Email: Melissa Wheeler

Greetings from Belfast.

Christmas is right around the corner, the lights have been hung, the chill is in the air, and the coming of baby Jesus brings love, warmth, and hope. As I walk down the streets of Belfast I see lights and trees, people having parties in their cozy houses, singing carols, and maybe even sometimes forgetting about their troubles and letting them melt away with the embers of the fire that warms the house. The windows that used to glow with a blue tint from the television, now glow green and red from the lights around the tree. Some of these things bring thoughts of home, while others are uniquely Belfast. The Christmas cheer is in the air. With scarves, gloves, and warmth in my heart I too prepare for the holiday season.

Besides the coming of the season, there is so much more that I have learned about this culture and about myself through that process. I have found that in being a mission volunteer, you quickly learn that you possibly if not probably will learn more about yourself than you could ever hope to teach. While I believe that you can touch people who will in turn touch more and more people, I realize that this culture is rubbing off on me more than I will ever rub off on it. Peace and reconciliation are the things that the community of Belfast is working towards. Both of these mean something different to every man, woman, and child. Peace in its simplest form is something so relative, something so infinite, something so very immeasurable. Reconciliation is one in the same. It is difficult to define. However, this community has seen a need for change and is taking great efforts to assist in many diverse and wonderful ways to the needs of this hurt place. This to me is a testament to the will of the human spirit.

In coming to Belfast I knew that I would be working with youth, since that is the main mission of this program. I didn’t know that I would actually get to work with people from all ages, all races, all classes. This things has been a huge blessing and has given me a wonderful chance to be able to really listen to where God is calling me to serve in the future. When I was applying to this program I read a former Young Adult Volunteer’s newsletter on the very site where you are now reading mine. She was serving here in Belfast and compared the peace process here to an iceberg. She said that the process was like people breathing on this large iceberg one by one, which creates streams that slowly melt away the block of ice. That has stuck with me as I have begun my year of service. It sometimes feels slow and almost endless; you look at the big picture and you wonder what you can do to help. Then with grace and hope you realize that those who have served before you have been breathing on that iceberg, melting away hate and violence, shrinking down the pain of a weary community. You then just learn how to be, how to just become part of that process. You take it one day at a time and you breathe in and out and hope that the warmth of your breath will create a stream someday.

Blessings to all,

Melissa Wheeler

To read more day-to-day reflections of my time in Belfast, go to my blogspot.

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