Thursday, December 20, 2007

So, I lied...

So, you know how I said that everything with my community was great?

Well as of last night that's a complete lie and I don't expect it to change any time soon.

Yesterday was supposed to be our house party with our Program Coordinators, Bill and Mary Frances and Ryan, the other staff member who works with our community. We were going to go ice skating and then have a nice dinner at their house. Instead, at about 12:15 we all got this email:
Dear Friends,

We are writing to tell you about a change in our plan for tonight. Unfortunately, we need to meet and talk about some things with community. We will still have something here at the house for dinner, but we feel like it’s too important to talk and so we won’t be going ice-skating, etc. Just wanted to give you the heads-up.

We can still plan on gathering at 6:00pm.

Thank you!

Mary Frances and Bill
All I knew at this point is that somebody broke our kitchen window Monday night so I expected us to be having another discussion, and probably having us reconsider (again) how much drinking our community is doing, and about how thing have gotten broken and we really need to work on that, etc. etc.

Instead, what we come home to find out is that one of our roommates has been kicked out of the program, and was currently on his flight home at the time that we were meeting.

~sigh...~

What proceeded to happen was a rather long period of awkward silence, followed by a number of questions posed by my housemates, few of which I feel were adequately answered by our coordinators.

Not too much was really said until our Coordinators left and we were able to talk as a group on our own.

What our frustration comes down to is mainly that we were not at all involved in the decision, that it was completely taken out of our control... that we feel he was unfairly judged based on some of the stupid things he did (which were not small things by any means and do need to be addressed) and not on how much growth he was going through because of us.

Even if at the end of the day, it was the best thing for Nick to leave the community, for this to be decided for us is so frustrating.

It also doesn't help that we all know there were personality clashes between Nick and one of our coordinators. So it is difficult for me to see this as a completely objective decision made for the safety of the program and for us and for Nick.

This is obviously a very complex issue that isn't going to be resolved any time soon. But, the decision has been made, we can't change that. All we can do is talk about whether or not it was the right thing to do, and hopefully help our coordinators to handle this kind of issue better if it should happen again. Other than that, our community is completely different. One person has even threatened to leave if this happened. So maybe I will be down to 9 housemates sooner or later.

I worry for some of my housemates, if they will ever be able to look our coordinators in the eyes for the rest of our stay here. As for myself, I hope that they really were acting out of the best knowledge that they had, and that through our discussions that will happen over the next few weeks they are open and try to understand our position and admit that they were wrong on some things if it comes to that. If they don't end up being open in that way, I have to say I would struggle with how I viewed them.

The next few weeks... months... the rest of the program really... is going to be really rough. If you pray, please pray for us, for Nick for our coordinators... for the situation.

This also really saddens me, because up to this point, I was recommending this program to some of my friends. I still think it's an amazing program, and I hope I can confidently recommend it, but it all depends on how this is handled from now on.

I'm sure I will post more as time goes on.

Peace everyone.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Episode 1: Return of the Blog

So, I've decided that not having written anything here since June is kinda sad, so I'm going to fix that. :)

I'm not sure what to write about in particular since there really is plenty to talk about since June.

I've been in Colorado Vincentian Volunteers (henceforth CVV) for a few months now and it has been a really fun experience. I really like my housemates, I really like my job, so life is pretty good. Hopefully I will have some time later to go into more detail.

I'm looking forward to the break, although it will be pretty short. A lot of my housemates are going back home for the break, but I will be back at work on the 26th. Eh, what can I do? Plus most of the rest of the staff is leaving so I figured I should stay around :)

For those who care to know, I'm not dating anyone. Part of that is intentional since I think I should focus on my community life and all that kinda stuff. Whether or not I have someone that I would like to be able to date... well that is something else entirely >^.^<

I'm doing pretty well with not having my own computer. I do tend to spend some nights late at work just to read things online (like today) and I miss being able to do some things that you can only really do with a personal computer (games, movies, music, programs, etc.) but I think it was a really good decision since I actually, yah know, spend time with REAL LIVE PEOPLE. Shock huh. Plus, when I need to be introverted and hide in my room I can read books, which I can do for fun now since I'm not in school. Woot.

Well, I think those are the main things for now. I've been reading a lot of webcomics in the past few weeks, perhaps I will post some links at some point or another. There is some really good stuff out there.

Also, if you haven't, check out the Witches Brew Coffee shop! It's mah friend! (http://www.myspace.com/witchesbrewdenver, http://360.yahoo.com/witchesbrewdenver, http://community.livejournal.com/cowitchesbrew/). It's an excellent place, excellent people, and if you're lucky you might see me there (Thursday-Sunday are really the only days I have any chance to get there, and it's kinda far so it's my treat to myself :)

Well, for now have a wonderful holiday.

Peace be with you!

-Daniel James

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