Email: Alex Wirth

Dear Friends,

I tried to write this letter once already, and I tried to focus on all the positive things. I did not want to start out with, “The hardest thing about living in Belfast is….”  But so far the most significant things that have happened to me, indeed the things I have learned the most from, have been a wee bit negative. I am going to try again.

The hardest part about living in Belfast has been trying not to focus on the negative all the time. The positive side of things proves to be quite elusive when part of your job is to observe the negative parts of a culture and try to understand them. It would be very easy to miss the point entirely, make myself blind to the destructive tensions here, and carry on working with only the bright side in mind. But there is no pay off in that mindset. God does not call us to put blinders on. He calls us to see.

One of the greatest challenges—and also one of my greatest joys—has been running the 174 Trust football (aka soccer) club. Three times a week I walk down the street to the Trust and play football for an hour with boys age 11-18 from a predominantly Catholic, nationalist neighborhood estate called the New Lodge. These boys are seen as “hoods” and troublemakers in the area, and what we try to do is give them a safe place to come and simply burn off extra energy. They are tough young men. They have to be, growing up in an area so heavily affected by the latent tensions of the Troubles.

During the first few weeks I was here, a group from the United States from a church that partners with the 174 Trust came and spent an evening eating pizza and bowling with the football boys. Bill Shaw, the director of the Trust, had told the group about some of the difficulties these boys face and specifically mentioned one, Dylan, who had recently been suspended from school. Towards the end of the night one of the well-meaning visitors approached Dylan and asked, “How’s school going?” I saw Dylan’s wall go up instantly.

“Fine,” Dylan said stone-faced.

“Really? Cuz I heard you’ve been having some trouble.”

“Nope,” Dylan said as he pushed past the guy and went for another slice of pizza.

And that was that. I have become very familiar with Dylan’s extensive defense mechanisms. You can see it in his eyes when he isn’t really there anymore. Each boy has his own way of getting by: some cuss, some fight, some run. I used to think I had failed with Dylan, that I would never crack him. But that is an example of missing the point. Dwelling on positive outcomes actually becomes a negative in this situation. Seeing the negative, in this case Dylan’s wall, and beginning to understand it is actually a positive. I may never “crack” him, whatever that means; he may never open up, but I am starting to see the negative more clearly, and that is valuable.

And there is hope here. I had a hard time seeing it when I first got here, but I’ve found it. I didn’t find it on sale at Tesco, two for 2 pound though. It wasn’t that easy. I guess you can’t really quantify it, but I can share where and when I first felt it.

On a late night clear-my-head bike ride in city center I first felt it. I had to stop riding because I realized that the lit-up bridges spanning the lough were beautiful. The city is beautiful and quiet at night. That realization was the dose of clarity I needed. I see hope all over the place now. I see it in the way the boys from the football club always share their cigarettes with each other. I see it in the way cars stop for pedestrians to cross the street. I see it in the gutter with the trash and broken bottles. Don’t ask me how or why because I don’t know. Hope is there in all those places, and the amazing thing is that there is nothing we can do to make it go away.

Alex