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\nJoin us live for the Net Effect!
\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\n\n\u201cI never stopped praying and I never stopped putting one foot in front of the other.\u201d
Chris Harbur
\nChris has worked with over 20,000 children, ages 7+, across the US doing everything from teaching sports and acting, to mentoring young people in crisis through Crisis Text Line, and running the Impact Team at DoSomething.org, the world\u2019s largest non-profit for young people. His team at DoSomething.org directly led to some of the largest world-wide volunteer efforts in history including the collection of over 100k pairs of jeans for homeless youth in 3 weeks, the donation of 30k pieces of sports equipment for kids in low income neighborhoods, and the clean up of 5 million cigarette butts in a month!
Over the past 10 years, Chris has worked as a coach to develop new methods for engaging kids to be active and healthy. Not only does Let\u2019s Go Play get children excited to go outdoors and engage in exercise, it\u2019s also a safe, creative space for them to talk about the things that matter to them most, bolster their self-confidence, and give them a life long love of sports.
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\nRobin: This is the Net Effect. I am your host, Robin Jones, Director of the ABF Career Alliance. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. We’re here to cast our net on the right side.
\nThis Net Effect is sponsored by the Albert Baker Fund. To learn more about the Albert Baker Fund, go to AlbertBakerFund.org.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You’ll find all kinds of information about the incredible programs that we have and our worldwide outreach. So again, thank you to the Albert Baker Fund.
\nThank you to the staff of the Albert Baker Fund, the incredible team that we have there for supporting this wonderful series. It has been highly successful.
\nWelcome Chris Harbur, CEO of Let’s Go Play New York.
\nI met Chris in New York at one of our Career Alliance networking events a few years ago. He reached out to us and we became fast friends quickly.
\nWelcome to the Net Effect.
\nChris: Thank you, Robin. It’s a pleasure.
\nI love the Albert Baker Fund and every thing you guys are doing. It’s such a beautiful thing. So thank you for what you do.
\nRobin: Well, thank you, and thanks for being a Career Ally. We really appreciate your supporting us.
\nAs you were growing up as a child, tell us a little bit about the countries, the schools, and give us a little background on you.
\nChris: I went to nine different schools growing up, in five different states, and three different countries.
\nThat’s just kind of who my family was. My dad’s work changed quite a bit. And we just sort of rolled with it.
\nIt definitely teaches you about culture. It definitely teaches you that you gotta be flexible. You gotta be able to roll with the punches.
\nGetting to go to three high schools in three different countries and getting to go to so many different schools, it allows for that freedom, that flexibility.
\nYou gotta be kind of sharp because you’re going to have to start over with a whole new group of people who don’t know about you, don’t care about you, and you just got to find a way to roll with it and be flexible.
\nSo it taught me a lot.
\nRobin: I thought it was really interesting when we were talking beforehand about your direction and how you landed, where you landed, but it really started when you transitioned from high school to college and you decided to go to a conservatory.
\nI love this story. Tell us about how that unfolded for you.
\nChris: It was wild because I think for my whole life, I thought I was going to be the second basement for the Boston Red Sox. And then I had the rudest awakening when we moved from Switzerland and the Bahamas for high school to Florida, which is like the most talented baseball players on planet earth.
\nAnd I literally had no chance. And I was like, yeah. Okay. So that dream has gone. So now what?
\nI was a senior in high school. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And I ended up going out for a high school play.
\nAll of a sudden, I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. And I found out about this conservatory at University of Miami in Florida.
\nAnd I was like, I want to try to get into that school. And so literally on my way down to the audition to get into this conservatory, that only takes 20 people a year, you can see the photo right there. That’s the theater we performed in. I was learning my material, learning my monologue. Cause I just didn’t know any better.
\nI wasn’t, I didn’t realize you had to, spend months looking for material. And so I show up and I do this monologue for this panel of people who are going to basically decide my future. And they asked me one question about the monologue and I was like, huh, I’d never thought about that. I just learned this in the car.
\nRobin: Had you acted in high school? Had you done anything like that before?
\nChris: I had done one play my senior year of high school, when we moved to the U.S., and that was pretty much it. So I had no background, really no idea what I was doing. Everybody auditioning had songbooks headshots, agents.
\nAnd I was like, what is all this stuff? And I was literally learning a monologue in the car.
\nSo they were basically like, well, why do you think you should get into this conservatory? And I was like, look, I know what I just did was not very impressive, and I’m sorry.
\nI am not going to bring any baggage to this.
\nWhatever you teach me, whatever style of acting or singing or dancing, I will be all in because I literally don’t know anything about this.
\nThey loved it. And I ended up getting in, and I performed at this theater, did my first musicals and all sorts of stuff. And had this really tremendous experience, and it was really wonderful.
\nRobin: What was it like performing with some really talented and gifted students or actors who probably had portfolios, and had been acting since they were five years old. How did you manage that?
\nChris: That was difficult. I learned my first lesson in comparison and being really careful with how I’m comparing myself to others, because it was crushing, especially the first year or two.
\nI was so far behind everybody else. A lot of them had been dancing, acting, singing their entire lives. And I had just started a month prior.
\nIt was a really, really big lesson in figuring out who I was, what unique qualities God had given me to express.
\nThey weren’t the traditional ones. I couldn’t do the best triple turn. I didn’t have the best monologue. I didn’t have the best baritone voice.
\nRobin: Had you ever danced or anything?
\nChris: On the first day of dance class, the teacher had to keep me after class because I had all the dance stuff put on incorrectly.
\nI was wearing nothing the right way and he had to like draw charts for me. I was lost. Totally lost.
\nRobin: How did you just be so lost, and yet still willing to keep doing it every day?
\nChris: That’s such a good question. I’m a pretty spiritual guy. Early on, I just realized that you’re going to feel a little bit tossed around in the sea of life sometimes. And you might feel like you have no idea what you’re doing and everybody else around you is killing it and you’re doing a horrible job.
\nThat is how I felt most of the time. I think recognizing that each one of us does have really wonderful qualities, unique qualities, I clung on to that and just recognized that if I was supposed to be here, God was not going to drop me in this top 10 conservatory and then leave me to go up in flames.
\nThere was going to be a way for me to shine. As I went through those four years, I found little things here and there that just made me feel like, oh, I can do this.
\nIt might be a very small sliver of this one thing. I found out I love stage combat. I was really good at remembering choreography, I loved the physicality of it and was very good at that.
\nAnd so I was like, okay, I get something, and then slowly start to grow in confidence. I’m not going to say it was easy. It was a challenge.
\nRobin: You work your way through college and you do all these different things within college. Tell us a little about the transition from college, into the professional world.
\nHow did you get there?\u00a0\u00a0 What did you decide to do, and why did you decide to do it?
\nChris: In the senior year of college, as an actor, you basically have to be like, all right, you’re going to go to New York City or Los Angeles. Those are kind of the two options that they throw at you.
\nI remember feeling like I have no idea. I just didn’t have a strong sense.
\nWhat happened was, I went to this audition where like 10,000 21 year olds show up in the biggest ballroom you’ve ever seen in your entire life in Orlando.
\nRobin: I just can’t imagine that.
\nChris: It is wild. You go into a warm-up room and there’s like a thousand people warming up, and like screaming…
\nThen they drag 50 people at a time into this huge ballroom. And you are looking out at a thousand industry people who hopefully, one of them will give you a job.
\nYou have a 30 second monlogue, and a 30 second song, and you do it for all of them.
\nThe hope is that one of them will be interested in you and will be like, Hey, come work for us, and wherever.
\nRobin: How do you decide what the 30 second I’m going to do this and 30 seconds singing I’m going to do that. How do you decide that?
\nChris: That’s one of the good things of going to a school that has a good theater program. They prepare you, they know who you look like, who your type is, and what kinds of material you should be doing.
\nSo, thankfully, I was prepared for that one. I did not learn that on the car ride to Orlando.
\nSo what happened is I do this audition, and a couple of companies are interested in me and you go to their hotel room and you talk to them about it.
\nOne of them was this really wild, but intriguing job called Missoula Children’s Theater. You and another actor drive across the entire country, basically doing shows with the local kids in each town that you’re in.
\nSo you show up. Our first week was in Napa, California. You roll into Napa, California. There are a hundred children waiting for you. You do a two hour audition, pick 60 of them, start rehearsals, and on Friday, you have an hour long production of The Little Mermaid that you perform for the entire town.
\nRobin: I’ve worked at camps,. It’s like 60, you don’t know anything about them. And you go, okay, we’re going to make this production with these kids and we’re going to put it out there and everybody’s going to come and it’s going to be fabulous. It’s just amazing.
\nChris: It was ages 5 to 18. So there was a wild range that we had to work with. And this was a very professionally produced piece of theater. We had lights, music, costumes, sound, the kids had 60 pages of lines they had to learn in three days, by the way, cause it’s only a week. And then you pack it up, say goodbye to the kids and you drive to the next state.
\nAnd I did this for 15 months.
\nRobin: And it was like every week for 15 months?
\nChris: Every week for 15 months. Yeah.
\nRobin: Wow.
\nChris: I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life. I think only when you’re 21 years old and you have the zest of life as strongly as you can, can you handle a job like this.
\nI finished 15 months and I just like fell over. I just like slept for a week. It was very intense.
\nRobin: After the 15 weeks, and sleeping for the next month, where did you go then?
\nChris: My best friend who I met in conservatory is like, dude — move to New York. You can sleep on an air mattress in my bedroom.
\nYou can start auditioning, and we’ll get you figured out.
\nHe had already started a show called In the Heights, which was off Broadway and is now a movie.
\nAnd that was his off Broadway and Broadway debut. So thankfully he had already been there for a year, doing the show In the Heights.
\nWhat was neat is that when I arrived in New York City, sleeping on his air mattress, he was like, Hey, we’re doing this new show. It’s going to be off Broadway. And we need a male swing.
\nA male swing is a someone who learns like every male part in the entire show. And then at any given moment might have to jump in and be one of those parts. And so that sounded terrifying, but I was like, whatever, I’m in New York, this is what I wanna do with my life, I’m in.
\nA day before this show, we started rehearsals. Someone dropped out, and I had a role in the show and an off-Broadway production, a brand new musical. It ended up being just a tremendous experience for me, meeting new people in the industry, getting my feet wet in New York City.
\nThat was the start of a pretty fun acting career for me in New York City.
\nRobin: That sounds like a fairly easy transition. You have something you could hit the ground running with right out of school. And then you made a little money and had some really good experience. And then you do this audition and you end up in a leading role.
\nI’m sure that you had lots of challenges. Thinking about those challenges, what helped you? What helped you think through those kinds of things as well?
\nChris: The first thing that I realized that I was really having a trouble with was anxiety. I had a tremendous amount of anxiety about moving to New York City with no connections, except for my best friend. I had tremendous anxiety about not having any money.
\nI had tremendous anxiety about going into a field with the most talented people in the world.
\nIn one of my first auditions in New York City, there were 50 guys in the room auditioning for this TV role, and every single one of them looked like a better version of me. They were taller, they had better hair, they had nice cheek bones.
\nI was like, come on, like, what’s the deal?
\nThat created in me quite a bit of anxiety. I recognized very early on in my career, I was going to have to get a handle on this thing.
\nI don’t know if this is how you’re supposed to pray, but a week before I moved to New York City, I was like, Look God, I’m freaked out about this.
\nI am very scared about moving to a huge city with no money with no means. I just didn’t know what I was going to do.
\nThis verse from the Bible, which is one of my favorite verses of all time: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding, and in all thy ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
\nThat was in my heart, and I knew that if I could trust in the Lord with all my heart, about my finances, about my career possibilities, about my friendships, about anything, that there would be a path forward, but I needed to go all in on this.
\nI needed to really trust.
\nAnd so, I made a pact with God. I was like, God, if you promise to provide for me, so I can live and pay rent in New York City as an actor, I will pack my bag and I will be on the next flight out of there.
\nI don’t know if that’s the most eloquent prayer one has ever prayed, but I was 22, scared, and that’s what I went for.
\nAnd I really did put aside that fear and that worry and just trusted. I think that led to like some pretty incredible things that happened very early on for me.
\nRobin: I wonder if you might share a little bit about this incredible thing that you got involved with?
\nChris: A couple of years into New York City, I’d done a couple of musicals, a couple of plays, a few commercials, all these things. This audition that ended up being in Philadelphia, came across my desk.
\nAnd I was like, I do not want to spend a day on a bus to Philadelphia to audition for something that could be a student film. I had no idea and they don’t tell you these things. I felt very led, and guided to go do it. And I was like, all right, I’m in.
\nSo I auditioned for this movie. I ended up getting the lead in it. It was called The Descending. My mother was very happy. I played this psycho like killer.
\nRobin: Very nice thing for a Christian boy.
\nChris: I have a hostages. It’s a pretty like, cutter kind of film. But it was this incredible experience and I ended up getting the lead that you can see my little face there on the post. I ended up traveling the country with film festivals. We won a bunch of awards. It was like this really incredible experience for me getting to travel and do these things.
\nAnd then I got back to New York City and I was like, all right, I’m gonna make such a splash back in New York City. And I go show all these casting people, this movie poster. And they’re like, yeah, we don’t really care. And I’m like, what? That’s my face! Come on people.
\nAnd they just didn’t, and it was just kind of a rude, kind of a rude awakening with how difficult it is to be in the industry.
\nBut I’m very grateful for this and all that it taught me for sure.
\nRobin: So where did you go from there? You’ve had some success, obviously. What happened then?
\nChris: This is now the part of the story where it’s my first big career transition.
\nI know there are probably people on this Zoom today who are thinking about a career transition and who are career transitioning.
\nI just felt it was time for me to move on. I didn’t really get to a place where I felt like I could sustain myself as an actor. And I was getting a strong sense that it was time to move on.
\nWhat I did is I said, all right, I’m going to do one more year in this business.
\nI have three goals. If I don’t meet any of these goals in the next three years, it is time to move on. I had a great experience. And so after a year I didn’t hit those goals. I didn’t make it to Broadway. I didn’t get into a TV series where I was a regular. And I didn’t have anything that was like paying me enough to essentially pay New York City rent, just being an actor.
\nAnd I was like, Hey, all good. I loved my 6, 7, 8 years. It’s time to move on. But what I realized about career transitioning is I actually wasn’t sure what other humans did for a living, because I had only ever been an actor.
\nI just didn’t know. I didn’t know what people did. Once again, an opportunity to get quiet with God, the universe, and be like, where do you need me? I know you gave me these kinds of neat skills, I want to use them. I want to be used.
\nWhat came to me is to send an email to 10 of my friends and tell them I’m leaving acting.
\nI have no idea what to do. What do you guys think I should do? This is the best plan I had Robin.
\nI got all sorts of terrible advice. Like you should be a lawyer go to law school. I don’t need any more school, I’m good on that front.
\nOne of them was like, you should talk to my friend. He works at this nonprofit in New York City that works with teenagers, check them out.
\nI went to their website and it looked really, really interesting. So I found this company, I figured out how to get in for an interview. And ended up working at this company called DoSomething.org.
\nIt’s the largest nonprofit for young people in the world. They essentially have 5 million teenagers and you can go here, sign up for a volunteer activity in your own community. And you can get started. And a lot of times you don’t need the help of a parent or a guardian. They can do it on their own.
\nThe reason that they hired me is because I convinced them that I could make volunteering a little bit more fun by gamifying it, by turning it into a giant competition.
\nSo you can see down on the screen there 5 million jeans donated. Well, several hundred thousand of them were from this initiative that I tried by pitting colleges against each other in a national leaderboard competition where they battled each other to see who could collect the most jeans for homeless kids.
\nIt exploded and the CEO loved it. She gave me my own team of people and it turned into this really fun creative thing.
\nI ended up working there for three years and learned a ton about having bosses and working at a desk and using Google, the Google suite of products, all things that I’d really never done before.
\nIt turned out to be a pretty enriching experience.
\nI remember going in for the interview and thinking to myself, I bet they’ve seen like 20 people today for this job interview.
\nI think it’s possible that like, no one did anything interesting or different. I treated it like an audition. So my theater background is like, okay, how do I frame in 60 seconds the most intriguing story about who I am, what I come from, and what I could give to this position.
\nFraming is something that you learn in acting school. You learn with the sort of theatrical background. I came in starting to talk about my experience in a really concise, quick way. I saw an intern wake up in the corner and I’m like I was on to something!
\nHaving a theatrical background, knowing how to just sell yourself in a more interesting way to connect and talk to someone in a way that is authentic and loving and compelling, because you have to do that onstage, or the audience will fall asleep, much less an intern in the corner.
\nIt impressed them. I think they were like this guy’s got something going on that we want in our ethos, in our pipeline and do something. That really did help.
\nRobin: So you were there for a few years, and had obviously really good success. What led you to leave or do something different or think about making another big career switch?
\nChris: After a few years in this company, I started to have panic attacks and the anxiety became really, really bad.
\nWe had a lot of pressure on us to perform at an extremely high level. It was only 50 people on staff, servicing 5 million teenagers. We had these huge companies, Jet Blue, Coca-Cola, all these companies breathing down our necks to perform, and do better, bigger things each time.
\nI wasn’t sleeping well. I’ve learned a lot here, but I don’t think this is for me anymore. I’m not sure I’m meant to be in an office environment, especially one that demanding.
\nMy second big career change was coming about and I knew I had to get out.
\nMy Christian Science teacher taught us about something called a spiritual bath. You wake up in the morning, and you get really clear about who you are, and about who God is, before anybody else tells you who you are, or what your day will be like.
\nYou just sit and have that communion with God every single morning. And this is a time of my life, where I leaned on my spiritual bath more than I ever have before.
\nI remember leaving, having once again, absolutely no idea what to do with my life. I knew I didn’t want to work there, and I didn’t want to be a firefighter, and I didn’t want to be an actor again.
\nSo those are the only three things I knew now. The one thing with this career transition is I decided I was not going to let anxiety or fear dictate any decisions during this second career transition.
\nRobin: That’s a big deal, man. That’s the thing I see, that just cripples people. The fear, the anxiety, the worry. You mentioned pressure. Those are all synonymous. How did you come to that and how difficult was it to get to a point where you felt like you had some strength and confidence in that?
\nChris: I’m going to be honest about this and this might not be very popular amongst Christian Scientists, amongst spiritual people. It was a very, very messy road to pull myself out of this panic and this anxiety. Sometimes we read the periodicals, we hear about healings and things, and it just feels like, wow, that was amazing, and it’s got this nice tight pink bow on it. This was not a pink bow healing. This was messy.
\nI felt so bad at times that I was like, God, I will literally do anything to not feel so panicked all the time. I started going to therapy. I started working out more. I started taking anti-anxiety medication. I know this is not going to be a popular thing to say. I was in dire straits and I was really scared.
\nI started changing a lot of things in my life. The one thing that did not change in my life, the one thing that I stuck to through all of this messiness, is I never stopped praying and I never stopped putting one foot in front of the other.
\nEven days where I could barely pull myself out of bed, I knew that I had to get up and do my spiritual bath. I knew that I had to keep reading mary Baker Eddy’s works. I had to keep reading the Bible. If anxiety woke me up at three in the morning, I was going to get up at three in the morning and I was going to do whatever I needed to do, to pull myself out.
\nIt was a really messy road, I have to say.
\nRobin: I hear so many people say, well, I just quit going to church and I just quit doing this. And I quit praying. I quit thinking, I quit.
\nWhy did you continue to hold on to prayer? Why did you continue to move, and stay where that was a part of what you’re doing and looking for searching and try to discover that peace, to where you found that peace, to address those issues of anxiety?
\nChris: Really good question. And I had days where I wasn’t sure I could do anything. I knew in my heart that even if it was the faintest light that I was going to be okay. Because God loved me even on the days where I was like, does God love me? Cause this sucks. Even the days that were just really, really challenging.
\nI’m out of work. I have no idea what to do. I’m paying $1,200 a month for a tiny studio in New York City. I had bills to pay.
\nRobin: None of your family lived there, right?
\nChris: No, my family was spread out all over the U.S. No, I didn’t have any family. The sense that, no matter what I was doing, whether I was taking medication, whether I was going to therapy, all these things that are, I think are sometimes frowned upon, I had to remove the judgment about that because I felt very judged.
\nI myself was judging myself. And I felt the judgment from others. I had to remove that first. I don’t think God talks to us in a way that makes us feel badly. I don’t think God shames us. I don’t think that God makes us feel badly.
\nSo every time a thought came that said, Hey, you suck because you’re taking anti-anxiety medication. You’re a bad Christian Scientist. I would think to myself, would God say that to me? Would God do that?
\nIt did take some time, but eventually I was like, you know what, if God’s not saying it, I’m not going to listen to anymore.
\nI’m just not going to do it. I’m not going to shame myself every single day about this. And it was not easy.
\nEventually in that line that God only says really loving, wonderful, empowering things to us, and if it’s not, we don’t have to listen, step-by-step I just started to kind of pull myself out a little bit, day by day.
\nRobin: And found the light and inspiration. How did you come to the next piece where you were starting to make decisions and how did that materialize for you?
\nChris: So I’m pulling myself out of this thing. I’m in my second career transition, with really no idea.
\nI make this pact with God to not have any worry about this. What if this was fun? Here’s a crazy idea. What if my next career transition was fun? Like, let’s just try it, even as an experiment. It’s funny, because once you remove the fear, you really do free up creativity.
\nYou can just let this creative spirit just talk to you and move through you in a way that you can’t, when you’re just feeling constricted.
\nThe thought came to me, have a little brainstorm party for yourself with 10 of your best friends, bring them into your house and let them think about your career for you.
\nI set up my little New York City apartment and every station was a different part of my new potential life they had to think about. What were my best attributes? My favorite station was give me the names of three interesting people who are doing interesting things and write down their contact info so that I can talk to them.
\nIt yielded some pretty interesting stuff. I ended up calling these people who lived in Denver, Colorado, and California, and I just went and visited them. Because I promised this transition was going to be fun.
\nI flew out and I met with a guy who ran the student center at Pepperdine University.
\nI met with these female artists who made experimental art in the desert of California. Not that I was going to do one of these things, but it just freed me up in a way that let me just let God talk to me more clearly.
\nI’m walking around this botanical garden in Denver, Colorado, and all of a sudden the idea for my next thing just dropped into my lap and I’m like, oh my God.
\nThe idea was, do a fitness program for kids that marries video games and movement so that you can activate the kids who have low confidence or don’t feel good about themselves or don’t like activity or movement or sports. And it was just like, oh my gosh, I love that idea.
\nI called a friend in New York City, a mom who had a kid who fit this description perfectly. Didn’t like an afterschool activity, didn’t like to do anything, had low confidence. And I told the mom, I just had this idea. Are you crazy enough to try this? Let me pick your kid up next week from school and we’ll try it. And if it sucks, I won’t even charge you. And if it’s good, I won’t even charge you.
