construction

This weekend we installed new playground equipment for the Early Childhood Center at Christ Lutheran where I've been assisting for a number of months while their senior pastor recovers from a cardiac arrest. Given the scope of the project, we worked on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday we ended up with about 30 volunteers who came out to work, while on Sunday, it was more like 5. This amount of participation had a major impact on my role each day, a reality I summarized with the following tweet on Sunday evening: "Yesterday, on the playground construction, i worked less and directed more. Today was more fun, but yesterday was more rewarding."

You see, on Sunday, given the small number of volunteers, it was easy for all of us to stay on task and just keep working. As a result, I worked myself into the ground and ended up with that wonderful exhausted feeling that, at least in my mind, is quite fun. However, on Saturday, I noticed at one point that we hand a number of volunteers who were standing around trying to figure out what to do. Rather than continuing to work, I shifted roles and began to point out things that needed to be taken care of. I got a couple of volunteers going on one project, then a few more on another. Once they were all working, I figured out some other projects that we could get people working on once those were done. In the end, I engaged in a lot less physical labor and I didn't have nearly as much fun, but the volunteers felt as if they were valued and we accomplished far more than we would have otherwise.

So, Sunday was fun, but Saturday was rewarding.