Transitions Part 1

So, I’ve been absent for a while. Sorry about that to the handful of you who check in. I appreciate you sticking with me. I don’t know exactly where to begin. So how about this? I’ve been busy. Life is crazy. I feel like I’m leading two or three different lives right now and maybe losing one of them. Life had been plugging along at a decent pace and then changes happened. They’ve been good changes for the most part, but transitions have been happening nonetheless. Anytime transitions occur, there’s always a little bit of pain, confusion and/or frustration … no matter how good they are.

The year started with me moving Sunday School classes at church. I decided that it was time to join my late twenties/early thirties age group. I knew it was going to be a challenge. I just wasn’t prepared for how much. It started out well enough, but soon the energy deflated. I planned some social activities that barely anyone came to. The people who did show only came because they felt sorry for me /obligated. It’s hard to be an event coordinator when you have no one to attend events.

I don’t want to put down my class though because this is a different life stage and I’m just having to adjust to what they like and are able to do. I know that there are good hearts there, it’s just that the expression is different. They’ll give money quite generously, they just can’t give as much time. I come from a place that was much the opposite. You need both things to survive as a ministry. We also actually have decent turn out to service projects when the scheduling works. This is a life and career stage where people are either exploring relationships, marrying off or digging into their careers.

The funny thing is how much I’ve moved to this new stage since moving Sunday School classes. It’s like some magic force took hold. I’m obviously not getting married anytime soon. I did try the online dating thing for a month and it was weird, time consuming and exhausting and a whole other story in and of itself.  Career seems to be my thing. But not career in the normal sense. More like career in my own weird way of “I want to do everything and have my fingers in a bunch of different pies all at once” type of thing.

The first thing that happened is I went to work for the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM)  for about 15 hours per week around the end of February. Those who know me well know that I was majorly involved in BCM as a college student and I still have a huge soft spot for the ministry. They are currently in a time of transition searching for a new campus minister, so I was temporarily added to help around the office some. (That’s the short version). Of course, since it’s BCM and since I’m a bit of an extrovert, I’ve gotten to know many of the students and I find them to be wonderful, caring and inspiring to be around. So, that’s put my involvement level at more than I had intended. Then I got a burden for the international ministry part of BCM which had lost a little bit of collective steam since I last remembered. There were still students involved in various international ministry things, it’s just that it was all being done on individual bases.

It seems as though BCM is my “major” once again. It’s like an additional life has sprouted from my roots. I still try to keep some distance though because I know I probably won’t be there past the summer. It’s been a good adventure though.

The sort of complicated thing is that I’ve been going on that good adventure all while maintaining the same work load I had before. I still have my clients and I still shoot and edit videos and design, build and update web sites. I’ve been getting new clients.  It’s been a delicate balancing act. Exciting things have been happening in this area as well.

Then there’s Monkey Wash. If you’re not familiar with it, it is a cleaning product that has sort of become a bit of a family business. The product has been getting into stores and we’ve been working on some online grassroots things. It’s exciting to see the product moving and possibly the start of something good.

I think this is going to conclude part 1. I feel like I’ve been a bit of a bore, so I’ll try to make the next part more interesting. Here are a few pictures.