For those of you who are new to my blog, it's often quite difficult to pick things up mid-stream. Right now I'm writing a fictional story about a hypothetical evaluation, based on real people at the mission I worked at, the culture of the mission and otherwise what I knew of the mission.
Then the next section of the blog (after I stop the evaluation story part) is an ongoing effort to try to make sense of my experiences with the mission, and I'm using journal articles and the like as spring boards. I worked in a mission that worked in Eastern Europe (but was located in Vienna, Austria) in the late 1980s before the fall of Communism in that part of the world.
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In a few minutes Mr. Nelson came up to the board room and introduced himself to the guests. He understood the Ms. Elliott wanted to return to her hotel for the afternoon, but after acknowledging that he turned to Mr. Douglas and asked him if there was anything in particular he would like to see. At this point Mr. Douglas wasn't sure what he might like to see, at least partly because he was so lost in thought about what was happening. When Mr. Nelson could see that he wasn't sure he made a couple of his own suggestions, knowing what kinds of things guests seemed to like the most. There was a Danube River tour, or the Imperial Palace, or the zoo, or the Museum of Fine Arts... Mr. Nelson interrupted him and said the zoo sounded nice; it would be a nice chance to get out and walk around a bit. He was thinking it might also provide a chance to get to know Mr. Nelson a bit and maybe try to gain a little more insight into the organization he thought he knew pretty well but now wasn't so sure.
So it was settled and Mr. Nelson offered to help Ms. Elliott with her things, and she graciously accepted his offer.
At the hotel Ms. Elliott immediately proceeded to spread out her notes and go over what they had come up with. Then she drew on her years of experience as an evaluator and began to jot down notes about what had happened since they'd arrived Monday evening (it was now Friday afternoon). She noted the people, places, configurations of who they were with when, the comings and goings, what was said and how it was said and reactions that others had to what was said or done. Something was going on behind the scenes that the organization was shielding them from. (Anthropologists have to deal with that kind of thing all the time, but in as much as evaluators use some of the same methods - if to a different end - she had learned from them long ago about how groups might act when being studied, even just for regular research, which shouldn't be as threatening as evaluation. She knew about studies of bushmen in the Australian outback, or junior high social cliques, or...).
When you're right in the middle of a thing it's so easy to miss what's really happening, especially if you're an outsider and don't know the rules of play. But stepping back like this it dawned on her that the mission was probably facing some repercussions because of the evaluation. If this were so, then there could well be some jockeying going on in the background. She wasn't sure how far to take this though. Back home, before coming to Vienna, she had tried without success to find a previous evaluation of a mission to Eastern Europe, or China, or any other Communist country. She hadn't been sure what other types of evaluation might be helpful, although she certainly knew the literature on Christian mission work in general, and had carried out many evaluations on all kinds of mission, including a medical mission outpost in Bolivia, a mission school for street children in Brazil, a church planting mission in Uganda.
She had a colleague that had done an evaluation not long ago on a joint venture in the Soviet Union not long ago, so she decided to tall him to see if he had any suggestions. She left a message on his voice mail and hoped he would call back soon.
Then she proceeded to input all the work they had done into the computer so she could print out sheets for everyone to have. Even if they didn't get any more work done together as a group today the sheets might allow everyone to at least work individually on the evaluation planning.
She decided to not make any changes based on her thoughts about what might be happening in the mission in the background because she wanted to be perceived as someone steady and trustworthy, but that didn't mean she had to just ignore these hunches (which seemed to be becoming more than hunches).
***
At the zoo Mr. Douglass, Mr. Nelson and Gail enjoyed walking around the grounds and looking at the various animals. The two men asked the usual questions about family and work and interests and the like, while Gail mostly listened. They came upon an ice cream stand and Mr. Nelson offered to treat everyone, so they all sat down on a comfortable bench and ate their ice cream. Mr. Douglass decided this might be a good time to try a couple more probing questions, and decided to approach it from a financial angle, since he represented a foundation. So he asked Mr. Douglass about the financial end of the writing and publishing. His answer was mostly predicable, but he did learn about some expenses he might not have thought of on his own, so that was interesting. He was very approving of their effort to include the nationals in the process and try to produce materials relevant to their cultures, which spurred Mr. Nelson into explaining more about this aspect of the process, because it was something they worked hard at. Mr. Douglass listened and nodded affirmatively to these things and noted that it must take extra work to make such provisions in the production process, especially working in Communist countries. Mr. Nelson agreed and shrugged it off as not such extra work, at which point Gail suggested they get up and walk around again because maybe they should head back soon.
