Orientation was quickly renamed disorientation for the 67 Young Adult Volunteers present in Stony Point Conference Center last week. We dove into life changing/mind blowing conversations regarding racism and white supremacy which continued as the theme for the week. We had hard, draining, challenging, conversations about this thing that truly matters and albeit it difficult, very necessary to talk about. As we began this work, a fellow YAV answered when asked what racism is with, “it’s a thing.” Throughout the week the catchphrase became commonplace as a theme representing what living into our YAV year will be.
Merriam Webster has 10 definitions for the word “thing” and to me this seems fitting as it is a word almost indescribable in the same way what we’re all doing this year really seems indescribable. A fellow YAV, Kim, made a video log (vlog) of orientation and sums up the idea that disorientation truly disoriented us.
And yet, it was in the disorientation that we found our community as the YAV class ’16-’17. This week shaped us, welcomed us in, allowed us to break bread together, pray together, sing together, cry together, be exhausted together and laugh (albeit at terrible jokes) all together.
Monday the 29th brought the YAV diaspora as we went from our newfound home of Stony Point to our separate sites with some of us staying up in the wee hours to enjoy each other’s company for the last few moments before beginning the journey to our sites. The, continued, exhaustion has been more than worth it.
For the Scotland YAV’s Monday brought a day of waiting as we were the last to leave in the afternoon. The clock finally struck 2:00 and we spent four hours in transit from Stony Point to Newark Intl Airport to our gate. And along the way were moments that orientation instilled in us would just happen.
A train porter on our first train ride scolded us for our luggage and by the end of the 45 minutes he had crafted a solution for my suitcase that rolled across the train one too many times, told us about his job, his mission experience and commissioned us on our way “be enriched by all you do and see. Be a blessing to those you meet and good job. Ahead of time.” And, I, at least was covered in goosebumps after that. We hopped aboard our second train and sat blocking our new train porter’s coffee. After we handed it to him he told us we were alright and later said he loved us. Our third train ride (through the airport) involved meeting a woman from New Zealand who just finished her first novel in NYC. We’re anxiously awaiting to see if we see it anywhere! The flight itself was only six hours and added to ½ our group’s deliriousness and sleep deprivation.
We arrived to Glasgow around 2 AM EST, met our site coordinator and it all began.
We visited our lovely flat near city center, met our site coordinator’s colleagues, had two cups of tea in two hours, were fed potato and leek soup, ate dinner with our site coordinator and her family and realized immediately how kind the people are.
Day 2 brought visits to my site placement and to Olivia’s! After visiting the Parish in person after a few months of Facebook photo stalking felt surreal and exciting. I’ll go back on Sunday to attend their new building’s first official worship service! We chatted over biscuits (cookies) and coffee with two church members about Glasgow’s bus system (a favorite topic of conversation). At Olivia’s site we experienced our best cup of tea so far (and it’s just day 2!) and it began to sank in as we moved from here and into WEvolution, a project funded by the Church of Scotland that creates space for self-reliant groups, just how much the people make Glasgow just as the signs all around town claim.
Shortly after we headed to the People’s Palace, a museum about the people of Glasgow. We saw the world’s largest terracotta statue and continued to be disoriented by the world as we realized it depicted Queen Victoria and her empires in India, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
We were left to find our way back home, a task we successfully conquered, had dinner with our site coordinator and some of us were introduced to a show that I feel has somehow already become a favorite in the group: The British Bake Off.
There is still jet lag being felt and bad decisions of staying up late throughout the week of orientation week wearing off and that is all okay. There are dozens of feelings and hundreds of thoughts and that is all okay. Our YAV year is really happening. We’ve known for months that this was a thing and yet sitting on the plane we commented, “this is like a thing that is happening.” Since we landed our motto has been we’ll figure it out. All these things we’ll unpack, we’ll process, we’ll wrestle with, we’ll hopefully figure some of it out, and all of this we’ll do together.
Isabella Fagiani 
Praying for you and Ivy Beck each and every day!
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