I have to admit right now that I feel like I am being served more than I am serving others. Since this process of being a volunteer has begun I have been extremely
blessed with people caring and helping me. Those back home supporting me, praying for me, or even just sending me messages online and thinking about me, it really has meant a lot to me and has given me a lot of strength and comfort as I’ve been working over here.
And the congregation I’m serving at Whitehouse Presbyterian Church here in Belfast is constantly serving me. So far they have already taken me all over Northern Ireland to see Scrabo Tower, Cave Hill, the North Coast, and the Ulster Folk Museum. Every Sunday a different family at the church has been kind enough to have me over for a huge lunch. It is an incredibly friendly and caring congregation that is always looking for ways to make my year here better.
One amazing thing about Whitehouse is how hard people new to the church work to make it a great church. The church puts a lot of energy and resources to run a course called Alpha about twice a year. Alpha gets people from the community who don’t have a church background, don’t know what they believe, or flat out reject Christianity as completely false, and encourages them to talk about their doubts, questions, and concerns about the church. Through this course the church has gotten people to come who haven’t had anything to do with church for ten to twenty years. The people who have gone through the course don’t just attend Whitehouse, they have become a big part of the leadership of Whitehouse. We run an Alpha course on Wednesdays right now and the guy leading it, Derek, wouldn’t have had anything to do with anything church related until a few years ago when he went through the Alpha Course himself. Another guy at the church, Jonny, was called Whitehouse’s “resident atheist” for years before finally telling people earlier this year that he couldn’t run from God anymore. Jonny now does more work for our youth group than I do.
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