\nI just want to see if this thing can work. And she’s like, all right, let’s do it! So I found the kids’ favorite video game. I researched it online and I basically built his video game, which was like this pirate thing where they find coins and go on a scavenger hunt. And I built it for him in Central Park. So we went into Central Park together.
\nI had this big map that I made. I’m the worst artist in the world. And he was collecting gold coins and he had to do different fitness exercises to beat these bosses and discover these treasures. And the kid loved it and the mom loved it. And she told all of her friends and within a month I had sold a year’s worth of classes with kids all over New York City.
\nAnd I was like, oh my God, I need a website. I need a name of my company. I need insurance. What are these things? And it snowballed from there. It was unbelievable.
\nRobin: Well, it’s pretty remarkable, and it’s an incredible story. What creativity, it’s just amazing. So you ended up developing a website, you’ve got business and you’ve got people.
\nTell us a little bit about how you came about the name and about what you’re doing with this.
\nChris: I wanted to call it Let’s Go Play because I felt play is one of my favorite things. As I was researching, I found that it is instrumental for a child development that they have moments in their day, to feel like a kid, to play, to create, to get outdoors, to move.
\nThis idea of using video game terminology, for instance, one of the things in our two hour sessions is everything is broken out into levels. So the first level is like, all right, you’re going to run to the three turnaround, catch this ball.
\nThey complete the level. Okay. Level two. Now you’ve got to hop on one foot over to the tree. Catch two balls. It feels like their favorite video games because they’re leveling up at the end, they win a wristband, and the most fun thing, which I think you also have here, Robin, is we make a 60 second video of our session together so that the kids can go home and show their parents.
\nThe parents and their grandparents, and everyone gets to see them running and jumping and playing, and we add filters and music, and this is the thing that this kid can have and feel good about.
\nIt’s just play, and a lot of parents have told me that their kid comes home and feels more confident, is happier, gets through their homework with more joy.
\nWhat was amazing, that I had not realized until recently, is this is like my Christian Science practice. Right? I’m not sitting in an office taking phone calls all day, but like I’m out, in the field, working with kids helping them feel more joy, helping them feel inspired and loved and safe.
\nWhy can’t this be a Christian Science practice? It sort of felt like it was. It had this sort of divinely led aspect as well. It just blew up really quickly in a really wonderful way.
\nRobin: How did COVID impact this? What happened when COVID started? It must’ve impacted your business in some way.
\nChris: New York City was one of the first and worst cities hit with COVID last year.
\nI had to shut the company down immediately. Obviously I’m taking absolutely no chances with the children. I made the call very early on to just shut the business down, which was obviously hard. We didn’t really know what was going on at that point in March of last year.
\nOnce again I had an opportunity to get quiet with God and be like, all right, I don’t have a business right now. What would you like me to do?
\nIt came to me to go down to Florida, to hang out with family and see what would happen. I came down to Florida, crashed with family, started doing some virtual Let’s Go Play classes, which was kind of an interesting, messy work in progress, but ended up being really fun.
\nThen this new thing entered my heart where I started realizing that if my Christian Science practice was potentially with these kids and helping them feel loved and inspired and safe, could I expand that? I had all this time on my hands now. I wasn’t able to really run this company.
\nIt started coming to me to talk about Christian Science more. And I know that might seem very obvious to some people, but it kind of freaked me out, the idea of just walking up to a stranger or a friend, or someone I really cared about a best friend, and being like, Hey, there’s this book Science and Health.
\nI wanted it to be in a way that didn’t feel Bible thumpy. I wanted it to feel authentic. It was just burning in my heart that I needed to start talking about this stuff more in a way that didn’t feel like I was proselytizing or judging.
\nIt actually started on the New York City subway. I was reading Science and Health on the subway, cause everybody reads on the subway. This homeless guy walks by me and he’s asking for money, is asking for food and then literally looks at me and he goes, or anything else that could help? And then walks away.
\nRobin: Message from God, right?
\nChris: I said, God, this feels weird to me to talk about this stuff. So you’re going to have to make this very clear. And God made it super clear that day.
\nThis homeless guy is about to get off the train and I’m like, well, what am I supposed to do with this? Do I give him a book? There were all these people staring at me.
\nThis is weird. I don’t want to be weird. I went over to him and I was just like, Hey man, I’m reading this book I love. And there’s the statement. She says: “to those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.” I was just thinking about that. What do you think that means? I would love to hear what you think.
\nThe guy looked over at me and he looks down and he reads the sentence and he’s like, I think it means we’ve got to take the steps that lead upward, not downward, and he gets off the train. And I was like wow!
\nIt just blew my mind. I realized there can be authentic ways for each of us to share this stuff. Eddy says over and over in her biography, we have to circulate this book. We’ve got to talk to people about this stuff. And in a way that does not feel proselytizing or condescending or judgmental.
\nI had this genuine interaction with this guy and I was like, okay, so I can do this. So now what? It came to me to talk to my best friend about it. And I went to my best friend. I was like, Hey man, I’ve been reading this book. Do you want to read it together? And he’s like, sure. And so we met in a coffee shop every week and the craziest things started happening.
\nHe started having healings, which is another thing that I was like, right. We forget, this book heals me and my family, obviously, but a random person, who’s never read this? He was on a Broadway show and he had a really serious neck injury. And he was reading literally one of the first lines in Science and Health.
\nI walk into the coffee shop and he’s like, dude, I don’t know what just happened. My neck is perfectly fine. And he’s like, I think it was because of something I read in this book and I was like, I think you’re right. It clicked in that moment. Right. This book heals, because we know it heals, and we hear testimonies that we read the last hundred pages.
\nBut when you see your best friend who has just experienced a tremendous healing, for me, it connected the dots. And I was like, okay, I get it. I’m awake now. What do I do next?
\nIt kind of just spiraled from there. Those were some really pivotal big moments for me.
\nRobin: That’s pretty incredible. Now you’re in Florida, you got your business up and running again, and things are moving in that direction. Where are you heading now?
\nChris: That’s a really great question. I don’t know if I know the answer to that. I have a lot of Florida kids now for Let’s Go Play, which has been a dream to have all new families, all new kids. They’re super excited.
\nThe other thing that has started to really open up and develop is, after my best friend, we read Science and Health together. We got through the whole book. He had incredible healings. He started healing his cat, his wife, his new twins, and every week it was something, it was bananas.
\nI started talking to other friends about it and people I met in coffee shops and people I met at parties and started Science and Health book groups for people who had never read Science and Health.
\nEvery week on Zoom or in person, I have a couple of people, a couple of different groups, none of them have ever read Science and Health or known anything about Christian Science.
\nWe’re all reading through the book together and we chat about it and every single person in every single book group, and I had a four at one point, has had a healing. Every single time it blows my mind.
\nI don’t know fully where that goes. I have Let’s Go Play with these kids that I’m working with and I love so much. Continuing on with these book groups and seeing where it goes. What really surprised me is the people in the book group started calling me for prayer.
\nThey started asking for healing. I was like, oh, yeah, I took class instruction. I took this course for 12 days. A practice started. And so now I have people calling. That is sort of opened up in a way.
\nI realized from all of this stuff that when we do something that feels purpose full and purpose driven and right to us, you can’t believe the stuff that will unfold.
\nYou have to check the fear, and check the anxiety, and as much as possible, not let it play a role in the decision making.
\nRobin: I love that. It’s remarkable, incredible, and awesome and wonderful. It’s why I asked you to be a guest because I just love your practical approach, your authenticity and the earnestness that you demonstrate, my friend. It is just so incredible.
\nWhen did you know that you were winning against fear? When did you know that you started to have those wins and those victories and what was it that helped drive that, and get you that victory that you started gaining that confidence that you needed to deal with those horrible pressures and worries, and anxieties and all those things?
\nChris: Really good question. I’m definitely not an expert by any means. I still have days where that voice, which I know has no power, it’s still pretty loud. It’s definitely still a journey of mine.
\nFear and anxiety play a far, far smaller of a role and their voice is much more muted than a couple of years ago.
\nWhen did I feel like I started winning the battle more? To be honest, it’s when I started talking about Christian Science. I don’t know if that sounds like the most obvious thing, but it happened when I was sitting in my Association which is after you have your class instruction, you come back every year and your Christian Science teacher gives you some really wonderful tools.
\nI’m sitting in that room with all of these amazing spiritual thinkers. God, this feels so good. And I was like, why am I not doing this more? Why am I not like cultivating this kind of environment more in my life? Why am I not talking about this more? Why am I not thinking about this more? That burned inside of me for like six months until I started implementing it more into my life.
\nOnce I started talking to my best friend about it and watched him have healings, once I started incorporating it into my work with kids more and just started thinking about it more. It helped me win.
\nI just didn’t feel as freaked out anymore because I knew I was doing something that was purposeful and loving and healing.
\nWhen you feel like you’re on purpose, when you feel like you’re doing something that is uplifting others, when you’re asking the question each day, not what can I get from this day, but what can I give to this day? And you reframe it. It doesn’t leave as much room for error to creep in, for fear, for anxiety, for depression, for worry.
\nThese are very challenging things. Eddy talks about unselfing the mortal purpose. We have to un-self. Become more unselfish in our action. I think that’s the key. I really do. I’m still trying to work through it, but I th I think that’s what I would say to that.
\nRobin: I love that. I think sometimes we forget that it does take that effort. Sometimes it does take the consistent effort to push and to humbly and thoughtfully consider, on a daily basis, that movement forward.
\nOften we want, Hey, I want it now. I’m tired of feeling like this. I don’t like to hurt. Take it away. Get rid of the pain, just do something. Cause I can’t take this anymore.
\nTalk a little bit more about your spiritual bath today. What does it look like when you take that bath in the morning today, when you’re living in Florida and that wonderful new house you got there my buddy.
\nChris: So how does my bath look different now than 10 years ago? That’s it’s a good question.
\nAs we go through these struggles, I think as we learn these lessons, whether they are with a nice little pink bow on top, or it’s like, what is this circus going on right now? We absolutely learn something from each and every one.
\nI remember having a chat with my buddy two years ago, we were playing softball. I’ve never seen this guy sad. He was sitting under a tree, looking so sad. And I went over to him and I was like, Hey man, like what’s going on? And he’s like, my wife just divorced me yesterday and I have no idea what to do with my life.
\nMy heart just broke for him. And we were talking and he said to me, He goes, this is the craziest feeling, and I don’t even know if I should feel this way, but I know that me going through this right now, as horrible as this feels, I’m going to be able to have a little more empathy for somebody when they go through something like this.
\nIt blew my mind that in that moment, he could already start to understand that this will bless other people. I think it’s that, that no matter what we’re going through, no matter how horrible it feels, you will get to sit with someone under a tree and be like, you know what?
\nI know how that feels. I really do. And that will bring them comfort. If nothing else I know that’s true.
\nIt adds richness to your prayers. I think it adds richness to your career. It adds richness to all your social interactions when you’ve been through things and have stories to tell and can just have a deep compassion and empathy for everybody else walking around on this planet.
\nRobin: It sounds like to me that you’ve removed some form of judgment of yourself and that also then impacts that for others. It looks like today, there may not be as much of that as there once was in your spiritual path, then it sounds like you kind of got that dirt done, it’s down the drain.
\nChris: Definitely, definitely a work in progress. I realized that shameful, judgmental thoughts about yourself basically just lead you into a circus that I don’t want to be a part of. The more that just becomes very clear, the more you’re like, yeah, this isn’t serving me. Maybe it’s time to rethink this or let this go a little bit.
\nRobin: You’re remarkable my friend. I so treasure the short amounts of time we get to spend with one another, but man, what a incredible journey you’ve had so far.
\nI just love the opportunity to be able to visit with folks like yourself and hear your stories and all the inspiration. It’s just incredibly inspiring, but we’ve got to got to move into that closure state. And if you all would love to visit with Chris, we would love for you to visit with him.
\nAll you have to do is go to the ABF Career Alliance and do a search for Chris. His career connection is there, or you can email robin@albertbakerfund.org and I will be glad to get you connected. Chris is a Career Ally, been one for several years. He is representative of the type of people that are willing to share their ideas and their thoughts and help students and career changers and folks who just want to go, Hey, man, I love what you had to say. Can we talk a little bit about that?
\nAgain, Chris, we so appreciate that you’re willing to do that.
\nWe also have job postings that we post on our career connections and jobs board. I just posted two new ones today, technology specialist and early childhood support teacher in LA.
\nAnd then we have some others that are, that are still posted like associate director of admission. So be sure that if you are seeking a job, we do have some jobs that are on there. We don’t have a ton of them, but boy, we have a wonderful storehouse of career allies that are willing to help folks just like Chris.
\nBe sure that you’re following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
\nMy friend, you have been throwing your net on the right side. I want to follow you around for a little while. I think my net needs a little tuning after listening to you today. I got some holes and I need to fill them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time today.
\nI just love everything you’re doing. I appreciate all of that good work and your time and effort that you gave us this afternoon.
\nChris: It’s my pleasure. I love what you guys are doing here. I love your community of spiritual seekers that listen to these things. I’m always available, open, happy to help and we can get under that tree together and chat, I’m happy to do that. Thank you for having me Robin.
\n", "content_text": "Watch the interview here:\n\nListen to the Podcast \u2013\u00a0Audio Only\n[powerpress]\n\u201cI never stopped praying and I never stopped putting one foot in front of the other.\u201d\nAbout Our Guest in this episode:\nChris Harbur\nChris has worked with over 20,000 children, ages 7+, across the US doing everything from teaching sports and acting, to mentoring young people in crisis through Crisis Text Line, and running the Impact Team at DoSomething.org, the world\u2019s largest non-profit for young people. His team at DoSomething.org directly led to some of the largest world-wide volunteer efforts in history including the collection of over 100k pairs of jeans for homeless youth in 3 weeks, the donation of 30k pieces of sports equipment for kids in low income neighborhoods, and the clean up of 5 million cigarette butts in a month!\nOver the past 10 years, Chris has worked as a coach to develop new methods for engaging kids to be active and healthy. Not only does Let\u2019s Go Play get children excited to go outdoors and engage in exercise, it\u2019s also a safe, creative space for them to talk about the things that matter to them most, bolster their self-confidence, and give them a life long love of sports.\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n\n\nJoin us live for the Net Effect!\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!\nRegister for Upcoming Episodes Watch Net Effect Replays\n\n\n\r\n\r\n\nTranscript of Episode:\nRobin: This is the Net Effect. I am your host, Robin Jones, Director of the ABF Career Alliance. Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. We’re here to cast our net on the right side.\nThis Net Effect is sponsored by the Albert Baker Fund. To learn more about the Albert Baker Fund, go to AlbertBakerFund.org.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You’ll find all kinds of information about the incredible programs that we have and our worldwide outreach. So again, thank you to the Albert Baker Fund.\nThank you to the staff of the Albert Baker Fund, the incredible team that we have there for supporting this wonderful series. It has been highly successful.\nWelcome Chris Harbur, CEO of Let’s Go Play New York.\nI met Chris in New York at one of our Career Alliance networking events a few years ago. He reached out to us and we became fast friends quickly.\nWelcome to the Net Effect.\nChris: Thank you, Robin. It’s a pleasure.\nI love the Albert Baker Fund and every thing you guys are doing. It’s such a beautiful thing. So thank you for what you do.\nRobin: Well, thank you, and thanks for being a Career Ally. We really appreciate your supporting us.\nAs you were growing up as a child, tell us a little bit about the countries, the schools, and give us a little background on you.\nChris: I went to nine different schools growing up, in five different states, and three different countries.\nThat’s just kind of who my family was. My dad’s work changed quite a bit. And we just sort of rolled with it.\nIt definitely teaches you about culture. It definitely teaches you that you gotta be flexible. You gotta be able to roll with the punches.\nGetting to go to three high schools in three different countries and getting to go to so many different schools, it allows for that freedom, that flexibility.\nYou gotta be kind of sharp because you’re going to have to start over with a whole new group of people who don’t know about you, don’t care about you, and you just got to find a way to roll with it and be flexible.\nSo it taught me a lot.\nRobin: I thought it was really interesting when we were talking beforehand about your direction and how you landed, where you landed, but it really started when you transitioned from high school to college and you decided to go to a conservatory.\nI love this story. Tell us about how that unfolded for you.\nChris: It was wild because I think for my whole life, I thought I was going to be the second basement for the Boston Red Sox. And then I had the rudest awakening when we moved from Switzerland and the Bahamas for high school to Florida, which is like the most talented baseball players on planet earth.\nAnd I literally had no chance. And I was like, yeah. Okay. So that dream has gone. So now what?\nI was a senior in high school. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. And I ended up going out for a high school play.\nAll of a sudden, I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. And I found out about this conservatory at University of Miami in Florida.\nAnd I was like, I want to try to get into that school. And so literally on my way down to the audition to get into this conservatory, that only takes 20 people a year, you can see the photo right there. That’s the theater we performed in. I was learning my material, learning my monologue. Cause I just didn’t know any better.\nI wasn’t, I didn’t realize you had to, spend months looking for material. And so I show up and I do this monologue for this panel of people who are going to basically decide my future. And they asked me one question about the monologue and I was like, huh, I’d never thought about that. I just learned this in the car.\nRobin: Had you acted in high school? Had you done anything like that before?\nChris: I had done one play my senior year of high school, when we moved to the U.S., and that was pretty much it. So I had no background, really no idea what I was doing. Everybody auditioning had songbooks headshots, agents.\nAnd I was like, what is all this stuff? And I was literally learning a monologue in the car.\nSo they were basically like, well, why do you think you should get into this conservatory? And I was like, look, I know what I just did was not very impressive, and I’m sorry.\nI am not going to bring any baggage to this.\nWhatever you teach me, whatever style of acting or singing or dancing, I will be all in because I literally don’t know anything about this.\nThey loved it. And I ended up getting in, and I performed at this theater, did my first musicals and all sorts of stuff. And had this really tremendous experience, and it was really wonderful.\nRobin: What was it like performing with some really talented and gifted students or actors who probably had portfolios, and had been acting since they were five years old. How did you manage that?\nChris: That was difficult. I learned my first lesson in comparison and being really careful with how I’m comparing myself to others, because it was crushing, especially the first year or two.\nI was so far behind everybody else. A lot of them had been dancing, acting, singing their entire lives. And I had just started a month prior.\nIt was a really, really big lesson in figuring out who I was, what unique qualities God had given me to express.\nThey weren’t the traditional ones. I couldn’t do the best triple turn. I didn’t have the best monologue. I didn’t have the best baritone voice.\nRobin: Had you ever danced or anything?\nChris: On the first day of dance class, the teacher had to keep me after class because I had all the dance stuff put on incorrectly.\nI was wearing nothing the right way and he had to like draw charts for me. I was lost. Totally lost.\nRobin: How did you just be so lost, and yet still willing to keep doing it every day?\nChris: That’s such a good question. I’m a pretty spiritual guy. Early on, I just realized that you’re going to feel a little bit tossed around in the sea of life sometimes. And you might feel like you have no idea what you’re doing and everybody else around you is killing it and you’re doing a horrible job.\nThat is how I felt most of the time. I think recognizing that each one of us does have really wonderful qualities, unique qualities, I clung on to that and just recognized that if I was supposed to be here, God was not going to drop me in this top 10 conservatory and then leave me to go up in flames.\nThere was going to be a way for me to shine. As I went through those four years, I found little things here and there that just made me feel like, oh, I can do this.\nIt might be a very small sliver of this one thing. I found out I love stage combat. I was really good at remembering choreography, I loved the physicality of it and was very good at that.\nAnd so I was like, okay, I get something, and then slowly start to grow in confidence. I’m not going to say it was easy. It was a challenge.\nRobin: You work your way through college and you do all these different things within college. Tell us a little about the transition from college, into the professional world.\nHow did you get there?\u00a0\u00a0 What did you decide to do, and why did you decide to do it?\nChris: In the senior year of college, as an actor, you basically have to be like, all right, you’re going to go to New York City or Los Angeles. Those are kind of the two options that they throw at you.\nI remember feeling like I have no idea. I just didn’t have a strong sense.\nWhat happened was, I went to this audition where like 10,000 21 year olds show up in the biggest ballroom you’ve ever seen in your entire life in Orlando.\nRobin: I just can’t imagine that.\nChris: It is wild. You go into a warm-up room and there’s like a thousand people warming up, and like screaming…\nThen they drag 50 people at a time into this huge ballroom. And you are looking out at a thousand industry people who hopefully, one of them will give you a job.\nYou have a 30 second monlogue, and a 30 second song, and you do it for all of them.\nThe hope is that one of them will be interested in you and will be like, Hey, come work for us, and wherever.\nRobin: How do you decide what the 30 second I’m going to do this and 30 seconds singing I’m going to do that. How do you decide that?\nChris: That’s one of the good things of going to a school that has a good theater program. They prepare you, they know who you look like, who your type is, and what kinds of material you should be doing.\nSo, thankfully, I was prepared for that one. I did not learn that on the car ride to Orlando.\nSo what happened is I do this audition, and a couple of companies are interested in me and you go to their hotel room and you talk to them about it.\nOne of them was this really wild, but intriguing job called Missoula Children’s Theater. You and another actor drive across the entire country, basically doing shows with the local kids in each town that you’re in.\nSo you show up. Our first week was in Napa, California. You roll into Napa, California. There are a hundred children waiting for you. You do a two hour audition, pick 60 of them, start rehearsals, and on Friday, you have an hour long production of The Little Mermaid that you perform for the entire town.\nRobin: I’ve worked at camps,. It’s like 60, you don’t know anything about them. And you go, okay, we’re going to make this production with these kids and we’re going to put it out there and everybody’s going to come and it’s going to be fabulous. It’s just amazing.\nChris: It was ages 5 to 18. So there was a wild range that we had to work with. And this was a very professionally produced piece of theater. We had lights, music, costumes, sound, the kids had 60 pages of lines they had to learn in three days, by the way, cause it’s only a week. And then you pack it up, say goodbye to the kids and you drive to the next state.\nAnd I did this for 15 months.\nRobin: And it was like every week for 15 months?\nChris: Every week for 15 months. Yeah.\nRobin: Wow.\nChris: I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life. I think only when you’re 21 years old and you have the zest of life as strongly as you can, can you handle a job like this.\nI finished 15 months and I just like fell over. I just like slept for a week. It was very intense.\nRobin: After the 15 weeks, and sleeping for the next month, where did you go then?\nChris: My best friend who I met in conservatory is like, dude — move to New York. You can sleep on an air mattress in my bedroom.\nYou can start auditioning, and we’ll get you figured out.\nHe had already started a show called In the Heights, which was off Broadway and is now a movie.\nAnd that was his off Broadway and Broadway debut. So thankfully he had already been there for a year, doing the show In the Heights.\nWhat was neat is that when I arrived in New York City, sleeping on his air mattress, he was like, Hey, we’re doing this new show. It’s going to be off Broadway. And we need a male swing.\nA male swing is a someone who learns like every male part in the entire show. And then at any given moment might have to jump in and be one of those parts. And so that sounded terrifying, but I was like, whatever, I’m in New York, this is what I wanna do with my life, I’m in.\nA day before this show, we started rehearsals. Someone dropped out, and I had a role in the show and an off-Broadway production, a brand new musical. It ended up being just a tremendous experience for me, meeting new people in the industry, getting my feet wet in New York City.\nThat was the start of a pretty fun acting career for me in New York City.\nRobin: That sounds like a fairly easy transition. You have something you could hit the ground running with right out of school. And then you made a little money and had some really good experience. And then you do this audition and you end up in a leading role.\nI’m sure that you had lots of challenges. Thinking about those challenges, what helped you? What helped you think through those kinds of things as well?\nChris: The first thing that I realized that I was really having a trouble with was anxiety. I had a tremendous amount of anxiety about moving to New York City with no connections, except for my best friend. I had tremendous anxiety about not having any money.\nI had tremendous anxiety about going into a field with the most talented people in the world.\nIn one of my first auditions in New York City, there were 50 guys in the room auditioning for this TV role, and every single one of them looked like a better version of me. They were taller, they had better hair, they had nice cheek bones.\nI was like, come on, like, what’s the deal?\nThat created in me quite a bit of anxiety. I recognized very early on in my career, I was going to have to get a handle on this thing.\nI don’t know if this is how you’re supposed to pray, but a week before I moved to New York City, I was like, Look God, I’m freaked out about this.\nI am very scared about moving to a huge city with no money with no means. I just didn’t know what I was going to do.\nThis verse from the Bible, which is one of my favorite verses of all time: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding, and in all thy ways, acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.\nThat was in my heart, and I knew that if I could trust in the Lord with all my heart, about my finances, about my career possibilities, about my friendships, about anything, that there would be a path forward, but I needed to go all in on this.\nI needed to really trust.\nAnd so, I made a pact with God. I was like, God, if you promise to provide for me, so I can live and pay rent in New York City as an actor, I will pack my bag and I will be on the next flight out of there.\nI don’t know if that’s the most eloquent prayer one has ever prayed, but I was 22, scared, and that’s what I went for.\nAnd I really did put aside that fear and that worry and just trusted. I think that led to like some pretty incredible things that happened very early on for me.\nRobin: I wonder if you might share a little bit about this incredible thing that you got involved with?\nChris: A couple of years into New York City, I’d done a couple of musicals, a couple of plays, a few commercials, all these things. This audition that ended up being in Philadelphia, came across my desk.