If my world is the balance scales then this week has piled upon both sides a weight both spiritual, emotional and physical that has fluctuated their position like a playground swing. I must admit i have gained much, the training done for the project is a weight that once lifted has allowed action to begin. it was a session i shall not quickly forget and yet it was remarkably uneventful. a messy paint covered board, some salt dough, a few piles of post it notes, stumbling wii tennis and late arrivals left little impact but a desire to return to the world of children's work. the video which tried to explain the 'Christian' side of the project gave me butterflies and yet it's showing produced only laughter and nods, faces of understanding, and remarkably few comments. Similarly the activities were done in the air of good humour and planted the seeds expected. we ended in a flurry of clarification and questions, none too remarkable nor difficult to explain, winding down slowly till the last of us exited the building for transport to our various destinations. i spent much of the following 12 hours with two young Christian lads who came to the training session officially as 'support workers' but also as a expanding of their view of mission (they missed their busses home, both coming from outside Novi Sad). Their faces as i showed them the area and crowd that i was hoping to reach out to foretold all the fear i had felt and yet their resilience to the calling gave me much hope. the other volunteers reactions were also encouraging, you could see the idea place itself in their mind and with little boundaries it exploded like a shower of fireworks sending ideas bouncing around the nurons.
To have left the week there would have been sufficient. the long run up to the evening of activities, the night where the paint started to look beautiful and the creativity found it's juice. but the night was not the end of the week, simply the pivot. After it came the time with the boys, the dance of the city education they trod and the sleep deprived night. before as after came the dance of friendships still forming, evenings in pubs meeting new people, or talking to those i feel i will miss so dearly, saying goodbye to friends made who are already moving on, and feeling the loss of those gone already. After came the trip back to the family in Temerin and the strangeness of a dentist visit, the laughter of acting as such an innocent child and the reality of the project moving forward. this week I've met people i have come to call almost family, others who will be friends for much time to come, those whose friendship i have neglected and one guy from England who friendship may even continue across such land as sea as this.
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There are some sounds that should not be beautiful, but their very presence is reassuring. as i sit here i can hear the fan hum in the laptop, a few muffled sounds from other residents and the sloppy sounds of tires along the wet roads outside. for three days that last sound has been absent, not until last night did the roads reopen and more than occasional vehicles make their way across the bridge. walking to appointments (buses not an option) and feeling the oven like heat as your feet drum along the pavement has been an experience in climate accustoming. the still roads guarded by blue uniforms at every junction felt oppressive and over protective. last night as the roads opened the wind started to blow and move the heat cloud aside, down came he rain, restoring normality and allowing the temperature to drop to the mugginess of bearablilty. the insecurity and tenseness flowed away with the stream of puddles. any seasonal affective disorder also lifted me out of my apathy and set me ablaze with ideas and hopes and uplifted my heavy soul ready for a week of whatever God wills. Twelve hours ago I walked home, by head heavy and my hands dripping. No words came racing through my head, no numbness stopped them, I just felt empty. Beside me I heard the footsteps but saw no form, even that presence felt tainted that night. The flat was dark and empty, the bed held no comfort. Finally the words started to form, to try and find an explanation to how I felt, to empty my feelings into sentence and verb. They burnt my brain and tormented my soul until I found means of letting them out, capturing them on the small glowing screen and evicting them from my thought patterns. ------- Touching you is like plunging my hand in tar. You drip with the sticky blackness and choke on it as it drips from your lips. But you won't despise it, rather you caress it, embrace it, mould and reshape it, but never reject it. Your desire for it is infectious and drowning, drawing people in and then disgusting them. Where it came from proves irrelevant in the consuming face it displays. How I am supposed to respond to such blackness that sucks life and love with no regard I cease to know. With no desire for soap I see you delight in your creation and how it holds you captive beyond the reach of even angelic fingers. So why do I touch you, why do I want to hold your hand and hug your shoulders. Why do I brush the tar aside