Sep
24
2009
best laid plans
we had a fabulous time at New Staff Training last week in Orlando. we covered some really valuable information and got to know a little better what we are actually getting our selves into. but what i enjoyed the most from our week away was all of the incredible people we met. not only did we have fabulous instructors, but the other participants from the various ministries of Campus Crusade are all top notch people. we made some great new friends, it's hard not to when you spend 10 hours or more for 10 days together.
so we've made it home and have hit the ground running. in fact, we may have started running a little too fast.
deb and i are both pretty competitive people. so when a challenge was given during our training of who could be the first person to get 3 appointments for the following week to share our ministry, we were on it. we each got our three, and i even got a fourth. deb won a handcrafted pen for being the first female to get her 3 appointments by 7:31pm. and i won some books for going above and beyond the assignment of getting three appointments.
but we weren't very strategic in our calendar planning. as it stood when we left training, we had appointments on tuesday, thursday, friday, and saturday of this week. and since i have a leaders meeting at church on wednesday, that meant one or both of us was busy every night of the week from tuesday-saturday.
so it was kinda a relief for us when yesterday our appointment for thursday rescheduled for friday. it's easier to ask a babysitter to come earlier or stay later, than it is to find a babysitter for another night of the week entirely.
Campus Crusade has various goals per week/month that they'd like New Staff to aim for in order to eventually report to their assignment in a timely manner. these goals are adjusted according to a person's work schedule at an outside job. so for me working 40hrs/week at Efcom, plus some more hours towards church related activities, we have goals set on the low end.
well as competitive as we are, and as much as we sense the urgency of the work we'll be doing, we've overachieved our goals for the first two weeks. which is great because it eventually gets us closer to our goal of reporting to work in Little Rock. but it's not so great being away from our family every night of the week.
i think the people at Campus Crusade have set their goals for us very reasonable, probably because they've seen thousands of families go before us and are aware of what drain it can take on time, family, and body. if we can taper back slightly and coordinate our schedule even better, we'll be better off in the long run. doing that i think we'll be able to reach our goals and maybe even overachieve every once in a while, and still have a healthy, sane family when we finally move.
keep us, our kids, and our health in your prayers. thanks.
