An Experience Reflected: Pip WilsonI was slouched on the couch with my cap on, my U2 jacket, my black jeans, drinking hot chocolate, tired but alive. I was surprised by the young people. Here they are virtually leaning across my frame with elbows leaning on my knees and speaking very close, face-to-face. Their words were slurred the eyes sort of spaced out.
‘Ginger’ was dressed in a black suit with a black bag which she seemed to cling on to - very dearly. Hair pulled back from her face talking, screaming, very loudly, not staying too long by my side, excitedly walking in and out of the room. 16 or 17?
There was the ‘U2 fan’ who’d been to see U2 at Wembley and was keen to tell me the details. He was red faced, short, stocky, light hair, shiny skin, talking loudly and intoxicated. He gave me the wind up - he and Ginger were sister and brother! His language was spicy, trying to impress me with English swear words - say 19?
There was the dark skinned ‘beautiful teeth, Danni’ She stayed longer, spoke quieter and engaged in conversation about a wider subjects. The first thing I’d said to her was “You have got beautiful teeth”! About 16!
I was in the Cafe until 3am, going to bed at 4am. I was in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The YMCA owns a building in the fashionable High Street in the dead center of Reykjavik. It rents the ground floor to McDonalds and over it has the Midnight Cafe which is well known to youngsters. The kids use the bars, often until midnight, and then come into the ‘YMCA Midnight Cafe’! for some late night “fellowship”. I come alive in such environments, I feel at home with young people when they are ‘effing and blinding’. I love the vibe. I also enjoy the engaging with young people who are volunteers in the YMCA. Young intelligent committed Christian young people who give of their time through passion. Motivated by faith, to do a work which they are not trained to do. Not experienced in doing, but a beautiful open disposition to do it.
I’d flown in Thursday, flown out Sunday, and in between had conducted 3 x 3 hour training sessions with leaders in the YMCA. On top of that I’d had three meetings with Staff/Board Members to talk about YMCA work, philosophy, strategy and giving some personal view and analysis of the work I observed.
On the Saturday night I led an event for 100 young people between 14 and 20. It would be amazing within the English culture to have 100 young people of that age turning up regularly on a Saturday night to sing worship songs have a Bible reading and listen to a speaker. On this particular evening there wasn’t a ‘speaker’, but I led it with an interactive style with the objective of creating an ‘experience’. There was pretty loud music and many interaction games including using overhead projector and video, all to create an experience of faith, of discovery, of newness, of each other, of me, of game and visual stimulus, and an experience of God.
All this was stretching for me, tiring at the end, a total switch off from normal but in many different ways a stimulus for my own work/mission. The learning and the challenge in such a range of activities can be so inspirational. So many people have a poverty which imprisons the spirit. My experience of Iceland was not a ‘poor’ experience. I didn’t experience poverty. I experienced an enrichment of the soul, an exercising of the soul!
Pip Wilson
3rd February 1999
