Category Archives: Peru

I too have lived through prohibition

al-caponeLast Sunday was election day in Peru and to ensure that everyone showed up and participated they prohibited the sale of alcohol from midnight on Thursday until Monday. Well, voter participation is a kind phrase to describe it. If you didn’t show up you would have received a hefty fine. That’s an interesting thought: exercise your democratic ability or get fined for being lazy.

I thought this political move banning the sale of alcohol would usher in a boatload of bootleggers, crafting their concoctions in musty basements in bathtubs, with bare light bulbs swinging overhead. Instead, restaurants and bars that depended on the income from sales of liquor, beer, and wine, simply shut down. It felt like prohibition foto-1  a ghost town walking through Miraflores. In the section where I live, which is usually inundated with loud music and patrons congregated around the 12-15 local establishments Sunday through Sunday simply felt like a ghost town. Discarded plastic bags rolled through like tumbleweeds.

Talking with people around town, most people felt like it was a non-issue. Many Peruvians had taken the time to spend with family and friends. They had used their Friday off to catch up with people they hadn’t seen in awhile. They just couldn’t go to restaurants with their loved ones. That left us, the foreigners, ones with no local ties, to stick together and forage for food. Well, not really. Groceries were still open, and yes, some restaurants. In all, it was just an odd time.

prohibition foto-2It wasn’t crazy, there weren’t raids, nor bounties placed on the heads of the top crime families; it was just quiet, everywhere. And not like the “quiet, a little too quiet” line that hints at something big about to unfold, it was simply boring, and inconvenient. Many of the regular restaurants my friends and I would go to were closed so we walked to other areas. Closed as well. I kept wondering, “Does the prohibition of the sale of alcohol really determine that much of a business’ revenue?” I suppose it does. Because nothing was open. Sad right?prohibition foto-3

In sum, I had an interesting takeaway. I agree completely with the encouragement of people to vote, even suggestions to limit or curb the use of alcohol so that people come out and vote, but couldn’t they have held the elections on a Tuesday? Maybe they considered that doing so would impede the economic machine by having it during a day of work, but how much of the economy suffered from limiting restaurants/bars/grocery stores for three whole days?

Economic questions yes. And complicated too. It’s a weird nexus of political, economic, behavioral and religious intentions and conflicts.

“Highlights from Edify Family Camp” (July/August ’13 Newsletter)

 
 Aaron Roth – Edify.org – “Highlights from Edify Family Camp” – July/August 2013

Greetings family and friends, I had traveled quite a bit this past summer. That’s the reason the July/August Newsletter is coming so late. In one month this summer, I had been to the Dominican Republic for Edify’s Family Camp, to Guatemala for more feasibility study meetings and back to the states for Edify team meetings. I’m happy to report that I’ll be staying put in one place as I just arrived to Peru to begin work on the pilot program for Edify. Our intention is to start the micro lending program for small, affordable Christian schools here in the capital, Lima. The following newsletter is about our Edify Family Camp experience in La Romana, Dominican Republic. Blessings, -Aaron

The Edify Family Experience is a way for families from North America to experience the work that we do in Edify in a school that we support with micro loans and training. We bring families with children that are interested in learning how the model takes shape on the ground and want to participate in a camp that involves the whole family.

For us, family camps are a unique experience because normally our operations involve making small loans and doing business training for these schools. Fortunately, the camps of years past have been a huge success with everyone involved, from the North American families to the local staff and the children in the schools.

July-13-News-03So this past July we spent two weeks in a city in the East of the Dominican Republic called La Romana. Each week we had five different families participate in a four-day camp that involved a work project, English classes, crafts, recreation and a devotional. The final day we had a celebration, like a carnival, where we invited the parents and the siblings of the students. You’re probably very familiar with this description of this kind of camp as it sounds like many short-term mission trips that churches typically do.

At the outset, we explain to our guests that Edify normally doesn’t do trips like this and we’re very clear that the week is about partnership and celebration. We want to build onto what we’ve started with the school. Usually this means that schools come to know us through a small loan for building new classrooms or computer labs, or through business training where they learn to manage their finances. Most often, the relationships we have with the schools are kind of like a business/client relationship, and much like in American business, you don’t always take your friends to see your clients, unless there’s a really good reason.
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Over the years we’ve developed great relationships with our schools; many really feel like our brothers and sisters, and we want to be intentional about who we introduce to our Dominican family just as they would be intentional about who they introduce to us. As you know, the normal mission trip from  the North American church usually means a large amount of money spent on short-term mission trips where large groups descend on a local community, bring truck-loads of donations, do a bunch of fun activities, and leave the week after.

