I have been struggling with whether or not to write this blog. For several reasons. Most of them having to do with the fact that this entry would essentially be a confession of sorts, a confrontation with an incredibly ugly side of my personality, and a testimony to just how broken God can make us.
One of Kairos Prison Ministry's overall struggles is number of available volunteers. The time commitment is considerable, and teams often have just enough hands to be a skeleton crew. This was the first team I served that had enough volunteers for me to have assistants. This was new for me, but I was excited! I had assistants!
It felt a little weird right out of the gate since both of my assistants were much older than me, making me feel quite unqualified to tell them what to do. One had a daughter about my age. The other had grandchildren about my age. And my little old lady was quite hard of hearing. I felt like I was always yelling at her, even though we were simply having a conversation.
Over the course of team formation, I came to suspect that my little old lady was wavering in mental stability. She didn't always seem to fully understand what was being said, or she would retell the same story a couple of times. Nothing major, as long as one has the patience to tolerate it. But this was overshadowed by her huge servant's heart. All she wanted to do was help.
The weekend started off well enough. The Cookie Team got everything counted that was brought in early, carpooled to the prison and got our service space set up in the facility. Then the quirks started to emerge.
Yes, I was serving in a lead position, and my little old lady was my "underling", so to speak, but I felt like I was taking care of a puppy. She seemed to be constantly near me, to the point of being underfoot. If I was out of her sight for more than a few minutes she would come looking for me. Maybe it was because I was one of the few people wearing a watch that she continually asked me what we were doing next. It felt like babysitting a toddler.
If you haven't noticed, I am a fiercely independent person. I am incredibly frustrated by circumstances that I cannot handle alone and mandate that I ask for help, making me feel weak and dependent. I also do not gracefully handle situations in which people are overly dependent on me. A friend of mine would say this is because I have no tolerance for weakness, in myself or in others. I would say it is because I prefer to be responsible for as few people other than myself as possible. When it's only you and you make a mistake, you are the only person taking the fall. Being responsible for others and making a mistake means you take everyone else down with you by default. So feeling like my little old lady was solely dependent on me for the duration of the weekend was more than a little uncomfortable. Unfortunately, after a while, that discomfort progressed into agitation.
Friday, when we realized our lack-of-cookie situation, my little old lady asked what we were going to do. "I don't know, I haven't had time to figure it out yet." "But we have to do something." "I can't do anything until I can get to the other building to talk to the team leader." "But what are we going to do?" "I don't know." What came across as her agitation fed my already irritated state of mind over the situation. And the exchange would have gone even further downhill if I hadn't told her that I was going to ask for suggestions from more experienced team members.
By the time we left the prison Friday, tears were streaming down my face. Feeling like an absolute failure in my cookie responsibilities and the source of much hoopla and drama, having multiple people telling me how to handle the situation, combined with the concerned badgering from my little old lady left me feeling shredded.
I don't now remember how well I may have slept that night, but I did not wake up feeling rested. I felt bone-weary, naked, exposed, and at the same time wound so tight that I thought I might snap with the least provocation. Though I was relieved to see the boxes of cookies sitting by the door, I dared not let myself believe that all was well. Until those boxes made it successfully to the prison and the cookies were counted, I couldn't shake the feeling of dread.
Over the last couple of years, the prisons have asked Kairos to scale back the number of cookies given to the residents for health related reasons, and Kairos has willingly complied. Last year was the first weekend our team gave only one dozen instead of two. However, not all of the prisons in which Kairos serves have made this request. Knowing that our additional cookies were originally intended for a men's prison, it was possible that they were packaged in two dozens instead of one. My little old lady pointed this out on the drive to the prison.
