May 7
I had my first exposure to "air rage" on the 2½-hour flight from Phnom Penh to Hong Kong, and it was directed against me. Before we boarded the plane, I had noticed a man in his mid thirties, head shaved and strangely dressed in traditional Chinese clothes and shoes, almost like a monk. He sat in the plane in the row ahead of me.When the cabin attendants passed out the little paper towelettes for wiping your face, I put mine on the back of the seat of this man, but way off to the side and no where near his head, so it could be collected easily. The attendants didn't pick it up and it stayed on the seat until about forty minutes later when the man looked around for some reason and saw it and went beserk. He stood up on the seat, facing the rear of the plane, and started shouting and gesticulating in some Chinese dialect, and I had no idea what he was talking about.
After two or three minutes of this he pointed to the towel, and started looking at all of us. I gestured that I had put it there and he started his rantings again. The whole plane was watching and the three cabin attendants were trying to calm him down. He wadded up papers and threw them in the empty seat next to me and twice pulled back his arm like he was going to hit me. Not wanting to antagonize him more, I just sat and watched him and gestured in sign language that I was sorry (for whatever it was that was upsetting him!).
Finally after his shouting for six or seven minutes, an attendant got him out of his seat and took him to the back of the plane and he stayed there the rest of the trip. I made sure I got off the plane before him and kept a watch out so that I wouldn't run into him in the terminal.
[For more on this incident, click here]
May 8-10
I arrived in New York several days early for doctor appointments and to take care of other business so that I wouldn't be absent from the meetings next week. My first stop was at an ear doctor who fitted me with two hearing aids to correct an increasing high-frequency hearing loss that is starting to become bothersome in large meetings.
The first night I was here, even though I had been up for for 24 hours, I woke up at 3:00 AM. When I couldn't get back to sleep, I finally got up and read a bit and then studied my Khmer language book. THAT put me in the mood for sleeping again!
Friday I spent a good part of the day over at our development office where I worked on some promotional publications with the staff there. These mailings, to go out in June, will feature the rebuilding of Cambodia and my work with deaf people.
This picture is of the Bethany Building on the Maryknoll campus. It is the office building for the MMAF and where we stay when we come here for meetings.
May 11-12
Saturday and Sunday were mostly spent preparing papers for our meetings which begin tomorrow. Some of our early arrivers went to visit people in the neighborhood (New York and Connecticut), but I had to finish preparing some background material for a proposal about East Timor.This morning I did take a break to go over to the seminary building where they began a four-day conference of the Global Network of Religions for Children, a Japanese-based group which is holding its second conference in conjunction with the United Nations meetings on children that took place last week down in New York City. Maryknoll is hosting this meeting, and many of the participants are staying here at Bethany with us.
This picture shows the Bethany building from the opposite side as the first picture. This is the residential wing with many individual rooms. Many years ago, it was a nursing home for the Maryknoll Sisters.
May 13
Today was the first day of the week of meetings of the Association Leadership Team (ALT) and the five area representatives from around the world. The ALT+5, as they are known, have responsibility for decision-making on budgeting, assignment of members, and strategic plan, and this week we are gathered to decide to which mission sites around the world the new bunch of members should be assigned.The ALT are Alicia Butkiewicz, Gerry Lee, and Sheila Matthews, and the area representatives are Heidi Cerneka (Latin America), Charlie Dittmeier (Asia), Liz Mach (Africa), Linda Michon (United States), and Sam Stanton (Latin America).
The day started with a prayer service in the chapel, led by Alicia, and then we had a chance to update the group on ourselves and the overseas areas, all that has happened since our previous meeting in November of last year.
Marj Humphrey, a MMAFer from Africa who is here now, graciously prepared lunch and supper for us! Thanks, Marj!
The afternoon began with a "Chapter Chat," an explanation of the Bangkok moment of the Society's 11th General Chapter which was held in February. John McAuley, Joe Veneroso, and Dick Callahan spoke about the issues that were presented there and offered their comments.
The day finished with a report from the 2003 General Assembly planning committee by Heidi Cerneka who is on the committee with Mary Mallahan Hicken and Lisa Nolan. The ALT+5 offered feedback on the extensive planning the committee has done so far.
