The Average Adventures of a Girl Named Laina

Part I: The Bus

It was a damp and grey day. The room was dim when Laina awoke to the sound of rain on the window. She looked at the clock and rolled over. The only thing demanding her attention was the pillow beneath her head, but soon enough the day beckoned her to join it. Laina rose from her slumber and went about her morning routine, much like many mornings before only without the haste or numerous glances at the time. And as she finished her breakfast and packed her lunch she looked outside and prayed the rain would stop, not because she didn't like rain, but because she would soon have to walk in it, no matter how hard it fell.

With rain jacket zipped and hood up, she braved the wet dreary day and began her adventurous journey to the west of Ireland. Fortunately the rain had dwindled to little more than a drizzle and remained that way for quite some time. And as uncomfortable as it was to walk with a seemingly very heavy duffle bag, she reached the town hospital where she was to wait at the bus stop. According to her sources, the stop should have been just past the hospital buildings, but there was nothing there, not a sign nor a bench or any form of a bus stop, at least as far as Laina was concerned. With a fear of missing her bus and a sense of uncertainty about what to do, she walked into the hospital building in hopes of finding a local who might be able to give her some sort of direction. Upon inquiring, the hospital warden assuredly informed her that she simply had to wait anywhere along the main road in front of the hospital. "Anywhere?" she asked with a hint of disbelief. "Yes, just along the road there," she replied. "Right," thought Laina, "I guess I'll just go and find a relatively safe and visible spot." After finding such a spot, she stood and waited. The bus was scheduled to arrive in a matter of minutes, but it would likely not be on time. How much so was uncertain and Laina didn't want to take any chances of missing it, so she stood firm, despite the increase in rainfall. Sure enough, the bus was late, five minutes, ten, fifteen, and finally twenty. At that point Laina was a little concerned that perhaps she had read the bus times incorrectly or the bus had somehow already passed through without her noticing. She rang the bus station and was patched through to the driver. “Oh sure. We’ll be there in about three or four minutes,” he said. That seemed like a curiously precise number of minutes for such a late bus, but it was assurance enough for Laina to continue waiting until it arrived.

After nearly half an hour, Laina boarded the bus and took a seat. She had a connection to make in Knock Village, but unless the bus made extremely good time, Laina already knew she was going to miss it. There was no point in being pessimistic though. Who knew? Maybe all the bus drivers were having an off day and this bus would be late too. Even so, the hour and a half passed and there was no way she would make the connection and the next bus wasn’t until five pm. That was 4 hours away. Feeling slightly discouraged, but also a sense of humor in the situation, Laina phoned the friend she was meant to meet at her final destination. It looked like she was stuck in Knock, by no means indefinitely of course, but nonetheless stuck, and according to Keilah, it was a terrible place to get stuck. There was some truth in that because there really was not much in Knock at all, unless you enjoyed shrines to Mary and buying plastic bottles for holy water, which you could have at that point easily used to collect the gallons of rain falling from the sky.

Not wanting to be wet or haul around her bulky duffle, Laina found a quiet café to sit in and read. After choosing the café, she wished she had chosen somewhere a little warmer or at least with more character, but still feeling optimistic, she reminded herself that the place she had chosen was well lit and quiet, perfect for reading. She ordered some hot soup and took out her book, eager to let her mind wander into a fantasy – if you are curious, she began reading Lord of the Rings for the first time.

At last the waiting, that didn’t actually feel terribly long, came to an end and Keilah (and Mum) came to the rescue! In the end she gained or saved three things: first, the money that would have been used to buy the second bus ticket, second, peace and quiet to begin a good book, and third, a story to tell afterwards, and for your sake, the last may have been the best reason.  

The End

Taste of Ireland: School buses in Ireland look just like the other buses (big coach buses), only they are labeled for school use. 

An Invisible Line

Travelling between North and South Dakota does not reveal drastic differences in lifestyle. In fact, not very much is different in terms of culture or customs. In contrast, the differences between North and South Korea would be drastic. Distinctions between Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland are somewhere in between (although no where near as severe as North/South Korea). For starters, Northern Ireland is a part of the UK and the Republic is not. I won’t go into the politics because I don’t entirely understand it all myself, but this distinction effects the way of life across the border.

After only one visit to the North, the difference in economy was notable. The cars on the roads and in the car parks were generally more expensive brands, models, and/or year. The shopping centers were bustling with people and no one was worried about heating their homes. The greatest difference I would like to note is in the evangelical population. The lunch we attended after the service of a church in the north had more people than if all the members of two local churches in the Republic came together. Contrary to popular belief, the Republic of Ireland only has about 1.5% Evangelical Christians. Over 90% of the population claim Christianity as their religion [Operation World], but especially in recent years, ritual, guilt, and social norms have taken precedence over true relationships with Christ.

It is sad to see how desperately lost so many people are. The fact that there are massive congregations just an invisible line away makes me think about how many lost people I ignore across my own invisible borders. I don’t know how to resolve the issues that lie between people of each nation nor do I have a right to say how things should change, but as a member of the body of Christ, I will say that there is a need for unity within the church in this nation and across borders. Junior used the story of the four friends who brought the paralyzed man to Jesus through the roof to illustrate the church [Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-25] . We must come together with the common goal of bringing people to Jesus. We must work together just as the friends carried the man and walked together. There will be obstacles that come in our way, but faith in the power of God will prevail. It can be uncomfortable to step outside of our Christian bubbles and see that there is world outside our doorsteps that still needs the love of Christ, but it must be done. After all, Jesus came to heal the sick, not the healthy [Matthew 9:11-13].

