Speaking my Mind and Sharing my Heart

In the last two days, I have had opportunity to speak to people about what is going on in my head and my heart, on two separate occasions. The first happened yesterday.....

A few weeks ago, we parents met in the courtyard as an ongoing process of getting deliberate with our neighbours (can't remember what I'm talking about? Click here) Well, part of that was me feeling like I needed to go and speak with someone in the administration building and share my ideas of how we could implement a court manager, or as I phrased it a courtyard life coordinator. I first went to speak to....well, let's call her Nadine about having someone initiate discussion and community in the courtyard, and then she said she would talk to....Lindsey who is financially responsible for the courtyard apartments. Well, a few hours later, I got an email from Nadine saying that Lindsey wasn't interested in having someone getting paid to take care of the recycling. I felt discouraged and upset because the things that I communicated weren't addressed; didn't she really hear me? I didn't stress we needed someone to take care of the physical maintenance, but the social maintenance of the apartments. I decided to press the issue further, and sent a rebuttal email back saying that I would like to meet face to face, since email wasn't effective for this kind of conversation.

Lindsey agreed to meet with me yesterday and Nadine joined us. At first I was intimidated but those feelings quickly disappeared. Then I had a feeling of caution because I didn't want to say anything that might be antagonistic. The long and the short of it was that I spent an hour speaking with the two of them and we came up with some fairly good ideas; I felt like I had been heard. I also learned that the person who is in charge of money isn't the best person to be in charge of social or community climate, which can't be measured like money. I was affirmed by them when they said they appreciated me coming and speaking to them and it was a shame that we weren't around at MBBS for another year; she said we show a lot of leadership qualities and would have been good as the court life coordinator. I assured her that there would be someone coming next year that would fit quite well and have a concern for community like us. They just had to be on the lookout for those leadership types and be a bit more proactive with growing community. I'm hoping that my conversation yesterday will open doors that will benefit seminary students in the future.

So that was yesterday where I shared my mind and today I went with Laura (she's in the PR dept. at the seminary) and her sister Sara to Dinuba MB for their ladies meeting. Sara shared about her experience as a student, and I shared as the spouse of a student. This was the first time ever that I got up in front of people and just started blabbing. I usually have some notes or something to guide my gab, but this time I just got up and opened my mouth. I shared about how we processed the decision to come to seminary, what it was like to move from Canada and our experiences here that have changed us. I asked the ladies to pray for our family, as well as all the other seminary students, who have many unknowns about the future. It was energizing to get up and speak in front of people and to share from my heart. And afterwards we had a very touching conversation with a gal named Jennifer. It was definitely a God thing that we were there in Dinuba this morning.