***
In Mr. Jeffries office, Mr. Jeffries, Mr. Adams, Mr. Benson and Mr. Mann discussed the fate of Mr. Lyons. Mr. Mann said his mission had sent him here explicitly to withdraw Mr. Lyons from the ministry because they weren't willing to risk any trouble the evaluation might cause. The room was tense, despite Mr. Adams' effort to lighten the atmosphere. Mr. Adams acknowledged that this must put Mr. Mann in a difficult situation and he asked what Mr. Mann thought about his assignment. Mr. Mann said he had come to agree with the rest of the leadership, that they needed to pull out now before the evaluation started so that they would not be connected with it at all. Everyone knew that Mr. Mann's (and Mr. Lyons') mission only worked in Communist countries and that the mission kept a low profile to protect its work and workers, as well as the nationals it worked with. Mr. Adams asked the obvious, just to make sure they were on the same page, wanting to know if that meant Member Mission #2 was intending to pull out of the mission altogether.
Mr. Mann just nodded and looked at the floor. "We had a special meeting last week about this and it was decided that as soon as we take Mr. Lyons out of the mission we will also remove our other ties with you. We respect your work, but will not be able to be a part of it any more."
"Do you have other plans for Mr. Lyons?" asked Mr. Benson.
"Yes, we do," answered Mr. Mann.
"So you don't want to give him the option of switching missions to stay here?" asked Mr. Adams, looking at Mr. Benson.
"We discussed that, but our decision was to pull him out and then let him decide what he wanted to do. We have another position we can offer him. If he chooses to stay here he will have to have a different sending mission."
Mr. Adams offered that if Mr. Lyons wanted to keep his position he could go under his mission.
With that, Mr. Mann got up and handed Mr. Adams a letter, saying as he did, "This letter was prepared by the administration after much prayer; it explains our position and what you can expect from us in the future." Then, with his hand on the doorknob, he turned around and said what a blessing it had been to work with each of the men in the room and he wished God's blessing on the mission as they move forward. And with that he left the room and went to get Mr. Lyons.
***
The men were silent for a moment, which was extremely unusual for each of the men individually, let alone all of them collectively. Finally, as the senior one in the room, Mr. Adams got up and tried to encourage the others with the admonition that they needed to trust the Lord with this as with all aspects of the mission, knowing that where He closes doors He can open others. He directed Mr. Jeffries to work with the East German team regarding the loss of Mr. Lyons. Then he reminded them of their meeting for the next morning. Mr. Benson, following his lead, got up and joined Mr. Adams at the door and the two men left Mr. Jeffries alone in his office. Soon, however, he got up and asked Inga to come in and gave her some instructions and then he went to talk with the East German country coordinator.
***
Gail, Mr. Nelson and Mr. Douglass got to the hotel to check on Ms. Elliott, who they eventually found in the cafe taking a break from her work. They chatted a few minutes to catch up on what they'd each other had been doing all afternoon. Then they went upstairs and Gail called the office and reached Mr. Adams, her boss, in his office. He told her briefly what had transpired and Gail turned her back to the others so the others might not see her face at the news. In her turn, she caught him up with what everyone else had been doing, and then asked him what the game plan was for the evening. Since the mission leadership had the meeting set up for the morning anyway, he thought there wasn't much to do now on that score so maybe everyone should get dinner on their own and, if Mr. Douglass and Ms. Elliott are amenable to it they would work a 2 or 3 hours more on the evaluation. Gail turned and asked everyone what they thought about the proposal and they all nodded in agreement. So it was decided to meet at the mission around 7:30 after everyone had eaten dinner, and the group at the hotel decided to stay there and eat at the cafe where they'd found Ms. Elliott earlier.
