Hiring Day Crew

If the stars were made to worship so will I
If the mountains bow in reverence so will I
If the oceans roar Your greatness so will I
For if everything exists to lift You high so will I
If the wind goes where You send it so will I
If the rocks cry out in silence so will I
If the sum of all our praises still falls shy
Then we’ll sing again a hundred billion times

~Hillsong UNITED

The whole HR team going out to eat :)

This song touched me deeply when I heard it, and it’s stuck with me as we have done interviews the last couple of days. In the last two weeks, we finished going through the applications, called applicants and began interviews. It’s been a real mix of emotions. Some days have been deeply discouraging, days when I had to say an immediate no to over 10 people because they couldn’t speak or understand English (including 6 in a row), days where when we sat down at the end of the day to evaluate the applicants, we had nowhere we wanted to place them, and ended up saying no to over half of that days applicants. For me, it’s been very difficult to watch someone struggle to answer in English, to want to be able to express themselves and be unable to, to see how sad they get when I tell them I can’t hire them, to see them stumble away. It’s these days where I question my ability to do this job well, question why I couldn’t have seen from their application that they wouldn’t work out. It’s also these days that I stop and pray between each applicant and ask God to please send me someone who is exactly what we are looking for, to please send someone who gets us excited! 

Other days are incredibly exciting, where every single applicant speaks good French and English, we are excited about placing them in a certain role, the role we had in mind for them is the same as what they said they are interested in, they are passionate and excited about working with us, where we feel we accomplished something good that day. Those are the days where I thank God for all the amazing people he sent us, thank Him for showing us exactly where they should be placed on the ship. But I’m realizing that regardless of whether things are going well or poorly, I need to pray for each applicant as they come. That it doesn’t matter if we hired 5 or 20 people, that I need to thank God for the people He sent us, that we were able to meet these people and cross paths with them, even if we didn’t hire them. My prayers shouldn’t necessarily be conditional on my situation, but instead focused on our amazing, unchanging God. 

We were really getting into the karaoke!

A big blessing has been our amazing HR day crew. I was so nervous about this – how would we do our job well if we didn’t hire great day crew to assist with the process? But God is faithful and he brought us 3 wonderful people, with a wide range of skills and personalities. It’s been a joy to get to know them more, to learn from them, to pour into them and share the things we know, to show them videos about Mercy Ships that bring them to tears, to see their love and passion for Jesus. On Friday night, they joined the whole team as we went out for karaoke, which was hilarious. The karaoke bar is run by a Malagasy man (of course!) who was so excited when Manda started talking in Malagasy. KJ, Sandrine and I sang I Believe I Can Fly in honour of Ruben Plomp (no standing on chairs though!), and we just enjoyed singing along with others as they sang. I think the crew will like this place! 

Manda, Joan and I, on our day to the first day of interviews.

The last two Sundays, I have visited local churches. First we went to the Church above the bookstore where people picked up/dropped off Mercy Ships applications. The worship and sermon were really wonderful, and everyone is very friendly, but it was very LONG (as expected) and we were called up to introduce ourselves. They were dedicating a baby and that was fun to see because it turned into a big dance party, yet at the same time they were very serious about their responsibility as parents and they shared their testimony with the church. This past Sunday we went to one of our HR Day Crew’s church, and it was a lively Pentecostal type church with great worship. It was nice to see her in her church setting, doing an awesome job of translating, and the pastor welcomed us into his office afterwards to greet us and talk with us. It was a little strange because some of our applicants attend that church and one man shared a testimony about how Mercy Ships called him for an interview and such. It was a good thing he was one of our yeses! We were also introduced to some of the other people who have applied for jobs – let’s just say I don’t think I’ll be going back there until we are done with interviews. 

Part of our Advance adventures also include exploring different restaurants for the crew (and getting discounts). We’ve had some great experiences, like a restaurant called 5 fourchettes, run by a Canadian lady and her husband, which serves an American style breakfast on the weekends (which was amazing), that I think the crew will love. We also had more sketchy experiences, like a Chinese restaurant that was so smoky and felt like we were in the middle of a Chinese wedding with people shouting in other languages over us and children running around. But hey, we played Pictionary telephone and that was hilarious. When in doubt – it’s always a table. Overall, there’s been lots of food adventures. If I had my way, I would find one good place and go there every week but instead I have now tried Korean food, eaten so much street food (street donuts are the best!) and eaten mystery food in the dark. There were two days this week where we had no power or water (turns out we never paid for anything!), so things got real interesting. After gym showers involved jumping in the pool and we had candlelight dinners. It turned out to be great because Manda grabbed his guitar and played for us while we worked in the candlelight!

Loving our team dinners & story time.

Before starting interviews, the whole HR team went out for a pizza lunch and I discovered that I am the leader of a team of 5 Africans who are all older than me. That’s a little daunting, but it’s been great to see how God bought together such a diverse team with different strengths. We have Mama Joan who is great with details and hospitality, remembering things that I would never think of, like toilet paper and offering our day crew water. And we have Mister Manda who took the lead on the driving tests, which were terrifying and hilarious all at once. My job was to sit in the back and be quiet (I was mostly successful?). There were times when Manda took off his seatbelt and moved over into the middle seat and I couldn’t help but whisper, Manda what are you doing? Turns out he was preparing to pull the parking brake if it was needed. And it was certainly needed! There were so many close calls, where that parking brake was the only thing saving us from being smushed. Why would anyone ever sign up to be a driving instructor or test person? It's madness. Although it certainly made for lots of funny stories over dinner that night.

I'm thankful for the many ways that I am being stretched this season, learning how to balance being the boss vs. being buddy buddy with everyone; learning how to say no, even when it sucks and it's hard; learning how to mentor and coach others, seeing where they could improve their skills, in both a work and life setting; and so many other things that I probably haven't realized yet. We've chosen over 100 of our day crew, with many more to go, and could use continued prayer for wisdom and discernment in choosing the rest!

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! ~ 1 John 3:1a

Manda and I with the HR day crew. This is how most days end, with me laughing at Manda as he says something that he probably shouldn't have!