Greece, Day 16: Janitorial Engineer

If you had asked me to predict the top 5 things I would be spending my time on…
no, the top 10 things…
heck, if you had asked me to list my job responsibilities until late into the evening, the point of the day where you get silly, get creative, think outside the box…
even in this moment I would never have predicted that the most critical,
most time-consuming,
most obnoxious part of my days would center on my unplanned role as a Janitorial Engineer.

Imagine you’re a Syrian for a moment.
you make your journey through Turkey,
pay your money to a fly-by-night boat sales company,
land in a strange land, full of an even stranger assortment of Westerners, half hippy, half evangelical, half professional disaster-chasers,
get pulled out of the water,
grab a change of clothes,
get a banana, water bottle, and HEB (high-energy-bar),
and finally sit down for a moment to relax,
to breath in the safe air,
an incomplete trip to be sure, but one that has crossed a critical juncture,
and you close your tired eyes, relax, and breath.

Until your bladder interrupts. Or even worse, your colon.

You get up, take your bag of belongings with you,
and find the loo.
What is that!?!
How does it work?
Do I climb up on it?
Surely they don’t expect me to put my arse on it!?!

I don’t actually have video evidence to corroborate what is occurring behind closed doors, but I believe it involves something along the lines of this:

Which is not as easy at it looks,
as found out through the various broken parts and pieces damaged on our watch (well, not ‘watch’).

I’m not even going to mention the introduction of toilet paper, which, let me tell you, isn’t as intuitive as you may assume.

And given that our toilets are trailer-park quality plastic (literally a single wide of toilets), it doesn’t take much to break them.

Imagine if you had a giant box of cereal with a give-away plastic toy inside, except that the toy was a CPT (cheap plastic toilet).
You love cereal, so you eat lots of it.
You keep collecting these CPTs until they fill a corner of your house, 12 of them,
and finally your mom nags you to get rid of them,
because, seriously, why would you need 12 CPTs in the first place? Three, maybe four at the most.

So you donate your CPT collection to an Assembly Camp that has 1,000 plus different people each day run through the property,
people who have never seen a western toilet,
who have GOT TO GO, but don’t know how…

It is not difficult to predict how things turn out for the CPTs.
They are quickly reduced from the pride of one serious cereal-eating fool,
to a series of daily repairs,
daily phone calls from a dozen volunteers to the one person they know who loves toilets: their Uncle Alan.

So here I am, me and my WASH team, fixing what we can, ignoring what we can get away with, trying to keep the trailer park of CPT’s functioning, which turns out to be a full-time job for a Helluva Janitorial Engineer.

And as I write this, a newly-arrived refugee is opening a Western-world toilet stall door for the first time to find an elevated toilet. They will pause, decide if they really need to go, and be forced by the natural functions of their body to make do, climb aboard, and take aim.

Don’t worry, we’ll be there tomorrow morning to fix it.

Greece, Day 13: Bend Until I Break

Your willingness to adapt to your surroundings, and
be adaptable to the continual changes you face
is and always will be of value in life.

This is particularly true when you are placed in moments of
increased needs,
limited resources, and
an all-encompassing lack of time.

You plan,
you plan the day,
you plan the day the night before,
and again that morning,
and again when you receive the unplanned text,
and again when you answer the critical yet unwelcome phone call,
and again when you find yourself short,
short on cash,
or drivers,
or vehicles,
or the wisdom to intelligently act,
or patience.

You begin to wonder what the purpose of all of this planning,
of your failed attempts to comprehend the tasks before you,
knowing that the simple becomes ridiculously complex,
that which should take but a moment finds a way to take a day.
like tying your shoes with gloves on.

And for one who prides himself on efficiency and decisiveness,
regardless of my stubborn unwillingness to go down, get tired, be outworked or outmatched,
I can be bent until I break.

These few days have been unusually hard. I have faced one too many challenges, and somewhere along the way lost
my patience,
my flexibility,
my adaptability.

And in the fog, I countered this with
frustration,
pride,
self-importance, and
judgments toward others.

I get a lot of accolades for this work. People compliment and pat my back. It can puff me up and cause me to lose the reason I am here, the connection between who God made me to be and how that is borne out in my work.

But in a bit of brilliant irony, God humbles me from my heights, lets me fail in my person while succeeding in my actions, such that people may be served by God through me, while I am left beating my chest in supplication for requested forgiveness. Wicked smart.