"What if the cookies are bagged in 2 dozens?" "Then we break them out when we get there." "We don't have enough bags." "We'll make it work." "Maybe we should stop somewhere and buy some bags." "We're in downtown Dayton. We don't pass any place on the way to the prison, and I am not going to drive around a city I don't know looking for a place to buy bags." "But we need more bags. We pass a Dollar General. We could stop there." "It's 7:00 on Saturday morning. Dollar General isn't open yet." "Maybe we could find a Kroger or something." "Tell you what, if the Dollar General is open, we'll stop." (Of course, it was not.) "Maybe we can still find a Kroger or something." "How about we ask the wives (of the guys who brought the cookies) if they are packaged in one or two dozens? And we'll make it work."
Mercifully, the cookies were bagged in one dozens, my little old lady's mind was put at ease, and my blood pressure was able to drop back to normal. The rest of the day didn't exactly go off without a hitch, but the majority of the Cookie Team's responsibilities were completed, and I was able to decompress substantially. Thankfully, with our duties done, we were utilized by other service areas and my little old lady was distracted enough to not be concerned with my whereabouts and I was able to get a much needed break for everything that had been weighing on me ~ for a while.
At dinner that evening, I confessed to our team leader that my little old lady was a big factor in my melt down the day before. I told her that my little old lady is a sweet woman with a huge heart, but she is a little too intense for me at times. At which point, a confession was made to me. When the original team roster was posted, someone suggested that our team leader prayerfully reconsider allowing my little old lady to serve because her family had expressed concerns about her mental capacities. Our leader responded saying that the offer had already been made and accepted, and that it would not be right to deny her now. Our leader prayed long and hard over where to assign my little old lady to serve, and that is how she came to be my little old lady.
This information would have been very beneficial to have beforehand, I thought. I could have more mentally prepared myself for was I was dealing with, perhaps been a little more forgiving and less frustrated. But what was done was done, and we are all the wiser for it.
Sunday is always chaotic for the service teams on a Kairos weekend. We have to inventory everything (that isn't edible) that we brought in with us, get it packed and loaded onto the truck, and leave the facilities as we'd found them. I fully understand that weekend's Inside Food Coordinator in that we are both strong personalities that want to get the job done, and neither of us have problems with barking orders ~ although, I do have a hard time barking orders to people older or more experienced than myself. I was raised by my very Italian father to respect my elders. So knowing what I do about the Food Lady, I got out of the way until she told me to do something.
Once my little old lady saw that there was a job being done, she wanted to help. Bless her sweet heart. However, the weekend had been particularly stressful for the Food Lady (again, I can relate) and she was in high gear. To be completely honest, I was afraid that she might pop. The speed at which we were working was a little intense, and some of the tubs and supplies were heavy. So when my little old lady asked what she could carry I suggested that she take a break and sit this one out. But she continued to press, asking how she what she could carry. My father would back-hand me hard enough to knock me out of my chair if he'd heard me yell at my little old lady to go sit down and take a break. At that point, another team member said, "Oh, just let her carry something."
I didn't respond to this statement, believing that whatever came out of my mouth, no matter the intended tone, would not come out well. Nor did I have the time to stop in the middle of what we were doing to explain that I was not trying to be mean or demanding, though I know that's how it sounded, but that my concern was for my little old lady's safety. With her being a smaller person, and knowing the gear and frame of mind in which the Food Lady was working ~ her patience spent and agitation level seeming to be at a new high ~ I was worried that my little old lady was going to get run over, or that she might hurt herself lifting something heavy. I'd watched her nearly topple carrying something heavy earlier in the day and visions of her falling on the concrete floor were unnerving.
At last, the truck was loaded, our ares returned to their original set-up, and we moved on to the closing service. After tears and hugs and the residents were reassured that we would indeed see them again, our team parted ways and headed for home. I couldn't remember a more liberating moment than pulling out of the prison parking lot with only myself and my thoughts in the car. Yet, I still felt weighed down by the realization that the first impression I was leaving teammates and residents who'd never worked with me before was of one of my uglier sides, that I had not stood up at all let alone gracefully under pressure, and that I could quite possibly have hurt the feelings of a sweet, Christ-loving, severant-hearted old lady.
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