July-13-News-02We’re trying to build a program with these schools that doesn’t fade away after the week that the teams leave or the funds dry up. Now, we’re not perfect by any means, but we are trying to do things differently, and we consistently ask our partners and people we serve how we can improve what we do in the communities where we work.

Before any of the families come down to the DR, we ask them to read the book, “When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. It details how poverty is much more than the lack of economic resources, that we can, and many times are, all “poor” (disconnected, hurt, broken and sometimes powerless) when it comes to these core relationships: with God, with our community, with our family and with own selves. We all emerge out of poverty when we start trusting  Christ and begin the process of restoration beginning first with our Heavenly Father.

Before the family camp begins, we discuss the first few chapters to lay the groundwork for the week ahead. We talk about how we are so similar to our Dominican brothers and sisters, even though we’re materially rich, we have all been damaged by the consequences of sin in our nation and in our relationships. We can start restoring this brokenness by restoring our relationships – first with our CreatoJuly-13-News-05r and then onto each sphere of relationships. So when we go into these schools we must treat each other similarly: as broken as we may be, we know that the path out of it is led by our redeemer, Jesus.

It really changes our perspective when we enter a school as equals. We see smiling children laughing and playing with their friends, hugging their parents goodbye, some are looking shy and apprehensive, and even little ones start crying because they’ll be away from their parents for a few hours. Those are just like children from the United States, and even though these local ones attend schools with uncompleted walls, broken fans, and unpaved roads, they are all here because they believe that Christ has prepared for them a brilliant future through good education. That’s what we believe too as North Americans right? We all want our children to have the best opportunities available and we try to make that a reality in our communities.

In short, it was a very full two weeks full of experiences, trials, and joys, and I couldn’t possibly write all that transpired, but I will share with you a few stories from our Dominican friends and family:
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July-13-News-09One of our guests had decided to join the work project during the first week. He and his family have done a lot of work with a missions organization that builds houses for economically poor families in Mexico. He’s pretty good with tools, and has a lot of experience in construction, so it seemed like a natural fit for him to join the Haitian and Dominican workers in building onto the school’s wall during the first week.

It was fun to see the North Americans interact with the Haitians and the Dominicans. They all had a similar purpose in constructing the wall and got along really well. During one of the mornings, a Haitian worker was shoveling concrete when he immediately yelled out and grabbed his back. Our North American guest quickly went to his aid and helped him lie down in a classroom. As the Haitian man lay there wincing in pain, our guest came to ask me to help him translate. We walked into the classroom together and he wanted me to help assist the Haitian man. Now, I don’t know if the Haitian man was moaning from pain, or from the fact that he would probably be unable to work for a few days.

Our guest wanted me to speak to the Haitian man (in Spanish) and tell him that he had the same injury from shoveling concrete and a doctor showed him some exercises to relieve the pain. Almost immediately, the composure of the Haitian man changed as he saw someone not only willing to help him, but relaying to him that he had gone throughJuly-13-News-07 this pain, and had found relief. We all crouched there for a few minutes as our guest helped this man breathe through his pain, and gradually the wincing and the moaning stopped. There wasn’t any language spoken in these minutes; it was as if we were all just teammates trying to help our buddy out.

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For our final day celebration, we had a carnival where schoolchildren could win tickets from various games. We rented a bouncy castle for the children to play in. Knowing that these children hardly ever get to jump around in this inflatable house, we made a few decisions to manage the flow of traffic. First of all, to spread the number of children around, we started them off at different stations, and made the bounce house free. As soon as a reasonable number had passed through the house, we July-13-News-10set the bounce house ticket price at five tickets (well below market value). And as many more, almost too many children wanted to go through it, we raised the price to 10 tickets (approximate market value). One young man who had to decide between waiting in line at the free bounce house and playing tic-tac-toe bean bag toss with no line, first chose the bean bag toss to earn tickets. Upon arriving at the entrance to the bounce house, he was told that it now cost five tickets. He left to go earn more tickets and came back with eight. Unfortunately, for him the price had just been raised to 10 tickets.

This same young man, at seven years old, looks up at the bounce house attendant and as politely as he could muster he explains his strife: “This bounce house started out free, later it was five tickets, and now it’s ten. What’s going on here? Are you all crazy?”
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To reward his patience, we let him in for eight tickets.

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The orange team, composed of children ages 8-11, had a young man named Stephen who showed signs of mental retardation who, being a few years older than his peers, joined this group because his brother was in it. During the recreation portion of the day, the group split into two teams to do an obstacle course than involved hopping on one leg through a series of cones and passing through an old tire set up on the playground. It was his turn to go, and Stephen had trouble with his coordination and struggled to hop around the course. When he finally reached the tire he hesitated at first, because he was very tall and knew would struggle getting through the tire. As he struggled, his teammates started cheering him on, and began chanting his name. Limb by limb he labored on getting his elongated frame through the old tire, but as soon as he emerged, he raised both hands above his head and yelled. Both teams, teachers, and the North Americans erupted in a victorious cheer.

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July-13-News-08To finish out our final day each week, we had a celebration with the parents of the schoolchildren and friends and family in the neighborhood. We ordered enough food to feed over 200 people during the lunch break. After the big celebration of the games and the tickets during the carnival, it was a time to reflect on just what community means, and what it can mean for people like us, North Americans, and those who live in more economically impoverished areas. We had a really simple message that the director of the school (pictured left) gave us.

She talked about the importance of family, and how we should treat each other in a way that welcomes them into the family. It was one of those moments that Jesus describes in the Gospel of Matthew:

“The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.” (NIV Luke 14:21-23)

So we sat down, all the colors of the age group teams, all the North Americans, all the teachers, and all the people of the neighborhood. We came with the intention of having a common table, and we feasted like family.

I pray that you would see how God can use you to invite more people to the table.

Blessings,
-Aaron

My Spanish is not “Perfect” – but I Know What You Mean

Where I work on a day to day basis I’m usually the only white person, and I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who speaks English. It’s funny sometimes to see the expression on the school directors face when they fear that they are about to have a conversation with a Gringo. They worry that they’ll have to use their rusty English to communicate. I tell them “Don’t worry, I speak Spanish.”

Usually at that moment, the loan officer or person I’m traveling with will chime in: “Yes, he speaks Spanish perfectly, you’ll be fine!”

I know this is not the case. I recognize my own grammatical errors, but frankly I’m too tired or too unwilling to stop them. My accent needs a lot of work, and I usually choose the easier phrase rather than the most adequate because I don’t want the hassle. It’s kind of like I ask myself, do I want to cook something on the stove, or just heat it up in the microwave? I’ll tell you honestly, the mornings are better for stove cooking. Afternoons, well, I’d just like to punch in some numbers and wait for the “ding.”

I realized though, that more often than not, when people describe my Spanish to other people, they use the word “perfect” and in fact, they use the word “perfect” to describe other things, like when a plan goes well.

I think as Americans, we’re obsessed with perfection. Beauty in youth, 100% grades on report cards, and flawless victories in sports. Often, it’s what people aim for even if they aren’t saying it.

Maybe here, in my travels, perfection means “done well” or “good enough.” I’d consider my Spanish more of the latter, and yes, I know sometimes, I do it well. I really have come to accept that my Spanish is good enough. I have friends who only speak Spanish, I make phone calls to strangers, and I conduct business meetings in Spanish. It gets the job done. It’s fine. It’s good. Here, it’s perfect.

You know, there are a lot of reasons why people travel: to get away from work, to explore foreign lands, to have an adventure in a place they’ve never been, to meet fun and exciting people, to stretch themselves, to become something different than they have been before.

For some of us seeking perfection, it’s a lot closer than anticipated.