May 14
Today we dealt mainly with the actual placement process. The incoming class of candidates for MMAF for 2003 is comprised of sixteen adults and ten children. In the morning we started with a surfacing and discussion of various placement issues from the last year, and then we invited our MMAF psychologist, Mary D'Arcy, to join us for a discussion of some new information forms she has designed to help us bring together in one place all the information on the various candidates. That was a brief session, and then we got into the first real work of placement, the discussion of opening up East Timor as a new region for mission work by MMAF members. This was proposed by the MMAF members in Asia.
By that time it was 11:30 AM so we all headed over to the seminary building for the closing inter-faith prayer service of the conference organized by the Global Network of Religions for Children. The conference participants processed through the main building to the large chapel where representatives of various faiths offered prayers interspersed with music from a children's choir. Pictured here are two of the Japanese delegates. After the prayer, everyone moved to the seminary dining room for a buffet lunch.
We were a little late starting the afternoon session for which we were joined by the Admissions and Orientation teams as we did the actual placement process. First the area representatives again gave a general picture of the conditions in their areas, and then we started matching up the candidates, their indicated preferences for countries to work in, and the priority mission sites as identified by the members in the areas earlier this year. Some choices were fairly obvious, others took a lot more discussion and thought, but we basically were finished with the assignments by 5:00 PM. This evening and tomorrow the candidates will be notified of leadership's decision, and then, after any adjustments that might be necessary, the assignments will become official. Keep tuning in here for the final results!
May 15
Today was supposed to be a half day, with the morning free to allow time for the Area Representatives to go to Health Services and make contact with different Maryknoll offices and departments. Often in the past, when we didn't allow time for such appointments, people would have to miss part of the meetings to go to the doctor, etc., so we tried to make different arrangements this year.
As it turned out, today was the final day for Steve and Maribeth Nathum to be together here at Bethany so a blessing ceremony was set for 9:00 AM for them and their son Rainer. Eileen Charleton was the organizer of the hour-long service with prayers and readings and the
chance to offer reflections, thanks, and good wishes for their onward journey.
The official ALT+5 work resumed again at 1:00 PM when we gathered with Mary D'Arcy to talk about some of the larger issues involved with orientation, such as the openness required of both the receiving group and the new people and the different dynamics that are operative during the time of orientation of new members in their new mission country. It was a good exchange and the people from Orientation made lots of notes.
The rest of the afternoon was spent looking at the budget process. We looked at the new schedule which will allow us to submit budgets from the regions later in the year, and then we discussed some of the categories in the Individual and Region Budgets. Some categories we tried to clarify so that Association members around the world will fill out the forms with the same understandings. For other categories we offered explanations and guidelines.
We had an impromptu update session on the placement process, reporting the results of all the phone calls that have been made so far. There are still one or two people not contacted so the assignments are not official yet.
East Timor
It is official, though, that East Timor has been
approved by the ALT+5 as a new country to which MMAFers can be assigned. Some veteran missioners will be the first to go there, and only later will new candidates be recruited for mission in this new country which becomes independent next Monday, 20 May.
We finished the day with a supper together at the new home of Sheila Matthews and Eileen Charleton, a delightful meal and evening!
May 16
The fourth day of the ALT+5 meetings began with a breakfast at the cloister for the staffs of the Bethany and cloister buildings to announce the appointment of Chris Keavney as the new PC/WAN Administrator for the Association, the position Erik Cambier held up until now. Chris started in his new job today and Erik will start nursing school in a week or two. In the picture, Chris is in the black shirt.
With our hunger abated, we moved down to the cloister meeting room in the basement to go through the 2001 audit with Mr. Ken Benkovic and the US Operations Directors. Ken noted that the audit went much more smoothly this year because of Finance's improved organization and performance.
Looking ahead to the 2003 budget, we discussed the budget process and established a timeline for it. Probably all in the MMAF world will be happy to know that this year, because our budget will no longer be scrutinized by the Society, the forms filled out by members are not due in the Area Representative's hands until the end of August.
Lunch was also at the cloister, this time a barbecue prepared by Renato Abella and Mary Edgar and a few others. It was another opportunity to get to know better the good people who work for us in the cloister.
