Eleven hundred dozen cookies. Half the number we have historically needed, and yet still enough to make be shun sugar until the holidays. This was one of those rare occasions when I did not so much mind my sinus problems because the smell of sugar would have been overwhelming.
By a cruel twist of fate, the last time I served as the Cookie Monster, I had a tummy bug the first 2 days of the weekend and was quite literally sick to my stomach from the smell of sugar. I curled up into a little ball with my head on the table and let my Angels take over. This time I may not have been sick to my stomach, but it could be argued that I was a little sick in the head.
Before team formation formally began, our fearless team leader contacted me to ask how many dozens I thought each team member should contribute. After computing the numbers I was given, I gave her my suggestion. When we officially began team formation, a much more experienced veteran Kairos volunteer suggested that the number I can come up with was too excessive and recommended a smaller requirement. OK, I thought, this isn't exactly her first rodeo and she knows what she's doing, so let's go with it.
I should have stuck to my guns. Even though I watched her work the numbers, they didn't seem to add up to me, but then, I've never been particularly stellar at math so I wasn't inclined to argue. I should have argued. When it came down to the day, and the final count was in, we were almost 100 dozen short of the number needed. Can you say double, triple, quadruple count? No matter who counted or how, the number was always short. And I had less than 24 hours to come up with, get approval for, and carry out a plan of action before we needed to hand out cookies to the community on the compound.
Did I mention that we discovered this little snag during lock-down and count, so I couldn't get to our team leader for almost an hour? By then, I had already talked with another teammate who had served in this capacity before and whom I thought might have some advice. We really only had 2 options: 1- break the dozens down and redistribute, or 2- there were a couple of women on the team whose husbands were on a men's team the following weekend. They were certain their husbands would be willing to contribute the cookies they had already collected as long as we could replace them once home. The accompanying glitch with this possibility was getting them to Dayton from Columbus and then into the prison since cookies were no longer on our gate pass.
When I finally got to talk with our team leader, she chose to go with option 1. Unfortunately, this did not sit well with others who then decided to set aside the simplest option and take the most complicated. I had so many people telling me how to handle this ordeal that I thought my head might explode if anyone else tried to force my brain to process any additional information.
By the time the team was preparing to leave the prison for the night, I was fried ~ and I couldn't contain the tears any longer. The dam broke, and that was all she wrote. I called Joshua after our debriefing and cried on his shoulder over the phone. Even at almost 10pm, his first response was, "What can I do to help you?" Of course, at that point, very little could be done. When I finally hung up, I took a Benedryl and 2 sleeping pills and prayed for rest.
Thus, it was decided to get the cookies from Columbus to Dayton, and the gate pass was taken care of. I felt more than a twinge of guilt knowing that these ladies couldn't contact their husbands until we were out of the prison, around 830pm, and then they would still have to round up the goods and deliver them. It was going on 1230 by the time they got to Dayton, and they still had to drive back home. God bless loving husbands.
There were other complications with the cookies that weekend, as well. Because we didn't have the freedom to move around on the compound, for the sake of ease, we needed to pre-count before we took the cookies to other locations. It didn't matter who counted how many times, the count seemed to be short every time. Yeah, not only was our overall count short, every immediate need count seemed to be short, too.
I don't see why our team leader didn't fire me. I was obviously woefully screwing up this job, could never seem to get a grip on it this time around. A plethora of factors contributed to my seeming lack of competence, not the least of which being exhaustion, but I have to believe a big part of our struggle ~ in my area of service and all of the others ~ was due largely to Satan being pissed that God's work was happening at DCI. Nothing like serving as the hands and feet of Christ to invite some serious attack from the evil one.
Attack he did. I am embarrassed to confess that I didn't handle the situation very gracefully ~ but then, that has never been my forte. I came through this trial beaten and broken, humbled as only God can encourage, yet knowing that He had it in His hands all along. In short, Satan threw me a few curve balls, and I struck-out. Thankfully, I have a merciful umpire calling the plays.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Kairos DCI 1 ~ The Virgin Team
I love being in prison. Of course, I go with the understanding that I will be walking out the door and returning to my family at the end of the day.
Kairos Prison Ministry captivated my attention several years ago when I first heard about it during my own Walk to Emmaus. God laid this ministry on my heart then and fuels the passion I have for it now. Historically, I have served Kairos at a women's pre-release facility in Columbus. However, the state saw it fit to shuffle the deck, and our ladies were relocated ~ some of them back to Marysville, most of them to Dayton. Unfortunately, Kairos was not at that time approved to work within Dayton Correctional.
I was not intimately knowledgable about the proceedings of cutting through the necessary red tape in order for Kairos to get into DCI, but I do know that it took the better part of a year. A year of not being able to serve the ministry or see our ladies was heartbreaking. Elated was I to be asked to serve on the very first Kairos DCI team!
Yet, I must confess, the wind was taken out of my sails just a smidgen when I was asked to serve for the second time in a row a position in which I had asked God to mercifully never place me. He has such a sense of humor. For the second team in a row, I had the honor of serving as the Cookie Monster, a.k.a. Cookie Coordinator. But hey, I thought, if this is where God wants me to serve, this is where I will serve.