“La perfección se logra al fin, no cuando no hay nada que agregar, sino cuando ya no hay nada que obtener.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Press on Toward the Goal” (May. ’13 Newsletter)

edify_logo 
 Aaron Roth – Edify.org – “Press on Toward the Goal” – May 2013

Hi family and friends, it’s been a whirlwind trip through Latin America these past five months. After being in Peru for almost two months, I returned briefly to the United States two weeks ago for a few meetings in Texas. Now I’m headed back to Nicaragua and Guatemala to help HOPE International with a few projects relating to savings groups. This newsletter is about one of the schools the Edify team and I visited in Peru. Blessings, -Aaron

“They told me ten years ago that there was no way anyone could start a school in this area with all the dirt and dust. It was too poor of a community and people wouldn’t pay me. In those days, I used to invite people to the area where I was planning on starting the school and they told me I was crazy. Even my family. So I stopped inviting people.”

His humor fills the room as he recounts the early days of starting his school named San Benito. Our team of four Americans and two Peruvians sit in his small office that is decorated by Catholic iconography, professional certifications, and a few trophies from his school’s soccer team. Florentino is so animated telling his stories, you really don’t need to understand much Spanish to follow along. I get so caught up in the energy of the room that I forget to translate a few phrases because it seems like my team is understanding what he’s saying.May-13-News-02

Florentino is the director and owner of his school, San Benito, a low-cost private school located in Loma de Carabayllo, a very economically poor district of northern Lima. Florentino is from the jungle in the northern area of Peru. When people describe Peru they list four areas: the mountains, the jungle, the coast and the central area. If you don’t live in the central area or by the coast, there aren’t many opportunities for jobs or for education. Parents will do whatever they can to ensure that their children receive the best possible education.

In Florentino’s case, his parents worked diligently to send him to a university in central Lima because that’s where the only universities were. After working for a few years in the city to make money, he came back to the jungle to start a bilingual school. It’s not the traditional sense of a bilingual schoolMay-13-News-02a as we think of it being English and Spanish. Instead, his bilingual school was Spanish and Quechua, the native language to those who live in the rural areas and the jungle.

After his success with the first school in his hometown, he wanted to pursue his dream of starting a large school in one of the northern districts of Lima. With his experience as a director and an entrepreneur, it may seem like he would have no problem being equally successful in this endeavor, but trying to start a school in a poor area like this can be incredibly difficult.

He told us that in Loma de Carabayllo, land was going at approximately US $5 a foot. That may seem like a deal to us, but it also signals that the area is so poor, that any new business, let alone a private school, would have difficulty securing solid income. When you look around this area you can see why the land prices are so cheap. There is nothing but dirt and rock. It’s not suitable for farming or mining or any other activity. The land is cheap because it’s a desert.

May-13-News-04Florentino has a unique story to us, one of a true entrepreneurial bootstrapper, but his journey from the jungle to the center of Lima has become more common over the past few years. As the director of a local microfinance organization told us, “Lima is our ‘American Dream.’ To get a job and raise a family in Lima is what millions of Peruvians aspire to do.”

With Lima being a capital of 8-9 million people, there are an incredible amount of opportunities for work and for education, ones that simply do not exist in the areas outside of the major cities. During the past 30 years, there has been a tremendous influx of immigrants to the central region because of terrorism in many of the surrounding provinces. Initially, this terrorism was caused by two anti-government groups: Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and Shining Path (a leftist military group ) and they were so destructive and intimidating in the outlying provinces, that many of the inhabitants fled to Central Lima. Even now, it’s easy to notice how the rapid emigration has left many without permanent homes as many people are still living in makeshift structures that consist of wood or scrap materials.

As families try to move out of poverty and want to grow their families, they move to areas where they can afford the land. That’s why they come to places like Loma de Carabayllo, and in this area, the population has grown so quickly that the government can’t keep up with ample space in the schools for all the school children. So when May-13-News-05Florentino opened up his school ten years ago, more than 50 students were initially enrolled, and his staff tried to keep up with demand. He tells us that the parents wanted their kids in schools but didn’t want to pay the $8 monthly fee for a private education. Undeterred, Florentino didn’t give up, and persevered in the first few years to enroll more and more students and work with parents to pay an adequate amount so that he could staff the school.

Today, Florentino’s school has 275 students and it continues to grow. It is known as the most affordable and best quality school in the area. What impresses me most about Francisco is not only his perseverance, but his commitment to doing things well. When we asked him about his plans for the next five years, he laid out his desires simply:

May-13-News-05“I’m not so worried about getting to a specific number, or having another school. I want these children to have a quality education, and that means finishing the science lab. Later, I’ll continue to expand the computer room. It’s my duty to provide them with a solid education.”

