Transient Things

Reflections Over Phở

Posted by Rath Loeung , Saturday, July 17, 2010 8:27 AM

I love hole-in-the-wall-phở joints. We went to one last Friday and loved it. Many had never experienced Vietnamese food before and I really enjoyed sharing in their first taste of it. We capped off our dinner experience by exploring a bubble tea (boba) cafe my Google Maps had found. Again, another first experience for a few of us. Lots of fun and good conversations were had.

Last night, Sharyl and I talked a little about some of the reasons I still feel a little disconnected with this whole summer experience. It was the first time all summer I'd given time to reflect on my expectations coming into camp and a lot of it stemmed from conversations we had over that dinner last Friday. Yes, I did come into the fray a full five days after everyone had gotten a chance to gel and yes, I was thrown immediately into a spot of authority. So maybe that had a bigger impact that I was willing to admit.

I wonder if that has contributed to a general sense of disappointment over the balance between just working a job and participating in ministry. I've been on teams before this, for shorter periods of time even, and have not felt overtaken by the "job" aspect of it. My teammates were my brothers and sisters in ministry and I just haven't felt that as much this summer. The team of staffers here feel mostly like co-workers for me and I must admit that it kind of makes me sad.

Hopefully, the next two weeks will prove better for us as a team as many of the stressful details have become second nature and we can spend more thought energy on the more people-oriented and less on the task-oriented.