I have a moment of downtime between Skype meetings. (I just ended a Communications call and will be on a call for the Zambia trip in a bit!) I could be packing, but I decided to blog instead.
In the past I know I've promised to write about what my life is really like. Living in America. Working for orphans in Africa. Two worlds that are so different and yet both so very special to me.
There are many people who read this blog who know me on many different levels. This blog may be very enlightening, or very redundant, but I digress...
So this may shock you, but I am a normal adult with a normal full-time job. I work in an independently owned pharmacy that is open 9 - 6 Monday through Friday and 9 - 3 on Saturday. I either work five week days, or I have one day off during the week and work Saturday. It's busy and it always keeps me on my toes! It's also provides me a structured schedule.
Outside of work, there is a lot more up in the air. In terms of Hands at Work, the main office is in White River, South Africa, with a secondary location in Luanshya, Zambia. We're currently in Daylight Savings Time which means South Africa is 6 hours ahead of EST. In the winter it's 7! The Hands US office is located in San Francisco, California, which is 3 hours behind EST. Meetings are almost always planned clarifying time in Pacific, Central, and Eastern so no one has any confusion!
Hands US came to be in 2007, but in the last two years it has really grown with our incorporation of the Hands Family Reunion into George's fall tour! There are so many people with such varied and unique connections to Hands. Once a month we get together for a general advocates call called 'Hands on Deck', which is a mirror of what happens Friday mornings in South Africa. It's an opportunity to look beyond ourselves and see what God is doing throughout Africa and in the people we work with. As you can imagine, life is a little different in Africa. There is load-shedding, which has been happening a lot recently, which is scheduled (or unscheduled) power outages. The internet is a little less reliable, and technology isn't always at the forefront. So in an effort to keep everyone connected despite distance, the HUB in South Africa will take time out to highlight what is going on in Malawi or Nigeria, etc. We do the same thing with our US staff, highlighting the amazing stories of what is happening in Africa and also lifting up the Americans living in Africa. Right now we have a family from Wisconsin living in South Africa and a volunteer from California living in Zambia. In addition to the Hands on Deck calls, there are prayer meetings every Tuesday evening. Again, this is a mirror of how Hands operates in Africa. It's important to come together to share concerns that we can lift up for one another and also give praise for how God has been working in our lives. Within the last two months we changed the time of our prayer meetings, which has allowed more people to join. It is changing and deepening the bonds within our group.
So in case I've confused you, I work full time 9 - 6, attend Hands on Deck meetings once a month(typically the first Sunday of the month) and attend prayer meetings every Tuesday night.
Now, on to the other, unpredictable stuff. My work is almost entirely done within the US office. Obviously we are spread out across the country, so the concept of the 'office' might be hard to grasp. Hands at Work(US) is a registered non-profit. We have an Executive Board, a Management Team, a Finance Team, and a Communications Team. I'm part of the Communications Team, which works to tell the stories in Africa to our American partners. We send out Newsletters and emails, post stories to the website and also design brochures. I'm sure you get the general idea. The Communications Team is very fulfilling and sometimes unpredictable. Depending on the season and the workload, we might have meetings every week or every other week, once a month, or we might even go without meeting for two months. The Communications Team is a fairly new/young team. We started meeting together last winter, but we have been quite busy recently. The Communications Team in South Africa has launched our new website. (It's the same domain, but an entirely new layout) www.handsatwork.org If you haven't seen it, you should honestly check it out to just see a glimpse of what God is doing in Africa!
Anyway, at the same time the Comm Team in South Africa was launching the website, the Comm Team in the US changed our marketing software, and to top it off, the US team changed our workflow. The workflow process is of course a bit hectic, but will ultimately help us better distribute responsibility moving forward. We've just about figured the new marketing software. I have to admit, this was my baby. I didn't realize it at the time, but I've grown into it. I volunteered to compare and contrast our previous software with our perspective software. Prior to switching, I set up the new account so I could play with it and see what it would be like, and sent emails to myself to make sure I knew how easy it was to use. Once we decided to make the switch, I added the rest of the committee to the account and set out test campaigns to see what they would look like, etc. And last week I imported all of our contacts into the new software. You can see for the last few weeks, my schedule has been quite busy! Since I ended up spearheading the software switch, I've been doing a lot of troubleshooting and editing. (I'm the one who researched it, so, when it comes to practical application, I'm ahead of the learning curve.) Typically I've been waking up around 6am, emailing someone one the South African team as needed (remember they are 6 hours ahead!), going to work all day, coming home to Skype meetings or sending out and responding to a lot of emails with the other US team members (our graphic designer is in California so he is 3 hours behind!) and finally falling asleep around 1am. I'm a bit of an insomniac to begin with, but this is especially true before I fly to South Africa! I'm a content insomniac; I know I should sleep more, but I don't feel tired throughout the day. Things will really calm down in the next few days, and I think when I return home the team will really develop a nice rhythm.
There it is! My life as a Hands US Advocate in a nutshell! A jumbled and confusing nutshell: I think it'd be a walnut... but a nutshell nonetheless!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment