Meet My Friends, part 7

Over the past couple of months, I’ve introduced you to the other members on my YAV team. We’re nearly done – one left, in the far corner of Belfast from me. Drumroll please . . . And now, for the final member of the team. Elizabeth is from Texas, with a degree in education from Baylor University. Her Texan accent has mellowed since being in Belfast, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still tease her about it. “Just put a little bit of ‘earl’ in the pan so the veggies don’t stick,” she says. “Earl? What’s earl, Elizabeth?” replies someone. “Could you possibly mean ‘oil’?” At which point, the smart aleck in question is threatened with never being given cookies again. This is quite a threat, as Elizabeth is an avid baker and produces yummy desserts that she then gives to the rest of the team. So, the fear of God being struck into everyone’s heart, we remain silent about her accent . . . for a few minutes, until she says something else Texan.

Elizabeth lives with Hannah in East Belfast and works in Newtownards, a suburb-like town just east of Belfast proper. (For those of you in Spokane: the relationship between Newtownards or Lisburn and Belfast is much like that of Spokane Valley to Spokane – technically two different cities, but so close that they share a lot of resources.) Elizabeth works with Regent Street Presbyterian Church and The Link Community Centre. She works with the pastors at Regent Street, planning children’s and youth programmes, including Sunday School curriculum, and doing pastoral care and other work. In fact, the ministers there are quite liberal compared to most in Northern Ireland, and Elizabeth is drawing from her PC(USA) background and even PC(USA) resources to develop programmes. The Link is a youth drop-in and community centre not far from the church. Its mission is to link (hence the name) churches with youth from low-income areas. It runs drop-in programmes for youth and people with addictions, as well as an English as a Second Language class and other ministries.

Elizabeth is a very organized person, by far the most organized of anyone on the team. This trait, and the fact that she seems to carry everything one could possibly need in her handbag, led the rest of us to start calling her “Mom” during training. Though I haven’t heard anyone call her that recently, she is still the keeper of team paperwork and the answerer of all organizational questions, like “do we have a meeting this week?” Fortunately Elizabeth’s around to keep us right, otherwise I’m not sure we would ever all know what’s going on.

Elizabeth at the retreat in November.

Word of the Week: We interrupt our regularly scheduled programme of Northern Irish words to bring you a Texan one. Whomperjanker. (Again, guessing on the spelling.) At some point during training, Elizabeth used this word in what she insists is its proper form: to mean “messed up,” “out of place,” or “wrong.” A Northern Irish equivalent, of which I am quite fond, would be “wonky.” At any rate, the boys appropriated the word and began using it for their own purposes. Which is basically everything. They are not particularly careful about their use of the word, no matter how much Elizabeth argues with them about it. For example, if you’re wrong about something, one of the boys will say, “You’ve just been whomperjankered!” Or occasionally, as a threat, “I’ll whomperjanker you!” And so on. Which of course, re-starts the argument over this word.