the weight of the world

it's been a week since i wrote last and i meant to be more productive and type this blog before i came to town so i could just paste it into blogger, but that never happened. so this is all coming to you live folks...

i feel like i should probably update you all on the situations going on at the mango tree. after a lengthy staff meeting a week and a half ago where we had to discuss all the backbiting going on i was exhausted. sitting on an extremely hard wooden seat for 3 hours is hard enough, let alone having to hear in detail account after account of alleged rumors. i feel like we made some headway although it was clear not all the issues were dealt with. last wednesday francis told me that after thinking about my advice he decided that he should stay at the mango tree. he realized that no matter where he works there will be people who will gossip about you. you can never escape that unfortunately. i was glad that he decided to stay but i know that's not the end of it.

we had a meeting on monday with the executive committee where we discussed all kinds of business related things. being that i was in the business world for 6 years you'd think i'd be used to this sort of thing. well i've never had a group of 12 grown men turn to me and say "so what should we do susan?" ... *sound of crickets* ...

oh my. you wanna talk about pressure? the problem is we have this van now generating income but there's so many places the money needs to go... salaries... loan re-payment... painting of the van... change of ownership... taxi registration... the list goes on. it's the end of the month and people want their salaries but the van's only been operating for 2 weeks so we have less than half of what we need to pay for everything. thankfully once we got to this point in the meeting the sun was beginning to set and i still had a 2 mile walk back to where i'm staying, so i graciously said, "can we reconvene next week and discuss all of this. i don't want to walk 2 miles in the dark." thankfully they all agreed. now you see why i keep praying for wisdom! lord have mercy...