\nAnd I was like, I do not want to spend a day on a bus to Philadelphia to audition for something that could be a student film. I had no idea and they don’t tell you these things. I felt very led, and guided to go do it. And I was like, all right, I’m in.\nSo I auditioned for this movie. I ended up getting the lead in it. It was called The Descending. My mother was very happy. I played this psycho like killer.\nRobin: Very nice thing for a Christian boy.\nChris: I have a hostages. It’s a pretty like, cutter kind of film. But it was this incredible experience and I ended up getting the lead that you can see my little face there on the post. I ended up traveling the country with film festivals. We won a bunch of awards. It was like this really incredible experience for me getting to travel and do these things.\nAnd then I got back to New York City and I was like, all right, I’m gonna make such a splash back in New York City. And I go show all these casting people, this movie poster. And they’re like, yeah, we don’t really care. And I’m like, what? That’s my face! Come on people.\nAnd they just didn’t, and it was just kind of a rude, kind of a rude awakening with how difficult it is to be in the industry.\nBut I’m very grateful for this and all that it taught me for sure.\nRobin: So where did you go from there? You’ve had some success, obviously. What happened then?\nChris: This is now the part of the story where it’s my first big career transition.\nI know there are probably people on this Zoom today who are thinking about a career transition and who are career transitioning.\nI just felt it was time for me to move on. I didn’t really get to a place where I felt like I could sustain myself as an actor. And I was getting a strong sense that it was time to move on.\nWhat I did is I said, all right, I’m going to do one more year in this business.\nI have three goals. If I don’t meet any of these goals in the next three years, it is time to move on. I had a great experience. And so after a year I didn’t hit those goals. I didn’t make it to Broadway. I didn’t get into a TV series where I was a regular. And I didn’t have anything that was like paying me enough to essentially pay New York City rent, just being an actor.\nAnd I was like, Hey, all good. I loved my 6, 7, 8 years. It’s time to move on. But what I realized about career transitioning is I actually wasn’t sure what other humans did for a living, because I had only ever been an actor.\nI just didn’t know. I didn’t know what people did. Once again, an opportunity to get quiet with God, the universe, and be like, where do you need me? I know you gave me these kinds of neat skills, I want to use them. I want to be used.\nWhat came to me is to send an email to 10 of my friends and tell them I’m leaving acting.\nI have no idea what to do. What do you guys think I should do? This is the best plan I had Robin.\nI got all sorts of terrible advice. Like you should be a lawyer go to law school. I don’t need any more school, I’m good on that front.\nOne of them was like, you should talk to my friend. He works at this nonprofit in New York City that works with teenagers, check them out.\nI went to their website and it looked really, really interesting. So I found this company, I figured out how to get in for an interview. And ended up working at this company called DoSomething.org.\nIt’s the largest nonprofit for young people in the world. They essentially have 5 million teenagers and you can go here, sign up for a volunteer activity in your own community. And you can get started. And a lot of times you don’t need the help of a parent or a guardian. They can do it on their own.\nThe reason that they hired me is because I convinced them that I could make volunteering a little bit more fun by gamifying it, by turning it into a giant competition.\nSo you can see down on the screen there 5 million jeans donated. Well, several hundred thousand of them were from this initiative that I tried by pitting colleges against each other in a national leaderboard competition where they battled each other to see who could collect the most jeans for homeless kids.\nIt exploded and the CEO loved it. She gave me my own team of people and it turned into this really fun creative thing.\nI ended up working there for three years and learned a ton about having bosses and working at a desk and using Google, the Google suite of products, all things that I’d really never done before.\nIt turned out to be a pretty enriching experience.\nI remember going in for the interview and thinking to myself, I bet they’ve seen like 20 people today for this job interview.\nI think it’s possible that like, no one did anything interesting or different. I treated it like an audition. So my theater background is like, okay, how do I frame in 60 seconds the most intriguing story about who I am, what I come from, and what I could give to this position.\nFraming is something that you learn in acting school. You learn with the sort of theatrical background. I came in starting to talk about my experience in a really concise, quick way. I saw an intern wake up in the corner and I’m like I was on to something!\nHaving a theatrical background, knowing how to just sell yourself in a more interesting way to connect and talk to someone in a way that is authentic and loving and compelling, because you have to do that onstage, or the audience will fall asleep, much less an intern in the corner.\nIt impressed them. I think they were like this guy’s got something going on that we want in our ethos, in our pipeline and do something. That really did help.\nRobin: So you were there for a few years, and had obviously really good success. What led you to leave or do something different or think about making another big career switch?\nChris: After a few years in this company, I started to have panic attacks and the anxiety became really, really bad.\nWe had a lot of pressure on us to perform at an extremely high level. It was only 50 people on staff, servicing 5 million teenagers. We had these huge companies, Jet Blue, Coca-Cola, all these companies breathing down our necks to perform, and do better, bigger things each time.\nI wasn’t sleeping well. I’ve learned a lot here, but I don’t think this is for me anymore. I’m not sure I’m meant to be in an office environment, especially one that demanding.\nMy second big career change was coming about and I knew I had to get out.\nMy Christian Science teacher taught us about something called a spiritual bath. You wake up in the morning, and you get really clear about who you are, and about who God is, before anybody else tells you who you are, or what your day will be like.\nYou just sit and have that communion with God every single morning. And this is a time of my life, where I leaned on my spiritual bath more than I ever have before.\nI remember leaving, having once again, absolutely no idea what to do with my life. I knew I didn’t want to work there, and I didn’t want to be a firefighter, and I didn’t want to be an actor again.\nSo those are the only three things I knew now. The one thing with this career transition is I decided I was not going to let anxiety or fear dictate any decisions during this second career transition.\nRobin: That’s a big deal, man. That’s the thing I see, that just cripples people. The fear, the anxiety, the worry. You mentioned pressure. Those are all synonymous. How did you come to that and how difficult was it to get to a point where you felt like you had some strength and confidence in that?\nChris: I’m going to be honest about this and this might not be very popular amongst Christian Scientists, amongst spiritual people. It was a very, very messy road to pull myself out of this panic and this anxiety. Sometimes we read the periodicals, we hear about healings and things, and it just feels like, wow, that was amazing, and it’s got this nice tight pink bow on it. This was not a pink bow healing. This was messy.\nI felt so bad at times that I was like, God, I will literally do anything to not feel so panicked all the time. I started going to therapy. I started working out more. I started taking anti-anxiety medication. I know this is not going to be a popular thing to say. I was in dire straits and I was really scared.\nI started changing a lot of things in my life. The one thing that did not change in my life, the one thing that I stuck to through all of this messiness, is I never stopped praying and I never stopped putting one foot in front of the other.\nEven days where I could barely pull myself out of bed, I knew that I had to get up and do my spiritual bath. I knew that I had to keep reading mary Baker Eddy’s works. I had to keep reading the Bible. If anxiety woke me up at three in the morning, I was going to get up at three in the morning and I was going to do whatever I needed to do, to pull myself out.\nIt was a really messy road, I have to say.\nRobin: I hear so many people say, well, I just quit going to church and I just quit doing this. And I quit praying. I quit thinking, I quit.\nWhy did you continue to hold on to prayer? Why did you continue to move, and stay where that was a part of what you’re doing and looking for searching and try to discover that peace, to where you found that peace, to address those issues of anxiety?\nChris: Really good question. And I had days where I wasn’t sure I could do anything. I knew in my heart that even if it was the faintest light that I was going to be okay. Because God loved me even on the days where I was like, does God love me? Cause this sucks. Even the days that were just really, really challenging.\nI’m out of work. I have no idea what to do. I’m paying $1,200 a month for a tiny studio in New York City. I had bills to pay.\nRobin: None of your family lived there, right?\nChris: No, my family was spread out all over the U.S. No, I didn’t have any family. The sense that, no matter what I was doing, whether I was taking medication, whether I was going to therapy, all these things that are, I think are sometimes frowned upon, I had to remove the judgment about that because I felt very judged.\nI myself was judging myself. And I felt the judgment from others. I had to remove that first. I don’t think God talks to us in a way that makes us feel badly. I don’t think God shames us. I don’t think that God makes us feel badly.\nSo every time a thought came that said, Hey, you suck because you’re taking anti-anxiety medication. You’re a bad Christian Scientist. I would think to myself, would God say that to me? Would God do that?\nIt did take some time, but eventually I was like, you know what, if God’s not saying it, I’m not going to listen to anymore.\nI’m just not going to do it. I’m not going to shame myself every single day about this. And it was not easy.\nEventually in that line that God only says really loving, wonderful, empowering things to us, and if it’s not, we don’t have to listen, step-by-step I just started to kind of pull myself out a little bit, day by day.\nRobin: And found the light and inspiration. How did you come to the next piece where you were starting to make decisions and how did that materialize for you?\nChris: So I’m pulling myself out of this thing. I’m in my second career transition, with really no idea.\nI make this pact with God to not have any worry about this. What if this was fun? Here’s a crazy idea. What if my next career transition was fun? Like, let’s just try it, even as an experiment. It’s funny, because once you remove the fear, you really do free up creativity.\nYou can just let this creative spirit just talk to you and move through you in a way that you can’t, when you’re just feeling constricted.\nThe thought came to me, have a little brainstorm party for yourself with 10 of your best friends, bring them into your house and let them think about your career for you.\nI set up my little New York City apartment and every station was a different part of my new potential life they had to think about. What were my best attributes? My favorite station was give me the names of three interesting people who are doing interesting things and write down their contact info so that I can talk to them.\nIt yielded some pretty interesting stuff. I ended up calling these people who lived in Denver, Colorado, and California, and I just went and visited them. Because I promised this transition was going to be fun.\nI flew out and I met with a guy who ran the student center at Pepperdine University.\nI met with these female artists who made experimental art in the desert of California. Not that I was going to do one of these things, but it just freed me up in a way that let me just let God talk to me more clearly.\nI’m walking around this botanical garden in Denver, Colorado, and all of a sudden the idea for my next thing just dropped into my lap and I’m like, oh my God.\nThe idea was, do a fitness program for kids that marries video games and movement so that you can activate the kids who have low confidence or don’t feel good about themselves or don’t like activity or movement or sports. And it was just like, oh my gosh, I love that idea.\nI called a friend in New York City, a mom who had a kid who fit this description perfectly. Didn’t like an afterschool activity, didn’t like to do anything, had low confidence. And I told the mom, I just had this idea. Are you crazy enough to try this? Let me pick your kid up next week from school and we’ll try it. And if it sucks, I won’t even charge you. And if it’s good, I won’t even charge you.\nI just want to see if this thing can work. And she’s like, all right, let’s do it! So I found the kids’ favorite video game. I researched it online and I basically built his video game, which was like this pirate thing where they find coins and go on a scavenger hunt. And I built it for him in Central Park. So we went into Central Park together.\nI had this big map that I made. I’m the worst artist in the world. And he was collecting gold coins and he had to do different fitness exercises to beat these bosses and discover these treasures. And the kid loved it and the mom loved it. And she told all of her friends and within a month I had sold a year’s worth of classes with kids all over New York City.\nAnd I was like, oh my God, I need a website. I need a name of my company. I need insurance. What are these things? And it snowballed from there. It was unbelievable.\nRobin: Well, it’s pretty remarkable, and it’s an incredible story. What creativity, it’s just amazing. So you ended up developing a website, you’ve got business and you’ve got people.\nTell us a little bit about how you came about the name and about what you’re doing with this.\nChris: I wanted to call it Let’s Go Play because I felt play is one of my favorite things. As I was researching, I found that it is instrumental for a child development that they have moments in their day, to feel like a kid, to play, to create, to get outdoors, to move.\nThis idea of using video game terminology, for instance, one of the things in our two hour sessions is everything is broken out into levels. So the first level is like, all right, you’re going to run to the three turnaround, catch this ball.\nThey complete the level. Okay. Level two. Now you’ve got to hop on one foot over to the tree. Catch two balls. It feels like their favorite video games because they’re leveling up at the end, they win a wristband, and the most fun thing, which I think you also have here, Robin, is we make a 60 second video of our session together so that the kids can go home and show their parents.\nThe parents and their grandparents, and everyone gets to see them running and jumping and playing, and we add filters and music, and this is the thing that this kid can have and feel good about.\nIt’s just play, and a lot of parents have told me that their kid comes home and feels more confident, is happier, gets through their homework with more joy.\nWhat was amazing, that I had not realized until recently, is this is like my Christian Science practice. Right? I’m not sitting in an office taking phone calls all day, but like I’m out, in the field, working with kids helping them feel more joy, helping them feel inspired and loved and safe.\nWhy can’t this be a Christian Science practice? It sort of felt like it was. It had this sort of divinely led aspect as well. It just blew up really quickly in a really wonderful way.\nRobin: How did COVID impact this? What happened when COVID started? It must’ve impacted your business in some way.\nChris: New York City was one of the first and worst cities hit with COVID last year.\nI had to shut the company down immediately. Obviously I’m taking absolutely no chances with the children. I made the call very early on to just shut the business down, which was obviously hard. We didn’t really know what was going on at that point in March of last year.\nOnce again I had an opportunity to get quiet with God and be like, all right, I don’t have a business right now. What would you like me to do?\nIt came to me to go down to Florida, to hang out with family and see what would happen. I came down to Florida, crashed with family, started doing some virtual Let’s Go Play classes, which was kind of an interesting, messy work in progress, but ended up being really fun.\nThen this new thing entered my heart where I started realizing that if my Christian Science practice was potentially with these kids and helping them feel loved and inspired and safe, could I expand that? I had all this time on my hands now. I wasn’t able to really run this company.\nIt started coming to me to talk about Christian Science more. And I know that might seem very obvious to some people, but it kind of freaked me out, the idea of just walking up to a stranger or a friend, or someone I really cared about a best friend, and being like, Hey, there’s this book Science and Health.\nI wanted it to be in a way that didn’t feel Bible thumpy. I wanted it to feel authentic. It was just burning in my heart that I needed to start talking about this stuff more in a way that didn’t feel like I was proselytizing or judging.\nIt actually started on the New York City subway. I was reading Science and Health on the subway, cause everybody reads on the subway. This homeless guy walks by me and he’s asking for money, is asking for food and then literally looks at me and he goes, or anything else that could help? And then walks away.\nRobin: Message from God, right?\nChris: I said, God, this feels weird to me to talk about this stuff. So you’re going to have to make this very clear. And God made it super clear that day.\nThis homeless guy is about to get off the train and I’m like, well, what am I supposed to do with this? Do I give him a book? There were all these people staring at me.\nThis is weird. I don’t want to be weird. I went over to him and I was just like, Hey man, I’m reading this book I love. And there’s the statement. She says: “to those leaning on the sustaining infinite, today is big with blessings.” I was just thinking about that. What do you think that means? I would love to hear what you think.\nThe guy looked over at me and he looks down and he reads the sentence and he’s like, I think it means we’ve got to take the steps that lead upward, not downward, and he gets off the train. And I was like wow!\nIt just blew my mind. I realized there can be authentic ways for each of us to share this stuff. Eddy says over and over in her biography, we have to circulate this book. We’ve got to talk to people about this stuff. And in a way that does not feel proselytizing or condescending or judgmental.\nI had this genuine interaction with this guy and I was like, okay, so I can do this. So now what? It came to me to talk to my best friend about it. And I went to my best friend. I was like, Hey man, I’ve been reading this book. Do you want to read it together? And he’s like, sure. And so we met in a coffee shop every week and the craziest things started happening.\nHe started having healings, which is another thing that I was like, right. We forget, this book heals me and my family, obviously, but a random person, who’s never read this? He was on a Broadway show and he had a really serious neck injury. And he was reading literally one of the first lines in Science and Health.\nI walk into the coffee shop and he’s like, dude, I don’t know what just happened. My neck is perfectly fine. And he’s like, I think it was because of something I read in this book and I was like, I think you’re right. It clicked in that moment. Right. This book heals, because we know it heals, and we hear testimonies that we read the last hundred pages.\nBut when you see your best friend who has just experienced a tremendous healing, for me, it connected the dots. And I was like, okay, I get it. I’m awake now. What do I do next?\nIt kind of just spiraled from there. Those were some really pivotal big moments for me.\nRobin: That’s pretty incredible. Now you’re in Florida, you got your business up and running again, and things are moving in that direction. Where are you heading now?\nChris: That’s a really great question. I don’t know if I know the answer to that. I have a lot of Florida kids now for Let’s Go Play, which has been a dream to have all new families, all new kids. They’re super excited.\nThe other thing that has started to really open up and develop is, after my best friend, we read Science and Health together. We got through the whole book. He had incredible healings. He started healing his cat, his wife, his new twins, and every week it was something, it was bananas.\nI started talking to other friends about it and people I met in coffee shops and people I met at parties and started Science and Health book groups for people who had never read Science and Health.\nEvery week on Zoom or in person, I have a couple of people, a couple of different groups, none of them have ever read Science and Health or known anything about Christian Science.\nWe’re all reading through the book together and we chat about it and every single person in every single book group, and I had a four at one point, has had a healing. Every single time it blows my mind.\nI don’t know fully where that goes. I have Let’s Go Play with these kids that I’m working with and I love so much. Continuing on with these book groups and seeing where it goes. What really surprised me is the people in the book group started calling me for prayer.\nThey started asking for healing. I was like, oh, yeah, I took class instruction. I took this course for 12 days. A practice started. And so now I have people calling. That is sort of opened up in a way.\nI realized from all of this stuff that when we do something that feels purpose full and purpose driven and right to us, you can’t believe the stuff that will unfold.\nYou have to check the fear, and check the anxiety, and as much as possible, not let it play a role in the decision making.\nRobin: I love that. It’s remarkable, incredible, and awesome and wonderful. It’s why I asked you to be a guest because I just love your practical approach, your authenticity and the earnestness that you demonstrate, my friend. It is just so incredible.\nWhen did you know that you were winning against fear? When did you know that you started to have those wins and those victories and what was it that helped drive that, and get you that victory that you started gaining that confidence that you needed to deal with those horrible pressures and worries, and anxieties and all those things?\nChris: Really good question. I’m definitely not an expert by any means. I still have days where that voice, which I know has no power, it’s still pretty loud. It’s definitely still a journey of mine.\nFear and anxiety play a far, far smaller of a role and their voice is much more muted than a couple of years ago.\nWhen did I feel like I started winning the battle more? To be honest, it’s when I started talking about Christian Science. I don’t know if that sounds like the most obvious thing, but it happened when I was sitting in my Association which is after you have your class instruction, you come back every year and your Christian Science teacher gives you some really wonderful tools.\nI’m sitting in that room with all of these amazing spiritual thinkers. God, this feels so good. And I was like, why am I not doing this more? Why am I not like cultivating this kind of environment more in my life? Why am I not talking about this more? Why am I not thinking about this more? That burned inside of me for like six months until I started implementing it more into my life.\nOnce I started talking to my best friend about it and watched him have healings, once I started incorporating it into my work with kids more and just started thinking about it more. It helped me win.\nI just didn’t feel as freaked out anymore because I knew I was doing something that was purposeful and loving and healing.\nWhen you feel like you’re on purpose, when you feel like you’re doing something that is uplifting others, when you’re asking the question each day, not what can I get from this day, but what can I give to this day? And you reframe it. It doesn’t leave as much room for error to creep in, for fear, for anxiety, for depression, for worry.\nThese are very challenging things. Eddy talks about unselfing the mortal purpose. We have to un-self. Become more unselfish in our action. I think that’s the key. I really do. I’m still trying to work through it, but I th I think that’s what I would say to that.\nRobin: I love that. I think sometimes we forget that it does take that effort. Sometimes it does take the consistent effort to push and to humbly and thoughtfully consider, on a daily basis, that movement forward.\nOften we want, Hey, I want it now. I’m tired of feeling like this. I don’t like to hurt. Take it away. Get rid of the pain, just do something. Cause I can’t take this anymore.\nTalk a little bit more about your spiritual bath today. What does it look like when you take that bath in the morning today, when you’re living in Florida and that wonderful new house you got there my buddy.\nChris: So how does my bath look different now than 10 years ago? That’s it’s a good question.\nAs we go through these struggles, I think as we learn these lessons, whether they are with a nice little pink bow on top, or it’s like, what is this circus going on right now? We absolutely learn something from each and every one.\nI remember having a chat with my buddy two years ago, we were playing softball. I’ve never seen this guy sad. He was sitting under a tree, looking so sad. And I went over to him and I was like, Hey man, like what’s going on? And he’s like, my wife just divorced me yesterday and I have no idea what to do with my life.\nMy heart just broke for him. And we were talking and he said to me, He goes, this is the craziest feeling, and I don’t even know if I should feel this way, but I know that me going through this right now, as horrible as this feels, I’m going to be able to have a little more empathy for somebody when they go through something like this.\nIt blew my mind that in that moment, he could already start to understand that this will bless other people. I think it’s that, that no matter what we’re going through, no matter how horrible it feels, you will get to sit with someone under a tree and be like, you know what?\nI know how that feels. I really do. And that will bring them comfort. If nothing else I know that’s true.\nIt adds richness to your prayers. I think it adds richness to your career. It adds richness to all your social interactions when you’ve been through things and have stories to tell and can just have a deep compassion and empathy for everybody else walking around on this planet.\nRobin: It sounds like to me that you’ve removed some form of judgment of yourself and that also then impacts that for others. It looks like today, there may not be as much of that as there once was in your spiritual path, then it sounds like you kind of got that dirt done, it’s down the drain.\nChris: Definitely, definitely a work in progress. I realized that shameful, judgmental thoughts about yourself basically just lead you into a circus that I don’t want to be a part of. The more that just becomes very clear, the more you’re like, yeah, this isn’t serving me. Maybe it’s time to rethink this or let this go a little bit.\nRobin: You’re remarkable my friend. I so treasure the short amounts of time we get to spend with one another, but man, what a incredible journey you’ve had so far.\nI just love the opportunity to be able to visit with folks like yourself and hear your stories and all the inspiration. It’s just incredibly inspiring, but we’ve got to got to move into that closure state. And if you all would love to visit with Chris, we would love for you to visit with him.\nAll you have to do is go to the ABF Career Alliance and do a search for Chris. His career connection is there, or you can email robin@albertbakerfund.org and I will be glad to get you connected. Chris is a Career Ally, been one for several years. He is representative of the type of people that are willing to share their ideas and their thoughts and help students and career changers and folks who just want to go, Hey, man, I love what you had to say. Can we talk a little bit about that?\nAgain, Chris, we so appreciate that you’re willing to do that.\nWe also have job postings that we post on our career connections and jobs board. I just posted two new ones today, technology specialist and early childhood support teacher in LA.\nAnd then we have some others that are, that are still posted like associate director of admission. So be sure that if you are seeking a job, we do have some jobs that are on there. We don’t have a ton of them, but boy, we have a wonderful storehouse of career allies that are willing to help folks just like Chris.\nBe sure that you’re following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.\nMy friend, you have been throwing your net on the right side. I want to follow you around for a little while. I think my net needs a little tuning after listening to you today. I got some holes and I need to fill them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time today.\nI just love everything you’re doing. I appreciate all of that good work and your time and effort that you gave us this afternoon.\nChris: It’s my pleasure. I love what you guys are doing here. I love your community of spiritual seekers that listen to these things. I’m always available, open, happy to help and we can get under that tree together and chat, I’m happy to do that. Thank you for having me Robin.", "date_published": "2021-08-04T17:26:04-07:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-21T12:23:07-07:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Gabriel Serafini", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/author/admin/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bddbb394eff14300a8d1b157a5407e4c7c907bc3c74f4f50f8313e8ef70c0f?s=512&d=mm&r=g" } ], "author": { "name": "Gabriel Serafini", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/author/admin/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bddbb394eff14300a8d1b157a5407e4c7c907bc3c74f4f50f8313e8ef70c0f?s=512&d=mm&r=g" }, "image": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/files/2021/08/net-effect-45-chris-harbur-ceo-a-1.jpg", "tags": [ "actor", "Business Leadership", "career success", "ceo", "education", "entrepreneurship", "founder", "new york", "new york city", "Non-Profit Administration", "play", "Homepage Featured", "Net Effect Career Conversations and Connections", "Podcast", "Videos", "Webinars" ], "attachments": [ { "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/429/files/2021/08/Net-Effect-45-Chris-Harbur-CEO-and-Founder-of-Lets-Go-Play.mp3", "mime_type": "audio/mpeg", "size_in_bytes": 44142896 } ] }, { "id": "https://abfcareeralliance.org/?p=3697", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/2021/06/24/net-effect-44-christian-science-nursing-youth-service-corps-comforterscalling-org/", "title": "Net Effect #44 \u2013 Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps \u2013 ComfortersCalling.org", "content_html": "\n\u201cExplore career opportunities through the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps!\u201d
Apply here: ComfortersCalling.org
\nEmily Mattson
\nEmily developed a love for nursing others at a young age, but didn\u2019t realize that Christian Science nursing was an option for a career path. Through her time in the National Leadership Council and at Principia College, she started thinking more about how to serve the cause of Christian Science and was quickly called to become a Christian Science nurse shortly after graduating. Since then, she has become listed in the Christian Science Journal and has journeyed around the country, nursing in facilities, individuals homes, at youth summer camps, Principia College and as a part of two Christian Science Visiting Nurse services in California. She\u2019s based in Sacramento, California where she enjoys paddle boarding, backpacking and fostering dogs.
