Dear Friends, Family, Colleagues, Supporters, and Congregation members,

With one more month behind me I am now looking at the final five months of my time here in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I want to wish everyone a happy upcoming St. Patrick's Day which is in just a couple of days.

As the past seven months have come and gone I have to thank everyone who has continued to support me because without that I would not be able to do the things I am doing here. I want to let everyone know that I am receiving your emails and letters and I am working through them trying to respond to them all so don't give up hope I will get back to each and everyone of you. Saying that, I defiantly want everyone to know that I enjoy every singe thing I have been sent and I look forward to receiving more.

As I mentioned above St. Patrick's Day is close upon me and I wanted to talk a little bit about this holiday within my context here. Within the United States there will be big parades in many major cities with many people, Catholics and Protestants enjoying the festivities. Within the Republic of Ireland there will be large festivities also but here St. Patrick's Day takes a different tone. In Northern Ireland St. Patrick's Day takes a whole new perspective with it becoming a dividing line between communities. Especially here in North Belfast it is seen as a celebration of Irishness and Catholicism. Within the New Lodge area (where I live) there will be a parade that will come through on its way down to the city hall where there will be a festival full of things to do and see. The Protestant communities will not join in an participate as they see it less of a celebration of Christianity in Ireland but more as I said before a celebration of Catholicism. This is just one simple way to look at how things should be and what they have become.

As with the monthly routine this month's program focus will be the "Autumn Leaves" which is a pensioners group. This is a group of ladies who are of 50 years or older from the surrounding area who meet every Tuesday at the Mid-Skegoneil Thornbush Community House which is situated in a slightly mixed area. This group for some of the ladies is one of the only outings they get each week. Most of them are widowers who may or may not have children close by who come and check up on them often.

Since I have been here things haven't been as positive for the group's members as one would wish. Over the Christmas holidays one of the ladies passed away and another one fell and broke her hip and only now is well enough to come to the meetings again. More recently one lady, who I have come to know a bit better due to her work within the centre itself, was diagnosed with breast cancer which hit close to home with me because my family have been no stranger to breast cancer turning lives and families upside down.

On the upside since my time with them we had the opportunity to do a poetry seminar which lasted about a month an a half. While the main purpose was to give these ladies an outlet for themselves it also was used by the arts council as history documentation project too. Many of the ladies worked in the historic Belfast linen mills or tobacco factories. Due to their background we went to the Ulster Museum where they had some of the old linen and tobacco equipment and they recoded their recollections of what things did and how they worked and all sorts of information about mill life. Recently the project finished and they made a book of all of the things they wrote and I have been fortunate to receive an honorary copy from the group.

Within this past month I have noticed and realized several new things which have brought nice perspective to being here. This month I have been able to finally get, with help, the Thornbush Teen group up and running. This is the "Perspective Building" part; I have come to feel at times like it is a failure. Now I am not saying that it is a failure but the feelings and thoughts about it come up in my reflective times. The main purpose for this group initially was to engage the "high-risk" kids in the area around the centre which were not being targeted by the programs the centre had. I worked off and on with these kids in an informal setting but they drifted away so I formed a structured program and publicized it to engage them again. I did expect the centre to be apprehensive about it as they were but the response from those kids have been luke-warm to negative due to the structured aspect of it.

One of the positive outcomes is that some of the other kids in the area have come to the program which I have enjoyed working with but they are also the kids who come to everything the centre offers so as a program from the centre I am not involving anybody new. These "high-risk" kids do come randomly which I am grateful to see them interested but they quickly go from small trouble to crazy which has proved a daunting task to work and incorporate both groups of kids in the program. The failure I know in my mind comes from my lack of involvement with those kids who I think need more attention.

In my reflections looking back through my term here I have thought about the times where I have had feelings of failure and how much they played a part in my thoughts. Up to this point I haven't had too much that I haven't been able to accomplish to some extent. It hasn't been easy the whole time but this teen program at Thornbush has presented me a whole set of challenges that are pushing me, at times, to my brink. I know that whatever happens there will be a purpose and that if those kids who I wanted to engage don't want to be engaged then that is the way it is and I should still focus on the ones who enjoy the program but none the less it leaves me feeling a bit of failure.

I want to remind everyone that these letters are going to be posted on my website http://Brenton-ni.blogspot.com Also I have added new photos from the past few months so go check them out along with all of the previous photos too.

If anyone is getting this letter from a friend or as a forward and would like to be added to the list of people I sent this to please feel free to email me at Brenton_ni@Yahoo.com to be added.

I cannot thank everyone enough for all of your prayers and continued support. Please, feel free to email me with any of your questions and/or comments at the above mentioned email address.

Peace,

Brenton Thompson