VIM BELFAST PEACE PROJECT 2016: Monday, April 26: Presidents, Missions and Peace Keepers

What a wonderful day! We started with our friend Rev. Margaret Ferguson. She spoke about the outreach programs at Skainos. They are truly becoming a mission church. They are reaching out to the marginalized people in Belfast. The number of programs that have started in the 2 years since she came to Skainos is just amazing. A shelter, food pantry, soup kitchen and the refurbish shop which only sells refurb furniture and also dismantles and sends bike to Ghana. It also has a "re-store" that raises funds for the mission work. We spent an hour learning about ways they have reached out to the community.

Following Margaret we spent an hour with Rev. Brian Anderson, the President of all Ireland Methodist Churches. The Methodist Church is the smallest "mainline" church in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Brian discussed the difficulties of attracting and keeping people in the church. The difficulties Irish Methodists face matches what we are facing in America. He was quite honest in how difficult it is to tell a congregation that their church is closing. Brian spoke about how people are willing to drop their kids off for a fun free evening, but do not come to church. We also discussed the Church's dealing with the gay marriage issue. Brian also spoke about a successful change one church made. This little church had a congregation of 20 older women and one man. They were on the verge of closing. They had long discussions (in the Methodist way) and with the new minister decided to reach out to a group of young mothers meeting in the public library that was right across the street. What happened after a year was the mothers group began to bring their families and the church is still alive today. Brian said we need to leave the building and reach out to others.

Our 3rd speaker for the day was our dear friend, Rev. Harold Good who is one of the hero's of the Peace Process. He spent an hour exploring his own Civil Rights journey in both the USA and Belfast. He has continued to be active in the peace process around the world. He had just returned from a major Peace Conference. Harold is an exceptional peace activist who was trusted by the IRA to accept and eliminate the guns used in The Troubles. He is a person of Peace who has spent his life keeping the doors of hope alive.

Next we went to Clonard (Church Of The most Holy Redeemer) for lunch and time with Ed Peterson. Ed was an assistant to the late Fr. Gerry Reynolds. Ed spoke about what is happening in Belfast with the Catholic youth. There are a lot of exciting opportunities for the youth including a Youth group Camp/retreat with about 1500 youth participating each summer. He is also the chairperson of the Forthspring Board and we will see him again tonight.

Four of the group (Jack and Deb Whitehead, Rod and Deb Aldrich) walked back from Clonard toward Forthspring. We stopped at the Bombay Street Memorial Garden which is dedicated to those who died in that awful incident of intentional fire as a form of execution and terror against Catholic innocent bystanders. Others remembered there include Catholic militants and those who died as "Prisoners of War" while in the custody of the British military.

Then we proceeded on to Forthspring and assembled two outdoor planters. We used teamwork to divide up the roles of putting the parts in the right place and orientation. The three planters were lined up and Chris took our pictures. Then back to the Farsett Hotel to prepare to go out to dinner.

In the evening we met up with and/or mooched rides from Charlene, Mandy, Linda, Fiona, Maura, and Triona at Goodfellas for Belfast pizza and other tasty dishes. We caught up on each others' lives and regaled with stories from these VIM trips and vacation trips. It's always nice to visit our friends here in Belfast.

Submitted by Rod Aldrich and Pat Thomas

Pictures to follow