Cookies are an important part of the Kairos experience ~ a never ending supply of cookies serves as a visual reminder of Christ's never ending love. Not only is there a bottomless plate of cookies sitting on the tables where these ladies spend most of their day, but participants are given cookies at the end of each of the 4 days to take back to the compound to share, and the community on the compound receives cookies as well. So cookies are everywhere, and if you are the Cookie Monster, by the time the weekend reaches its close, you never want to see another cookie again as long as you live.
When the numbers were worked, our team needed to collect 1100 DOZEN chocolate chip cookies. This is HALF of what we ordinarily need. Until recently, Kairos handed out 2 dozen cookies to each participant each day and to every resident on the compound once. Now, at the request of the prison, we only hand out 1. And I and my Cookie Team were responsible for counting every one of those cookies.
I have served Kairos twice before, and all 3 weekends I have served in a leadership position. When I tell veteran Kairos volunteers that my first weekend ever I served as Inside Food Coordinator they are usually surprised that I have opted to return. They are even more surprised when they hear that I had no team assistants. I had 2 resident Angles, inmates who have already been through Kairos and return to help facilitate, but no teammates assigned to help me because our team was so small. The last time I served as Cookie Coordinator was the same scenario ~ 2 Angles, no teammate assistants. And we made it work. This team I actually had assistants!! And I confessed to them at the get-go that I was not used to this and was unsure how to function with this much help, so they would probably have to remind me now and then that I needed to let them serve, too.
As the weekend drew closer, Satan reared his ugly, horned head, and team members across the board ran into snags and obstacles. We knew we were onto something to get him so riled. We met with the first of many collective obstacles the day we were scheduled to have our security training inside the prison and meet with our Angles. The Chaplain had called off unexpectedly, and our visit was cancelled at the last minute. We prayed right there in the prison parking lot for the Chaplain and his circumstances, and that Kairos would still be allowed to continue the following weekend without all of our team being security trained.
We serve an awesome God. We were given the green-light, and 4 days later I was headed back to Dayton, cookies loaded in the trunk, for Kairos DCI 1.
Kairos Prison Ministry captivated my attention several years ago when I first heard about it during my own Walk to Emmaus. God laid this ministry on my heart then and fuels the passion I have for it now. Historically, I have served Kairos at a women's pre-release facility in Columbus. However, the state saw it fit to shuffle the deck, and our ladies were relocated ~ some of them back to Marysville, most of them to Dayton. Unfortunately, Kairos was not at that time approved to work within Dayton Correctional.
I was not intimately knowledgable about the proceedings of cutting through the necessary red tape in order for Kairos to get into DCI, but I do know that it took the better part of a year. A year of not being able to serve the ministry or see our ladies was heartbreaking. Elated was I to be asked to serve on the very first Kairos DCI team!
Yet, I must confess, the wind was taken out of my sails just a smidgen when I was asked to serve for the second time in a row a position in which I had asked God to mercifully never place me. He has such a sense of humor. For the second team in a row, I had the honor of serving as the Cookie Monster, a.k.a. Cookie Coordinator. But hey, I thought, if this is where God wants me to serve, this is where I will serve.
Cookies are an important part of the Kairos experience ~ a never ending supply of cookies serves as a visual reminder of Christ's never ending love. Not only is there a bottomless plate of cookies sitting on the tables where these ladies spend most of their day, but participants are given cookies at the end of each of the 4 days to take back to the compound to share, and the community on the compound receives cookies as well. So cookies are everywhere, and if you are the Cookie Monster, by the time the weekend reaches its close, you never want to see another cookie again as long as you live.
When the numbers were worked, our team needed to collect 1100 DOZEN chocolate chip cookies. This is HALF of what we ordinarily need. Until recently, Kairos handed out 2 dozen cookies to each participant each day and to every resident on the compound once. Now, at the request of the prison, we only hand out 1. And I and my Cookie Team were responsible for counting every one of those cookies.
I have served Kairos twice before, and all 3 weekends I have served in a leadership position. When I tell veteran Kairos volunteers that my first weekend ever I served as Inside Food Coordinator they are usually surprised that I have opted to return. They are even more surprised when they hear that I had no team assistants. I had 2 resident Angles, inmates who have already been through Kairos and return to help facilitate, but no teammates assigned to help me because our team was so small. The last time I served as Cookie Coordinator was the same scenario ~ 2 Angles, no teammate assistants. And we made it work. This team I actually had assistants!! And I confessed to them at the get-go that I was not used to this and was unsure how to function with this much help, so they would probably have to remind me now and then that I needed to let them serve, too.
As the weekend drew closer, Satan reared his ugly, horned head, and team members across the board ran into snags and obstacles. We knew we were onto something to get him so riled. We met with the first of many collective obstacles the day we were scheduled to have our security training inside the prison and meet with our Angles. The Chaplain had called off unexpectedly, and our visit was cancelled at the last minute. We prayed right there in the prison parking lot for the Chaplain and his circumstances, and that Kairos would still be allowed to continue the following weekend without all of our team being security trained.
We serve an awesome God. We were given the green-light, and 4 days later I was headed back to Dayton, cookies loaded in the trunk, for Kairos DCI 1.
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