c. 1998 Religion News Service

CARRIERE, Miss. _ Wobbling precariously on a taut steel cable strung two feet above the forest floor, 16 American and Irish teenagers squealed and whooped encouragement last week as they helped each other inch carefully toward a nearby tree that marked their common goal.

Even in the shade, it was hot and still at St. Francis Academy, an Episcopal school that maintains the confidence-building course here, 65 miles north of New Orleans.

Fighting hard to keep her balance, Katie Dardis, 15, leading the group, was as flushed as David McCain, the red-headed 15-year-old from Castlederg, Northern Ireland, who wobbled next to her on the line, their arms gripped fast.

In a series of simple but increasingly scary exercises _ the afternoon would end with some team-building exercises high among the leaves _ the American and Irish teens were learning to think together, to bond, to trust one another at the beginning of what will be a solid month of working and playing together.

But something more was at work, for the Irish teens are historic enemies.

They are Catholic and Protestant, estranged neighbors from Castlederg, a border town of 3,000 in Northern Ireland where the new pubs and shops are not quite the evidence of prosperity they might be elsewhere; the old ones had been blown up.

The little dairy town has seen more than its share of bombings and other violence between Catholics, who seek closer ties with Ireland to the south, and the Protestant majority fighting to maintain ties to the United Kingdom.

Back home 4,200 miles away, these youths attend separate schools and live in separate neighborhoods. They would not have spoken, if possible.

But here in the woods, sent by hopeful parents and Catholic and Protestant churches on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, they were urged not only to be civil, but amiable _ even encouraging, generous and open.

The sessions in Carriere were an important icebreaker for the Ulster Project, a monthlong private, volunteer, peace-making program that has found a home in New Orleans and 21 other American cities.

Founded in 1975 by the Rev. Kerry Waterstone, an Irish Anglican priest who stood quietly at the edge of the group last week watching the fruits of his work, participating churches in the Ulster Project have shipped 4,500 promising teenagers out of the toxic atmosphere of Belfast, Armagh, Castlederg and other towns and cities for a month’s exposure to American life.

Placed in willing American families that also include a teenager _ Catholics with Catholics, Protestants with Protestants _ the Irish teens see a culture that, whatever its other problems, has managed to avoid sectarian and political violence.

Throughout July, the American and Irish teens and their host families will play, worship in each other’s churches and do service projects together.

And in small, confidential groups, they’ll talk about life back home, life in America and perhaps come to think some new thoughts about their past and their futures.

“It’s not a holiday,” said Winkie Bouldin, who with her husband, Bill, helped bring the Ulster Project to New Orleans. “It’s an educational time for them. We don’t bring little kids, and those who come have been picked by their pastors for their leadership qualities,” she said.

“We have a very structured program built around the idea of getting them to experience some new things in a stress-free environment. Back home in Northern Ireland, people are always watching _ waiting to discipline anybody if they seem to get too friendly with the other side.”

In fact, counselors ring the teens with caution. Especially early in the month, as the young people get their footing, interviews are discouraged. Even later, newspaper stories about the Ulster Project in many cities frequently drop participants’ surnames to give them a little anonymity.

This July is a particularly perilous moment.

Back home, wary adversaries who signed a historic Good Friday peace settlement in April are groping cautiously to build a new Northern Ireland assembly, with power shared by Catholic and Protestant legislators.

It is, Bill Bouldin said, the best chance for peace in a generation. But it’s fragile, too, and under heavy attack by hard-liners who want to see the peace settlement undone.

Worse, fresh tensions have been building around the Protestants'”marching season,”in which militant groups seek to march through Catholic neighborhoods in some cities to celebrate British-leaning Protestants’ 17th-century battlefield victories over Irish Catholics.

Several Catholic and Protestant churches were torched by arsonists last week; British troops blocked one huge Protestant march Sunday, setting off sporadic violence in Belfast and other cities. At mid-week, the British army continued to block the Protestants’ access to the Catholic neighborhood.

“July is the worst time of the year,” said Olivia Ramsey, a fourth-year medical student accompanying the group as a counselor. “We can’t keep the kids away from the television, so if something happens, they may see it. But we actually ask the parents not to call, to keep the kids from bad news back home so it doesn’t circulate so much here.”

For much of the day on the farm, the dynamics were predictable: The Americans were voluble and gregarious, the Irish more reserved, quietly measuring their new surroundings, getting used to the food, the accents and, especially, the heat.

In time though, they will loosen up with each other, Bill Bouldin said. Relationships will develop quickly; sometimes, although rarely, even a romance.

And after the tight-rope exercise, in which the teens had figured out how to pass a single supporting rope back and forth, facilitator Merle Dooley sat with them in a circle and led a discussion of the lessons of the exercises.

For a long time, Dardis had been out in the lead on the cable, inching forward with less support than the others and growing increasingly exhausted in the fight to maintain her balance. Legs trembling with fatigue but supported by others’ cheering, she finally reached the far terminal, setting up a chain that let the others come over more easily.

Dooley would not let the lesson go unremarked-upon.

“When you see someone else do something, it sends a message, doesn’t it,” she said. “It means, I can do that, too.

“Look how much power we have when we model like that.”

DEA END NOLAN