A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out,
till he has brought justice through to victory.
In his name the nations will put their hope.

Greece, Day 8: The Big Picture

Hey folks,

An update, to give a bit of insight on the work, and to let you know I am safe and well.

I don’t really want to touch on what happened last week. I am more in the dark about it than you are. I’ve heard a small bit, made the mistake of opening Facebook for a moment, and then decided to live in my shell for the time being.

Big Picture:

People leave Turkey by boat. The boats are whitewater rafts style, with an outboard motor. They are one way trips, not reused.

               Stage 1:

Based upon currents, there are 3-4 main landing spots / beaches that they land.

At each of these locations, there’s about 1,000 random volunteers helping. Some of it is great help, some of it is a bit over the top. Folks with good intentions grabbing perfectly capable people out of a boat through the water and to shore. There’s an interesting dynamic here. It’s the most exciting picture-perfect moment to validate you coming, something to write home about, but sometimes causes more problems than solutions. Not being cynical; it’s just interesting to see.

These landing sites are not official UNHCR (High Council for Refugees, fancy name for the folks that are in charge) camps. They are staffed by whoever shows up any given day.

               Stage 2:

Then there are other volunteers picking the people up at the beaches and taking to Stage 2, the ‘transit sites’.

These are 1-6 hour stops to get a change of clothes, maybe a bit of food, a chance to collect your breath, a medical tent, etc.

Samaritan’s Purse (SP), along with some other aid partners, manages two of these sites, with probably 1,000 – 2,000 people per day coming through, although it varies widely. Today was very calm, and the camps were able to clean up a good bit. Who knows why, what is going on across the water, that causes the pace to vary so widely.

My role here is to make sure we have adequate and clean water and sanitation facilities. Toilets, sinks, etc. All of these have/are/will be built. The transit sites are in random/unplanned locations, so they didn’t have facilities to handle the refugees.

I have 2-3 Greek staff to help manage Contractors or to fix problems onsite.

Also, I have a staff of 10 ppl who work shifts to keep the sites clean. Tough job.

               Stage 3:

After a few hours at Stage 2, the refugees are loaded onto ‘greyhound’ type buses and shipped to two overnight camps. One camp is for Syrian families, and the other camp is for everyone else (Syrian males, and all other nationalities). The refugees register with the UN there and become actual legal ‘refugees’, and are then take an 8-hour overnight ferry to Athens.

I don’t know what happens after then. And I don’t have the brain capacity to care at this point.

My Work:

Two nights ago I received an email from UNHCR WASH (water sanitation hygiene) leader asking us to expand from our two stage 2 transit sites to the two stage 3 overnight camps.

Yesterday I naively entered a weekly meeting lead by UNHCR, and they cornered us, asking us once again.

So, I drove the 90 minutes to the other side of the island, and ventured through 4,000 future-refugees looking at toilets, showers, and a complete lack of sinks. Pretty eye opening.

Ended the day with a 9pm meeting once again with UNHCR and a handshake agreement to do what needs to be done.

I’m heading back in the morning to ‘Chair’ the WASH meeting for the island, which somehow I was hoodwinked into leading. And then spend the afternoon at the camp making sketches, trying to find the water supply to determine capacity,

Blah blah blah…

All that being said, I am moving into Scopes / Bids / Contracts and Construction Management to repair and construct latrines, sinks, showers, etc.

The work we are about to do is a pretty big challenge, but a super opportunity.

Closing:

I don’t have much in the way of pictures. I don’t feel comfortable taking photos of the people. It seems a bit off for me. Maybe I will take a few, just to remember.

I am as safe as one could be on a small island in a village where everyone walks, eating large amounts of feta, tomatoes, and calamari. And fresh bread.

I appreciate everyone’s concerns and prayers and support. I love being here, but miss some of you (well, maybe only one of you).

