Hello from Edinburgh - Anna in the UK

Challenging: December 1, 2007
I've found it very difficult to write. I've been waiting for this big cathartic moment when I was going to realize why I am in Scotland and what I am doing and what I have learned. I've been waiting for an amazing story of how I really helped someone or how I'm really making a difference. I've been waiting to see God here. I've been waiting to find a church where I feel comfortable. I've been waiting to understand more of Scottish life and culture. I've been waiting to feel like I had something worth sharing.
Now I know that what I need to share is that this is difficult. I have been constantly challenged upon my arrival in Edinburgh. I have been challenged by language, weather, culture, living environment, work, theology, sleeping, and even eating. I wasn't looking for an easy year and I was expecting a challenge, but it seems that just existing as Anna is a challenge some days.
For background information, I am a volunteer at Bethany Christian Trust which is a charity that helps homeless and vulnerable people, who we refer to as service-users, in the Edinburgh area. I am working in Community Education where I assist computer groups, an art group, a journalism group, and a women's and a men's drop-in lunch. I live in a flat in Leith, a regenerating community that was once a very deprived and rough area near the shipping docks of Edinburgh. My neighborhood is still very poor, although juxtaposed with some expensive redevelopment nearby on the shore. I live with four other international volunteers from Sweden, Germany, Uganda, and Burma. My living situation in itself has created some interesting experiences.
Although I have struggled to find a sense of welcoming in the context of my flat or with the organization where I work at times, I do have wonderful news to share that I have been welcomed by the service-users at Bethany Christian Trust.
Eddie is a service-user who is a folk musician and has been very inquisitive of bluegrass and folk music from Virginia. I don't know Eddie's exact story, but I do know that he has a Russian and a French degree from the University of St. Andrews and we have had much to share about language and music. When discussing music one day, I told him that I was a huge fan of Eva Cassidy, an incredibly soulful blues singer from the Washington, DC area that died of cancer at age 33 in 1996. He said he was a fan too, and told me about how Eva Cassidy became very popular after her death in the UK and her first big hit in the UK was "Over the Rainbow."
One particularly difficult day at work, Eddie walked into the office and presented me with a book written about Eva Cassidy by her family and friends after her death. It literally brought tears to my eyes. I am the volunteer that came to help these homeless and vulnerable people, and somehow Eddie thought of me and helped me at an incredibly vulnerable time. Eddie is no longer homeless and is beginning to open old boxes of his things to put in his new flat. Much of what is in his boxes are books and music, and when he was sorting through the boxes, he found this book and thought I would like to borrow it. I can't even begin to describe how amazing this experience was and how inspired I am by how giving people can be.
One of the reasons I find my situation so challenging is that I am often confronted with a very different theological perspective. Sometimes I think the people that I work with or interact with feel that being a Christian is easy. They seem to have this notion that now that they have found God and have been "born-again" or "saved" that life is easy. They can hang out with Christians, immerse themselves in the church, and even work at a Christian organization. They have found the answers in the Bible and it is easy. They have found that God makes laws in black and white, they obey them, they go to church and follow the pastor, and then they go to Heaven, easy.
I have found my life as a Christian to be precisely the opposite and this experience, even in the context of a Christian organization, confirms that. Being a Christian and living out a Christian faith in everyday life is difficult; it is a challenge. This is not a challenge that I will overcome after three months. This is not a challenge I will even master in a year of mission, service, and discernment abroad. Living and acting as a Christian is a challenge for my life.
I have been placed into a challenging environment, but I know that God will help me and comfort me. God is here, I just need to open my eyes and look and listen with my heart instead of my mind to appreciate the ways he is calling me and showing his presence in this place.
I often listen to Eva Cassidy's version of "How Can I Keep from Singing" to find strength and comfort.

"No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of Heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?"

Thank you for all of your love and support.

Peace and Blessing,
Anna