The first month or two, almost all new missionaries find themselves uncomfortable with their newly acquired responsibilities. It is just part of being responsible for something that you are yet competent to do. Some refer to it as “drinking out of a firehose.” That is how we feel right now.
Four weeks ago, we were asked to take on the responsibilities of another couple (at the end of Oct.) who has not been replaced. It turns out that we went from managing a little under 30 humanitarian projects to over double that amount. The past seven days have been spent in the office trying to sort out what is going on with our newly acquired projects. Unfortunately, over a third of them are in varying stages of the preparation process before being ready for approval, with a November 13th deadline and us leaving for our grandson’s wedding in the U.S. on Wednesday. The trip home was arranged and approved before our change in assignment. We had hoped, like with our projects where the ones with a chance of going through in 2026 needed to be fully prepared by the end of October, that the ones we would be taking on would have a similar date set and followed. No such luck, false hope, we have acquired between 11 and 15 that are varying stages of writeup. Tomorrow we will sit down with our manager, explain the status of the projects in process, and make hard decisions on which ones have a chance of making it through this year. Comparing this week’s work with that of the prior week in Rome (meeting with NGOs) couldn’t be starker.
