April Newsletter - Amanda in the UK

Dear family and friends,

It seems like it was just Easter with snow on the ground, but April has rushed past and it’s already May! Spring is quite rainy in London, but I can’t possibly complain, especially when I hear of the droughts and fires back home. The rain has caused our garden to explode with life. My housemates and I spent last Saturday spread out under the lilac tree, drinking tea and playing guitar. All of the gloomy, rainy days are worth the effort.
And while springtime and Easter bring about new birth and resurrection, our church is suddenly facing difficult transitions. Our vicar, Father Robert, announced just after Easter that he is leaving his position at St. Mary’s to become a bishop in Stockport (northern England). Due to the tight constraints put on by the diocese, he was unable to announce his move until the last minute. No more than four weeks separate his announcement and his final Sunday at St. Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill.
Robert has been at St. Mary’s for nine years, and so many in the congregation have found it quite difficult to cope with the news. I’ve faced stunned parishioners who are very anxious about the future of St. Mary’s. Yet I’ve seen pastors move about in my own church experience, and have come to regard it as part of the business. No one is going to “replace” Robert; whoever shall take the post will bring his or her own ideas and energy. Robert is ready to move on, and I am excited for this new challenge in his life.
However, two weeks after Robert’s announcement, the youth team received a bombshell of their own: Paul, our supervisor and head youthworker, is moving on at the end of the summer. Suddenly I find myself asking the same questions as the grieving congregation: What will happen to youthwork once Paul leaves? Is it sustainable? Who can possibly “replace” Paul?
I’ve been coping by reminding myself that Paul’s departure corresponds with my own, so I don’t have to deal with as much of the transition as my colleagues. Yet I can’t help but think about how invaluable Paul’s contribution has been to youthwork at St. Mary’s, and more so, in fostering community in our area. Paul started St. Mary’s youthwork from scratch three and a half years ago. He established our “church-based” side through an alternative worship for teenagers as well as opportunities for confirmation and cell groups. But Paul’s philosophy is that Christian youthwork is not just about evangelizing or supporting kids who belong to your church. It also involves reaching out to the greater community in a spirit of love and inclusiveness. We preach the gospel to all young people, not through words of evangelism but through our hospitality and desire to include and love all kids.
Thus the bulk of St. Mary’s work has spread beyond worship and bible studies and other typical forms of Christian youth work. This choice has more to do with the lack of young people in our congregation than any conscious decision on Paul’s part. I am reminded of the parable of the banquet, in the gospel of Matthew, where the master invites his friends to a dinner and no one shows up. So he goes out into the streets and invites the marginalized people and they graciously come and enjoy his hospitality. Similarly, the privileged youth at our church don’t have time outside of Sundays, but the young people from the council housing are quite eager to get involved with what St. Mary’s Centre has to offer.
And in the mere three-and-a-half years that St. Mary’s has done youthwork, the amount of projects and funding has exploded. Our staff consists of Paul, myself (the current Time for God volunteer), as well as Anna and Clare, who study Youth and Community Work in Cambridge and dol their work experience with us. St. Mary’s also supports Jason Allen and his Eirini Project, an inner-city program to work with at-risk youth and young offenders. So in a typical week all sorts of young people come through St. Mary’s doors, from Christian elementary students to thirteen-year-old drug dealers.
I am in awe of how much work has come out of a program that is only three-and-a-half years old; and furthermore, how it is all due to the dedication, vision, and hard work of Paul. So I, with everyone else, am left asking: What next? Will the “new person” be as hard working as Paul? Will they get along with the staff? I can’t imagine working with a better supervisor, as Paul is fun and energetic, as well as being sensitive and a superb person to talk to.
So inevitably, thoughts of leaving and of new beginnings are on all of our minds. It reminds me that I, too, will be leaving St. Mary’s at the end of the summer. I can’t help but feel a bit guilty to leave in a midst of so much transition, even though my contract has always been for one year. Yet my concern is not so much about finding someone to “replace” me, but whether or not I’ve really made a valuable contribution to St. Mary’s. I’ve spent so much of the past eight months adjusting to a new city and lifestyle that only now do I feel as though I am making a tiny contribution.
What will I say to people when they ask about my year of mission? What can I show those of you back home, who have supported me through money, prayers, and words of encouragement? I will return to the States, leaving St. Mary’s much as I found it. I didn’t initiate tons of new programs. I didn’t bring more kids into our sessions. And St. Mary the Virgin hasn’t improved much in the way of community, still feeling like another big church in the middle of London.
I don’t want to let all of you down. I don’t want to let myself down, either. Can one put a price tag on missionary work? Is it about numbers and visible work? Is it about coming into a new environment and completely changing it? Not necessarily. Only now do the words from my orientation so long ago finally make sense to me: we are sent out to partake in a ministry of presence. This means that, above all, our goal should be to accompany the people we encounter and meet them where they are, just as Jesus meets us wherever we are at right now.
I still struggle to understand and apply this philosophy, especially when I try to see if I’ve “accomplished” anything in the past eight months. A ministry of presence is countercultural in that it does not value success by visible signs. No, I’ll probably return without making much of a dent. The young people I’ve encountered will continue to grow up and meet new youthworkers and soon forget about the American girl who was with them so briefly. And when people ask, I’ll smile politely and tell people that my year of mission was amazing, although part of me will always feel that I should have done more.
Maybe, if anything, it was me who was impacted, me who was changed. Youthwork has a completely different set of rules in central London than it does in rural North Dakota; and so rather than utilizing my years of experience with young people I had to start over. It has not been easy, and it’s often not fun; and consequently much of my year has been adjusting to a foreign model of youthwork. Yet at the same time I am thankful that I was not put into an easy placement at a small and friendly church. The extreme challenges of this year have opened my mind up to many new worlds. I can confidently answer that the biggest change that I made was not in London’s youth, but in myself.

With all of my love,

Amanda