and search for skin that is so rapidly engulfed again? Perhaps my motives futile, perhaps selfish, perhaps I hope that when the skin breaths even a little it may want to do so again? This past week I've not really blogged, it's not for an excuse worth telling, just the quietening of the heart and the smiles of contentment. It's Tuesday early evening now, this time last week I was sitting outside a small bar and drinking with the girls. Watching people from the photography project scamper past us as they went and set up the exhibition. I'd spent the day concerning myself with interviewing people for my detached youth-work project. By the end of the evening I had hugged goodbye to the various photographers, posed for a group shot (pictured), and left feeling like the miraculous day had started to wane. Since then I've been coming down the mountain, stumbling over the stones in the river and moving forward like a snail trying to come to the next stage, the next test or trial. The 'FC' came down for the weekend and left ripples in the sands of project and people. I threw a small party on Sunday, after I found lethargy sinking in and haven't really shook it in the last 48 hours. I feel blessed by the friends I've met, the glimpse into another life I've seen but still I revel in drinking proper English tea and eating Yorkshire pudding as comfort food. The weather is like a constant oven, and no matter if the rain falls in the evenings it makes no difference the next day. As studies and projects end for the summer I find myself feeling like my time here is ending prematurely, and yet there is nothing I can do about it. The remaining two months are both empty and yet filled with just enough to refrain from drastic plans. God fells very distant at the moment, like I'm too naive to even see him in the complex pictures I now appreciate as more than scribbles on the wall. I feel both like I've bitten off more than I can chew and that I'm not really swimming just paddling in the water claiming to be more than I am. And so in many ways I'm content with my procrastination and lethargy and yet fully frustrated with the dwindling of what is left. Well I'm off out to meet with a Christian friend... wonder what this encounter will bring. Sorry for the randomness of this post. ttfn The lasts are upon us, bidding farewell to the groups I have come to feel part of, connected to. And as if some great forward planning took place the ends coincide with the start of a new passion on my heart, a project of my own. In the doubt of goodbyes I am making new hello's, finding people who may be able to steal the spark of my passion and light a fire. Yeterday I officially ended my engish teachng career... Something I relish doing as I found it both difficult and unfulfilling. Today I interviewed. Tonight I sad a goodbye to the photoproject as the opening exhibiting event drew us together for the last time. Tomorrow I bid farewell to the english tutor at faculty. And so life lives and breathes and it's birth and death are unending. Today dragged me though aprehension and nerves, excitement and joy, calming peace and down to peer induced lows. It was practical and productive, subjective and repetitivly miraculous (such a story). And as I sit and fail to eat more before collapsing on the sofa with the remote, I know that this day will be one remembered for some days and months to come. I recognise that somewhere in the bruises I see myself, in that beat up and battered form I see the unpolished and blistered heart that this frail form holds. Amongst the obvious and not so obvious scars I want to crawl into the cracks that they have formed in their ragged tare, and yet in those cracks the light does not shine. In the murky land I'm torn in my desire to be in that shade and this light. I fear that if I step into the shade I will not battle my way back to the light, that the pull of the blackness will be greater than the faithful who are self-confessed feeble. Yet, we are undefeated, no matter how the world treats us and mirrors our imperfections, we know the battle will be won, has been won, and we are on the side of the eternal victor. And so I place my toes into the pool and loosen the floatation device from my waist and jump, immersing myself in the water and trusting not my own making but the love of the lifeguard. Last night I panicked, I felt the water enclose me and I lost which way was up. I gulped in breaths which I could not push out again, the water filled my lungs and I knew not which guardian angel would come to my rescue. The battle turned and spun about me until the red smudge spread, grew and finally turned into the blanket that will one day pull me from the water. I thrashed my arms madly about until I grabbed it but did not try and pull myself out, for, no matter which way is up, this is the water I've been given to swim in, the position to defend. |
The other siteWho is GfeefGfeef is the name that my writings have been under for some years. As far as I know it's unique to me. Originally from the UK, I now live in Serbia but continue to have a passion for childrens and youth ministry. Archives
October 2014
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