Josh Kenworthy
\nJosh Kenworthy is a Christian Science nurse at the Chestnut Hill Benevolent Association, near Boston. Originally from Australia, Josh obtained an Advanced Diploma of Contemporary Music from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and worked as a professional drummer and drum teacher. He then made the switch to journalism, obtaining a Bachelor of Journalism from Monash University in Melbourne and worked in that field in Australia and the US. Throughout this time, a deep and growing desire to understand God and love humanity through the understanding and practice of Christian Science led him to his current role as a Christian Science nurse. Throughout this time, a deep and growing desire to understand God and love humanity through the understanding and practice of Christian Science led him to his current role as a Christian Science nurse.
Lauren Wienecke
\nLauren Wienecke has been a Christian Science nurse at The Leaves in Dallas, Texas, since 2016. Her love of the Bible and Christian Science, and desire to follow Jesus\u2019 teachings and example of selfless service to others, continues to be the reason she loves working as a Christian Science nurse.
Jennifer Johnson and The Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps
\nJennifer Johnson is Executive Director of The Leaves, in Dallas, Texas, and serves on the Recruiting Team for the Youth Action Committee of the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps. She also worked for 8 years as the Business Manager at Sunrise Haven, the Christian Science Nursing facility in Seattle. Jennifer has a deep love for Christian Science nursing and hold a Master\u2019s Certificate in Nonprofit Organizations.
Jennifer will share information about the on-site internship opportunities through the The Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps. These are 3-month and 9-month paid internship experiences for college students and young adults to explore careers in Christian Science nursing and nursing facilities administration.
\nApplications to join the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps are due on August 15, 2021.
\nApply here: ComfortersCalling.org
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\nRobin: This is the Net Effect, Career Conversations and Connections. I’m your host, Robin Jones director of the Albert Baker Fund’s Career Alliance.\u00a0\u00a0 We have some special guests for you today.
\nI can’t tell you how excited I am about this program. This is going to be packed full of inspiration and ideas. And I can’t wait for you to meet our guests.
\nThis episode is really going to be about casting your net on the right side. And you’re going to see some real good examples of that.
\nThis Net Effect is sponsored by the Albert Baker Fund. We provide a combination of loan and grant awards to support the education of Christian Scientists around the world. We encourage each of our recipients to pass their blessings forward.
\nToday is going to be focused on Christian Science nursing. I’m going to come back to this later and we’ll talk more about how you can receive financial tuition assistance from the Albert Baker Fund.
\nWe’re going to focus on the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps.
\nThat may be a new term for many of you out there. After this episode, you’re going to be real familiar with it. I thought it would be really good to start with some folks that are actually working in Christian Science nursing, and some young adults.
\nThe Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps is focused on college students and young adults.
\nWe’re gonna meet Emily, Josh, Lauren, and a little bit later, Jennifer, so that you can see firsthand and hear firsthand from three very special folks that are already working in the Christian Science nursing field, in different parts of the United States.
\nI want to welcome Emily, Josh Lauren and Jennifer. Jennifer is also the Executive Director for the Leaves in Dallas, Texas.
\nWelcome you all. We’re going to start with our dear friend Lauren.
\nLauren, let’s start with the camp counselor, where you were as a camp counselor, in your journey. And let’s talk about what that looked like for you.
\nLauren: I went to Cedars Camps as a camper and then later as a counselor for a long time. I loved it. I love the opportunity to work with young Christian Scientists learning about the Bible and Christian Science, Science and Health, and applying the principles of Christian Science in their daily activities. It was just such a fun avenue for learning and demonstrating Christian Science.
\nRobin: Once you graduated from school, where did you go at that point?
\nLauren: I played soccer at Principia College. I stayed back and coached at both the College and the Upper School for a couple of years. I loved that. I love the avenue of learning about God and Christian Science.
\nI really wanted to do something that was very Manual based. Christian Science nursing came into my thought. I loved as I started working as a Christian Science nurse, just how Manual based it was, and also how biblically based it was.
\nI felt like it was a great fulfilling of Jesus’ commands, teaching to love your neighbor as yourself and love God with your heart, mind, and soul. After he’s washed his disciples feet, it was like, if I’ve done this to you as your Lord and master, you ought to do it to your fellow man.
\nThrough my training I’ve gone through, I’m getting to be a genuine disciple of Christ Jesus. I love that. It’s been wonderful.
\nRobin: I love that quote. I put that in there, you shared that with us and you had several other quotes, but this one really resonated with me.
\nI love the idea of feeding the hungry and thirsty and give them a drink. I wonder if Emily or Josh, if that resonates with you guys as well? Do you find that in your nursing practice as well?
\nEmily: Of course. I think all of us Christian Science nurses, even if we use different passages or come to it in a different way, I think this passage guides us all.
\nJosh: What I love about that idea is, Jesus pointed in numerous times in the gospel, he mentions food and drink and gives a literal sense of those and that the human need for food and drink. Also it gives us that quiet translation of what those ideas are spiritually.
\nWhat I love about Christian Science nursing is it really is supporting both. As we care for our fellow men and women, and very practically helping with nourishment and all of that, but also really seeing that each patient is being fed spiritually and supporting an atmosphere that allows for that to happen.
\nRobin: In your journey, help us see when that pivotal moment took place, where you said, okay, I want to go this direction. What was some of the thought processes you went through with that?
\nLauren: What I really enjoyed with the Christian Science nursing bylaw was that it was so specific and so defined as to what that means. There’s really thorough and wonderful training as to feeling confident and to fulfilling that bylaw.
\nIn my work, when someone’s needing help, it is Principle that’s answering. That bylaw is what’s showing up and that it is a demonstrable knowledge, it’s the practical wisdom, the proper care. I really loved how grounded that was. It’s all the same bylaw, and that’s across the field. It’s great to have that bylaw founding.
\nRobin: Your journey took you into a Christian Science nursing facility in Dallas. How did you get there?
\nLauren: It was my mom that brought it to me. I grew up in Oklahoma and she knew of The Leaves. She knew what I was wanting to do something new and she brought up The Leaves.
\nI really loved what I saw. They were able to provide housing. It was just a nice situation, a complete package. It was very fitting. We have an instructor here at The Leaves and mentors and everything.
\nIt felt so complete. It was easy to move into working in The Leaves and I’ve loved it.
\nRobin: How long have you been working there?
\nLauren: It’s been about five years here. It’s been wonderful.
\nRobin: How has the training been and the mentoring? What’s that been like for you?
\nLauren: It’s been both at The Leaves and also up at the Benevolent Association, Chestnut Hill and I really enjoyed that.
\nThe program that The Leaves does is the one that is taught out of the BA, the Christian Science Nursing Arts.
\nI’ve loved it. My first class was down at The Leaves and then my second class was at the BA. We do about a four and five week class time with the instructors there. And then I’ll come back and there’s mentors at The Leaves who can do some on the job training for a couple of months with me until they feel that I’m ready to work on my own.
\nThen when the next class comes up, I get to go do that. In that way, it is fun too, because I’ve gotten to meet other Christian Science nurses both at the BA and other facilities will also send their nurses to go through that training courses.
\nIt’s been really fun just to see the quality of Christian Science nursing that’s throughout the entire field, through those classes, and be able to bring that back to my work here at The Leaves and just feel invigorated. It’s a great collective work and really fun to be a part of.
\nRobin: It’s so wonderful to learn all that, and I’m going to pass it over now to Josh.
\nJosh started his professional career as a musician and drummer in Australia. So tell us a little bit about how you got started and your journey, and let us learn about Josh!
\nJosh: My journey’s been interesting and a winding one is as I feel like God has continually shaped my life and uplifted my desires and my sense of what life’s about.
\nI grew up with Christian Science. From day one, the branch church I attended is, is I believe the most remote branch church on the globe. It’s about as far from Boston as you can get.
\nGrowing up, I had some lovely healings. I always felt like Christian Science was taught and showed us the truth as Christ Jesus taught it. Through healings that I had, I just had this increasing hunger to understand it and demonstrate it. It didn’t feel like my doing.
\nIn my late teens, I was always very on fire about things, sports and music, and just loved the freedom of expression of soul in all of those things.
\nI started to pursue a career in music, in late high school, and went with that right up through post high school then went to a music school and then worked and taught professionally in that space.
\nI loved it. And outwardly, my life was wonderful. I had good friends and just what felt like a very full, enriched life.
\nBut deep, deep down there were some more fundamentally pressing spiritual questions. And that spiritual hunger, that desire to understand God, just kept knocking at my mental door.
\nAs I kept praying and striving to understand Christian Science better, it sort of eventually unfolded for me that while I loved music, I felt like the world surrounding it, and particularly for me, my motives in doing it, weren’t big enough for what I was learning in Christian Science about who we are and my need to love humanity more broadly.
\nI grew up with the Christian Science Monitor and I always had a deep interest in the world, and this hunger me unfolded to branch out and to understand the world and know more about the world and how it works and sort of embrace humanity more.
\nShortly around the same time as that transition happened, I took Christian Science class instruction. The relationship I was in fell away.
\nIt was very hard to let go of it first, but it felt like I was being asked to just focus on spiritual goals.
\nSo I moved to the other side of Australia and pursued my degree in journalism. During that time, it was a lot of wrestling, a lot of overturning in my thinking and my heart and continual growth. Not without its struggles, but it felt fruitful and deeply meaningful.
\nI finished my degree in journalism and then lovely things unfolded for me to then work in the field in ways I couldn’t have expected. I ended up working in finance journalism, which I had no interest in until this opportunity came up and it just felt right.
\nWhat I noticed throughout this whole time is that while these human shifts were taking place and I was exploring, and my desires were being uplifted, the core focus, the sole hunger in me was to understand God and to know what it meant to love.
\nTo love God with all my heart, and to learn what that meant for loving humanity. Being a member of The Mother Church by this stage and working in branch church work, I found myself… Mrs. Eddy tells us there is plenty of employment within the Mother Church for all its members.
\nI wasn’t necessarily consciously thinking about that, but I found that my desire was just to channel everything into that purely spiritual focus and to see the scientific, spiritual dimension to all of the different offices and opportunities to work directly for church in, as Lauren said, these Manual based activities.
\nMy work eventually took me to the United States and I worked in journalism here as well. This unfoldment in my experience was so wonderful and it just felt so right. And God governed the timing of things happened in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.
\nI wanted just to keep my thought close to God and I want to be directly involved in this ministry of Christian Science healing. I wanted to really understand what that is and to see as much of it demonstrated as I can.
\nThere was a point one day in my previous work where I was sitting at my desk and just reaching out inwardly. I opened my Bible on my desk to look for some inspiration. I know Mrs. Eddy used to do this all the time. She would open her Bible and always find inspiration.
\nI cannot say that it’s true for me. Sometimes I open to a genealogy or something that I’m not yet seeing the deeper meaning there, but on this occasion, it it really spoke to me.
\nIt was Jesus speaking in Mark, and he said it’s Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them. And their great ones, exercise authority upon them, but so shall it not be among you, but whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister and whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all. For even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
\nIt was like everything I’ve been doing, had been channeling this good direction, but something in me really felt like I can of mine own self, do nothing. I sort of felt like I was spinning my wheels a bit.
\nAnd yet felt like God had more for me to do or something different for me to do. So I started to just cherish this meek feeling of wanting to be in that place of service and just humility, because I knew that I needed it so much.
\nThe job I was in wrapped up and it didn’t feel like a disappointing thing. It felt much more like an opening of the way and just loved that, that job as well and that time, but then it was just a real opening up.
\nFirst, I thought it was all over the place a bit and sort of thinking, what do I do next? And as the dust settled Christian Science nursing sort of stood out like a mountain peak on the mental horizon. Some lovely timing and things unfolded for that to all work out and for it to be a seamless transition into Christian Science nursing, and Christian Science nurses training at the BA.
\nIt’s just been such an incredible practical support as I’ve grown in my ministry as a Christian Science nurse, and this is just a really vital support to that, to being able to meet the bylaw that Lauren was talking about
\nRobin: That’s a real interesting journey from the further hinderest outposts of the world into the backyard of The Mother Church. That’s pretty remarkable, Josh.
\nEmily, it’s your turn to say howdy. And tell us about your unique journey.
\nEmily: I loved hearing about how Josh and Lauren learned about Christian Science nursing, and I feel like mine was a little bit different because I feel like Christian Science nursing was knocking at my door for a long time.
\nI started when I was younger, when I was in high school and maybe even in middle school. I started volunteering in a capacity that had me caring for developmentally disabled individuals, non-Christian Scientists.
\nThrough that, and then filling my summers throughout college, at Principia, I worked at Twelve Acres because my uncle had lived there in the past.
\nI ended up working at Olive Glen after I graduated just to fill the time and never really thought that Christian Science nursing was something that I was going to stick with full-time.
\nI actually ended up moving to St. Louis and working in the Peace Haven office, in an administrative role.
\nI remember, I woke up one day when there was just one hour every month that I would be covering the nursing floor at Peace Haven.
\nAll of their Christian Science nurses were having their monthly meeting. And that hour I looked forward to that hour every month.
\nAnd that was the highlight of my month. One day I was like, why don’t I do this full time?
\nI love caring for people. I knew that after graduating Principia and how it’s so nice to be in a Christian Science community, I was really searching that in my post-grad life as well.
\nIt was almost an overnight decision. Christian Science nursing has been there for me for as long as I can remember. And it’s just been knocking on my door and patiently waiting for me to realize that was my calling.
\nIt was a lot of little experiences throughout my life that all added up to me realizing that Christian Science nursing was something that was natural for me to do as my career.
\nRobin: Your training has been a little bit different than Lauren’s and Josh’s.
\nTalk to us about your training and the direction that’s taken you. And tell us a little bit about that.
\nEmily: I’m not familiar with the training at all the facilities. But I do know that some facilities have a training program of their own.
\nFor me personally, I was trained at Olive Glen in Sacramento, but with the curriculum from Le Verger, which is in Switzerland.
\nThat curriculum is a little bit different.
\nNumber one, it’s based around the Socratic method. You ask the question and ask for an answer before you give the answer, if that makes sense.
\nIt’s a one-on-one classroom. The different programs are similar in terms of how many weeks or hours you’ll have in the classroom.
\nIt’s a little more focused on perhaps not nursing in a Western facility or not nursing in a facility at all.
\nCertainly all of the programs have a foundation in the metaphysics and why we’re doing the work that we’re doing.
\nThis curriculum focuses a little bit more on maybe being in someone’s home without these Western supplies.
\nHow would you work through this? How would you care for this person with what’s right in front of you?
\nThat has translated well into my work. I work a little bit more as a visiting nurse or as a private duty nurse. More recently, even though I love facility nursing, I definitely fell in love with Christian Science nursing at Olive Glen and the other facilities that I’ve been able to nurse at.
\nI appreciated the one-on-one aspect as well.
\nRobin: A visiting nurse, what does that mean? What’s different about that than working in a facility? Tell us a little bit about what that looks like and what the work is for folks that may or may not know about what a visiting nurse is?
\nEmily: I mentioned private duty nursing as well. Private duty nursing is working in someone’s home.
\nAnd that could be shifts of time during the day. Or you could be there 24/7. And that’s a little bit more catered towards helping someone just go about their daily activities. That’s bathing and dressing, mobility, helping them get meals and such like that. A visiting nurse is based on shorter increments of time.
\nAnd so a visiting nurse service might visit for a maximum of one or two hours a day. And it’s a little bit more of a supplement to that person’s day rather than helping them carry out those ordinary tasks, daily tasks.
\nIf someone can take care of themselves for the majority of the day, but might need someone to stand by while they take a shower or help them with that shower.
\nMaybe they just need some help with a bandaging, cleansing and covering need. And so it’s shorter visits. And then also a lot of the visiting nurse services around the country respond to immediate needs as well. And so we would respond to a need with someone who might need someone there quickly.
\nBut of course we were always there and in the right time and then perhaps being able to support until they find care from a private duty nurse or a facility.
\nRobin: This is from Emily. She asked the question, what has been the most challenging aspect of being a Christian Science nurse as a young person, and how have you prayed about it?
\nLauren, would you be willing to jump in first and answer Emily’s question?
\nLauren: Sure. I’m not really sure if I can say anything about like specifically as a young person per se, but I think maybe just the thought of like supply for the long term, but just as far as payment.
\nI think there’s been a lot of great progress with that, recognition of the value of Christian Science nursing by organizations and facilities themselves and just trying to help the Christian Science nurses in that way.
\nI just prayed about that with divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.
\nAs a Christian Science nurse, that’s what we’re doing every day, is reflecting that love, that love is reflected in love and knowing that giving it doesn’t impoverish, us and ideas are infinite, infinite resources of soul.
\nI have just seen that in every way that my needs are being met.
\nI’m sure every Christian Science nurse can attest to, but that’s the first thing that jumps out to me.
\nRobin: How about you, Josh?
\nJosh: In terms of supply, and the practicalities, it’s such an important thing. Being in service to God is not about poverty. There’s been so much wonderful work by all sorts of individuals in the background to continually support and explore ways to bring up the rates and pay and all sorts of things for nurses, Christian Science nurses around the United States and elsewhere in the world as well.
\nI love what Lauren said about pointing to those spiritual ideas, to take to heart what Jesus said about seek ye first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
\nI’ve never found that not to be true and not just sort of just enough, but a relative sense of abundance. To really know that the way our needs are met doesn’t always have to be, you provide a service and payment is rendered for that service.
\nIn my experience, the way I’ve seen, taking that promise to heart and putting all our eggs into one basket, which is that we are heartedly trusting that substance is a spiritual thing and comes from God.
\nBy investing in spiritual riches, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That is not an abstract thing or an impractical thing.
\nIt’s really actually fun to test those scientific laws and see that time and time again, God meets our needs and in practical ways. But also to trust that it is daily supply and Jesus did say, it’s about daily bread and that includes the practical supply and the spiritual ideas and inspirations that bring forth that practical supply.
