Travel, Meetings, and Development

“In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty, there really is the presence of God.” (Simone Weil)

Port Colburn, ON – I came across this quote during my silent retreat last summer, and it resonated with me. I find it much easier to connect with God when I’m immersed in His creation, and I’m blessed to live in an area with lots of nature. It’s refreshing to leave behind the hum of the air conditioner, the clacking of the keyboard, and the ding of emails coming in. I look forward to more of this in summer.

In May, I had two back-to-back work trips, first to the Arabian Peninsula, and then to Turkey. In the AP, I met with three colleagues to start writing up a report based on all the research we did over the past year on how we are organized in OM. We spent hours looking at themes in the data and considering what it will mean for us going forward. We got a lot done.

In Turkey, it was all about sustainability. I have started to work with a group to look at how we can be more sustainable in OM. These were our face-to-face meetings where we wrestled with our mandate and what this meant specifically in the areas of finance, people, and mindset and culture. We have formed sub-groups around these areas and continue to meet virtually. We’ll need to do some research first to develop a baseline and then get specific on the work to be done.

As I’ve mentioned before, most of the time I’m not travelling. I’m sitting at my desk and working from home.

Here are a few things I’ve been working on over the past few months:

• Developing training on having a growth mindset and how to take a sabbatical.

• Creating a resource area on best practices for setting up and running task forces.

• Organizing another webinar on how AI can help leaders and HR to work more efficiently.

• Taking a course on Indigenous literature at Toronto Metropolitan University.

• Doing appraisals for my team members.

• Meetings and more meetings.

Please pray for wisdom and discernment for the “sustainability group”, upcoming travels and work projects, good rest, and praise God for busy but good meetings, as well as all of you faithful supporters!

International Director of Organizational Learning, Operation Mobilization

Home church: Winkler EMMC, Manitoba

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This article was originally published in

The Recorder Vol 62, No. 3