Taste of Ireland: The typical way to take a cup of tea is black tea with a lot of milk (seriously it’s like they are having tea with their milk) and some sugar. Don’t forget the bikkies! 

St. Patrick's Day

I did not really know what to expect on St. Patrick’s Day. I knew it was a big holiday here, but I didn’t really understand why it is celebrated and to be honest, I don’t think most Irish people do either. The general consensus is that Ireland is celebrating St. Patrick. From there the facts and reasons sort of get muddled up. They know he “chased the snakes from Ireland,” but that isn’t even the reason he should be remembered. St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, chasing away paganism and he used the shamrock to explain the holy trinity. Most people just look forward to the copious amounts of alcohol and parties. – Side note. I wonder how much money people spend on this night alone. - Our way of participating in St. Patrick’s Day was walking through the parade with our big red double decker bus, a cross, and tracts. We passed out the tracts to people watching the parade and then parked the bus on the street later that night. The bus became a focal point for conversation and a beacon of hope as people moved from one pub to the next and passed by people who were completely sober on St. Patrick’s Day. For those who were really intoxicated, I am not sure how much of the conversations really stuck, but there are always people who remember and question. Personally, I am not good at speaking to people, but I can at least pray for their souls and for the seeds that were planted in their hearts to take root and grow.

Taste of Ireland: The first St. Patrick’s Day parade was in New York in 1762.

Ten Things to Check Off the Non-Existant Bucket List

For a while I kept up a good habit of posting about every week. As the holidays came around, I let my habit slip and have managed to only post one thing in the last month. I suppose I have hit a kind of writer's block. All of my ideas seem unworthy of sharing and nothing new in my life is particularly interesting enough to write about. So here is a list of ten things from the past two months that I did for the first time.

1. Stayed in the servants quarters of a centuries old house
2.  Scraped ice off the car
3.  Pulled open Christmas crackers – wrapped cardboard tubes with small gifts inside
4.   Lit candles on the Christmas Tree
5. Ate Raclette, complete with a small grill on the table, meat, potatoes, cheese, and wondrous flavors
6.    Saw the alps covered in snow
7.  Went snowboarding!
8.  Travelled by train all by my lonesome – I’m a big kid now!
9.   Voluntarily cooked with mushrooms (and enjoyed it)
10.  Moved into an apartment

   Taste of Ireland: Every entrance to a motorway has a “no horse and buggy” sign. 

Culture, Conflict, and Crisps

Looking back on this past week, I probably could have written a blog post everyday because I did something different each day and each day I learned something new. Unfortunately my writing process is a little longer than the time I have in any given day. For now, I will just share about some of the things I learned in our conflict resolution sessions with our guest Dave Babcock, who has been an OM missionary with his wife for over forty years.

Dave and his wife Brenda came all the way from Austria to share and speak with us this week during our devotional time, a few teaching sessions, and our team retreat. They are each incredible individuals and they have so much to offer about life and God’s hand in and around their lives. Despite the age and life experience variance between us, I found it exceptionally easy to talk with them and I am thankful for the opportunity to now have them in my life.

On Thursday and Friday, Dave lead a session for the entire staff of OM Ireland on conflict and resolution, which sounds like a boring cliché course on how to talk to people when you have problems with them. In a way, I suppose it was; only, it wasn’t boring at all. The focus was on understanding where conflict comes from and how to approach it.

The first thing we looked at was a pyramid of functionality within our team, modeled after Patrick Lencioni’s diagram from his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The first tier is trust, then constructive conflict, commitment, accountability, and at the top is unity in a common purpose. It is important to understand that conflict is inevitable when in a team setting, but that doesn’t always mean it is negative. Conflict can actually strengthen relationships and allow people to come to better understandings of one another, but only when it is resolved. In order for conflict to be resolved, all parties involved must make a commitment to each other, hold one another accountable, and have a common goal in mind.

So why do conflicts arise? Sometimes the reasons seem obvious and sometimes they are not, but the underlying reason is always because of human diversity. There are so many things that make us as humans different from one another and those differences shape the way we think, communicate, and handle situations. A huge factor to consider is culture. Something I didn’t recognize myself is that culture is not merely defined by country or region, but also education, family, religion, philosophy, work, generational contrasts, and who knows what else. Even within a single culture, people have varying thinking styles. We looked at the following four:

1. Linear – thinking in straight lines and going through a clear process to come to a conclusion. i.e. a + b + c = d
2. Dialectic – thinking a in a triangle of possible problems i.e. thesis > synthesis > antithesis
3. Existential/intuitive – jumping to conclusions
4. Global/contextual – thinking of all the related things; relational

Our thought processes and life experiences dictate how we deal with conflict and the five core conflict coping methods are: competitor, resolver, compromiser, avoider, and yielder.

There are too many distinctions to cover, but these sessions really opened my eyes up to how unique we all are. And each difference we have also means we have something in common to share with someone else in the world. I encourage you to explore what you have in common with those around you and see what makes you unique too. Learn how you deal with conflict and how you think and use that knowledge to better work with others. Whether we are in school, in a career, or simply interacting with family, we all have to be able to deal with conflict.

So that was long… and it didn’t even do justice to the session! Oh well. I hope you learned something. Now it’s time for another taste of Ireland!

Taste of Ireland: Chips are Fries and Crisps are potato chips and they don’t have goldfish crackers!

The side view from our house

A cow near Lacken House

Part of Roscommon Town

Me at Clonmacnoise, standing on a bog

Disclaimer: the sky is not always blue with white fluffy clouds.