I have at various times labeled myself with descriptors of how I see myself. One that I come back to often is enabler or facilitator. I have never felt like a leader in many arenas I have found myself in, but in some I have been comfortable enough to do what I believe was a decent job of leading. The most comfortable place I have been in leadership has been in a Sunday school setting. I had reached a point of reasonable comfort in leadership in worship services. I never really got completely comfortable in teaching computer classes even though I taught for about 8 years. Computers move so quickly I never felt like I was as up to date as I needed to be. I was also never totally comfortable when it was my lot to be in leadership of an EMS call.
I was AIC, attendant in charge, and incident command on a number of calls during my time with EMS, but I can say with certainty I was always nervous about it. The most inadequate I ever felt in such a position was as incident command on a two vehicle high speed accident. I was at the squad building with two EMT certified junior members one evening after dark when we were requested to respond to a motor vehicle accident. On the way I told one of the junior members that the intersection we were going to had the potential of being a very bad accident. It turned out to be very bad.
We had two women with serious injuries and a young girl with life treating injuries and she was unresponsive. Plus the young girl needed to be extricated. I was told later that other personnel who responded said the criticalness of the accident was very apparent in my voice. Yes, I was very scared.
I mention all of that because I am now in my 60s and have learned to be calmer about things that come my way in spite of how uncertain things look.
In a few days I again am facing an adventure that I am a bit nervous about. I believe the adventure has the potential of being very rewarding and hopefully a lot of fun.
A couple of months ago I decided to take a few days of vacation and with my schedule in hand I planned to be off work from December 8th through the 14th. I tried to think of something I wanted to do that would be interesting, enlightening, somewhat entertaining, and certainly enjoyable. I looked at many possibilities and got the idea in my head to go to New York City, specifically to Brooklyn, and see if I could be of any help to Bill Wilson’s Metro Ministries.
As I thought about the trip and what I might do and began to obtain information I decided to open the opportunity up to my church in case others would like to go along. At one point I had 13 who wanted to go and it looked like more would join us. Well, because of the short notice most found they had conflicts they couldn’t resolve, mostly work. So tonight, Sunday night before leaving on Wednesday morning, I am down to going myself. I came full circle.
But, because of the things I have experienced along the way, I am still very excited about going. I would like to have another guy or two along so I don’t have to eat out or sightsee or work alone, but it’s OK. I am not going to let being alone stop me. I plan to find a number of small pizza places where I can get NY style pizza and subs. I plan to do some sight seeing and that will most likely mean riding buses and the subway, alone. But I’ve done that in big cities before. I know how to act and how to remain inconspicuous. I’ll be fine. Might freeze, but should be fine otherwise.
My biggest hope is that I get to spend some time with Bill Wilson so that I get to know him better. I also want to talk about his latest endeavor of opening a Sunday school in the largest slum in the world, Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. I have seen Kibera from the outside, and ripped my heart. Estimates run as high as nearly a million people living in this one slum area. It is estimated that 2.5 million people live in slums through Kenya.
I have been to Kenya twice to work at a seminary in Kima, 55 miles south of Nairobi. I loved the country and the Kenyans. I have been told Swahili is the easiest language to learn. I’d like to try.
So when I return from NYC I’ll have some pictures to post and maybe some great things to say about my trip. If you want more info on Metro Ministries look here: http://www.metroministries.org/
More in a few days.
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