Day 57 – Maybe not the smartest decision I’ve made…
During the ministry year of 1975-1976, I was given the assignment of running the entire state of New York. I was to leave my work in Long Island and take over the whole state which meant overseeing fellowships from Rochester and Buffalo in the west to Albany in the east, from Watertown in the north to Manhattan and Long Island in the south.
New York is a beautiful state, outside of the 5 boroughs. But what the boroughs lack in physical beauty, is made up by the beautiful people who live there. The rest of the state with the finger lakes region, the Adirondacks, and all the way up to Canada is amazing.
In the fall you can drive from Albany to Buffalo and see Canadian Geese flying south for the winter the entire way. From the Empire State building to Niagara Falls, it is loaded with wonder. I even spent an amazing week hiking with friends in the Adirondacks, camping as we went. We spent an entire week in the woods and never saw another soul.
One day we had hiked uphill from morning until just before dusk and we came of out the woods and saw Lake Tear of the Clouds. It was so quite if you stepped on a twig it echoed across the lake. Loons were giving their haunting and yet deeply moving calls. (Click on this link to get a sample https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ENNzjy8QjU)
You almost had to speak in a whisper to not disturb the beauty. There was a lean-to and fire pit provided by the park service, but it was just us and the Loons for the rest of the night and it was amazing.
Let me get to the point of all of this story and where I made my mistake. The headquarters for the state was in Westchester just above New York City. In my mind that focused all the work on just the lower part of the state. Actually, we had work all over the state, not just the City. Since I was now in charge of the entire state, I decided to move the headquarters to a more central location and found a beautiful farmhouse and land outside of Marathon, NY. This put me 3 to 4 hours at the most from any fellowship in the state, which I thought was brilliant.
We already had leaders in every area, so I didn’t see any reason for me to hang around a work that someone else was already doing…so we moved. It meant a lot of traveling for me, but I thought that was my job, but we were pretty isolated. It was beautiful farmland area, but what I didn’t know at the time was in was in a CERIOUS snow belt which made getting around a little difficult.
I had a staff of people who worked for me and to be able to teach more, I offered a 4-month training with people who would move up there and be a part of what I offered. I personally loved being up there, but the next year we were call back to Ohio for another training program and the people who followed me were not thrilled about being in the snow belt, so they relocated once again.
Today, I would not have made the same decision, but that will just have to be a lesson learned. I certainly enjoyed being in upstate New York and getting around as I did. I got very close the those who came in for the training program and hopefully, I enriched their lives…but you would have to check with them on that part.
You do a lot of things when you are young and inexperienced and hopefully, God has your back, but that year in upstate New York was fabulous and personally don’t regret it, but as I said in the title, perhaps it wasn’t the smartest decision I ever made.
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