Frustration…
June 20, 2005
I’ve been sitting in the basement in an office by myself at the Bethlehem Peace Center for the past 3 hours. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. The Marketing Director showed me around the place, which is very cool, and then we went down to his office and he said, “So, your CV says you do some graphic design? What do you do?” Well, I’ve done a few websites and I like to play around with graphics. “Well, I think our website needs to be redone….so maybe that can be your project. Maybe we’ll work on some of this together. Here, let me copy the site for you onto this drive so you can look around it - and yes, you can work on this.”
So now I’m down in the basement, not interacting with anyone, except when I asked to get on the internet, because the woman I’m supposed to speak with about the site has not shown up yet. So I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. And the idea of working on another website after this one and this one…for the next 2 months…I don’t know if this is going to work out. Especially when the job description that I was preparing for was this: The need for Volunteers: to help during the summer camp, and through the center’s activities through the summer. Teaching Art and painting. Story telling, drama and theater and accompany children during field visits.
It will be interesting to hear other stories of other people’s morning experiences. So, I am left a little confused…quite bored…not excited about working on yet another website (because I think the one they have is just fine) and feeling frustrated…
Tags: Bethlehem, Palestine
Posted in Politics
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
June 20th, 2005 at 11:54 am
if i have learned only two things about our field of work, it would be these two:
1) always expect the unexpected. job descriptions are a joke. expectations (yours, and others of you) can kill a ministry in minutes.
2) those of us who have even a tiny bit of tech savvyness and make that fact known will be asked to do ALL of the tech stuff in any office. i am a full-time Pastor of Christian Education in a Long Island church and the most “emergency” calls i get are about the website, the copy machine, or the wireless router. sad but true.
having said all of that, i hope that you do get to interact with more humans while you are there. i was there in ‘97 (mostly in Jerusalem and Galilee) and still think about the people i met almost daily.
grace and peace.
PS. i have a dear friend who lives in Ramallah. if you are looking for someone to have dinner with or visit or anything, let me know and i’ll get you in touch with her. She’s a Christian Palestinian with whom i attended undergrad in Michigan.
June 23rd, 2005 at 1:56 pm
Hi Adam,
thinking of you and hoping that the job/assignment will
get only better. Can you show them the description that
you had received for the place? Be assertive maybe
and try to get more out of the summer than what presently seems to be presenting?
We will miss you at the wedding. will pack tonight and
fly out tomorrow morning.
Many blessings on you and I hope that things will end
up being good and productive and full of grace for you.
blessings, Aunt Beth