There are times when you ask yourself a dumb question, and
then you give yourself a pretty smart answer, and somewhere in the middle of
all that there is growth.
Today we seriously started our research into the Irish
culture. Now that our contact has completed our orientation and gone, we made
our way to the Culturlann, a very important cultural center in an all-Irish neighborhood.
This center is a beacon for Irish language, history, culture, and community. It
will be our base of operations for the remainder of our trip. Two weeks is all
we have to gather everything we can. Me and Sam are both optimistic, but the
task seems a bit daunting.
We get ridiculously lost on the way there. In the UK, its
perfectly fine for six or seven adjoining streets to all be named Beechmont
Ave, Beechmont Pass, Beechmont Dr, Beechmont Rd, etc. even though they all
twist and curve different directions and all end up in very different places.
Needless to say, the two small town boys from Louisiana got a little turned
around.
Once we got to the Culturlann, we got an excellent
introduction by the people working there. We felt welcome, and got right to
work researching the information available. Our next step was to assemble a list
of questions we could use in some semi-formal interviews we would soon try to
have with people at the center and anybody else that would care to talk to us.
Irish is a language that could be put on the endangered
species lists of languages. Because of the country being under British rule for
so long, English has a very powerful handhold on being the national language.
For a number of years in fact, the Irish language was very much dead and it is
only thanks to a few faithful people that it survived and is now making a
healthy comeback. That is the focus of the team we are working through.
Everybody in Ireland speaks English, it’s not necessary that we know any Irish
to evangelize them. But, it is so much more powerful that we show an interest
in the thing that native Irish speakers are the most passionate about. It is
our doorway into their hearts and lives. That is why we do what we do, and that
is why mine and Sam’s job is so crucial, to learn the history and culture of
the language so that future teams will have a head start in figuring out what
they need to know.
It was while we where planning out our list of questions
that I have a unique thought. It was really, really hard at first to word the
questions in such a way that got the information we needed, in a sensitive way,
and also didn’t direct or limit people’s responses. We really wanted to keep
the thought process open ended and allow the people we would be talking with to
just tell us what comes naturally. At one point, I thought to myself “This is
ridiculous, why weren’t we briefed on this? Why hasn’t somebody else developed
these questions and given them to us, so we can get on with interviewing
people?”
And then it hit me. We are the groundbreakers in this area
of study. The Irish speaking community is so small and culturally isolated that
no one has done the research that we are doing. The kind and depth of
information we need is not something that you can just go Google and get in a
format that’s helpful for what we need it to be. The reason nobody gave us a
list of questions is because we will be passing these questions on for others
to use. We are the tip of the spear.
That thought hit me pretty hard. This isn’t easy. Getting
things started never is. But, our efforts will be the most fruitful because we
will be equipping countless others so that they can really hit the ground
running with the raw data we’ll be giving them. I’ve never been a front runner
before. Oh, I’ve been a guinea pig a couple of times, but never the one
conducting the initial experiment. That’s an intense responsibility.
As soon as that realization hit me, I relayed it to Sam. He
responded in his usual way of really putting things in perspective. We have the
responsibility and the privilege of clearing a path for others to follow. God
has trusted us with a lot, and He wont fail to help us smoke down any obstacles
that get in the way. That’s empowering. After that I felt much better about our
entire situation. I finally got a honest view of what our mission truly was,
and now I’m ready for it.
By the way, when I get back to the States, I’m gonna be
speaking Irish, Ceili dancing, and quoting Irish poetry like a boss. The German
girls we met today were pretty impressed with my skills already.
-Ethan Bossier
Day 6 in Belfast
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