We've arrived, at long last. Last night we had a potluck at our host family's home where we finally met all of our new house mates. This afternoon we were driven up to the Corrymeela Ballycastle centre, it took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get here from the house in Belfast.
Ballycastle is as beautiful as we had imagined. There are several different buildings. The main one is "the House," it is actually what I would compare to a lodge. Then there's the Village and the Cottages, which are residential places for people to stay. There's the Croi (said Cree), which is our worship building and is magnificant inside. Not much light, but it's built of stone and is a complete circle, it has several rooms but the are all semi circluar as well, with the small worship space containing pillows and a small alter in the middle. They are very purposeful on not being overtly Christian, but create a space where all people can feel safe and worshipful. Our home is coventry. Also a very unique building, it's got lots of character and I'm actually quite happy with our room. We're all in the same level, kind of like a domatory, we're at the end on the south western side. Our room consists of a bed, desk, sofa, closet and sink. It's really quite cosy. It's very green and I'm ecstatic about the ocean (and they have kyaks here!).
Our team is very international, which I'm also very excited about. We have people from: El Salvador, Nigeria, Sweden, Germany, US, Canada (us), Northern Ireland, and England. It's a really neat group and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.
We now enter into two weeks of orientation and then into our jobs. I'm getting the impression that it will be a lot like camp work, with a little more focus on reconciliation and group facilitation, along with the broader range of age groups, but mostly children and youth. This post is getting fairly long, and I don't want to give all the details away at once. But as the Irish would say...it's been just lovely! Good night.
P.S. Above is a picture of Coventry which is where we are living.
1 comment:
Niki and Jason,
Thanks for providing a "wee" image of your first encounters with your new home. It does sound wonderful. The descriptions of your worship space are intriguing and it reminds me alot of the space that I found when I travelled to the Taize community in Brazil. It will be interesting to learn more about worship there as you have opportunities to participate.
Thanks for keeping us posted.
Mom (Enns)
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