\nI’ve never found wanting in pursuing spiritual good. Coming into Christian Science, nursing has been a wonderful thing as well.
\nRobin: Emily, I know you have personal goals and you’ve been moving around and you like to travel a little bit. , Have you found a similar thing that going into to the nursing profession and the Christian Science nursing profession, have you been able to see some of your goals being met?
\nEmily: Absolutely. Even after I started Christian Science nurses training, I still in the back of my mind thought, you know what, I’m a recent graduate and I want to be traveling the world and I want to be still as serving the needs of different communities around the world.
\nThat has been just such a working out. Because number one, serving this community has been such a blessing.
\nCertainly that is fulfilling enough. It’s also been nice making my own schedule for when I am taking cases. And so within that, in my time off, I am able to travel just for leisure. I’ve also really enjoyed finding volunteer opportunities outside of my work.
\nI satiate that desire to be working with global communities or, quote unquote marginalized communities within my local area. And so it definitely everything that I thought that I would be. Maybe missing out on by not pursuing a career, other careers that I’ve been thinking about.
\nI’ve found other ways to implement those in my daily life, through volunteer work, or just by scheduling myself in a way that lets me have chunks of time to get that travel bug as well.
\nRobin: Those are some great insights into some really important questions for particularly students that are still in school or recent graduates that may be thinking about, where to go and gosh, if I can make a living?
\nCan I pay my bills? Can I do the things that I want to do?
\nJennifer, welcome! Jennifer is the Executive Director at The Leaves in Dallas, where Lauren works.
\nWe wanted Jennifer to come in because she’s been working so judiciously with the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps.
\nThere are some wonderful opportunities that we wanted to make sure that everyone knows about, learns about. So I wanted Jennifer to be able to come in and maybe talk a little bit about some of these programs.
\nI traveled the country and I’ve talked to tons and tons and tons of students and recent graduates and, they always bring forward this idea of wanting to serve.
\nAnd I say to them, do you think about serving the cause of Christian Science and how many ways there are to do that?
\nI wanted Jennifer to jump in here and talk a little bit about what that looks like. Welcome, ma’am thank you.
\nJennifer: Nice to be here, thanks Robin.
\nI love it when Mrs. Eddy talks about loving more and serving better. Christian Science nursing is an inspired atmosphere to be able to serve church in.
\nThis program is for 18 to 30 year olds. It’s going to give a general overview of what it’s like to work in Christian Science nursing at different Christian Science nursing facilities across the nation. They’re very flexible programs.
\nYou could be going to college and still be in this program and there’s a three month program and a nine month program, part-time or full-time, and it pays $15 an hour.
\nAt the end of it, you get a financial education award that you could use towards college or towards a Christian Science nurses training program.
\nWe start in September.
\nRobin: That also includes housing. Is that correct?
\nJennifer: It does include housing. So if you are a college student who really could use some housing, while you go to college, and could use $15 an hour, why not serve church while doing it?
\nOne of the things that I really liked and the 400 Beacon Street book that’s out, Mrs. Eddy, when she’s interviewing people to come work in their house, she tells them to be asked, what would you do for Christian Science?
\nOur panelists, you can tell that, their full heart is in serving Christian Science and serving their fellow man while doing it.
\nIf that is an interest to you to serve your fellow man, and to serve church, there are different roles that you can do that in. You will get a general overview in each of the areas of a facility.
\nSo you’ll learn a little bit about Christian Science nursing. You could learn a little bit about HR administration, marketing. You can learn about the culinary arts, if that’s your passion. Maintenance and housekeeping is also available. So everybody could get a general overview and serve the amount of time that they want in each.
\nRobin: I love the idea because there are a number of students that want to find experience. They’re torn, they’re being told you gotta get an internship. You gotta go find experience. You gotta do this, you gotta do that. So opening that door to say, Hey, Look over here, we’ve got some of those opportunities and I can bet you that you might find if you’re one of those students or recent graduates, you might find a plethora of experience from lots of different projects and job opportunities when you work with a facility because there’s loads of things that can be done, and there are people willing to let you do it, right?
\nJennifer: That’s right, definitely.
\nRobin: Talk about some of the different places that are out there. We’ve listed all the facilities that have the training program for the Youth Service Corps. Talk to us about that.
\nJennifer: These are all of the facilities that have signed up to be part of this program.
\nYou could go to New York, Princeton, New Jersey, Dallas, Texas Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or St. Louis.
\nRobin: Well, that’s all across the country. Are there a number of spaces? Is it limited?
\nJennifer: There is a limited amount so apply today. The deadline to apply is August 15th, to start in September. We would like to send two participants to each facility. Once we fill up, we fill up.
\nRobin: I’m curious from Emily, Josh, and Lauren what do you guys think about this program? How do you see it? Do you think it’s a good one? Do you think these are good opportunities?
\nEmily: Absolutely, yeah! I love the component that introduces them to all different aspects of what goes into life at a facility, whether that’s nursing or in the kitchen. That is so valuable, because we really are a team.
\nThat’s great to get a taste of how everyone’s working together.
\nRobin: How about you, Josh?
\nJosh: Yeah, wonderful. Just so grateful for anyone and everyone who is doing work to support Christian Science nursing, the Christian Science nursing ministry, and all of the support.
\nThere’s so many roles that support Christian Science nursing, particularly at a facility. There’s such a need for more Christian Scientists to come forward and fill all these roles.
\nIt is such a support to have Christian Scientists wanting to unselfishly serve the Christian Science nursing ministry.
\nI’m so grateful for everyone who’s working to provide the infrastructure to make that possible. I would encourage anyone who has it in their heart to really want to serve in that way to come forward because I’m sure any facility would welcome it
\nRobin: Lauren?
\nLauren: Thank you. I would agree. One thing that I loved about working at The Leaves and the other facilities that I’ve gotten to visit is the quality of individuals that you get to work with. Seeing their example, their life and their thought, their selflessness, is such a blessing.
\nThe introduction into an organization where the sole purpose is to witness the efficacy of Christian Science healing, and God’s presence and power in our lives, it’s great. I think it’s a great program.
\nRobin: It seems so impressive to me, the training that goes on across the country, in these different facilities and each one may have a little different approach to it.
\nYou guys are very confident in being able to walk into a room and face whatever it is that you might have to face with a sense of knowing what to do.
\nI would love for you to just comment quickly, maybe on the training, Lauren and how it’s benefited you and your progression through it.
\nLauren: It’s not talking about procedures or formulas. Here are some tools. Here is what you can do in certain situations.
\nThey’re just things that are constantly practical, no matter where you are, whether it’s a facility, home, the soccer field, so on and so forth.
\nOne of my favorite ones for example, is you’re thinking about how to turn away from the physical senses without turning away from your fellow man.
\nIt’s just so practical. I’ve seen time after time that the love that’s in your heart, it’s expressed, and how you’re caring for the individual, that Love guides.
\nLove, inspires, illumines, designates and leads the way.
\nWe get to see that daily.
\nRobin: How about you, Josh?
\nJosh: I’ve taken a number of classes in the Christian Science Nursing Arts program here at the BA. It’s an indispensable support to preparing ourselves when we already have that heart and now lives have been readied and prepared to want to have that desire to meet that bylaw of Christian Science nurse in the Manual of The Mother Church.
\nThe Christian Science Nursing Arts program for me has taken that desire and then helped to bring it forward in a practical way.
\nTo meet that bylaw sounds simple on the surface, but there’s so much depth and dimension to each one of those aspects.
\nHaving a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice, but then also to have the practical wisdom necessary in a sick room and to be able to take proper care of the sick.
\nI think there’s so much that goes into that. It’s such an amazing training in the sense that it doesn’t just give you some sort of formulaic, if you say this, do this.
\nIt provides all those practical skills. It really refines your thinking and gives you those skills and the confidence to do that.
\nKnowing that we have standards within the field of Christian Science nursing through these training programs, it gives the public a right sense of just how serious we are about this and that it’s not just something we do on a whim, but that there is a proper preparation and high standards demanded for the care that we do.
\nRobin: Jennifer, would you like to jump in on that? I’d love to hear from you as well.
\nJennifer: There’s definitely different training programs and they all seem to serve an individual need.
\nI think that they all put out great Christian Science nurses. So if you have an interest, feel free to look one up and see what would work for you.
\nTo apply for this program, you should go to ComfortersCalling.org. This is a new national service initiative. This is our first time doing it, so we really hope to have everyone’s support, even if you’re not in the right age range, perhaps you know somebody in the right age range and can send them our way. We would appreciate it.
\nRobin: One of the questions comes from Margaret. Is this a ministry for you all and is being obedient a challenge? Who’d like to jump in on that one?
\nEmily: I have a quick answer for that. Yes, it’s absolutely a ministry. And one of the things that I love about being a Christian Science nurse is that we’re not a Christian Science nurse just for our eight hour shift. Or, however long our shift is. It’s not just when we walk into the facility we’re a Christian Science nurse and when we walk out we’re just Emily.
\nBeing in the mindset of nursing, my fellow man, 24/7 and being ready and available to meet that need whenever I’m called upon.
\nI appreciate that being a Christian Science nurse is not just the job, but it really is how we live our lives. I find such joy in that.
\nRobin: I’m going to ask this question from Priscilla. As a Christian Science nurse, how are you applying Christian Science to see that idea of career unfolding for you?
\nHow about you Josh?
\nJosh: Mrs. Eddy talks about somewhere in Miscellaneous Writings about God guiding every event of our careers. Everyone is going to have such an individual journey.
\nI wouldn’t pretend that I can speak for everyone, but I think in terms of the way Principle unfolds in our experience, I see at least what has led me to understand and to bring out more and more of a sense of purpose and meaningfulness and a sense of feeling like I’m in my right places is to make my job as simple as which is to love God with all your heart and soul mind and love our neighbor as ourself.
\nI think it’s very easy in this day and age, which is so data-driven and analytical and it’s all about networking and all that, which is not to disparage any of the good and those things, but at least in my experience, the demonstration of career as an unfolding thing, getting to the point of becoming a Christian Science nurse and of course, the way that continues to unfold is, seems to be a lot about refining, constant refinement through spiritual growth.
\nThat study. And then of course, Christian Science nursing provides this wonderful avenue to demand of you to go up higher in your spiritual understanding.
\nI’ve just found that instead of focusing on sort of the human circumstances, the way it might look or, what I want to do or what my goals are, to constantly make that one goal of loving God and loving my neighbor as myself.
\nJust bring that into sharper and sharper focus and to grow in my love for God. I love what Mrs. Eddy said about we are obedient as we love. And so refining, what does that mean to love? What, what does that really mean?
\nThat constant study and practice. I find focusing on that just takes care of the human details.
\nRobin: For each of you individually, do you find it more important to be broadening your horizons in the practice of Christian Science? Perhaps through church work or studying broadly or deepening your current area of focus as a Christian Science nurse, perhaps both? Love to hear how each of you approach your career development.
\nLauren: If I understand the question correctly, I think it it goes hand in hand. Because with the Manual bylaw, that is the founding, the first requirement there, that demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice.
\nI’ve noticed that with that desire to love that Josh was just talking about to serve, love God and neighbor as yourself, that unfolds and just brings opportunities of advancement.
\nWhat I’ve noticed here at the facility is that when there are home cases that will come up that I’ll be called to be a part of, or just my own experiences with family members, different ways in which there are opportunities to advance my practice of Christian Science nursing.
\nAlong with that, there’s always a demand to go up higher in our understanding of God’s presence and power and the efficacy of Christian Science. I think it goes hand in hand.
\nEmily: I definitely agree with Lauren. I feel like every experience I have at church or in my Christian Science nursing work that it all benefits each other and supplements each other.
\nI think that any experience that we have and the study that we do will benefit the next step that we take. They definitely go hand in hand.
\nRobin: Without question, you’re so talented. It’s so incredibly assuring to me to see this vibrant group of folks that are committed to this Christian Science nursing.
\nIn my own family, we have been so blessed to have nurses close by. To be able to, to meet the needs of our family. We raised a number of kids and our kids were always active. There’s always been occasions for our whole community to witness the efficacy of Christian Science nursing.
\nI’ve been a coach at our local high school for a number of years, and our kids all went through high school and they always had wonderful support from a local Christian Science nurse that was as good as any support they got from our incredible training staff from our high school. And they were great. There’s 35 people in that training staff.
\nSo when they talk about getting training, they are getting training. I can personally attest to the training that nurses receive because I’ve seen it with my own kids and I’ve seen how quickly they respond to that training.
\nYou have my, I get a little choked up. You have my, thank you, my thankfulness for the care that you all give to our wonderful community. It’s fabulous. It’s fantastic.
\nIf any of you that are out there know of potential young adults who might be a candidate for this, don’t hesitate to reach out to them and share with them about this amazing program.
\nI want you to know how the Albert Baker Fund is supporting Christian Science nursing.
\nI told you at the beginning, go to the AlbertBakerFund.org and click the little tab that says Apply. You can see that right up there.
\nI’ve circled it in big red, and there’ll be a dropdown menu for Christian Science Nurses Education and how you can apply for tuition assistance with these wonderful facilities and training programs that are out there.
\nWe encourage you. Don’t be bashful. Give it a real good prayerful consideration, particularly if you’re a student or a recent graduate.
\nIf you are interested in serving, I challenge you. Think about serving the cause of Christian Science.
\nIt brings about healing. It brings about an incredible spiritual reward and a sense of fulfillment and career development. I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it.
\nThese wonderful people that are here today are shining examples of the talent that we have. So if you want to connect with Lauren, Emily or Josh, you can do so through the ABF Career Alliance.
\nDo an informational interview, I recommend it. Ask them the questions that you didn’t ask today and talk to them one-on-one and we’ll be happy to help facilitate that.
\nWhere do you go to apply? Tell us that website address again, Jennifer.
\nJennifer: ComfortersCalling.org.
\nRobin: Okay, one more time.
\nJennifer: ComfortersCalling.org.
\nRobin: Great. If you’re interested, share this with your church, send it to your board, ask them to send it out to the congregation. If you have family or friends, send it out to them, give them the opportunity that we’ve all had today.
\nAnd this recording is going to come out in a, in a week or so, be sure and share that recording when it comes out with the people that and love so they can hear firsthand how this amazing program is going to be blessing our community.
\nBe sure and keep in touch with the Albert Baker Fund for these incredible events like we’re having today, like us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and connect with us on LinkedIn.
\nToday we got some definite good fishing. If I had my pole and my net, I think my cup would be running over. It’d be full of the fishes of these wonderful ideas and wonderful inspiration from you all.
\nYou have been terrific. I appreciate it. Our community appreciates it.
\nThank you so very, very much for spending your time with us this afternoon.
\nLook forward to seeing you for the next episode. Have a great weekend.
\n", "content_text": "Watch the interview here:\n\nListen to the Podcast \u2013\u00a0Audio Only\n[powerpress]\n\u201cExplore career opportunities through the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps!\u201d\nApply here: ComfortersCalling.org\nAbout Our Guests in this episode:\nEmily Mattson\nEmily developed a love for nursing others at a young age, but didn\u2019t realize that Christian Science nursing was an option for a career path. Through her time in the National Leadership Council and at Principia College, she started thinking more about how to serve the cause of Christian Science and was quickly called to become a Christian Science nurse shortly after graduating. Since then, she has become listed in the Christian Science Journal and has journeyed around the country, nursing in facilities, individuals homes, at youth summer camps, Principia College and as a part of two Christian Science Visiting Nurse services in California. She\u2019s based in Sacramento, California where she enjoys paddle boarding, backpacking and fostering dogs.\nJosh Kenworthy\nJosh Kenworthy is a Christian Science nurse at the Chestnut Hill Benevolent Association, near Boston. Originally from Australia, Josh obtained an Advanced Diploma of Contemporary Music from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and worked as a professional drummer and drum teacher. He then made the switch to journalism, obtaining a Bachelor of Journalism from Monash University in Melbourne and worked in that field in Australia and the US. Throughout this time, a deep and growing desire to understand God and love humanity through the understanding and practice of Christian Science led him to his current role as a Christian Science nurse. Throughout this time, a deep and growing desire to understand God and love humanity through the understanding and practice of Christian Science led him to his current role as a Christian Science nurse.\nLauren Wienecke\nLauren Wienecke has been a Christian Science nurse at The Leaves in Dallas, Texas, since 2016. Her love of the Bible and Christian Science, and desire to follow Jesus\u2019 teachings and example of selfless service to others, continues to be the reason she loves working as a Christian Science nurse.\nJennifer Johnson and The Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps\nJennifer Johnson is Executive Director of The Leaves, in Dallas, Texas, and serves on the Recruiting Team for the Youth Action Committee of the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps. She also worked for 8 years as the Business Manager at Sunrise Haven, the Christian Science Nursing facility in Seattle. Jennifer has a deep love for Christian Science nursing and hold a Master\u2019s Certificate in Nonprofit Organizations.\nJennifer will share information about the on-site internship opportunities through the The Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps. These are 3-month and 9-month paid internship experiences for college students and young adults to explore careers in Christian Science nursing and nursing facilities administration.\nApplications to join the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps are due on August 15, 2021.\nApply here: ComfortersCalling.org\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n\n\nJoin us live for the Net Effect!\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!\nRegister for Upcoming Episodes Watch Net Effect Replays\n\n\n\r\n\r\n\nTranscript of Episode:\nRobin: This is the Net Effect, Career Conversations and Connections. I’m your host, Robin Jones director of the Albert Baker Fund’s Career Alliance.\u00a0\u00a0 We have some special guests for you today.\nI can’t tell you how excited I am about this program. This is going to be packed full of inspiration and ideas. And I can’t wait for you to meet our guests.\nThis episode is really going to be about casting your net on the right side. And you’re going to see some real good examples of that.\nThis Net Effect is sponsored by the Albert Baker Fund. We provide a combination of loan and grant awards to support the education of Christian Scientists around the world. We encourage each of our recipients to pass their blessings forward.\nToday is going to be focused on Christian Science nursing. I’m going to come back to this later and we’ll talk more about how you can receive financial tuition assistance from the Albert Baker Fund.\nWe’re going to focus on the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps.\nThat may be a new term for many of you out there. After this episode, you’re going to be real familiar with it. I thought it would be really good to start with some folks that are actually working in Christian Science nursing, and some young adults.\nThe Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps is focused on college students and young adults.\nWe’re gonna meet Emily, Josh, Lauren, and a little bit later, Jennifer, so that you can see firsthand and hear firsthand from three very special folks that are already working in the Christian Science nursing field, in different parts of the United States.\nI want to welcome Emily, Josh Lauren and Jennifer. Jennifer is also the Executive Director for the Leaves in Dallas, Texas.\nWelcome you all. We’re going to start with our dear friend Lauren.\nLauren, let’s start with the camp counselor, where you were as a camp counselor, in your journey. And let’s talk about what that looked like for you.\nLauren: I went to Cedars Camps as a camper and then later as a counselor for a long time. I loved it. I love the opportunity to work with young Christian Scientists learning about the Bible and Christian Science, Science and Health, and applying the principles of Christian Science in their daily activities. It was just such a fun avenue for learning and demonstrating Christian Science.\nRobin: Once you graduated from school, where did you go at that point?\nLauren: I played soccer at Principia College. I stayed back and coached at both the College and the Upper School for a couple of years. I loved that. I love the avenue of learning about God and Christian Science.\nI really wanted to do something that was very Manual based. Christian Science nursing came into my thought. I loved as I started working as a Christian Science nurse, just how Manual based it was, and also how biblically based it was.\nI felt like it was a great fulfilling of Jesus’ commands, teaching to love your neighbor as yourself and love God with your heart, mind, and soul. After he’s washed his disciples feet, it was like, if I’ve done this to you as your Lord and master, you ought to do it to your fellow man.\nThrough my training I’ve gone through, I’m getting to be a genuine disciple of Christ Jesus. I love that. It’s been wonderful.\nRobin: I love that quote. I put that in there, you shared that with us and you had several other quotes, but this one really resonated with me.\nI love the idea of feeding the hungry and thirsty and give them a drink. I wonder if Emily or Josh, if that resonates with you guys as well? Do you find that in your nursing practice as well?\nEmily: Of course. I think all of us Christian Science nurses, even if we use different passages or come to it in a different way, I think this passage guides us all.\nJosh: What I love about that idea is, Jesus pointed in numerous times in the gospel, he mentions food and drink and gives a literal sense of those and that the human need for food and drink. Also it gives us that quiet translation of what those ideas are spiritually.\nWhat I love about Christian Science nursing is it really is supporting both. As we care for our fellow men and women, and very practically helping with nourishment and all of that, but also really seeing that each patient is being fed spiritually and supporting an atmosphere that allows for that to happen.\nRobin: In your journey, help us see when that pivotal moment took place, where you said, okay, I want to go this direction. What was some of the thought processes you went through with that?\nLauren: What I really enjoyed with the Christian Science nursing bylaw was that it was so specific and so defined as to what that means. There’s really thorough and wonderful training as to feeling confident and to fulfilling that bylaw.\nIn my work, when someone’s needing help, it is Principle that’s answering. That bylaw is what’s showing up and that it is a demonstrable knowledge, it’s the practical wisdom, the proper care. I really loved how grounded that was. It’s all the same bylaw, and that’s across the field. It’s great to have that bylaw founding.\nRobin: Your journey took you into a Christian Science nursing facility in Dallas. How did you get there?\nLauren: It was my mom that brought it to me. I grew up in Oklahoma and she knew of The Leaves. She knew what I was wanting to do something new and she brought up The Leaves.\nI really loved what I saw. They were able to provide housing. It was just a nice situation, a complete package. It was very fitting. We have an instructor here at The Leaves and mentors and everything.\nIt felt so complete. It was easy to move into working in The Leaves and I’ve loved it.\nRobin: How long have you been working there?\nLauren: It’s been about five years here. It’s been wonderful.\nRobin: How has the training been and the mentoring? What’s that been like for you?\nLauren: It’s been both at The Leaves and also up at the Benevolent Association, Chestnut Hill and I really enjoyed that.\nThe program that The Leaves does is the one that is taught out of the BA, the Christian Science Nursing Arts.\nI’ve loved it. My first class was down at The Leaves and then my second class was at the BA. We do about a four and five week class time with the instructors there. And then I’ll come back and there’s mentors at The Leaves who can do some on the job training for a couple of months with me until they feel that I’m ready to work on my own.\nThen when the next class comes up, I get to go do that. In that way, it is fun too, because I’ve gotten to meet other Christian Science nurses both at the BA and other facilities will also send their nurses to go through that training courses.\nIt’s been really fun just to see the quality of Christian Science nursing that’s throughout the entire field, through those classes, and be able to bring that back to my work here at The Leaves and just feel invigorated. It’s a great collective work and really fun to be a part of.\nRobin: It’s so wonderful to learn all that, and I’m going to pass it over now to Josh.\nJosh started his professional career as a musician and drummer in Australia. So tell us a little bit about how you got started and your journey, and let us learn about Josh!\nJosh: My journey’s been interesting and a winding one is as I feel like God has continually shaped my life and uplifted my desires and my sense of what life’s about.\nI grew up with Christian Science. From day one, the branch church I attended is, is I believe the most remote branch church on the globe. It’s about as far from Boston as you can get.\nGrowing up, I had some lovely healings. I always felt like Christian Science was taught and showed us the truth as Christ Jesus taught it. Through healings that I had, I just had this increasing hunger to understand it and demonstrate it. It didn’t feel like my doing.\nIn my late teens, I was always very on fire about things, sports and music, and just loved the freedom of expression of soul in all of those things.\nI started to pursue a career in music, in late high school, and went with that right up through post high school then went to a music school and then worked and taught professionally in that space.\nI loved it. And outwardly, my life was wonderful. I had good friends and just what felt like a very full, enriched life.\nBut deep, deep down there were some more fundamentally pressing spiritual questions. And that spiritual hunger, that desire to understand God, just kept knocking at my mental door.\nAs I kept praying and striving to understand Christian Science better, it sort of eventually unfolded for me that while I loved music, I felt like the world surrounding it, and particularly for me, my motives in doing it, weren’t big enough for what I was learning in Christian Science about who we are and my need to love humanity more broadly.\nI grew up with the Christian Science Monitor and I always had a deep interest in the world, and this hunger me unfolded to branch out and to understand the world and know more about the world and how it works and sort of embrace humanity more.\nShortly around the same time as that transition happened, I took Christian Science class instruction. The relationship I was in fell away.\nIt was very hard to let go of it first, but it felt like I was being asked to just focus on spiritual goals.\nSo I moved to the other side of Australia and pursued my degree in journalism. During that time, it was a lot of wrestling, a lot of overturning in my thinking and my heart and continual growth. Not without its struggles, but it felt fruitful and deeply meaningful.\nI finished my degree in journalism and then lovely things unfolded for me to then work in the field in ways I couldn’t have expected. I ended up working in finance journalism, which I had no interest in until this opportunity came up and it just felt right.