Anseo
I remember celebrating St Patrick’s day as an American child. Wear green or you’ll be pinched. Learning about St. Patrick. Green rivers, green beer. “Kiss me I’m Irish.” We dyed my dad’s grits green one year. Everyone in the world pretends to be Irish for the day, for the fun.
This Patrick’s Day, we heard Tadhg’s first Irish word. There was no real reason for him to say it at that moment, but he happily said the phrase he evidently says everyday during role call at playschool. “Tadhg Clarke?” “Anseo!” I’m present. I’m here.
Suddenly, amid the boys’ green rugby jerseys and our day off, things came sharply into focus for me. What we’re called to be as missionaries is “anseo”—present. Here. on Patrick’s day, we are to identify with this nation: feeling Irish wounds, Irish sadnesses, Irish hope. We’re even answering the call by just being here when so many have left. There is a stark fact of Irish history: 39% of those who’d been born in Ireland were living abroad by 1890. Millions had died untimely deaths as well during the famine of the 1840’s & 50’s(“the Great Hunger,”) and the persisting bad economy drove millions of the rest out. It was usually the young, the best, the brightest who left, or at least who survived the long boat journeys to the States or Australia. The waves of Irish immigration did not end until the 1990’s when the Irish economy began to recover. Now, they are beginning again, bad economy driving out the young, the best, the brightest. Missionaries are leaving in large numbers because of a shift in visa laws.
But we are present. We are here.
Present in the midst of the suffering—and we feel the bite too as wages are radically cut and taxes raised, house prices plummet, killings and riots rise up in the North again, even basic public services are predicted to begin failing. Its our friends and family who are rapidly losing their jobs and unable to find new ones, wondering how they will pay mortgages for houses worth half what they paid a year ago. People we know and love are leaving for the middle east, Australia and places further still in search of work.
Present in the future as our team plans how to end MAP Ireland well, how it will work when I stay and MAP leaves.
Present even in the past as we try to unravel history in the hope of understanding today a bit better. Its our job as missionaries, and its our hearts–feeling the hurts, taking them on as our own, because they are our own now.
When I first felt called to missions, I remember assuming I would go to Africa. That seemed like the “real”missionary calling: a place where you would suffer with the people. There would be deprivations, struggles, sacrifices, and yet the exuberance of African worship too.
The reality of being a missionary in Ireland has always held struggle and sacrifice for me in innumerable ways, but it seems even more so now. I have a deep, even inextricable connection with the joy but also the sadness, the hardships and the longing of Ireland. Wearing green on St. Patrick’s day was just pretending. As a missionary in Ireland, I am called to be green throughout the year, throughout my mind, my body, my worship, my family, my work, my life. I’m called to be present.
Anseo.
A Rainbow Kind of Day
Winter months in Ireland can be hard for me with a bit of seasonal depression but yesterday the sun was out as I walked to church.
When the service ended after church, as I was waiting for the people next to me to exit the aisles, I leaned over to a lady next to me that I hadn’t met and said, “how are you.” Then this lady looked at me with tears in her eyes. I thought to myself, “oh, no, I’ve caught her in a vulnerable position and I don’t want to embarrass her.” She responded telling me about how she liked the sermon and knew she needed prayer. Then asked if I was American. I told her I was and that I worked for an organization called World Harvest Mission and the tears just streamed down her face. “World Harvest!” she said. “I used to know Jack and Rosemary Miller. They were incredible people.” And in that moment I knew I was entering into sacred space in her heart, and that I was able to be part of it because of this man who I greatly admire but never met, the man who founded WHM. And then I had the privilege to pray for her.
I think it’s interesting when I was talking about the 3D dimension of this blog including the people who have gone before us, I would never have imagined a conversation like this. So thanks, for going before us Jack and Rosemary.
This lady told me that because I sat next to her, she was reminded of a verse that Jack had given her that had really changed her life. “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” (2 Tim 1:7). And that verse spoke to me where I am in my life right now.
When I left church to get on the bus to head into city centre, I said to myself as the clouds gathered, “this is a rainbow kind of day.” That’s one of the beauties of living in Ireland. In the spring particularly, there are multiple rainbow sightings (so far no leprechauns!) But every time I see one, the magnificence is nothing less than the last time I saw a rainbow. And as I’m led into worship, I remember God’s covenant with Noah when he said “never again will I destroy the earth.”
So for the next 30 minutes on the bus I took intentional glances up from the pages of “The Reason For God” to search for the rainbow. And then, there it was over the sea touching the lighthouse at Howth Head. I looked around the bus to see if anyone else was marveling at the rainbow. I almost tapped the woman with the child in front of me to point it out to them. Look! This rainbow holds much promise and hope for me, and I want others to be amazed at it too.
Seeing this rainbow on this day was a reminder of God’s love throughout the history of the world. That what he promised to Noah has continued to me, that because I am his daughter, I am grafted into his covenantal love. And I am part of a big family.
So I praise God for his creative ways of telling me he knows and loves me, how he loves the people that we work with, and how he wants to spread this good news to everyone, as evidenced by a rainbow in the sky!
Becca Giles is from Charlottesville, VA and graduated from UVA ‘06. She participated in the summer internship ‘05-06 and moved to Ireland in May 2007 and is finishing her second year of the apprenticeship, through August 2009.