Essentially, his vision has remained unchanged since the beginning. He’s never given up despite what detractors had said (even his family!) and has persisted year after year to do what God has called him to – press on toward the goal of good education in the community where he’s called to be.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. (Philippians 3:12-13 NIV)

I pray that you are pressing on toward the goal that the Lord has given you.

Blessings to you and your family,
-Aaron

“The Breaths We Take” (April ’13 Newsletter)

edify_logo  hope_logo
 Aaron Roth – Edify.org – “The Breaths We Take” – April 2013

Hi family and friends, I’ve been enjoying Lima, Peru. It’s nice to not have to repack my backpacks every three or four days. Progress with Edify has been going well; I’ve visited many schools and organizations that operate in the economically poor communities surrounding Lima.
They generally refer to the three areas of Lima: North, East, and South. I sheepishly asked, “And the West of Lima?” – “Well, that’s the ocean.” was the response. Forgive this obvious pun, but Edify is not yet interested in schools of fish. It’s nice to be at sea level though, as this newsletter will expand on. Blessings, -Aaron

Almost two weeks ago, I went to explore a place I had only dreamed I’d be able to visit: Machu Picchu.

You can probably search the internet for a better guide and a more exciting recap of one of the seven wonders of the world, but I’ll tell you that my friend Clint Barnes, from HOPE International, and I both had the same, slightly unusual, commentary. Actually, the idea was proposed to us by a British Muslim from Liverpool, who, as he finally caught his breath at approximately 8,000 feet above sea level, told us this:

“You know it’s odd that we need a sign of humans’ remarkable innovation and ability to create advanced civilization to come and appreciate the nature of creation.”

Apr-13-News-02Clint and I, both sitting down to rest our lungs, commented on how true that observation was. Machu Picchu sits on a small mountaintop in the cradle of the behemoths surrounding it, a man-made anomaly almost eclipsed by the view of towering giants. You really have to hike up a ways to see this and appreciate the true nature of its location. We started out with the intention of reaching the Machu Picchu Mountain summit, but chose to return after more than an hour of steep hiking. We had already climbed 1,500 feet in 40 min at about 5:00am earlier that morning and we needed a break.

The day after, we were joined by Clint’s friend Ben, an Army doctor, and his friend Travis. We were going to attempt to do the Salkantay glacier trek, a journey of five days, in only three – and backwards. Tour operators consider it possible, but don’t advise it. If you do the regular trip forwards, you have a total elevation gain of 2,300 feet in five days, not bad to get adjusted to the altitude, but if you do it backwards, that’s an elevation gain of 8,530 feet in three days. We didn’t have porters or donkeys to carry our 40 lb packs either. Ok, yes, it was kind of ludicrous. I admit it. I’ll save the full trip summary for my blog, but suffice it to say, I have never, ever in my life struggled so hard to Apr-13-News-03breathe as I did walking up that mountain.

As we approached 14,000 feet, I’d have to take a break every 10 or 15 steps to let my lungs refill and my heart to slow down. It’s basic biology: the lungs need more air and heart needs more beats to compensate for the scarcity of oxygen. By 15,000 feet, I was just ready to reach the summit and begin the descent. My head was hurting, my legs were tired, and it was hard to concentrate on anything other than breathing normally.

Clint and I, the two  sea-level guys, finally made it to the summit. We rejoiced and reveled in the accomplishment and marveled at the massive blue-ish Salkantay Glacier another 1,800 feet above us. It was simply incredible. Breathtaking in both senses of the word. Soon, we descended and my lungs began to operate normally and my heart slowed down. We had achieved the seemingly impossible, overcoming mental and physical barriers to rise to the summit.

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This past week I spent some time in the outlying districts of Lima. For the work we do in Edify, we seek out schools in impoverished areas, and provide them with small loans to build more classrooms and computer labs, and provide them Biblical business training to manage their schools more effectively. In addition to Apr-13-News-04those initiatives, we also provide teacher training so that the schools improve their level of education and stay competitive nationally. Most of these schools charge about $25-40 a month, or roughly $1-$2 a day. This may not sound like a lot to us, but this is an enormous struggle for parents. They pay it because they know the alternative is that their child will be crammed in a classroom with 35 to 40 other students. Very little attention will be paid to their son or daughter, and they probably won’t progress even in the most basic of subjects: reading and writing.