Ms. Elliott had taken more and more to watching what was going on, and she understood that Gail's turning away from the group when she was talking to her boss probably signaled some kind of bad news that she didn't want the others, meaning she and Mr. Douglass, to know about.
***
Now I'm turning back to the text, continuing with divestiture/investiture socialization methods.
"1. Divestiture processes are most likely to be found (1) at the point of initial entry into an organization or occupation, and (2) prior to the crossing of major inclusionary boundaries where a recruit must pass some basic test of worthiness for membership in an organizational segment." (p. 252)
I'm not sure if there were any other times, besides initial entry into the organization, when socialization took place in the Vienna mission. If it existed I did not know about it. Also, in the Vienna mission context, as I've said before, the test "of worthiness" was the test of trustworthiness. That is, in as much as the new recruit completely submitted to the mission that recruit was trustworthy, because s/he would do/say/be anything the mission demanded as a result of total submission to the mission. That's how, for example virtually everyone, including youth, shunned me at the end of my time with the mission.
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"2. Divestiture processes are most likely to lead to a custodial orientation: investiture processes are most likely to lead to an innovative orientation (unless the recruit enters and is rewarded for holding a custodial orientation at the outset.
Divestiture processes, in effect, remold the person and, therefore, are powerful ways for organizations and occupations to control the values of incoming members. Such processes lie at the heart of most professional training, thus helping to explain why professionals appear to be so deeply and permanently socialized. For, once a person has successfully completed a difficult divestiture process and has constructed something of a new identity based on the role to which the divestiture process was directed, there are strong forces toward the maintenance of the new identity. The strongest of these forces is perhaps the fact that the sacrifice involved in building the new identity must be justified, consequently making any disclaimers placed on the new identity extremely difficult for the person to accomplish. Furthermore, since the person's self-esteem following the successful completion of a divestiture process comes to rest on the new self-image, the individual will organize his present and future experiences to insure that his self-esteem can be enhanced or at least maintained (Goffman, 1959; Schein, 1961; Schein and Bennis, 1965). In short, the image becomes self-fulfilling." (p. 252-253)
Wow! Where should I begin? Fortunately, I've already written about a lot of this before, so that, at least, makes it easier.
One thing that's new here, however, regards the socialization in to professions. Maybe the mission members that had the Th.M. (and higher) were already socialized by their training (in a way that I was not in my graduate certificate Bible school studies) in a way that made it easier to be incorporated into the mission. I think the only time I ever felt anything akin to divestiture in any of my professional training (adult education, library science, bible & theology) was maybe in a graduate research position I held in my doctoral studies.
The self-esteem discussion also seems pertinent to the Vienna mission. I think it parallels something I noticed a year or so ago. I was living in small town New England and started getting massages from a nurse who had turned to massage and other alternative medicine. She became involved with a company that had something like a pyramid scheme. I was impressed with what I learned about some of the materials, including the use of magnets - especially after I'd used a "bone growth stimulator" (prescribed by the neuro-surgeon) following thoracic surgery to speed up the bone growth. But a lot of the equipment the company made was on the pricey side, so before considering any such investment (which I couldn't afford anyway) I wanted to learn more about the products. I tried to find research studies, but couldn't find any, even on their internal web site for sales reps. (I joined hoping to get one or two big ticket things on a sales rep discount). My life situation changed, requiring a major move (and outlay of cash), so I canned that idea before it had a chance to even get off the ground. But when I was trying to find research validating the quality and effectiveness of the products, I began to think that people would begin buying the equipment, and maybe find some real benefit from it, but then they would get more products, go to sales meetings and eventually they were so invested in the equipment that just about the only thing they had to go on regarding its effectiveness was individual testimonials. So it was a self-feeding circle in this way, as those farther along told their experiences to the next generation of potential sales people coming up the ranks.
I think this is the kind of thing the text is describing here and I can see how it could be a reasonable depiction of at least part of how the mission functioned. If only Christians would evangelize with the same zeal as those people sold their health products or the missionaries nurtured new members.
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That's it for this post, and there will just be one more before I go back to the chronology and pick up where I left off.
