I admit it.  I have control issues, and that’s why I needed to make this my challenge for the year.  

It all came down to my placement decision. Should I stay, or should I go? My head said stay, but a whisper was saying, “Go for it!”  I had reached my lowest point and was about to toss in the towel.  Instead, I finally handed the reins over to God, and that’s when He said, “It’s about time! Now see what I can do.” Within the next couple of days, at least 4 separate and unrelated situations that made me certain that God was calling me to go to N. Ireland.  The most notable sign was from a book. I found a book in the BVS library entitled Here I am: Now what on Earth should I be doing? by Quentin Schultze. This was exactly my thought at the time. So I started reading, and on the very first page, it said we are called to be care-takers, not career-seekers. The relevance of this was perfectly clear to me. I had been trying to find a project that would provide me with experience that matched my career goals - career-seeking. The Quaker Cottage position was a child care worker - care-taker. Thanks for the clear advice, God! It’s funny to me now because I went through so much mental turmoil over that decision.  

Now I'm sitting in a house on the side of a mountain on a rainy night in west Belfast.  I took a risk and completely left my comfort zone.  I let go of my own plans and chose to trust God.  I don't know why I'm here or what my purpose is except that God wanted me here, but whatever the reason is, it's okay with me.  Good things are in motion. 

Brains...

Brains. Aren’t they weird? I mean, really weird. If you mess with just one little piece of someone’s brain, you can completely change that person. They may take on an entirely new personality and temperament, or their own concept of reality can be altered. The brain: the most complex thing in the universe! 

But you know what? The brain can be pretty dumb. For all the big talk it gets, it has let me down on too many occasions:

Let’s wake up an hour before the alarm so that you can think about the alarm going off for an hour.

Somebody farted? Better sniff to see if it smells.

Remember that song you heard once a year ago? Let’s sing that one line you remember over and over and over and…

Almost asleep? Here. Let me jerk your whole body to make sure you’re still alive.

Don’t forget all the times we forget what we’re looking for or what that word is or what we came in here to do. One time I didn’t even recognize my own middle name! I knew it was Scott, but that didn’t make sense. Scott can’t be a name. I said it aloud to myself multiple times, and it sounded, I don’t know, just wrong. That was an odd feeling. Today, I spent over 8 hours thinking that it was Saturday.  I was so excited for more Buckeye football, and now I have to wait for two more days. Silly brain. Do your job.

Anyway, it’s Thursday night, and it’s Halloween! There are fireworks going off throughout the city, and I’m watching them from my window. Enjoy the costumes everybody!

Kinda Bad Can Be Pretty Good

Let’s just say that I’ve been having a rough go of things in recent weeks.  For the past month, it has been one thing after another, and to be perfectly honest, it has officially gotten under my skin.  A month ago, we (Quaker Cottage) took a residential up to a place called Corrymeela.  Essentially, residential involves taking a group of mums and their children on a four day holiday.  My role was to take the children out and about each day.  Now don’t get me wrong, I really had a great time, and it was fantastic growing closer to the kids in a way that isn’t possible when I see them only twice a week.  The problem was that some of the kids have behavioral issues, and I have very little experience with kids like this.  I had no idea what I could do to control them or help them have a good time.  At one point, I was so frustrated with both my inability to do anything and their inability to listen that I wanted to just sit right where I was and cry.  That was my lowest point in all of my time here so far.  However, through discussions with my coworkers, I learned that the others felt nearly the same as me and that there wasn’t much more that I could be doing. 

One week of stress finished. (There’s more bad to come, but bear with me. I’ll get to happy stuff at the end.)

As a part of my job, I have to cook lunch for the mums for an entire week every six or so weeks.  If cooking is an art form, then call me a struggling artist.  Thankfully, because it was another volunteer’s and my first time, we were told that we would be doing the cooking week together.  Still, this stressed me out, but I made it through.

Week two finished.