\nWhat I noticed throughout this whole time is that while these human shifts were taking place and I was exploring, and my desires were being uplifted, the core focus, the sole hunger in me was to understand God and to know what it meant to love.\nTo love God with all my heart, and to learn what that meant for loving humanity. Being a member of The Mother Church by this stage and working in branch church work, I found myself… Mrs. Eddy tells us there is plenty of employment within the Mother Church for all its members.\nI wasn’t necessarily consciously thinking about that, but I found that my desire was just to channel everything into that purely spiritual focus and to see the scientific, spiritual dimension to all of the different offices and opportunities to work directly for church in, as Lauren said, these Manual based activities.\nMy work eventually took me to the United States and I worked in journalism here as well. This unfoldment in my experience was so wonderful and it just felt so right. And God governed the timing of things happened in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.\nI wanted just to keep my thought close to God and I want to be directly involved in this ministry of Christian Science healing. I wanted to really understand what that is and to see as much of it demonstrated as I can.\nThere was a point one day in my previous work where I was sitting at my desk and just reaching out inwardly. I opened my Bible on my desk to look for some inspiration. I know Mrs. Eddy used to do this all the time. She would open her Bible and always find inspiration.\nI cannot say that it’s true for me. Sometimes I open to a genealogy or something that I’m not yet seeing the deeper meaning there, but on this occasion, it it really spoke to me.\nIt was Jesus speaking in Mark, and he said it’s Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them. And their great ones, exercise authority upon them, but so shall it not be among you, but whosoever will be great among you shall be your minister and whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be servant of all. For even the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.\nIt was like everything I’ve been doing, had been channeling this good direction, but something in me really felt like I can of mine own self, do nothing. I sort of felt like I was spinning my wheels a bit.\nAnd yet felt like God had more for me to do or something different for me to do. So I started to just cherish this meek feeling of wanting to be in that place of service and just humility, because I knew that I needed it so much.\nThe job I was in wrapped up and it didn’t feel like a disappointing thing. It felt much more like an opening of the way and just loved that, that job as well and that time, but then it was just a real opening up.\nFirst, I thought it was all over the place a bit and sort of thinking, what do I do next? And as the dust settled Christian Science nursing sort of stood out like a mountain peak on the mental horizon. Some lovely timing and things unfolded for that to all work out and for it to be a seamless transition into Christian Science nursing, and Christian Science nurses training at the BA.\nIt’s just been such an incredible practical support as I’ve grown in my ministry as a Christian Science nurse, and this is just a really vital support to that, to being able to meet the bylaw that Lauren was talking about\nRobin: That’s a real interesting journey from the further hinderest outposts of the world into the backyard of The Mother Church. That’s pretty remarkable, Josh.\nEmily, it’s your turn to say howdy. And tell us about your unique journey.\nEmily: I loved hearing about how Josh and Lauren learned about Christian Science nursing, and I feel like mine was a little bit different because I feel like Christian Science nursing was knocking at my door for a long time.\nI started when I was younger, when I was in high school and maybe even in middle school. I started volunteering in a capacity that had me caring for developmentally disabled individuals, non-Christian Scientists.\nThrough that, and then filling my summers throughout college, at Principia, I worked at Twelve Acres because my uncle had lived there in the past.\nI ended up working at Olive Glen after I graduated just to fill the time and never really thought that Christian Science nursing was something that I was going to stick with full-time.\nI actually ended up moving to St. Louis and working in the Peace Haven office, in an administrative role.\nI remember, I woke up one day when there was just one hour every month that I would be covering the nursing floor at Peace Haven.\nAll of their Christian Science nurses were having their monthly meeting. And that hour I looked forward to that hour every month.\nAnd that was the highlight of my month. One day I was like, why don’t I do this full time?\nI love caring for people. I knew that after graduating Principia and how it’s so nice to be in a Christian Science community, I was really searching that in my post-grad life as well.\nIt was almost an overnight decision. Christian Science nursing has been there for me for as long as I can remember. And it’s just been knocking on my door and patiently waiting for me to realize that was my calling.\nIt was a lot of little experiences throughout my life that all added up to me realizing that Christian Science nursing was something that was natural for me to do as my career.\nRobin: Your training has been a little bit different than Lauren’s and Josh’s.\nTalk to us about your training and the direction that’s taken you. And tell us a little bit about that.\nEmily: I’m not familiar with the training at all the facilities. But I do know that some facilities have a training program of their own.\nFor me personally, I was trained at Olive Glen in Sacramento, but with the curriculum from Le Verger, which is in Switzerland.\nThat curriculum is a little bit different.\nNumber one, it’s based around the Socratic method. You ask the question and ask for an answer before you give the answer, if that makes sense.\nIt’s a one-on-one classroom. The different programs are similar in terms of how many weeks or hours you’ll have in the classroom.\nIt’s a little more focused on perhaps not nursing in a Western facility or not nursing in a facility at all.\nCertainly all of the programs have a foundation in the metaphysics and why we’re doing the work that we’re doing.\nThis curriculum focuses a little bit more on maybe being in someone’s home without these Western supplies.\nHow would you work through this? How would you care for this person with what’s right in front of you?\nThat has translated well into my work. I work a little bit more as a visiting nurse or as a private duty nurse. More recently, even though I love facility nursing, I definitely fell in love with Christian Science nursing at Olive Glen and the other facilities that I’ve been able to nurse at.\nI appreciated the one-on-one aspect as well.\nRobin: A visiting nurse, what does that mean? What’s different about that than working in a facility? Tell us a little bit about what that looks like and what the work is for folks that may or may not know about what a visiting nurse is?\nEmily: I mentioned private duty nursing as well. Private duty nursing is working in someone’s home.\nAnd that could be shifts of time during the day. Or you could be there 24/7. And that’s a little bit more catered towards helping someone just go about their daily activities. That’s bathing and dressing, mobility, helping them get meals and such like that. A visiting nurse is based on shorter increments of time.\nAnd so a visiting nurse service might visit for a maximum of one or two hours a day. And it’s a little bit more of a supplement to that person’s day rather than helping them carry out those ordinary tasks, daily tasks.\nIf someone can take care of themselves for the majority of the day, but might need someone to stand by while they take a shower or help them with that shower.\nMaybe they just need some help with a bandaging, cleansing and covering need. And so it’s shorter visits. And then also a lot of the visiting nurse services around the country respond to immediate needs as well. And so we would respond to a need with someone who might need someone there quickly.\nBut of course we were always there and in the right time and then perhaps being able to support until they find care from a private duty nurse or a facility.\nRobin: This is from Emily. She asked the question, what has been the most challenging aspect of being a Christian Science nurse as a young person, and how have you prayed about it?\nLauren, would you be willing to jump in first and answer Emily’s question?\nLauren: Sure. I’m not really sure if I can say anything about like specifically as a young person per se, but I think maybe just the thought of like supply for the long term, but just as far as payment.\nI think there’s been a lot of great progress with that, recognition of the value of Christian Science nursing by organizations and facilities themselves and just trying to help the Christian Science nurses in that way.\nI just prayed about that with divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.\nAs a Christian Science nurse, that’s what we’re doing every day, is reflecting that love, that love is reflected in love and knowing that giving it doesn’t impoverish, us and ideas are infinite, infinite resources of soul.\nI have just seen that in every way that my needs are being met.\nI’m sure every Christian Science nurse can attest to, but that’s the first thing that jumps out to me.\nRobin: How about you, Josh?\nJosh: In terms of supply, and the practicalities, it’s such an important thing. Being in service to God is not about poverty. There’s been so much wonderful work by all sorts of individuals in the background to continually support and explore ways to bring up the rates and pay and all sorts of things for nurses, Christian Science nurses around the United States and elsewhere in the world as well.\nI love what Lauren said about pointing to those spiritual ideas, to take to heart what Jesus said about seek ye first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.\nI’ve never found that not to be true and not just sort of just enough, but a relative sense of abundance. To really know that the way our needs are met doesn’t always have to be, you provide a service and payment is rendered for that service.\nIn my experience, the way I’ve seen, taking that promise to heart and putting all our eggs into one basket, which is that we are heartedly trusting that substance is a spiritual thing and comes from God.\nBy investing in spiritual riches, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. That is not an abstract thing or an impractical thing.\nIt’s really actually fun to test those scientific laws and see that time and time again, God meets our needs and in practical ways. But also to trust that it is daily supply and Jesus did say, it’s about daily bread and that includes the practical supply and the spiritual ideas and inspirations that bring forth that practical supply.\nI’ve never found wanting in pursuing spiritual good. Coming into Christian Science, nursing has been a wonderful thing as well.\nRobin: Emily, I know you have personal goals and you’ve been moving around and you like to travel a little bit. , Have you found a similar thing that going into to the nursing profession and the Christian Science nursing profession, have you been able to see some of your goals being met?\nEmily: Absolutely. Even after I started Christian Science nurses training, I still in the back of my mind thought, you know what, I’m a recent graduate and I want to be traveling the world and I want to be still as serving the needs of different communities around the world.\nThat has been just such a working out. Because number one, serving this community has been such a blessing.\nCertainly that is fulfilling enough. It’s also been nice making my own schedule for when I am taking cases. And so within that, in my time off, I am able to travel just for leisure. I’ve also really enjoyed finding volunteer opportunities outside of my work.\nI satiate that desire to be working with global communities or, quote unquote marginalized communities within my local area. And so it definitely everything that I thought that I would be. Maybe missing out on by not pursuing a career, other careers that I’ve been thinking about.\nI’ve found other ways to implement those in my daily life, through volunteer work, or just by scheduling myself in a way that lets me have chunks of time to get that travel bug as well.\nRobin: Those are some great insights into some really important questions for particularly students that are still in school or recent graduates that may be thinking about, where to go and gosh, if I can make a living?\nCan I pay my bills? Can I do the things that I want to do?\nJennifer, welcome! Jennifer is the Executive Director at The Leaves in Dallas, where Lauren works.\nWe wanted Jennifer to come in because she’s been working so judiciously with the Christian Science Nursing Youth Service Corps.\nThere are some wonderful opportunities that we wanted to make sure that everyone knows about, learns about. So I wanted Jennifer to be able to come in and maybe talk a little bit about some of these programs.\nI traveled the country and I’ve talked to tons and tons and tons of students and recent graduates and, they always bring forward this idea of wanting to serve.\nAnd I say to them, do you think about serving the cause of Christian Science and how many ways there are to do that?\nI wanted Jennifer to jump in here and talk a little bit about what that looks like. Welcome, ma’am thank you.\nJennifer: Nice to be here, thanks Robin.\nI love it when Mrs. Eddy talks about loving more and serving better. Christian Science nursing is an inspired atmosphere to be able to serve church in.\nThis program is for 18 to 30 year olds. It’s going to give a general overview of what it’s like to work in Christian Science nursing at different Christian Science nursing facilities across the nation. They’re very flexible programs.\nYou could be going to college and still be in this program and there’s a three month program and a nine month program, part-time or full-time, and it pays $15 an hour.\nAt the end of it, you get a financial education award that you could use towards college or towards a Christian Science nurses training program.\nWe start in September.\nRobin: That also includes housing. Is that correct?\nJennifer: It does include housing. So if you are a college student who really could use some housing, while you go to college, and could use $15 an hour, why not serve church while doing it?\nOne of the things that I really liked and the 400 Beacon Street book that’s out, Mrs. Eddy, when she’s interviewing people to come work in their house, she tells them to be asked, what would you do for Christian Science?\nOur panelists, you can tell that, their full heart is in serving Christian Science and serving their fellow man while doing it.\nIf that is an interest to you to serve your fellow man, and to serve church, there are different roles that you can do that in. You will get a general overview in each of the areas of a facility.\nSo you’ll learn a little bit about Christian Science nursing. You could learn a little bit about HR administration, marketing. You can learn about the culinary arts, if that’s your passion. Maintenance and housekeeping is also available. So everybody could get a general overview and serve the amount of time that they want in each.\nRobin: I love the idea because there are a number of students that want to find experience. They’re torn, they’re being told you gotta get an internship. You gotta go find experience. You gotta do this, you gotta do that. So opening that door to say, Hey, Look over here, we’ve got some of those opportunities and I can bet you that you might find if you’re one of those students or recent graduates, you might find a plethora of experience from lots of different projects and job opportunities when you work with a facility because there’s loads of things that can be done, and there are people willing to let you do it, right?\nJennifer: That’s right, definitely.\nRobin: Talk about some of the different places that are out there. We’ve listed all the facilities that have the training program for the Youth Service Corps. Talk to us about that.\nJennifer: These are all of the facilities that have signed up to be part of this program.\nYou could go to New York, Princeton, New Jersey, Dallas, Texas Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or St. Louis.\nRobin: Well, that’s all across the country. Are there a number of spaces? Is it limited?\nJennifer: There is a limited amount so apply today. The deadline to apply is August 15th, to start in September. We would like to send two participants to each facility. Once we fill up, we fill up.\nRobin: I’m curious from Emily, Josh, and Lauren what do you guys think about this program? How do you see it? Do you think it’s a good one? Do you think these are good opportunities?\nEmily: Absolutely, yeah! I love the component that introduces them to all different aspects of what goes into life at a facility, whether that’s nursing or in the kitchen. That is so valuable, because we really are a team.\nThat’s great to get a taste of how everyone’s working together.\nRobin: How about you, Josh?\nJosh: Yeah, wonderful. Just so grateful for anyone and everyone who is doing work to support Christian Science nursing, the Christian Science nursing ministry, and all of the support.\nThere’s so many roles that support Christian Science nursing, particularly at a facility. There’s such a need for more Christian Scientists to come forward and fill all these roles.\nIt is such a support to have Christian Scientists wanting to unselfishly serve the Christian Science nursing ministry.\nI’m so grateful for everyone who’s working to provide the infrastructure to make that possible. I would encourage anyone who has it in their heart to really want to serve in that way to come forward because I’m sure any facility would welcome it\nRobin: Lauren?\nLauren: Thank you. I would agree. One thing that I loved about working at The Leaves and the other facilities that I’ve gotten to visit is the quality of individuals that you get to work with. Seeing their example, their life and their thought, their selflessness, is such a blessing.\nThe introduction into an organization where the sole purpose is to witness the efficacy of Christian Science healing, and God’s presence and power in our lives, it’s great. I think it’s a great program.\nRobin: It seems so impressive to me, the training that goes on across the country, in these different facilities and each one may have a little different approach to it.\nYou guys are very confident in being able to walk into a room and face whatever it is that you might have to face with a sense of knowing what to do.\nI would love for you to just comment quickly, maybe on the training, Lauren and how it’s benefited you and your progression through it.\nLauren: It’s not talking about procedures or formulas. Here are some tools. Here is what you can do in certain situations.\nThey’re just things that are constantly practical, no matter where you are, whether it’s a facility, home, the soccer field, so on and so forth.\nOne of my favorite ones for example, is you’re thinking about how to turn away from the physical senses without turning away from your fellow man.\nIt’s just so practical. I’ve seen time after time that the love that’s in your heart, it’s expressed, and how you’re caring for the individual, that Love guides.\nLove, inspires, illumines, designates and leads the way.\nWe get to see that daily.\nRobin: How about you, Josh?\nJosh: I’ve taken a number of classes in the Christian Science Nursing Arts program here at the BA. It’s an indispensable support to preparing ourselves when we already have that heart and now lives have been readied and prepared to want to have that desire to meet that bylaw of Christian Science nurse in the Manual of The Mother Church.\nThe Christian Science Nursing Arts program for me has taken that desire and then helped to bring it forward in a practical way.\nTo meet that bylaw sounds simple on the surface, but there’s so much depth and dimension to each one of those aspects.\nHaving a demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice, but then also to have the practical wisdom necessary in a sick room and to be able to take proper care of the sick.\nI think there’s so much that goes into that. It’s such an amazing training in the sense that it doesn’t just give you some sort of formulaic, if you say this, do this.\nIt provides all those practical skills. It really refines your thinking and gives you those skills and the confidence to do that.\nKnowing that we have standards within the field of Christian Science nursing through these training programs, it gives the public a right sense of just how serious we are about this and that it’s not just something we do on a whim, but that there is a proper preparation and high standards demanded for the care that we do.\nRobin: Jennifer, would you like to jump in on that? I’d love to hear from you as well.\nJennifer: There’s definitely different training programs and they all seem to serve an individual need.\nI think that they all put out great Christian Science nurses. So if you have an interest, feel free to look one up and see what would work for you.\nTo apply for this program, you should go to ComfortersCalling.org. This is a new national service initiative. This is our first time doing it, so we really hope to have everyone’s support, even if you’re not in the right age range, perhaps you know somebody in the right age range and can send them our way. We would appreciate it.\nRobin: One of the questions comes from Margaret. Is this a ministry for you all and is being obedient a challenge? Who’d like to jump in on that one?\nEmily: I have a quick answer for that. Yes, it’s absolutely a ministry. And one of the things that I love about being a Christian Science nurse is that we’re not a Christian Science nurse just for our eight hour shift. Or, however long our shift is. It’s not just when we walk into the facility we’re a Christian Science nurse and when we walk out we’re just Emily.\nBeing in the mindset of nursing, my fellow man, 24/7 and being ready and available to meet that need whenever I’m called upon.\nI appreciate that being a Christian Science nurse is not just the job, but it really is how we live our lives. I find such joy in that.\nRobin: I’m going to ask this question from Priscilla. As a Christian Science nurse, how are you applying Christian Science to see that idea of career unfolding for you?\nHow about you Josh?\nJosh: Mrs. Eddy talks about somewhere in Miscellaneous Writings about God guiding every event of our careers. Everyone is going to have such an individual journey.\nI wouldn’t pretend that I can speak for everyone, but I think in terms of the way Principle unfolds in our experience, I see at least what has led me to understand and to bring out more and more of a sense of purpose and meaningfulness and a sense of feeling like I’m in my right places is to make my job as simple as which is to love God with all your heart and soul mind and love our neighbor as ourself.\nI think it’s very easy in this day and age, which is so data-driven and analytical and it’s all about networking and all that, which is not to disparage any of the good and those things, but at least in my experience, the demonstration of career as an unfolding thing, getting to the point of becoming a Christian Science nurse and of course, the way that continues to unfold is, seems to be a lot about refining, constant refinement through spiritual growth.\nThat study. And then of course, Christian Science nursing provides this wonderful avenue to demand of you to go up higher in your spiritual understanding.\nI’ve just found that instead of focusing on sort of the human circumstances, the way it might look or, what I want to do or what my goals are, to constantly make that one goal of loving God and loving my neighbor as myself.\nJust bring that into sharper and sharper focus and to grow in my love for God. I love what Mrs. Eddy said about we are obedient as we love. And so refining, what does that mean to love? What, what does that really mean?\nThat constant study and practice. I find focusing on that just takes care of the human details.\nRobin: For each of you individually, do you find it more important to be broadening your horizons in the practice of Christian Science? Perhaps through church work or studying broadly or deepening your current area of focus as a Christian Science nurse, perhaps both? Love to hear how each of you approach your career development.\nLauren: If I understand the question correctly, I think it it goes hand in hand. Because with the Manual bylaw, that is the founding, the first requirement there, that demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice.\nI’ve noticed that with that desire to love that Josh was just talking about to serve, love God and neighbor as yourself, that unfolds and just brings opportunities of advancement.\nWhat I’ve noticed here at the facility is that when there are home cases that will come up that I’ll be called to be a part of, or just my own experiences with family members, different ways in which there are opportunities to advance my practice of Christian Science nursing.\nAlong with that, there’s always a demand to go up higher in our understanding of God’s presence and power and the efficacy of Christian Science. I think it goes hand in hand.\nEmily: I definitely agree with Lauren. I feel like every experience I have at church or in my Christian Science nursing work that it all benefits each other and supplements each other.\nI think that any experience that we have and the study that we do will benefit the next step that we take. They definitely go hand in hand.\nRobin: Without question, you’re so talented. It’s so incredibly assuring to me to see this vibrant group of folks that are committed to this Christian Science nursing.\nIn my own family, we have been so blessed to have nurses close by. To be able to, to meet the needs of our family. We raised a number of kids and our kids were always active. There’s always been occasions for our whole community to witness the efficacy of Christian Science nursing.\nI’ve been a coach at our local high school for a number of years, and our kids all went through high school and they always had wonderful support from a local Christian Science nurse that was as good as any support they got from our incredible training staff from our high school. And they were great. There’s 35 people in that training staff.\nSo when they talk about getting training, they are getting training. I can personally attest to the training that nurses receive because I’ve seen it with my own kids and I’ve seen how quickly they respond to that training.\nYou have my, I get a little choked up. You have my, thank you, my thankfulness for the care that you all give to our wonderful community. It’s fabulous. It’s fantastic.\nIf any of you that are out there know of potential young adults who might be a candidate for this, don’t hesitate to reach out to them and share with them about this amazing program.\nI want you to know how the Albert Baker Fund is supporting Christian Science nursing.\nI told you at the beginning, go to the AlbertBakerFund.org and click the little tab that says Apply. You can see that right up there.\nI’ve circled it in big red, and there’ll be a dropdown menu for Christian Science Nurses Education and how you can apply for tuition assistance with these wonderful facilities and training programs that are out there.\nWe encourage you. Don’t be bashful. Give it a real good prayerful consideration, particularly if you’re a student or a recent graduate.\nIf you are interested in serving, I challenge you. Think about serving the cause of Christian Science.\nIt brings about healing. It brings about an incredible spiritual reward and a sense of fulfillment and career development. I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it.\nThese wonderful people that are here today are shining examples of the talent that we have. So if you want to connect with Lauren, Emily or Josh, you can do so through the ABF Career Alliance.\nDo an informational interview, I recommend it. Ask them the questions that you didn’t ask today and talk to them one-on-one and we’ll be happy to help facilitate that.\nWhere do you go to apply? Tell us that website address again, Jennifer.\nJennifer: ComfortersCalling.org.\nRobin: Okay, one more time.\nJennifer: ComfortersCalling.org.\nRobin: Great. If you’re interested, share this with your church, send it to your board, ask them to send it out to the congregation. If you have family or friends, send it out to them, give them the opportunity that we’ve all had today.\nAnd this recording is going to come out in a, in a week or so, be sure and share that recording when it comes out with the people that and love so they can hear firsthand how this amazing program is going to be blessing our community.\nBe sure and keep in touch with the Albert Baker Fund for these incredible events like we’re having today, like us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and connect with us on LinkedIn.\nToday we got some definite good fishing. If I had my pole and my net, I think my cup would be running over. It’d be full of the fishes of these wonderful ideas and wonderful inspiration from you all.\nYou have been terrific. I appreciate it. Our community appreciates it.\nThank you so very, very much for spending your time with us this afternoon.\nLook forward to seeing you for the next episode. Have a great weekend.", "date_published": "2021-06-24T09:32:46-07:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-21T12:23:08-07:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Gabriel Serafini", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/author/admin/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bddbb394eff14300a8d1b157a5407e4c7c907bc3c74f4f50f8313e8ef70c0f?s=512&d=mm&r=g" } ], "author": { "name": "Gabriel Serafini", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/author/admin/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bddbb394eff14300a8d1b157a5407e4c7c907bc3c74f4f50f8313e8ef70c0f?s=512&d=mm&r=g" }, "image": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/files/2021/06/net-effect-44-christian-science.jpg", "tags": [ "career success", "christian science nurse", "christian science nursing", "christian science nursing youth service corps", "education", "internships", "opportunities", "student life", "Homepage Featured", "Net Effect Career Conversations and Connections", "Podcast", "Videos", "Webinars" ], "attachments": [ { "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/429/files/2021/06/Net-Effect-44-Christian-Science-Nursing-Youth-Service-Corps.mp3", "mime_type": "audio/mpeg", "size_in_bytes": 43816233 } ] }, { "id": "https://abfcareeralliance.org/?p=3402", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/2021/03/12/net-effect-38-lamech-katamba-manager-of-abfs-africa-programs-in-13-countries/", "title": "Net Effect #38: Lamech Katamba, Manager of ABF\u2019s Africa Programs in 13 countries", "content_html": "\n\n\n“I feel so blessed to witness the transformation of people.”\n
About Our Speaker:
\nLamech Katamba, ABF\u2019s Africa Programs Manager since 2009, is a living testament to The Albert Baker Fund\u2019s core value of \u201cpassing your blessings forward.\u201d He grew up in the small Africa village of Kyamulinga, where he developed his passion for education, entrepreneurship, and community, and where he returned to play an instrumental role in starting the Kyamulinga Primary School that serves 230 children.
