One More Day...

Listen to this article

Barely Prepared!
One more day to my community development / missions trip to China and I am not even finished with my preparations!!!

I am still like only 70% finished with my presentation on volunteer resources management and what makes it real difficult this time is that I need to prepare and deliver everything in mandarin... never have I typed so much or even delivered a training in Chinese. I don't think I am also done with my shopping and most important of all, I have not even started my packing!

Spiritual Struggles
Stayed in office till about 11pm yesterday to finish my work and to make sure all is in place before I go off for my trip. And somehow, I do not know why work seems to be coming in, phone and email enquiries seem to have increased tremendously in the last few days just as I am preparing to go for my trip... It was crazy yesterday as I raced against time to get everything done and wrapped up nicely, almost as if I was really leaving this job for good; it really felt that way. I don't know, some may say that it may be "spiritual attack" since I am taking a step of faith to do something in God's name and to glory Him. But one thing is for sure, I did, occasionally in these few days, feels a great desire to know God's will for me and what He wants me to do; it can be such a strong desire that I can cry out to Him to ask what His plans for me really are.

Career Struggles
I have been getting rather "bored" at work. Maybe I am really a "starter", able to start things going but not able to sustain and maintain the race, maybe I need challenges, maybe I am tired of the routine-ness of the job or maybe I am just burnt out. I am, on one hand, looking forward to this trip since it would allow me some time away from work, to be with God and focus on Him. But, on the other hand, I really do not know what to expect since this is the first time I am going on a trip of this nature, the uncertainty is killing me!

I had initially wanted to share about my job struggle with my boss after coming back from my trip, hopefully I will have had some inkling where I am going after some "time out". But the opportunity came yesterday when my boss was talking to me about some possible job scope enlargement. I took the opportunity to share with her about my thought of trying a different portfolio within the department. With no surprise, she felt that there is more I can do and encouraged me to stay on in my portfolio, giving myself and the system more time and not expect too much to happen within a short time.

Bad-Mouthing my Boss and Organisation
Actually my boss can be a nice person. So I really hate it when someone bad mouths my boss or even my organisation. I mean, no organisation or even individual is perfect and every organisation has its fair share of unpleasant and "political" people, Christian organisations not spared. But amidst these people, I have also seen how there are real passionate people at work in my organisation, really doing work to glorify God's name, in the interest of the needy we serve.

But somehow, I still do encounter one or two who just feels that our organisation is bad and go round telling people about it. One time, he even told people how my boss likes to use and stand behind God's name when she told an job applicant that she will commit it to God for the right person to be found. But after hearing my boss' sharing about her recruitment philosophy yesterday, I find that she really believes in finding the right person for the job; she believes that God will send the right person for the job, just like how God has sent many into our midst. I sometimes feel that my boss and organisation are just so misunderstood. I respect the bad-mouthers' opinions about my organisation but to go round bad-mouthing would be to bad-mouth God's people too... I can really get quite upset about this and had on occasionals, felt tempted to confront this friend of mine, but just do not know how to do it in a amicable way.

Interesting Week @ Work
The past few days have been really interesting @ work. On Monday and Tuesday, I had a taste of what it was like to be an entrepreneur :) Our department became fruit sellers this week, to raise funds for the needy in Africa. Boss had bought 5 big boxes of pears with a couple of watermelon and honey dew from the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Market over the weekend. It was so fun preparing the publicity posters, packing the fruits into bags, cutting the fruits into cubes and going around selling them :) Over a period of 2 days, we made a total of $141 for the sale of fruits and had great fun in the process. Wow, good business!

Then, my guardian angel came back to visit us :) We were all joking that she is coming back to her 娘家. Frankly, office hasn't been the same without her. We all miss her jovial nature. As she sat down in the workstation she used to sit on, she started tearing a bit. Think, last Friday might had been a hectic day for her, with all the clearing up of stuff, so the grief only set in yesterday as she sat down in her workstation. Also realised how my other colleague is also "softening up" because in the past, they always seemed to be making fun of one another :) But I can see how he is treating her differently after she decided to leave. At least, the sign placed along his cubicle, supposedly to make fun of her, is gone now :) I even saw him buy her a farewell gift and if I am not wrong, he wrote... "from your irritating friend", hehehe that's so sweet. Yup, these are my colleagues... a nice bunch of people.

I was so touched when a colleague came to pray for me for the trip and another blessed me by doing some shopping for sunblock and medication for me and gave me a pair of sunglasses too :)

Just yesterday, we also came together to rap for another colleague who is being transferred back to the UK. This gotta be the first time rapping for many of us and we just had so much fun doing the rap, penned by another colleague, and recording it down in this photo frame our department bought for her.

Everyone is Unique
I just did a test on my spiritual giftings and it seems my spiritual gifting is in the area of administration, helps and mercy. So befitting :0) Anyway, saw an interesting entry in a friend's blog about a**hole, good reminder that all of us are unique.

2 Leadership Styles
Talking about uniqueness, I do not think I am taking to my cell leader's mentoring style very well. Both her's and my personality are so different; she is more assertive, tough and "garang" while I am the soft soft, compliant type. Over the past few weeks, I have been learning the ropes from her but must say that it hasn't been easy. I recognise that I am the kind who may need nurturing and affirmations but she can be straightforward at times. Well, just in case I start to bad-mouth, I will stop here. Frankly, I see it more as personality differences which also explains how we look at things and deals with matters differently. But one thing I realised is that I can be quite compliant and submissive at times, focusing on the task at hand, I can tend to neglect relationships... something that needs much work :)