What strikes me about these districts, Callao, Ventanilla, Carabayllo is that it’s hard to breathe. Not like 15,000 feet hard to breathe, because these districts are mostly just a few hundred feet above sea level, but it’s so dusty you end up coughing a lot and worrying about what’s entering your lungs. I notice this while I’m watching students run around an unpaved recess area kicking a ball to each other. The public school director laments that with such overcrowding (more than 1Apr-13-News-05,000) students, they’ve run out of adequate bathroom space and finances to build more bathrooms, which also means the children will wait another year or two before they can pave the recess area to deal with the tremendous amount of dirt and dust kicked up in the air.

The parents tell us that a striking number of these students have respiratory problems like asthma and other health issues caused by the poor air quality. They tell us that if they didn’t water the dirt roads in the morning you wouldn’t be able to see the houses or the schools; the dust cloud would cover the community of nearly 50,000 residents.

I think about our previous accomplishment of completing the ascent to the glacier and how hard it was for me to breathe and how proud I was that I overcame my anxieties and fears to complete the challenge. It feels a little strange to revel in the victory of the self-imposed trek in harsh air conditions, when all these children want to do run around with clean air in their lungs on a soft, safe surface like grass. They probably don’t think about it that much, but their parents, who grew up in the same community, know the long term dangers of consistent exposure. They mention health problems like the kind that miners in coal towns can develop.

What comes next for me, and for this newsletter to you all is just a question: “What is our response?”
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I don’t believe we should feel guilty for taking trips to Machu Picchu or the Salkantay Glacier (forwards or backwards) or putting ourselves in conditions where we must push ourselves to overcome our limits. No, I believe the response is to carry out the words we use to describe our identity. When we say we are the kind of people who care about making a difference in the world, who care about being light and salt of the Earth, who care about those without hope or a future, who care about sharing the hope of Christ here and now, and in heaven – we must do the simple things to follow through.

It means that for the thousands of school aged students in places like Loma de Carabayllo, we must find ways of providing better education and a more healthy educational experience. In short, it means being involved in local government, paving roads, providing loans to build better recess areas, and educating children and parents the importance of health in the young body.
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I thought about this on the long bus ride back, about the dust, and the wind, and the breaths we take. It made me think about these verses in the Bible:

Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. (NLT Genesis 2:7)

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. (NIV John 6:63)

I pray that we are being filled will the breathe of life, and with the breaths we take we can share words of the Spirit and life.

Blessings to you and your family,
-Aaron

Just press call

I’ve experienced an incredible amount of success over the past few months traveling through four countries by deliberately not thinking about it. I remember my high school soccer coach telling us how to take penalty kicks (even though it’s just you and the goalie on a stopped play, your nerves, your brain, your expectations can throw you off and you’ll kick the ball well beyond the range of the goal, or right into the hands of the goalie.)

He said, “Just don’t think about. Kick the ball.”

His reasoning was simple, “You’ve been playing for the past 10 years, you know how to score a goal. You know how to take a penalty kick: low, on the ground just-press-callside pocket. If you over think it, you’ll miss.”

The majority of my work is going off of leads that people give me about who I should talk to, or visit. Very often they have a vague idea, and a phone number, and maybe (sometimes) a name. Maybe a first name, maybe a school name, sometimes it’s just a guess.

Sometimes I just stare at that number. Look at it and think about who’s going to answer it, are they going to understand me? Are they going to want to listen to me? Am we going to be able to communicate? Are they going to want to talk for 10 min and burn up my phone credit?

When people asked me how I visited almost 70 schools and met with 12 different organizations over the past couple of months I tell them, “I just pressed call.”

Before I can think of anything that may prevent me from making the call, any undesired outcome or consequence that may creep into view, I just press that big green button.

My mind shifts. I think about what I need to say what someone answers and then they pick up.

Meetings, visits, lunches, coffees, plans, outings, ideas, it can only happen if you call.

Just press call.