Hey all...It's Floyd,
So I woke up the first time this morning at 2:40 am and felt like I should get up. I absolutely refused to do so so early and so I stayed in bed until 4:30. At that point I just had to get going. So I got up and began reading a book, as there isn't much you can do in the jungle at 4:30 in the morning when it is pitch black. (For those of you who are now asking how I read a book in the pitch black.... I had a flashlight.) We didn't get power back until about 30 minutes ago (around 7:15 pm local time).
I am reading a book called "Not a Fan" and it is an interesting one. Really focuses on how Christians typically act more like fans and spectators that participants in living like Christians. In other words, we want to cheer and applaud the winning team (Christ) but aren't willing to get out on the field and get dirty with hard work in the process. I have about 60 pages left so we will see where all it goes from here.
Kim, Tamra, and I had a meeting this morning with the Director of the mission and we discussed some options on how they cold plug us in. I was a bit surprised by the direction of the meeting, as the director was just kind of trying to put people where they wanted to go as opposed to having some sort of plan for putting us where there was a need. Which begged the question, is there a need for us here. The answer is yes but I believe it is in a very limited role. Tamra and Kim will spend most of their time tutoring kids in the primary school, and I will spend most of mine the business office working on computers. But aside from those things, there really isn't a lot to do. It appears that New Hope is really a place where you can come and make it what you want it to be, within a certain point of view. I can see how one could easily come here and not do much of anything. Basically come to Africa, stay at New Hope, do a little here or there for a few weeks, and go back home; all the while saying that you did mission work in Africa, where you really did very little. On the other hand, I can also see where one could really make an impact in different ways. I think that for what Tamra and I were expecting to get here, we are not. We were expecting to really be put to work and do some evangelizing for the Lord. But there is no need for that here. Every child is attached to a family and all of the ministering is done from within the family. So we essentially will do what they need from us and will have to wait for the church plants in order to really get in and get dirty with people. New Hope says that they are all about relationships, but after meeting more people today (including the founder New Hope) I just don't see it, from an administrative side. Perhaps relationships between children and their assigned families, but not so much from the business office and administration. Now please don't get me wrong. New Hope is an amazing organization and are doing great things in Uganda; and we have to keep in mind that we have only been her for a few days. It's just not what Tamra and I were expecing. They do have a great training program here for new and prospective missionaries though. It is a 5 month program and I can see where this program could be of great benefit to us down the road.
Kim and Tamra left the meeting and I spent another hour and fifteen minutes discussing the Groups Coordinator Position here at New Hope. It is a job that I could do very well as it really suits me and my strengths. It does require a 100% support raising effort and I am not sure how well my personality fits with the people here. They seem to be very reserved and there is not a lot of laughing or personalization around. The people seem to keep to themselves most of the time. It is the quietest office I have ever worked in.
I was unable to save the laptop after freezing the hard drive. I opened it again and saw that some of the copper from the control arm was loose and disconnected. So ideally I would just replace the control arm. But those are a little hard to come by around here. So I think they decided to just let it go.
I worked on some more systems today and did some networking jobs. Mostly I fixed little quirks with some people's laptops. I worked most of the day and was quite tired by the time we called it quits. I guess I am off for the weekend. There is a speaker tomorrow who will talk about orphaned children and we will be going to hear him speak. We go to church on Sunday and then back to the business office for computer clinics on Monday. Some of these computers are very sick... perhaps they have malaria ;) Not to worry... the Doctor is in!!!
Well I am calling it a day and hitting the showers. I was not a fan today. I got in and got as dirty on the field as I was able. Hopefully you did too. See you on the field tomorrow...
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