Irish Culture

I took off a year to be a NET missionary. NET stands for National Evangelization Teams. So people around the world go through an interview and application process to be a missionary and then, if accepted, get placed on teams with random people. The team meets up in Ireland to spend the next nine months living together, spreading the Word of God in a way that is first taught to them during training.

The team that I was placed with was a complete different dynamic and experience than all of the other NET teams. We had to wait 6 months of our visas, first getting rejected, then finally accepted. So we got the missionary experience for 3 months. Another reason why we were so different was because my whole team was from North America. Normally, teams come together from everywhere in the world and have to figure out how to accept one another's own cultural normalities. But a benefit to these teams is normally there is an Irish person placed on each team to help the others adapt to the Irish norms and culture. On my team, we all understood each other, but we had no idea how to adapt to the Irish culture. It took a lot of trial and error, asking questions, and witnessing others' behaviors, reactions, and conversations.

Our two biggest and most consistent ministries were in youth groups and classrooms. We had to be very sensitive of our American culture, though. Especially in our speech, we had to be careful of lingo in order to be professional. There are words that Americans use that are common and harmless, whereas in Ireland, there is a completely different connotation. We had to be very intentional in our speech both in and out of our ministry to be cautious.

We also had to be aware of their religion. The students are raised in a Catholic environment, but it is very cultural. Predominantly all of the schools are Catholic schools, but that doesn't mean that they know Jesus. In fact, most students think 'Christ' is Jesus' last name. Instead, their Catholic identity means that they look at Confirmation as Graduation and they always refer the 'Hail Mary' to be the only form of prayer.

In order to adapt to their environment, we had to ask lots of questions to the teachers about what they do/don't know about, in our teaching goal, the faith. We needed to understand their level of faith, if any. We recognized that there were lots of individual differences that we needed to understand before teaching. The teachers first told us that the students needed to feel as though we could be trusted, especially with a topic they never talk about - faith. In Ireland, it is not common whatsoever to talk about religion or spirituality, so we needed to provide a safe environment where they felt that they could share. We would always ask debrief questions during the activities, but we would always share first to allow them to see that it is okay to talk about their feelings and thoughts on faith.

With every lesson, we preceded with an activity that allowed them to be interactive, responsive and moving around. And then we always followed up an activity with a lesson.

This is an example of an activity:

Marshmallow River

Aim: To get the whole team from one ‘shore’ to the other (one end of the room to the other).

Time: Depending on size and age of the group 20-40 mins (Older groups and smaller groups take less time).

Group Size: As many groups of 5 – 15 as necessary (small groups work well)

Materials: one A4 piece of paper for each person.

Suggested Themes: Confirmation, Life Choices

COVID EDIT: This ELA is not suitable while Covid distancing and restrictions are in place. If you can think of a way to adapt this ELA while respecting Covid restrictions, get it approved by the ELA person before use.

Procedure:

• Your goal is to get all group members from one side of the river to the other by following each of these rules: (It is important to physically demonstrate the rules as you explain them)

• The group starts on one end of the river. Each person gets a piece of paper called a ‘marshmallow’. The pieces of paper are to be called ‘marshmallows’ at all times. If at any time a member of the group calls a marshmallow ‘paper’ instead, then the crocodiles (team member) are allowed to remove that piece of paper, leaving your group with one less marshmallow to step on. You are also not allowed to rip the marshmallows in half!

• Your hands and feet cannot touch the ground. Any part of your body that needs to be on the ground must be on top of a marshmallow. If you touch the ground without a marshmallow between you, then the whole group is sent back to the beginning!

• Each marshmallow must be used at all times. If a marshmallow is left unattended (i.e., without someone standing on it or if it is not in someone’s hand) then the crocodiles can snatch it away.

• As the team crosses the river they must pick up the marshmallows they have left behind so the croc doesn’t get them.

Debrief Questions:

• What feelings did you experience during this activity?

• What were you trying to do?

• What different methods did you try in order to achieve your goal?

• Did you plan anything?

• How did you work together?

Senior Summary: Life is a journey and often feels perilous. It’s filled with ups and downs, triumphs and temptations, challenges and decisions. But our goal at the end- Heaven- is so worthwhile, it’s worth working for. Just like in the activity, we are not going through this journey of life alonewe have our friends, family, and the entire Body of Christ (the Church throughout the world) to help, support, and encourage each other in our Faith lives. We also have all of the Saints in Heaven praying for us all the time and waiting to celebrate with us at the finish line!

Junior Debrief & Summary: Remember how every activity that we do has a point? What do you think the point of this activity was? What was our goal for this activity? (Crossing the river) What do you think the crocodiles represent? (sin, bad things, things that distract us from God) Sometimes people see Jesus as the big scary crocodile in the water, waiting to send us back to the beginning if we mess up. But Jesus is able to deal with our faults and our sinfulnesswe do not need to be perfect to respond to his call. Jesus loves each one of us, no matter how often we mess up.

Possible Theme - Confirmation “Initiation Complete”

"Now do you know how we got our secret agent names? Our secret agent names are actually the names of our Confirmation saints. Just like in the activity, when your friends made it across the river, they started cheering other people on and giving them advice for getting across the river. The saints in heaven can also be those friends. They've already made it across the river of life, they're in heaven, and they’re cheering you on and praying for you and helping you to get across the river."

We needed to be asking the teachers questions to understand the level of the students before even entering the classroom. We were able to hear that most of the students needed to understand the faith with something that they can relate it to, like in 'Marshmallow River.' Once we taught the foundation of the faith, we were able to slowly build up from our previous classes to eventually talking about harder concepts and asking about personal experiences and understanding.

During my time in Ireland, it was a beautiful opportunity to learn about diversity of culture and religion. It allowed me to be more aware of everyones differences and to constantly be asking questions in order to understand. Throughout my time in the classrooms it was beautiful to hear their progress throughout our months there, and we were able to receive lots of affirmation from the teachers how we met the students on their level!