Camel Souls

Our orientation schedule was packed full today, including sessions on managing expectations/goal setting, a deep-dive into MCC's vision and mission, an investigation of peace theology, a crash course in MCC history, and a gamified look at culture-hopping. This last one included looking at proverbs from around the world and trying to suss out their meaning. My small group was intrigued by, "A good guitarist will play on one string," which is a South American proverb. We thought it meant that a competent person can still be successful even with few resources, but then we got caught up on the use of the word "will." It may have been a mistranslation, or it could mean that a person should conserve their resources and not use everything available if the same goal can be accomplished with a sparser toolset. A Middle Eastern proverb that was offered to the whole group was, "The soul can only move as fast as a running camel," which hit a chord for a lot of us. It explains the feelings I was expressing in my post yesterday. Even though I left Colorado almost a week ago, my soul is still probably somewhere over Nebraska or Iowa at this point. It might reach Pennsylvania after I've already left for SPS. We'll see.

In conversations with other SALT and IVEP participants, a lot of the conversation has revolved around how we found out about MCC and what sparked our interest in serving. I grew up making school kits and going to the Rocky Mountain Relief Sale, so MCC was always on my radar. Mom and Dad had at one point tossed around the idea of doing a term of service during my middle school years (maybe that would've spared me the horrors of adolescence in the US, but maybe tweenage years are just as bad everywhere). Twelve years ago, a guy from my church served with SALT just out of college, so that too I feel like has always been in the back of my mind as an option for young adults. A year or two into a software engineering career, I found myself feeling unfulfilled by the espoused company goal of "make the customer happy." Happiness, in the capitalistic context of the business world, is usually a euphemism for money. And to make the most money, customers try to squeeze the most work out of us that they can get away with while paying the least that they can get away with. And although software engineers tend to be less exploited than workers in other positions, there still is that aspect to the work. I'll stop here before I wax Marxist. Long story short, I was making plenty of money, and the company was making plenty of money, and the customers were making plenty of money, and I found that I couldn't care less. The products weren't necessary for human survival or edification. A term with MCC came to mind as a pursuit that would help humanity, at least in some small way. I thought about applying to SALT in February of 2018, but due to some medical issues, decided to wait a year and ended up submitting my applications this past winter. The timing worked out quite interestingly, as my three-year anniversary at my job was on the 25th of July, and my last day ended up being the 26th.

In the expectation management session, we reflected on our personal goals for the term. I noticed that one of the things I'm hoping for myself is a sense of purpose or direction going forward after this year. I don't think that qualifies as a SMART goal, and it might be a tad selfish or hubristic, but my prayer is that I can be open to where the Spirit is calling me to be in the world, whether that's in LACA, Longmont, or a location yet unconsidered.

This evening, after the Jumping Cultures activities, I headed back to my room to have a snack and answer some emails. Best laid plans. The IVEPer from the room next door, Joyce from Nicaragua, peeped her head in my room and asked me if I could help her figure out the washing machine. It took some doing, but we got the load of laundry going. We really hit it off, and spent the wash and dry cycles talking about our assignments, language learning, Central America, our churches, and our friends; looking at photos; eating snacks; and practicing different dances - she taught me some Bachata moves I might see during my time in Honduras, I demoed the Shirley Temple, and we tried some shuffling tutorials from YouTube. After a few other housemates helped us finish up the bowl of popcorn, we decided to call it a night.