Goodbye

It's 5 a.m. Monday morning, and it's dawn in Belfast. The window panes across the street at Methody are all pale gold, and birds are singing. I leave in an hour and a half for the city airport, to start the long flight home.

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to leave: I’m eager to be home, but all that means is that someday I’ll have to come back and live here.

I love Northern Ireland, even more so than I thought I would... and the people here have been kind beyond all my expectations. Especially the other College Gardens students, the wonderful people at both St. Bart’s and Fisherwick, and all the others I’ve met along the way.

Here are a couple pictures of St. Bart’s folks:

This is Jenny Forbes, her mother (whose name I can't remember off the top of my head), and a lady named Pauline, at Jenny's house, with the dessert we had after a light dinner to follow up the C.S. Lewis tour. Here is her brother, Robert, with Lola, the neighbour’s cat:

At St. Bart’s on Saturday I helped out at the summer fair, setting up and clearing tables. I also ate my own weight in cakes. On Sunday, during the service, I was called up and presented with a matted photograph of the church, which I hope to frame and hang up at home.

I’ll keep posting after I come home – you’ll all see pictures from the fair, and more...!

Here are Janice, Ron, and Herbie:

I know Janice has said she’s been disappointed by student interest in the past, because they – being in such a busy area, with so many students and others coming and going – are really seeking to be welcoming to the outside community. I’d say that yes, maybe hundreds of students might pass by, but in at least one case the church welcomed in one - one shy kid who's been going through a lot of difficulties. And that made all the difference to that one kid... I mean it.

That goes for the lovely people at Fisherwick as well. Going to church – and to the few CU activities I managed to get to, and to the free lectures waaay back when at the beginning of the year – might be my clearest and best memories from the past six months. Thank you.

I will continue this blog once I get home, with more pictures, updating entries which my computer wouldn't let me edit, and more. Maybe even putting up some pictures from home - of MY cats, for instance, or of some of the odd things in Virginia that I've been talking about all this time.  

Till then... goodbye. Goodbye, NI - somehow, I'm coming back. Someday.