Cheers,

Greece, Day 2: I’m no George Clooney

I’ve done more traveling than most.
Mind you, I’m no George Clooney, but I consistently travel one leg and 47 miles short of obtaining my annual upgrade status with the cattle-car airline based in my hometown.
I’m told that in previous generations, such travel was a luxury. You weren’t taller than the ceiling, didn’t spend the flight with my Lombard crammed into my seat while simultaneously wedging your knees up under the wonder of all inventions, the seat-back tray (specifically design to be just large enough to make ‘eating’ an acrobatic event).
We didn’t expect much of a father back then, so you could leave without guilt.
You weren’t electronically connected to everyone you ever met, so you could even have a chippie on the other end of the flight with almost no concern for being cut into little pieces by your significant other when you returned home.
But I digress.
Traveling today… not so much.
When traveling today, prepare your mind for the unknown.
Lie to yourself: this must be what Jason Bourne’s life is like,
encountering a new adventure hour by hour with perfect calm and ease.I guarantee that a significant part of Bourne’s Zen-state training took place while earning a Gold status.
Forget packing your favorite swim trunks for the hotel pool cleaned monthly by Jimmy the front desk attendee, you’d do better to pack an extra layer of deodorant and a barrel of patience.
At the moment of writing, I am sitting between these two:
I broke Flying Rule #9: never book a flight in person. The ticketed agent takes one look at me and says, “He’ll fit”.
You take the red-eye, addicted to your very-own TV (such control at your fingertips). Should I watch Fantastic Four or lose at Chess?
Forgetting that you’re supposed to work the next day,
Forgetting that due to a technical issue, you will miss your connection, spend 8 hours bumming around with a $20 voucher, hallucinating that the accented PA voice just changed your gate and departure time so that you must check yet again the departure screen.
Forgetting that the new flight time arrives too late to catch your third connection, so you get to weigh the comparative advantage of clearing customs at midnight to catch a taxi to a hotel and then get up at 4:30AM to be back to the airport at 6:00AM for your last flight,
Or, you can walk the entire airport hoping to find its weakness, to find where the airport Interior Designer slipped up and accidently ordered a chair or two that are comfortable. Upon failure of said mission, heading into your second sleepless night, you are forced to acknowledge that lying down on 1/8” thick industrial-grade carpet last cleaned during the Carter administration is your best option.
But hey, you get to post the most-enviable Facebook check-ins.

Greece, Day 1: Moving Closer to Pigeon Forge

I am 17 years old, a senior in high school, venturing with a group of church friends to a youth conference in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for a proper dose of Bible teaching, slushy skiing, and flirting. Which of these most sincerely motivated our attendance, I am not sure we know ourselves.
It is the last night there, the night where the musicians play "Just as I am" until every kid within 3 counties is pouring their hearts out to God and country and their nearest friend, I am there, praying, listening, and being called by God for His service.

Embedded in my cautious appraisal of this situation is a sincere heart and clear memory of God asking me to do for Him what he asked. What exactly that was, I couldn't say. A vision, hazy yet certain.

One year later, I declare “Civil Engineering”.
Four years later, I venture beyond our borders to discover the world I will one day save.
Two years later, I am a father, a future daddy of four, and completely out of control of my own destiny. I seek, pray, and search for opportunities to go with God somewhere, anywhere, to do something, anything.
And He is quiet. He certainly seems quiet.
Often I think of that night in Pigeon Forge, battling between one of the most real moments of my life, and the tumult of not doing what I am made to do, be what I want to be.
I love my wife.
I love my kids.
I struggle to prove that my longing for the breath of God in the grittier portions of His creation does not represent my feelings for her and the kids,
that I am not running away from them or the crazy-love life we have.
Many years later, the door begins to open.
A chance decision to escape for a weekend, see a friend, sit in the back of a conference and mind my own business, and I am asked to come to a desperate place with insurmountable challenges and use the most unlikely skills to help design a residential subdivision through the middle of a property so desperately unsuitable that the entire overpopulated community had avoided it for two hundred years of city sprawl.
4 months later, and I am there again, gaining clarity, sitting on the roof of an unfinished hospital on Ash Wednesday, the soot of Jesus' sacrifice marking my forehead, staring over a sea of desolation,
praying
and journaling
and listening.
And He continues His conversation.
He picks up where He left off 16 years before.
The beginnings of clarity.
One month later I am accidentally honest with a near stranger and find myself on a ledge, facing a decision, fear in my gullet.
Do I follow His voice? How do I know? How can I be sure?
And she walks to me, my faithful wife, while I am weeding and planting and generally wasting time in the garden. She walks up to me: "be the person I married."
And I do.
We do; she and I and God and a little bit of clarity, in a decision that brings me closer to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
Four years later, the journey to Pigeon Forge takes me the island of Lesvos, Aegean Sea.