Running to Stand Still

I know, I’m borrowing the title of this blog from a U2 song. But that is the way it has felt since we arrived back in our offices in August; falling behind and running hard just to get to the place we are supposed to be. No getting ahead.

But now, I think we are almost caught up, thanks be to God. Let’s see, what were a few things that happened between then and now that caused us to feel like this:

Orientation – last year we had a large group of newcomers and spent August planning orientation for them. This year we came back from our home leave to find 2 people already here one week and starting their language class. So we had to catch up and plan an orientation as we were doing it. Visiting MCC sites and partners, visiting various cultural and social sites around the city, introducing them to their host families and work places. Fortunately Lydette (our SALT’er from Indiana) and Nindyo (our YAMEN’er from Indonesia) were flexible and were able to handle less structure.

Bingham Academy – School began the week we returned. Not too much a problem, it was good to get the girls back into a routine again. Yet Amani and Abby were transitioning to middle school which means a new schedule during the day and more activities after school. They are very excited and happy about it but it does mean more after school and evening driving. Fortunately it’s not too bad yet. Sophia is also very happy about her class and her teacher. Mr. Peters is a teacher with many years of elementary experience from Michigan and she really likes him. That is a relief to us.

Service worker transition – Two of our SALT’ers from last year have transitioned to service worker status this year. Megan and Krista moved out from their previous host families and moved in together in Addis, across the city. Finding a suitable place, moving them in and getting furniture and appliances for them took some time. Wanda needed to spend days going shopping with them and our office staff in order to get decent furniture and appliances for them.

Planning for workshops/meetings Participating in PME and EARM – As organizers of events know, it’s not easy to participate in something that you have been organizing. This is what happened to us. We sat in on the PME workshop when we could but in the end Wanda and I both were needed in other places. EARM was a bit different since the venue was almost 2 hours southwest of Addis in a resort compound, we were ‘stuck’ there (in a good way). Still, we worried about details and whenever the Negash Lodge manager needed to talk to a spokesperson for EARM, that was me.

Hosting – from the time we arrived in August our ‘guest container’ was occupied. Sometimes even our living room and, when we were gone, our bedrooms. We welcome visitors and guests all the time and enjoyed having MCC’ers staying with us. But it was a relief to have a quiet house this past week.

September 15 and October 15 – These are MCC administrative deadlines; the first is for reporting on activities of the previous quarter and the second is for applying for funding for peace, HIV/AIDS and Global Family projects for the coming fiscal year. In both cases we couldn’t get the work done on time. For the project proposals we have, we asked for an extension of the deadline until October 30 which the admin folks in Winnipeg and Akron kindly granted. So we are in the midst of working with our partners on finishing the proposals.

I think we are almost at ‘stand still’ right now. It may be that we’ll never get ahead, at least to our (and MCC admin) satisfaction. There’s still too much to do. Yet Wanda and I have the feeling that we have ‘passed through the waters’, to use a Biblical phrase, and have survived. We are grateful for this. This confluence of events was a ‘one-off’, as our Brit friends say; it will happen only once. We won’t be hosting EARM again while we are here, the PME workshop is a one-time event, the transition for our service workers is done for the next 2-3 years. Slowly our schedule is settling back to ‘normal’ busy (I still have a full page of things to do). But we are healthy and happy and recovering. How are we recovering? That would be the next blog . . .