Moinin na gCiseah

This morning I was excited for two things- first in place of our staff devotions time in the morning, Deidre was going to give a talk on the Stations of the Cross which promised to be both enlightening and meditative. However, because of the second thing I was looking forward to (going with Mike and Paul into a school for evangelism) we had to be ready to go earlier and I had to miss out on Deirdre’s presentation. We gathered together a notebook and some DVDs in a Catholic Evangelism packet that Mike has called “Youth caFE” but I never did find out what the awkwardly lettered “caFE” stood for. On the way there, we previewed a song we plane don discussing with the kids: a rap about the Trinity and Jesus as our God. I found it not quite as embarrassing and awkward as most Christian rap I’ve heard, but it was still Christian rap. I wondered why Mike and Paul chose it, running though my head the theories that kids these days identify with rap but also taking note that kids often find that when they are presented with something that doesn’t come natural to the presenter, it can come off as contrived. Seeing how Paul and Mike are not accomplished rappers nor do they listen to the genre, I wondered if there weren’t some genre that both we and the kids could identify easily with. Anyway we got to the school called Moinin na gCiseah which was a secondary school attached to the community college. After being ushered in and setting up in the library, we began playing the song to three boys hoping that more would give up the basketball match that had robbed us of most of our usual crowd. By the time the song was over, we had two more and when were finished discussing the Trinity, two others had joined us. Irish kids are much like American kids- you have the one who is solid in his faith, but nervous about answering all the questions so he doesn’t look like a prude; there’s the kid who plays like he doesn’t care, but you can tell is actually searching because he’s confused; there are the ones interested only in goofing off and the quiet ones who conceal there thoughts and are a total mystery. We discussed confession and why we are encouraged to do it. They had some decent answers with a little bit of prompting. We began to play a second song but as it was about to finish up, the bell rang the boys were out of there… just like all my friends and me when we were in the eighth grade. We wrapped it up and headed back to the café, discussing most of what I have mentioned above. It was a really interesting time and I'm glad I was able to go.