Ahh the new office

Last year when I arrived at HUMC, the outgoing associate pastor was keeping his office here because he is doing a church plant nearby and they didn’t have building space of their own. The way the campus is configured, there are two pastor offices attached to the main office and then the third office is in a separate building. The senior and the outgoing associate had been in the two offices in the main section and the Latino Ministry pastor had been in the separate building. They gave me the option when I got here of which office I wanted, that of the associate or that of the Latino minister. I chose the LM office because it had windows and I thought it would be nice to provide continuity for the Latino congregation. Well, over time I realized that office was less than ideal, namely for the lack of internet and then also because of a poor heating and cooling system. In the summer months it meant my office was SWELTERING and I never had a *functional* office, at least not by modern standards, because without email and internet access, it proved useless.

Over time, I stopped using the office almost entirely. It became a storage closet for paint projects, decorations, baby gifts and supplies for those in need….and anything anyone felt would be fun to throw my way. Well D got into his new house (where his office is now housed) about a month or two ago. I was delighted because that meant I could move into the regular office and finally have internet and regular heating and cooling. Only, about 5 seconds after I had that thought, my new senior told me he wanted to do a switch-er-oo and put me in the now financial office (that’s bigger with windows) and move the financial folks into D’s old office. I can’t say that I was thrilled, but I figured whatever and decided to let him negotiate it with trustees and the like.

Last week during our one on one meeting after a litany of other conversation, I asked, “is there anything else?” to which he gruffly replied, “yeah, are you gonna move into that other office? Because if you’re not I want the nursery school folks to.” I said that last time we had talked he had a different plan, and that I had been out so much there hadn’t been a chance to revisit the issue. He reiterated his question and his frustration and I said I would like to make the move. So, this week, on Tuesday one of the young adults/youth workers came and helped me move all the books, boxes, and whatever else lay in my cluttered office to the new office. Then Wednesday night our former secretary, now friend, came and helped me organize. We moved furniture, threw out junk, organized stuff for donations, and organized the closet.

I was then out all day Thursday for covenant group (in San Diego) and then picking up my car (in Palmdale), but when I came in Friday, it was so nice to have a clean office that was functional (though I did have trouble connecting to the internet, go figure!) I didn’t even have a stack of paperwork to sort through, so I got to light a couple candles and enjoy my office space. It might have been a simple pleasure, but it was good. And the better part was when I had to do a funeral consult, my office was RIGHT there, clean, and ready to receive them. Ahh….life is good!