Humanity vs. Hermitity

I am beginning to realize why some people choose the life of a hermit over living amongst humanity. No, I haven't chosen that -- but I can see the appeal! Some folks on the camp do, really, hide out in their homes and only come out to go to the office.

Think of the top 10 most difficult people you've ever worked with/for. You've got them? Multiply that by 5. Now throw in about 50 folks you would call "tough" to work with. That's 100. Now think of someone you call "friend" but you've never fully trusted. Multiply that person by 60. We're at 160, right? So, toss in about 20 quiet folks who never get involved. Now. Put all of those people in the area of 4 football fields. Fill the place with houses. Move those folks around the place -- eating together in the clubhouse, swimming, playing tennis, ... you get the picture. Give all of the men and a few women REALLY difficult work situations, long hours, conflict, impossible expectations, ... Now, put that place inside walls with barbed wire and armed security guys at double gates. Give some of them cars and drivers (I'm still soooooooo thankful we have that benefit!) but restrict where they can go and when. Put them in houses they hate with broken equipment and missing "necessities." Make sure they don't get their requests for things for at least 2 months (that's how long it took to get a new mattress for the bed our daughter will use when she visits next week -- yippee, Jeri's arriving soon!) Now, create a Tower-of-Babel-kind-of language mix. Change the mix into people from every continent. Change 50 of them to children of all ages under 12. Are you getting the picture? Just in case you're not, go back to that group of difficult people we started with. Imagine working with them everyday, seven days a week, and then eating lunch and dinner with them every night ... Enough said.

So, it seems that I disappeared for awhile. 2 reasons -- no time to blog and whenever I did have time the server was down. But I'm not choosing the life of hermitity (sounds like a good word, to me!) -- actually, I'm still really loving it here. Yes, it's a challenge but there's no perfect continent and no perfect culture. And I really love the variety and the "I never know what's going to happen next" life that I'm living. I've never enjoyed routine, you know!

It will be impossible to catch you up on every crazy experience of the past 2 weeks of camp life so a list of descriptors will have to suffice: racial wars, shouting (at me), crying (me), accusations (toward our new team), apologies (from the new team), laughter, decorating, parties, golf tournament, menu planning, late night computer work, meetings, more meetings, new policy making, constructing new flow charts, writing proposals, creating budgets, problem solving, arbitrating, negotiating, bargaining, cheerleading, translating, English lessons, cultural studies, communication skills trainings, pastoring, praying, ... It's been quite a steep learning curve. My role is a bit like the camp mom, counselor, arbitrator, and advocate.

I did an activity with our new team -- using a map we "traveled" to each culture and each woman explained their social/interpersonal traditions and the ways conflict is handled in their homeland. Fascinating. It was exciting when the Egyptian gal said she really wanted me to teach them communication skills and conflict resolution because she admitted that her tradition is just to holler. And the sweet and oh-so-quiet Indonesian gal said that she wanted to learn to be more bold in speaking out. The bummer was that the Nigerian gals, who caused all of the mess in the first place, never admitted that they have a problem with communication and they simply defended the way it's done in Nigerian. Definitely room to grow there!! (Here, conflict is resolved by shouting, hitting, beating, sending a curse upon someone, poisoning, ... I won't go any further than that! My driver warned me not to leave my glass unattended in our meetings because he's confident that the Nigerian gals would poison me. Truly. But I think that's a bit extreme and I'm certain that he's just watched too much Nigerian TV.)

Lest you think everything is bad with the residents, please know that I have great hope. The forward momentum on the camp is fantastic. The general unity is improving steadily. The new team is almost completely unified behind me -- their support and encouragement has been amazing.

Things are starting to happen in the way of improvements; that always helps people's moods to improve. My cell phone is by my side as I type because an "I'm on my way" call should come in any moment. That will mean that the new 70" plasma TV will be arriving at the gate and then I'll gather all of the camp technicians at the clubhouse to get trained on the operation of the thing. It's supposed to be here before 11 a.m. -- that means maybe before 4 pm. Our World Cup party begins at 4:30 -- a bit tight on the scheduling, but as they say here, "this is Nigeria!" The clubhouse looks fantastic -- football jerseys, flags, footballs, ribbons all over the place.

Jim's in Lagos for a week. I'll be joining him tomorrow. He doesn't experience all of the "stuff" of the camp because he works so much but he hears about it -- from me, of course, and from others. Word travels fast around this place. Jim's been a fantastic support through this leadership transition time I'm experiencing. We both know that this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

Other quick stuff -- Lucy and Prince are fine. Prince and Glory (his fiance') are hoping to get married at the end of August, just after we get back here from Brad and Karissa's wedding in Alaska. By the way, I'm working on getting mailing addresses for those of you that know Brad -- it would be a huge help if you could email yours to me because he's needing to mail out invitations/announcements soon! The teaching I did last week at the MTFellowship was very well received. I was tough on them -- challenging them that most Nigerians in the region go to church a few times a week and proudly call themselves Christians -- names of shops are Christian names -- God's Power, Redemption Center, Grace Store, ... but corruption is a part of life here -- lying, cheating, etc. So, the challenge was --are you different, now, than you were last month because God's Spirit is changing you from the inside out? Are you more loving, more hard working, more trust worthy, ... Stop trying to look holy and start surrending so that God will make you be holy.

Oh, ya! I've been strengthening my neck at the gym so that I can start golf. Welllllll, Jim won a new set, a complete set, of golf clubs at the drawings after the golf tournament. Of course they don't fit Jim, so ... yep, I'm smiling!!!

OK, gotta run. Still no call from the TV guy. Gotta call him. I know his answer to "where are you?" will be "I'm coming, Maam." But that could mean that's he's just waking up, just getting to work, ... pretty much anything! So, I'll have to give him a deadline of one hour and then we'll see. Sometimes it takes one hour to go 2 kms due to the traffic craziness.

I'm telling you -- I love this place!