Today, Lamech lives in the capital city of Kampala, Uganda where he is active in the Christian Science Society.
\nLamech\u2019s career journey has been a remarkable expression of living the Christ and sharing what he has learned from his study of Christian Science far and wide.
\nAs manager of ABF\u2019s scholarship programs in13 African countries, Lamech says his \u201cbiggest joy and gratification comes from having the privilege of witnessing how ABF students are making huge impacts in their communities, countries, and Africa at-large.\u201d
\nLamech has a BA in Development Studies, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Micro-Finance from Makerere University, where he helped to establish a Christian Science Organization as a student. He serves on the Advisory Board of Asante Africa Foundation, a nonprofit that works with primary and secondary schools in rural Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda; and the board of Singo Vocational Institute in Kyamulinga. He also serves on the board of the Three Rivers Academy, an International Secondary School in Kenya, sponsored by E3Schools.org
\nLamech is married to Joy Katamba, an architect and interior designer, and also an ABF beneficiary. They are blessed with two-year old triplets, two girls and a boy.
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\nTranscript of episode
\nRobin: This is the Net Effect, and I am your host Robin Jones, director of the ABF Career Alliance. Our special guest today is Lamech Katamba. Lamech is from Kampala, Uganda, and he is one of our very own, we are so excited to have him.
\nHe is the manager of our Africa programs. Welcome Lamech.
\nLamech: Thank you. Thank you, Robin.
\nRobin: This has been so much fun getting to know you and being able to learn about your journey and your incredible work that you do on a day-to-day basis.
\nSo Lamech tell us a little bit about yourself and where you’re from.
\nLamech: Thank you. Thank you Robin. I grew up from a very small village found in Bukuya County in Kasanda District central Uganda.
\nRobin: And this is your village, your house right here, isn’t it?
\nYeah, you’re right.
\nThat’s so fun, Lamech.
\nLamech: It looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere.
\nRobin: Right? Right. That’s kinda like how I grew up in a small town but not a village. . So I, I thought we’d start off with this picture. Tell us about this picture Lamech and why this is so important to you and, and how it’s kind of shaped your future.
\nLamech: Well, that is actually my dad and that little man there is standing with dad is\u00a0\u00a0 Lamech
\nSo my dad was a farmer. He used to grow coffee and banana, but also use to make local beer for commercial purposes. He used to sell a beer, but on the special days, like Christmas and Easter, he used to give away beer for free. So villagers and many other people used to come home to celebrate Christmas or Easter or any other special days.
\nAnd among the people used to come home were also my teachers from my primary school. So every time they come home and drink and got drunk that they used to beat drums, you know, get happy. And I was the dancer cause I used to be a very good dancer and every time I dance, they used to give money.
\nThat was the same money we used to pay for school fees. During that time, that’s when the teachers also put to give reports, nice reports about me from school, how I used to pass very well and also how I used to do very good in sports. So the teacher has really made my village mates to like me a lot.
\nI was a kid of the village.
\nRobin: Oh, that’s so fun. And this is actually the school that you went to when you were a little guy, when you were doing that, making those impressive dance moves to all your teachers, right?
\nLamech: Yeah, that’s my school. It’s called Makonzi Charter of Uganda primary school.
\nIt was about five kilometers from my home. And I used to just walk to my home. And actually there was an incident. One day I was walking together with the rest of the kids from the village, walking towards school, and something happened. That was a man who jumped from the forest and wanted to grab me.
\nAnd I ran towards school, but the rest of the kids ran back to the village. I think this man must have thought it was easier to chase after me who was alone than chasing the rest of the kids. But what he didn’t know is that I was actually the fastest. I used to win a lot of awards and medals for the school because of my fast running.
\nI used to do a hundred meters split, so he couldn’t catch me. But I remember when I was about to reach school running, I looked behind and I saw the man who was actually coming very fast and I was getting tired, but I realized it was actually the bag, the school bag, which was making me slow down. So I decided to throw away the school bag, and then, yeah, that freed me.
\nAnd I ran faster until I reached school. Kids and teachers were surrounding me and some were actually crying. I found out later why they were crying. They said, when they ran back to the village, they got their parents to escort them to school.
\nAnd when they are coming there, they saw my bag, which I had thrown away. So they thought Lamech had been taken maybe. So when they saw me later at school, still alive, they were so happy. So it was tears of joy. And so at that moment, the teachers decided to move me away from the village.
\nRobin: That was really an impactful moment and a time in your life, huh?
\nLamech: Yeah, because it actually changed everything, because even my grades started improving because when you tell me where to stay. Yup. And as I teach has bought me books as a teacher, almost every teacher was contributing something because, you know, they really liked me because I used to win for them a lot of awards and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was a good kid in class. So this helped me out a lot. And my teacher has promised to me that if I ever pass in a grade one, they will take me to Kampala, which is the capital city, and I’d never been there. So I worked for that. And indeed I passed the grade one, which was a history in the history of the school.
\nIt was the first time for a kid to pass in a grade one. So they asked me, do you have any relative in the city? Because they couldn’t afford tuition and those accommodations. So I said yes, I had a sister who was staying in Kampala in a place called Kauempe and so they brought me to my sister’s place and they took me to Kauempe secondary school.
\nSo now I was really happy and excited. What was very interesting is that the walking didn’t stop. In the village I used to make it 10 kilometers a day. And when they brought me to the city, it became almost 16 because I used to make eight kilometers one way and then another eight kilometers back.
\nWhat was very exciting or what was different is that this time I had shoes. They had gotten me my first pair of shoes. And I was so excited to put on shoes. The unfortunate part was that these shoes were plastic. They were plastic shoes from China. And every time I would walk in during the day when it is hot, there could almost melt, and burn my feet, but I never wanted to remove them because I was so excited to put on shoes.
\nRobin: And how old were you when you moved from the village?
\nLamech: I was turning 14. Yes. I was nervous because these kids in the city were all speaking English, good English, and I was the only person who didn’t know how to speak English. Because in my village, the school there, even the teachers, some teachers didn’t know how to speak good English. So they preferred to teach us in, in local language Luganda. So the thing, which helped me a lot, was at my new school in the city, they were teaching French, and French was a new language to all the kids including the Kampala kids.
\nSo I knew that all of us were new to French. I decided to concentrate on French and I passed it very well, so that earned me a lot of friends, because a lot of my classmates used to come to me for help in French. And also I passed my maths very well. So that also brought me out a lot of friends and yeah, it started calming me down a little bit and that I could use to do with it.
\nRobin: What religion did you grow up in? What was your faith and your background at that time in your life?
\nLamech: In my village, I was raised up as an Anglican Protestant and yeah, it’s, it’s very interesting that even when I was a kid, I never really enjoyed the being preached at because you know, sometimes you could see the priests in the village doing something different from what they were preaching.
\nSo that alone made me not enjoy being preached that. When I got a chance to go to the city, I felt a little bit more free from my parents’ protection. I wanted to explore more. So I started visiting different churches, Catholic churches, Pentecostal churches, even mosques.
\nAnd that’s how I actually ended up going into the Christian Science church. I found something different, in the Christian Science church and that attracted me a lot.
\nRobin: How did you learn about Christian Science?
\nLamech: I remember, I just completed in my ordinary level. In Uganda, secondary school is divided into two sections. The first four years is called the ordinary level. And then the second two years is called the advanced it’s what you call a high school in the U.S. So after my ordinary level, I was in a holiday and I decided to escort my friend, Luke, his uncle big Scruffy’s and what, I didn’t know that his uncle was a Christian Scientist.
\nSo they were in another room talking about their business. I was remaining alone in the sitting room and I saw these little Sentinels. Do you remember this smaller type? Yes. So I picked it, I started reading it and when the uncle came back in the sitting room, I kind of irritated put it back because I had not asked for permission, but then get someone to say, Oh, don’t worry.
\nYou can have, you can have it. If you want more, I can give you more. So he gave me about 40 Sentinels, and I took them home. I read them from cover to cover. And one thing I was realizing, or what I discovered is that almost all the testimonies in these Sentinels, the were all referring to Science and Health, and I didn’t know what Science and Health was.
\nSo I brought the Sentinels back to this gentleman.\u00a0\u00a0 First of all, I thought they weren’t for keeps, so I was returning them after using them, but also, I wanted to ask him about Science and Health, and where that was a dictionary. So the gentleman who was so happy to tell me more about Science and Health.
\nSo he brought me a set of books. Now, you remember, I only asked for Science and Health, but at this time he came with this set of books, that was Science and Health and the Bible. And he told me these are; the books were used in our chat. And if you want, you can actually come and visit our church. I was of course, very excited and the following week had to go there.
\nI found only three people sitting in the hallway and I thought maybe I was late. So I excused myself. I said, I’m so sorry. I’m late. They said, no, no, no. So they said, okay. I said to them, can we enter? Where are the rest? They said, we are the only people. And to me to look, it’s so different. And this, when I said, can we enter?
\nThen they said, no, no, no, we are doing it here in the hallway. So there was no room for them. And it was that’s where we did church in the hallway and they never had any Quarterly. They would just open it randomly and read. And I actually thought that was the way to do the service. Until when one visitor, Dr. Nancy Dorsey from the U S. came to visit our church and she picked interest in me and she actually disclosed it to me that there was a better way to hold services.
\nShe talked to me about many other Manual- based church activities. So for me, I was now very happy to have someone who knew more about Christian Science, because originally I was the one trying to study and answer all the questions.
\nI was talking to my friends, I was sharing about Christian Science, and everything I was discovering and applying and getting the results. I was sharing them with my friends and everyone was getting excited and interested and the more they were getting interested, the more I was yearning to share with them. And remember, what I didn’t tell you actually is that I used to be a very shy, when I was growing up, and this sharing of Christian Science, of the truths which I was learning, actually helped me and helped me to overcome the shyness. Yeah.
\nRobin: One of the things that strikes me is your willingness to share, but also the lack of fear that, oh, there’s only a few people, you know, no big deal. How did, as you began to learn and practice and, and discover, what changed? What was it besides the shyness? What did you see happening in your life?
\nLamech: Well, a lot of things actually changed in my life. First of all, the way I was seeing the world. For example, I remember when I was growing up in my village, in my church, they really never talked about healing.
\nI remember when I was growing up in my village and somebody was very sick in my village. That is when they would call in a priest to come and pray for that person to go to heaven, if he or she dies. And no one ever talked about healing or praying for somebody to be healed. And now here I was reading about how people are applying a way of praying and getting healed.
\nSo to me, that was very unique. And also I remember Yeah. I remember when yeah, I’m trying to remember something. Yes. Yes. I discovered that you can actually pray naturally and talk to your good which was not without a mediator. Unlike where I was raised. It w every time you had the problem, you had to go to the priest and they pray.
\nThey prayed the prayer for you. And here I was doing it, myself, and also another thing, which struck me, was the difference between heaven and hell. In my original\u00a0\u00a0 region, I used to know that heaven is somewhere up there where you can only reach after death. And here in Science and Health, we’re talking about heaven and hell, right here.
\nYou can actually choose to be in heaven or hell right here. So those, those where I really saw a different to me to make me actually make an opinion. But so this, everything that I was discovering, I wanted to share it. And it was creating a lot of questions. You know, people, the one I was talking to, they were asking me more questions and it caused me to study more so that I don’t look a fool.
\nI wanted to be able to answer all the questions. So I think that must have also encouraged my study of Christian Science.
\nRobin: Well, you really had a turning point, as you were moving through your education, when you had a trip to Boston. Tell us a little bit about how that impacted your career or your educational journey at this point.
\nLamech: Well, yeah, first of all, it was a very big opportunity. This is something, this was a big dream to travel to the U. S. was really a very big opportunity for me and changed everything almost because I remember before traveling to the U.S., I had plans to join Principia College. I had actually tried to apply, and the application process was going on well.
\nWhen I reached Boston, I remember I was sitting in the Mother Church. And then I was sitting here to this next, to this young lady called Meredith. And she looked at my nametag, and said, “Are you from Uganda?” I said, yes. She said, “I think I know you.”
\nAnd I said, no way, you, you can\u2019t know me because I don’t even have a relative in the U.S. How do you know me? Then that’s when she told me that she had watched my application. She was, I think, working as an intern, so she had seen my name, and she said she worked on my application, and I’d been actually admitted.
\nSo it was very exciting to know that the process was complete and that had been admitted. But now, when we were doing some of the sessions that the Mother Church, I came across the word, the CSO, then what I discussing about CSO’s. And I was asking them, what was it? So they told him that there were student organizations at colleges and universities and they talked about, all what they do.
\nAnd it was very exciting. So I wanted to know how do people create CSOs? Then they say, if only one individual, even if you are one at your university, you can actually start one. And because I’d never heard about CSOs in my country, I said, I want to do this in my country.
\nSo when I came back to Uganda, I decided to cancel my application to Principia and applied, to go to Macquarie University so that I can start this CSO there. Now this was when I shared this with my friend, Dr. Nancy, she wasn’t\u00a0\u00a0 about, cause at Principia you had the scholarship and I actually had taken it for granted. I had assumed that because she had helped\u00a0\u00a0 me in my last year, final year at the high school, she was not going to help me at the university, which wasn’t the case. So, but I did it, I wasn’t so scared because you know, almost all my entire education journey from primary through secondary, people were helping me. Different people, God were using people to help me with my school.
\nSo I knew even here God was going to use someone to help me go to this university. So I continued the praying and believing that someone is going to help me pay for the school fees. And indeed, somebody came up. And this is how it happened. That was a student, a young lady who came to do research in Macquarie University.
\nI think somewhere, they talked about me and this lady, when she went back to the U. S., she discussed my story with her professor, a professor at MIT. This gentleman offered to pay for my entire tuition at the university without really meeting me. He didn’t even try to contact me, to talk to me. He just offered to pay for my tuition. Now I had to look for where to get my application and meals.
\nSo that’s how I came up with an idea of setting newspapers.
\nRobin: So you had your school taken care of, right. But yet you still had to find a way to live. You had to make a living. Right. So I can see how your entrepreneurial spirit began to thrive and flourish, right?
\nLamech: Yeah. And the two are so natural because I don’t remember really trying hard, but everything was just working out so naturally.
\nSo I came up with this idea of setting newspapers, to professors at the university, and some students who can afford them. I could wake up in the morning, pick the papers from the suppliers and then slide the papers under the doors of the homes of the professors. So that by the time they wake up, their papers are right there. And I had this policy, I was not asking for money right there. I waited until the end of the month. And then it gives them a beer, an invoice, and the professors really loved it so much. And I worked like that for about three years in my entire university. Now I also have had to share with you that when I visited the U.S., I met many, many friends.
\nI met many\u00a0\u00a0 friends from all over the world. People from different countries in Africa, from Asia, from Canada, from everywhere. And they were all great people. And among all of these people whom I met and made friends with that was a special person called David Maxwell, who was a student at the University of Texas. He is currently working with Texas Instruments. And he came to visit me in Uganda the following year in 1999. And he brought me my first computer.
\nRobin: Oh, wow.
\nThis was so exciting because you know; I’d never even used the computer now to get one of my own was a big thing. I remember before he came to bring me a computer, we used to just write through post office. It could take a month for my letter to return and another month to receive his response until when Dr. Nancy allowed me to use her personal email address. She could allow me to type in her computer in her email inbox. And yeah, that’s how we used to communicate. David brought me a computer and it was so exciting and I taught myself how to use the computer and Pam came. And I said, can I do something more with this computer? And that’s how I came up with an idea of typing my coursework.
\nHow many people had a computer?
\nLamech: No one, there was not another student. I was the first one to have a computer in my class, at least.
\nSo when I submitted my work to the professor, he was so happy and actually ordered all the students to type their work because he said I can’t read your handwriting. Most of you write really so badly. So I want to type your coursework like Lamech did. So they ran to different secretaries nearby all around the campus and pay for their work to be typed, but that was a big challenge because you know, the secretaries didn’t know how to keep the time, you know, the deadlines, but also they never knew how to correct the mistakes that students were making. Most of them are mistakes. So this made me to think about, the opportunity\u00a0\u00a0 of typing student’s work using my computer
\nso I went around telling students my friends and my fellow students let’s look here. I can type your work. So I opened up a small shop outside of the campus and I called in people to come bring their coursework to type. I remember typing my first work I was getting from students. They all sat there, I put their bench, they sat there in front of me and they just stared at\u00a0\u00a0 me.
\nAnd I never, I never really enjoyed it. I never enjoyed being stared at. So I came up with an idea of bringing in Christian Science literature, because I had a lot of Sentinels and Journals at home. So I brought them in so that students could keep themselves busy studying this as I’m typing their work, but it didn’t work because now every student who was reading Christian Science literature, they were asking me questions.
\nSo instead of typing, I was busy answering their questions. And so I had to hire someone now to type their work, as I explained to them, Christian Science. And that is how the Christian Science Reading Room started. So, time came when a lot of students were bringing into their work. And I said, now, how can I also attract other students, who are not bringing in their work?
\nAnd that’s when I got an idea of opening up another section in the Reading Room. So I created another alternative library and I went around the university, calling in students to come to this alternative library because, you know, in the university library, there were less books and there were many students. If you wanted a book then, you had to book for about maybe a week in advance.
\nSo I was telling this student that he had, there is another alternative library, which where you can actually get a book without lining up without having to book a week in advance. So a lot of students came for these textbooks. But now that we’re seeing these Christian Science literature, and they were asking questions and, and I was always busy talking to students.
\nSo then, you know, it was exciting to see all these people coming and filling up the entire Reading Room. And then I said, but these are the students. How do I attract in other people who are not students? And that’s how I came up with an idea of bringing in a telephone booth. There were very few people, who had the mobile phones, and even telephone booths were not very common there, you had to go downtown to find one.
\nSo bringing it to your community was the biggest thing. And many people were so happy to, to see this telephone booth. And they used to come in and then to use a phone, but then they see, a lot of people, reading and they were like, what is going on here? They come in. And then we talked to them and the time came when it was always very full.
\nAnd it’s brought in people from all walks of life to come and discuss Christian Science.
\nRobin: Well, it’s just amazing Lamech, to hear you and your enthusiasm and your spirit and see how you were so willing to share. And so unafraid, this shy bashful little boy from the village has turned into this incredibly gregarious spirited, inspiring businessman, while you’re going to school.
\nIt’s really amazing. And then to see how that blessing transformed your life. Tell us a little bit more so let’s, so let’s move forward into graduation time. So you’ve graduated now, and you’ve got a thriving business. So what happens then?
\nLamech: Actually, before graduation, there is even something, which I did more, because there were now many students were being exposed to Christian Science and that I was even inviting them to church. Some did actually become church members. I also decided to start a CSO in my university. It wasn’t so easy, but yes, with all the knowledge I was getting, on a daily basis, I was able to overcome all the challenges.
\nI remember for example, someone asking, why does Christian Science, which I lecture one of the professors and said, well, you know, when they are planning to register a student organization, we have to go through all the money, carry on demonstration. Yes.
