One month in at Mediation Services...

Today I had my one month check-in meeting with my supervisor at Mediation Services. I can't believe I've been there a month already, though some days it feels like I've been there longer than that given how familiar things are beginning to feel. I am grateful that they took the risk of hiring such an "overqualified" candidate, and what came out of today's meeting is that they're grateful they took the risk too!

Mediation Services is a community resource for conflict resolution. Their mission is, "To promote and enable effective and peaceful responses to conflict and crime for Manitobans." A large part of what MS does is offer training through their Resolution Skills Centre. Training participants are most often there as part of their professional development and it's interesting to see the diversity of professions and organizations represented in the training room.

I am the front office administrator and my list of responsibilities is too long to list in full here. From registering and invoicing training participants, to directing phone calls, to attending to hospitality issues, to providing administrative support to the executive director and programs, to making sure that office space and equipment in is good working order...and the list could go on. With the multiplicity of tasks my days do go by very fast! I had to laugh today when my supervisor said that it's noticeable how much life experience I bring to the position. While I do have a smattering of experience in administrative roles, at 27 years old I've never been told before that I bring lots of life experience to anything!

I cannot emphasize enough what a wonderful group of people I am privileged to work with. These are people who are working in the restorative justice field and seek to live out the practices that they teach everyday. Coming straight out of a seminary setting I was concerned about finding a job that would feel congruent - where ethical and justice issues were not simply an afterthought (at best) - and that is what I have found here. I have already observed and am impressed by the intentionality that goes into their decision making processes.

While both my supervisor and I feel that this is a good fit we're well aware of the fact that this is not exactly what I've been training for the past number of years. At this point in my life approaching ministry bi-vocationally is a necessity. In my check-in meeting today we spoke very openly and honestly about how my identity as a ministering person comes to bear on this position. The idea of sitting at the front desk as a Compassionate Observer (a term that comes from spiritual direction) has come to me in my short time there as I have a unique vantage point of the organization as a whole, its staff and its clients. The organization is also open to this position being a job share and both my supervisor and I assume that as my ministry of pastoral counselling and spiritual direction gets busier, we will talk about how to develop a job sharing scenario to accommodate both Mediation Services as well as the ministry to which I am called.

It was an encouraging meeting today, affirming for me again that this is the right place for me to be for this time.