Haha! Just kidding! Because the two of you did the cooking week together, you get another cooking week!  Yeah, ok.  That makes sense.  Did you have to wait until Friday to let me know it’s not over yet?  I mean, I was all excited thinking I would finally be able to spend some time with the kids again.  Good news is that I only burned myself once!

Hallelujah! Second cooking week was done.

Now, in case you’re thinking that I’m a wimp because I get stressed out by a little food, let me just say that through all of this, I had also been working on editing a video for the residential we had gone on.  I had zero experience with video editing, and I didn’t even have a program on my computer that would do that sort of thing properly.  For those who don’t know, video editing is an extremely lengthy process.  With that in mind, it’s time to start the third week after residential.  I have already put a lot of hours into the video, but it’s time to really get down to business.  Much of my free time for the entire week was spent on the video, and in the final few days before the deadline, I spent every minute outside of work working on it.  I was ready for a break…

Fourth tough week finished.

And the break came! Except on Wednesday last week.  That was a bad day.  I was in a rush in the morning, and I had to fill up the tank in one of the buses.  Allow me to preface this by saying that at petrol stations here the petrol nozzle thingy is green whereas the diesel nozzle in the States is green.  Well, I filled up my tank with unleaded when I really wanted diesel.  That’s not a good thing.  Four hours of sitting in a bus while waiting for a tow truck and later waiting on a fuel evacuation service gave me plenty of time to beat myself up for my stupidity.  I was really upset with myself.  I was costing other people an awful lot of money because I didn’t pay attention.  

And now there’s today.  Again, I’m on the bus.  I’m on a week of holiday, so today I decided I was going to head into town to explore some and do a bit of geocaching.  I park in a car park and pay for a ticket.  Fast forward to when I arrive back at the bus.  Hmm…where’s the ticket I stuck to my windshield? It had fallen off of the windshield so that it was no longer visible.  And then I see the parking ticket under my wipers.  £90 fine!  Thankfully, I still have the ticket I paid for, so I will be appealing the fine.  We’ll see where that goes. 

So yeah, it’s been hard here.  But you know what?  A lot of wonderful things have happened too.  Like I mentioned, the residential brought out a new side of the kids, and I feel a lot closer to them now.  The cooking weeks are over, and I’m extremely thankful that I was able to do them with another person.  It allowed me to get a feel for how it’s done without everything being on my shoulders.  And the video?  I think it turned out exceptionally.  I am extremely proud of myself for the job that I did.  Probably more so than I should be but whatever.  

The day that I sat in the bus for hours beating myself up was odd.  I think I needed that time sitting there alone.  I had nothing at all to do during those hours except think, and it wasn’t until the end that I figured it out.  That time was like a metaphor for most of my life.  I’ve always been WAY too hard on myself.  The mistakes I make are carried with me long after anyone else involved has already forgotten about them.  But not me.  For whatever reason, I have to “punish” myself by mentally berating myself.  That way, I won’t do it again (which I do anyway).  I know that I do this, and I know that I shouldn’t.  So I’m sitting in the cold, dark bus, and here’s my revelation: Mistakes happen.  Duh-duh-DUHHH!  I don’t know, but I feel like maybe this time it will stick with me a bit more.  Hopefully, I’ll be a little bit nicer to myself.  I found a quote awhile back that fits with this perfectly:  “And on those days when I am really down and kicking myself, I have to tell myself, ‘Hey, be nicer to my friend.’”  (I don’t know who said it. It just wasn’t me.)

There have been so many more moments when I can feel God lifting me up.  In the middle of one of my tough weeks, I had told my mom that I just wanted a hug.  And wouldn’t you know it, the next day at work, I walk in to see the kids, and they jump up and nearly tackle me with hugs.  

After sitting in the cold bus for hours, I was shivering uncontrollably.  The man from the fuel evacuation service was so positive and let me sit in his vehicle to warm up while he was working.  Man, did I like that guy!

Well, I have tons more stories and things to talk about, but I’m tired of writing.  Ta-ta for now!

P.S. I tend to skip words when I write, and I didn’t feel like proofreading. I hope you’ll excuse the mistakes (that’s a life lesson right there!).