In the afternoon we started again by watching a video created by Nancy and Dick Bureson to explain to members the need for all of us to be involved in church dates and other activities when we are in the United States. We talked about that being a responsibility that all of us need to take more seriously. Then the ALT+5 met with the directors of the US Operations: Eileen Charleton in Mission Services; Maryann Sorese in Promotions; and Gabriale Tai in Finance. They spoke of their present situations and of their ideas for the future. Finally, after the directors had left, we adjusted the agenda for tomorrow and then went home to finish off some of the leftovers from earlier this week before several smaller meetings back at Bethany during the evening.
May 17
Before getting to the agenda for today's meetings, it can now be announced where the new candidates have been assigned. They have all been contacted and informed of the ALT+5's decisions.
- Tanzania
- Bertha Haas
- Zimbabwe
- Laura and Doug Krefting
- Marie Salupo
ASIA - Cambodia
- Judith Helein
- Kathy Kremer Lisa Pirie
- East Timor
- Kim and Patricia La Mothe
- Bill and Eileen Vilecky
LATIN AMERICA - Brazil
- Joe and Denis Sandman (4 children)
- El Salvador
- Kenney Gould and Deirdre Cornell (3 children)
- Latin America
- Eloy Garcia
- Venezuela
- Doug Meeker and Patricia Santos (3 children)
Welcome to all our new candidates!
The morning session began with a presentation by Lisa Jacobson, the MMAF archivist, who explained for us the purpose and the process for maintaining Association
records--and those of all of Maryknoll--in the Maryknoll Archives. We'll all have to do a better job on that in the future.
A short prayer service was held in the meeting room to celebrate the conclusion of the placement process and to ask blessings and guidance for the new candidates and
the regions around the world that will be receiving
them. This photo shows Tina Martinelli reading a
selection from the gospel.
Next we looked at the Strategic Plan and the early feedback that has come in about the draft of the Strategic Plan sent out earlier this year. The next step will be for the regions to take the Association plan and develop action steps appropriate to their local reality.
We ended the morning with a presentation on Holistic Health by Sheila Matthews. She gave an overview of the situation at present and how this idea is developing.
For lunch today, we were joined by four members of the
Advisory Board Committee from the Society. They are the
link between the Society's Advisory Board and the MMAF,
and have been very helpful to us over the years. During
a working lunch at Bethany, we gave them a summary of
the MMAF's present financial position; the results of
our recruiting; and then the results of the placements
we had just completed. We also discussed collaboration,
a topic of special interest to them.
As soon as the ABC had returned to their own meetings over at the Society Center, we resumed our meetings in the Bethany basement with the ALT update. Gerry and Sheila reported on their recent meeting in Paris with our lay mission sending groups; gave an update on the defined benefit plan; and then explained the proposed new policy on the use of the Maryknoll name when interacting with the public communications media.
Next was an update on the CSR situation with a discussion about how to keep our members informed of CSR and involved with that process.
We then returned to some larger questions of placement. Asia MMAF had proposed that China be opened up as a country for possible placements of MMAF members, both because of the needs of China and because of the attempt at collaboration there by all the Maryknoll entities. It was decided that experienced members could be placed in China but only under special circumstances. More will be explained about this.
We then revisited the topic of the 2003 General Assembly also, discussing what will be the major topics to be addessed at this assembly next May.
We then discussed changes to the handbook, especially the parts of policy that we had tagged as needing change as we went through our discussion this past week. Then there were a few small items to deal with, like an update on the Mission Forum and identifying possible delegates to the Society Chapter and the Congregation Assembly, and then we were finished at 6:00 PM.
After supper, many of our ALT+5 group, plus others from the Maryknoll campus, both members and employees, went to the Woodlands Jewish Temple for the Sabbath service followed by an informal discussion with the rabbi and members of that Reform Congregation.
May 18
Today was taken up with a lot of odds and ends. At 8:00 AM I had breakfast with John Barth over at the seminary and got caught up on various things going on. Then I met with Sheila Matthews for two hours.
I had planned to go to St. Teresa's (Maryknoll's retirement and nursing home) after lunch to see some of the men there but there wasn't time. I started off updating the web site since I didn't get it finished last night, and that plus a few other tasks took the whole afternoon.
For supper I fixed the pizza that I had bought last week for just such an occasion (and found out that it couldn't be microwaved), and I worked some more down in my "office" (the computer room on the first floor) and then started separating all my stuff to repack it again.