\nAnd they were asking me whether this wasn’t a cult. And this one professor asked me, how many of you, I mean, are you in charge? I said we’re 20 to 30. And he said, you see, that is a cult. You can’t\u00a0\u00a0 be only the 20 people in charge. And I say sir, I don’t think that is that qualifies us to be a cult because if you are saying, we are a cult, because we are few, then it means even the big churches were once a cult, because there is no big church which started big, they all started small.
\nI knew a cult was something which controls your thinking. And Christian Science was actually the opposite because we don’t even have a preacher. So you read on your own and discover things on your own, which is actually the exact opposite of a cult.
\nSo when I explained this to the professor, he allowed me to register and I was at, I even shared that with one of the Catholic Dean of students. He had given us permission to meet in one of the Catholic student center. So, yeah. And also what I did before graduation is I did some research because I knew that I discovered that that was a lot of ignorance about Christian Science on the campus.
\nSo I wanted to do something which could help people understand more what Christian Science is. So in my final research or thesis, I decided to research or to write about why there is an increase, the number of people moving from the mainstream religion joining the newly introduced study like Christian Science.
\nSo I made sure that in my literature review, I quoted something from Science and Health. And now I knew professors who are going to wonder where to find it, this book. So I made sure I place a copy in all departmental libraries of the university and also in the main library. So that when they see my quotation or citation, they at least know where to get the book.
\nThis actually worked out because this research is one of the projects I passed very well. So when I graduated, my business was running well, the secretarial bureau, turned into a computer teaching institute center. I had made friends with people who graduated in computer science, so I persuaded them to come and teach computer because I bought many other computers and placed them in, in the Reading Room to type people’s work.
\nBut then I was wondering, what do we do with the computers in holidays? So that’s how I came with an idea of teaching computer science, to students in holidays.
\nAnd what is interesting, even those who are studying computer science at the university, they could come and practice because at the university we have two computers and the students were many. So sometimes some students were not getting a chance to get hands-on. Practicals. So they came to my business to come and practice what we were learning at the university.
\nSo the business was moving on well, and I decided to add another business there because I really didn’t have yes, I started it a taxi. Yeah.
\nRobin: You needed something else to do. Cause you weren’t busy enough. Started the CSO doing a research project, running a business, sharing your faith. Not enough, not enough going on, right, Lamech?
\nLamech: I kept on thinking, what can I do more? Yeah. So the idea of the taxi came up and of course I love driving. So this could give me a chance to drive. And yes, the taxi business also, I started and was moving on well, but this is also the time when the Mother Church learned about my approach, my new approach of mixing the Reading Room with other businesses and they felt that was a good mode of doing business or, or exposing, you know, bringing the Reading Room to the people instead of waiting for people to come to the Reading Room.
\nThey decided to appoint me as the international coordinator for the sales of Science and Health in East Africa. And this was so exciting for me. And I decided to do a book launch, at the Reading Room, and I remember hiring tents and hiring entertainers, people are beating drums.
\nAnd then I, I invited all the media houses in Uganda to come and be present when you are doing a book launch. And actually one of the, the newspaper called the book, the local newspaper. Yeah, mid is they covered us and yeah, it was a big thing. And the Mother Church wanted me to go outside Uganda, share and train other people on how to sell or share Science and Health.
\nI remember putting in a lot of books in my taxi car and then drive off without even knowing what the exact route to go to Kenya or Tanzania. But this had up to me because I remember driving in the city in the city and then stop and ask for directions, but also ask whether that is the bookstore and then talk about Science and Health.
\nI was praying for protection in all of this, you are driving to a new country. You don’t even know the road, the directions. So you had to really rely more on God, God\u2019s protection. And I remember one time I was driving to Mwanza.
\nThe first time I drove to Tanzania and the week I was driving through a national park and I found a roadblock, there were soldiers and they said you can’t drive there because it’s dangerous. But then I told them, I’d driven a very long distance from home, and I was nearing my destination, so I couldn’t stop there.
\nSo they were so nice. I talk to them nicely and I shared with them about Christian Science and Science and Health and I even gave them two free copies of Science and Health. So they were so happy and they gave me an escort, a policeman with a gun to drive with me through the park. And this man, we went on talking and discussing about all the good ideas I was discovering in Christian Science and he was so much interested.
\nSo when he reached into Mwanza, he said, I’m going to help you even look for a safe hotel. And he actually went ahead and looked for me, booked for me a nice hotel where I started making now contacts. So to the Christian Scientist in Mwanza, I called the number which I found in the Christian Science Journal, but it wasn’t working.
\nI decided to write to them on the email and I checked, they were not answering my email. I stayed there for two days and I wrote about three different emails and they were not responding. So I decided to leave Mwanza and then continue to Nairobi in another country, Kenya. So when I asked about the direction to Nairobi, they showed me, it was actually on the opposite direction of where I was staying.
\nSo I decided to change my hotel and then go stay in their direction, find another hotel. So that’s what I did. And as I was driving and looking for a hotel, I saw a signpost of a hotel and I said, okay, I’m going to stay in this one. I kept on following the signposts and twas leading me off the road.
\nAnd this is not what I wanted to do really, because I wanted to be on the main road. But the signs were taking me to the deeper, deeper inside. But anyway, I decided to book in and when I start checking in into a new hotel, I went back and wrote another email from the internet cafe, telling them, the Christian Scientist in Mwanza that I have changed my hotel from the first one to now a new one.
\nThis is when they also checked the email. They checked the email and what was very interesting is the new hotel where I had checked in was just separating walls, perimeter walls, with the church in Mwanza, Christian Science\u00a0\u00a0 church.
\nSo they came running to my hotel and they said, how did you discover us? How did he know that we are staying here? I say that well, they said they showed me the church and I couldn’t believe. So I knew to us now, God is work. And this, it charged me more. I felt like a brand new battery. I felt now I have more reason now to do what I was doing.
\nAnd I, because I knew God was on my side. And so that was a good experience for me during this work for Science and Health, selling Science and Health in East Africa.
\nRobin: You know, what’s interesting Lamech, cause I’m often asked about how do I get experience, and how do I learn about this and how do I learn about that? We’re always talking about volunteering. If you can’t find something to get paid, are you willing to work, to learn, are you willing to give back, are you willing to volunteer so that in that place that you want to ultimately get to, are you willing to do that?
\nYour willingness to jump in, cause I know you had your businesses back home that are helping support you, that this activity was really from the goodness of your heart, right?
\nLamech: Yeah, it\u2019s really been interesting. I think my passion to do volunteer work is just natural because I did many other things on a voluntary basis.
\nAfter I started working for the Mother Church, I also worked with the Principle Foundation, which is found in Kansas City. They had a program in Uganda, called the Uganda Project, and they were helping kids in both primary and secondary institution. And I was their facilitator. I was doing voluntary work as a volunteer.
\nWhen I finished that, that’s well that’s, that is how actually ABF also contacted me, made contacts with me. And I volunteered. Yes. Yes. The Albert Baker Fund wanted to expand to Africa. They contacted me towards the end of 2003, but we really started working in 2004 and I volunteered to work as a representative of ABF in Africa for five years.
\nThey hired me in 2009. So volunteering is no problem with me. The main force, which drives me, is the fact that I was helped in almost my entire education journey. People helped me in my primary school. People helped me in my secondary school, even at the university.
\nSo I decided, I promised myself that if I start working and earning something, I’m going to do the same.
\nI’m going to be helping people to access it. So when ABF came in and contacted me, I was very happy because I knew it was going to help me achieve my dream, fulfill my dream of helping people, access education without actually much struggle because again I was thinking I was going to make money and then pay it to my set up from my pocket.
\nBut now ABF is here, wanting to pay for students just with my support. So that, that pushed me to work all those years as a volunteer. But you see what is interesting even after being hired in 2009, I still didn’t give up. As I continued doing volunteer work with other organizations. For example, I volunteer, I still volunteer with Santi Africa Foundation and nonprofit organization, which helps students in primary and secondary in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
\nI’m also serving on the board of the international school called Three Rivers Academy in Kenya. I’m also serving on the board of a vocational training Institute in my village, in my home area called the single vocational Institute. And I’m also a board member or championing a primary school.
\nSo I’m doing all this on a voluntary basis, even when I have a paying job. So to me, anything which has to do with education, that is my passion and that more is I always just do it without even thinking. Yes.
\nRobin: Well, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Albert Baker Fund?
\nLamech: With Albert Baker Fund, I’m working as the African Program Managers and we have operations, or our program is in 13 countries in Africa.
\nWe do work with universities, good universities, in every country to provide assistance, financial assistance to those practicing, active Christian Scientists who are struggling to find tuition. And my role is to actually verify. I work with a team of in country representatives together with an African processing agent to verify that the information given to us by the students and the universities is genuine.
\nOnce we verify and confirm that the information is okay, then we pay for those students. But also my other work is to mentor these students.
\nSo that is my role with ABF and I’ll tell you I’m so happy. And to have this opportunity to work with the Albert Baker Fund because it has exposed me to many interesting things. For example, I think I’m really so blessed. I’ve seen some privilege, privilege, privilege to, to witness transformation of people and, and also to witness the kind of huge impact made by these students.
\nThey do on their communities, in their counties. And Africa is as a whole.
\nRobin: Let’s talk about this one in particular, because this, this is one of those organizations that you work with and volunteer, and they came to you with a particular help need that involved a hiring process. So tell us how that worked out?
\nLamech: I happen to sit on the advisory board of the Three Rivers Academy in Kenya, a new international school, supported by three schools and organization in the U. S. So I was contacted to be among us, the panelists, the people I to interview and hire the, the new principal of this international school.
\nI was so happy when during the interview to discover that the top, some of the top candidates were actually our former ABF students and the way our PhD, PhD, or DAS. So I was forced to dig more for information. I wanted to go back and see, to learn more about these two specific students.
\nAnd that’s when I discovered that they were actually originally former teachers in their local schools and when ABF and expanded it to Africa, people thought that it was only for regular students. But I remember when I traveled to these countries and, and told the people that ABF is not only for regular students, it’s only, it is also for other or the students who had stopped going to school long time ago.
\nSo I encourage people that even if you stopped going to school long time ago, but now you feel that is a special skill, which you can change your life or help you transform other people’s lives. You are welcome to apply. So this is how they applied. And they came to do advanced diplomas in education.
\nAfter that, they also came back to do degrees bachelor’s degree in education, and then they came back to do masters in educational management, and then they didn\u2019t stop there. They came back again to do PhDs. So these ladies are now working in two different universities. One is working as a senior manager of the university.
\nAnd another one is teaching, is a trainer is a lecturer in a national teacher’s college.
\nTo me, this was so much gratifying to witness the kind of impact, huge impact the ABF is making you know, to this country and what they, they, they, I mean this students and what these students are also passing forward to their communities.
\nRobin: Well, it doesn’t stop there. This beautiful young lady is also one of those ABF recipients. You mentioned earlier about helping your local community and the school. So tell us about how you and your sweet bride Joy jumped in and really made an impact.
\nLamech: Well, because, because, you know I really enjoy doing volunteer work and giving back to the community, passing forward the blessing and use what it for me, anything which I enjoy, I want to share it.
\nI try to entrust other people to do the same, to do their own work, to do, to give back to the community. And the recently, I was working with my wife, this is my wife Joy.
\nAnd I was working with her and I to persuade have other big team of professionals to go to my village and help the two schools, which are there. And so Joy and her team, she, we managed it to do a master plan for these two schools.
\nRobin: She’s an architect, right?
\nLamech: Yes, she does architecture and interior designing.
\nAnd we did all this work for free. And you know, this, this is a big team of professionals, engineers, and they all did this work for free because I convinced them to do this because other people were already doing it. I had participated in, in a competition at ATL, a big company.
\nYeah. Telephone company in Uganda and the way every other year invite proposals of organizations or over a thousand, right. Over a thousand, a thousand proposals came in his company has over 11 million subscribers. So when they send out anything, many people respond, and so this competition way out of a, I think they were above of a thousand submissions. And they called me. I remember I was living in Nigeria doing ABF work. So I received a call from, from ATL and they said are you Lamech, I said, yes, did you participate? I said, yes. And they said, you have won! We are happy to tell you, we have won, your school has won. And we are going to give you the windows and the doors to your school.
\nSo I was using this experience and the incidents to explain to other professionals that look here, you can do this as a social corporate responsibility. And we have been able to achieve a lot because of this initiative. Yeah. A lot of people now I know jump in to this volunteer business.
\nRobin: Well, you obviously made a huge impact and that again is in your, in your local community.
\nYou’ve really just such a wonderful example Lamech, of how mentoring and reaching out and, being unafraid to, to share the things that you’re learning and what, you know has just been such a blessing to you and your community.
\nBegin Q&A
\nWe’re going to go right to the Q and A at this point.
\nSo Lamech, how has casting your net on the right side. And how has it been to be so fearless and casting your net on the right side impacted your life and your journey?
\nLamech: Well I would say it has impacted almost my entire life in many ways. For example, I’ve always learned, I’ve learned never to give up. I, I learned this again by studying Christian Science, because this was the motto of Mary Baker, Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and I’ve learned never to give up.
\nI don’t give up easily. And even when I try something and doesn’t seem to go the way I intended it to, I don’t take it as it really a failure. I’ve learned to move with things and know that this is God’s plan. So I don’t really see it as a failure. And I’ve also learned how to seek for protection.
\nI trust God for protections. I take my life. I look at God is Love as a, you know, I always compare it to is the way wax protects the car from the dust. So if you have complete confidence in the truth, which you learn, you will know that you can’t be affected by any harm. So we are always protected and I’ve applied to this in my entire life.
\nI’ll give you an example because when I was growing up, I used every time I’m moving at night through the forest, going home to the main road, this terrace that you move with a stick, a reed. It protects you. I don’t know how that was true, but what is interesting that even when I had the stick, I was always very scared until when I was exposed to Christian Science, then I knew that actually our protection comes from God.
\nAnd that is when I started moving without fear. So that has been actually, that’s a big change from the way you used to see things. So knowing that you are always protected by God is, is, is very, very important in my work. Even when I traveled to countries where I don’t know anybody, we keep expanding, ABF, keeps expanding to other new countries and they I’m always the first person to visit.
\nAnd usually what I go to a country when I don’t know anybody, but I’m always very confident that God is going to protect me, is going to show me the right people to talk to. And that has worked for me, very well.
\nRobin: So we have a question and the question is maybe share an experience or some challenges that you’ve faced during your volunteer work.
\nLamech: Sometimes I actually see when I when I’m faced with a challenge, sometimes I celebrate, it’s weird. It’s weird because people are always, they’re at this time when they are faced with challenges, but to me, every time I have a challenge and I see it as an opportunity for me to, to, to, to pray and apply Christian Science.
\nAnd every time I solve a problem or a challenge, I celebrate.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m like, yes, I know this one. So it is always for me it’s celebration. So I don’t really see it as a challenge. It’s an opportunity for me to celebrate again after solving this
\nRobin: Lamech, you you’ve been so wonderful and so generous with your willingness to share your thoughts and your journey. It’s a remarkable journey. I can’t wait to share it with those who weren’t able to join us today.
\nIf you’re interested in helping to improve Africa and the lives of Africans, you can go to the Albert Baker Fund website and you will find wonderful information there.
\nAnd if you’re a student in Africa, I know we’ve had some that have reached out. Be sure that you check the website and there’s lots of information right there. Lamech, and his team will be happy to help you. If you’re interested in North American programs, you can check the website as well for that.
\nAnd. If you are interested in the Career Alliance and connecting with folks like Lamech or career allies, or looking for jobs or looking to connect with one another, go to the ABFcareeralliance.org. If you’re a student or, you know, a student, be sure and share with them about our Brotherly Love scholarships. We are accepting applications for those.
\nFollow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And remember, to cast your net on the right side. We have a stellar example of one who has done that and is doing it. And I can’t wait to hear the new stories and I can’t wait to do Lamech Robin, number two down the road, so we can pick up some of the things that we didn’t get to talk about today.
\nLamech: Yes, you’re right. It’s true.
\nRobin: It was a terrific time and you’re so, so gracious for staying up so late in your neck of the woods with, with those sweet babies, they’re close, I’m sure by the side and until we meet again, my friend and all of you that are out there, thank you for joining us today. In two weeks, we’ll be back with a focus on human resources and how we approach and move through this time with all things that are new. It’ll be exciting show with Beth Trevino. She’s the HR director at Principia College.
\nLamech love you, man. Thanks so much.
\nLamech: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.
\nRobin: Look forward to seeing you soon.
\nLamech: All right. Bye bye and greetings to everyone.
\nRobin: You too, brother.
\n", "content_text": "“I feel so blessed to witness the transformation of people.”\n\nPodcast \u2013\u00a0Audio Only\n[powerpress]\nAbout Our Speaker:\nLamech Katamba, ABF\u2019s Africa Programs Manager since 2009, is a living testament to The Albert Baker Fund\u2019s core value of \u201cpassing your blessings forward.\u201d He grew up in the small Africa village of Kyamulinga, where he developed his passion for education, entrepreneurship, and community, and where he returned to play an instrumental role in starting the Kyamulinga Primary School that serves 230 children.\nToday, Lamech lives in the capital city of Kampala, Uganda where he is active in the Christian Science Society.\nLamech\u2019s career journey has been a remarkable expression of living the Christ and sharing what he has learned from his study of Christian Science far and wide.\nAs manager of ABF\u2019s scholarship programs in13 African countries, Lamech says his \u201cbiggest joy and gratification comes from having the privilege of witnessing how ABF students are making huge impacts in their communities, countries, and Africa at-large.\u201d\nLamech has a BA in Development Studies, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Micro-Finance from Makerere University, where he helped to establish a Christian Science Organization as a student. He serves on the Advisory Board of Asante Africa Foundation, a nonprofit that works with primary and secondary schools in rural Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda; and the board of Singo Vocational Institute in Kyamulinga. He also serves on the board of the Three Rivers Academy, an International Secondary School in Kenya, sponsored by E3Schools.org\nLamech is married to Joy Katamba, an architect and interior designer, and also an ABF beneficiary. They are blessed with two-year old triplets, two girls and a boy.\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\n\n\nJoin us live for the Net Effect!\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!\nRegister for Upcoming Episodes Watch Net Effect Replays\n\n\n\r\n\r\n\nTranscript of episode\nRobin: This is the Net Effect, and I am your host Robin Jones, director of the ABF Career Alliance. Our special guest today is Lamech Katamba. Lamech is from Kampala, Uganda, and he is one of our very own, we are so excited to have him.\nHe is the manager of our Africa programs. Welcome Lamech.\nLamech: Thank you. Thank you, Robin.\nRobin: This has been so much fun getting to know you and being able to learn about your journey and your incredible work that you do on a day-to-day basis.\nSo Lamech tell us a little bit about yourself and where you’re from.\nLamech: Thank you. Thank you Robin. I grew up from a very small village found in Bukuya County in Kasanda District central Uganda.\nRobin: And this is your village, your house right here, isn’t it?\nYeah, you’re right.\nThat’s so fun, Lamech.\nLamech: It looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere.\nRobin: Right? Right. That’s kinda like how I grew up in a small town but not a village. . So I, I thought we’d start off with this picture. Tell us about this picture Lamech and why this is so important to you and, and how it’s kind of shaped your future.\nLamech: Well, that is actually my dad and that little man there is standing with dad is\u00a0\u00a0 Lamech\nSo my dad was a farmer. He used to grow coffee and banana, but also use to make local beer for commercial purposes. He used to sell a beer, but on the special days, like Christmas and Easter, he used to give away beer for free. So villagers and many other people used to come home to celebrate Christmas or Easter or any other special days.\nAnd among the people used to come home were also my teachers from my primary school. So every time they come home and drink and got drunk that they used to beat drums, you know, get happy. And I was the dancer cause I used to be a very good dancer and every time I dance, they used to give money.\nThat was the same money we used to pay for school fees. During that time, that’s when the teachers also put to give reports, nice reports about me from school, how I used to pass very well and also how I used to do very good in sports. So the teacher has really made my village mates to like me a lot.\nI was a kid of the village.\nRobin: Oh, that’s so fun. And this is actually the school that you went to when you were a little guy, when you were doing that, making those impressive dance moves to all your teachers, right?\nLamech: Yeah, that’s my school. It’s called Makonzi Charter of Uganda primary school.\nIt was about five kilometers from my home. And I used to just walk to my home. And actually there was an incident. One day I was walking together with the rest of the kids from the village, walking towards school, and something happened. That was a man who jumped from the forest and wanted to grab me.\nAnd I ran towards school, but the rest of the kids ran back to the village. I think this man must have thought it was easier to chase after me who was alone than chasing the rest of the kids. But what he didn’t know is that I was actually the fastest. I used to win a lot of awards and medals for the school because of my fast running.\nI used to do a hundred meters split, so he couldn’t catch me. But I remember when I was about to reach school running, I looked behind and I saw the man who was actually coming very fast and I was getting tired, but I realized it was actually the bag, the school bag, which was making me slow down. So I decided to throw away the school bag, and then, yeah, that freed me.\nAnd I ran faster until I reached school. Kids and teachers were surrounding me and some were actually crying. I found out later why they were crying. They said, when they ran back to the village, they got their parents to escort them to school.\nAnd when they are coming there, they saw my bag, which I had thrown away. So they thought Lamech had been taken maybe. So when they saw me later at school, still alive, they were so happy. So it was tears of joy. And so at that moment, the teachers decided to move me away from the village.\nRobin: That was really an impactful moment and a time in your life, huh?\nLamech: Yeah, because it actually changed everything, because even my grades started improving because when you tell me where to stay. Yup. And as I teach has bought me books as a teacher, almost every teacher was contributing something because, you know, they really liked me because I used to win for them a lot of awards and\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was a good kid in class. So this helped me out a lot. And my teacher has promised to me that if I ever pass in a grade one, they will take me to Kampala, which is the capital city, and I’d never been there. So I worked for that. And indeed I passed the grade one, which was a history in the history of the school.\nIt was the first time for a kid to pass in a grade one. So they asked me, do you have any relative in the city? Because they couldn’t afford tuition and those accommodations. So I said yes, I had a sister who was staying in Kampala in a place called Kauempe and so they brought me to my sister’s place and they took me to Kauempe secondary school.\nSo now I was really happy and excited. What was very interesting is that the walking didn’t stop. In the village I used to make it 10 kilometers a day. And when they brought me to the city, it became almost 16 because I used to make eight kilometers one way and then another eight kilometers back.\nWhat was very exciting or what was different is that this time I had shoes. They had gotten me my first pair of shoes. And I was so excited to put on shoes. The unfortunate part was that these shoes were plastic. They were plastic shoes from China. And every time I would walk in during the day when it is hot, there could almost melt, and burn my feet, but I never wanted to remove them because I was so excited to put on shoes.\nRobin: And how old were you when you moved from the village?\nLamech: I was turning 14. Yes. I was nervous because these kids in the city were all speaking English, good English, and I was the only person who didn’t know how to speak English. Because in my village, the school there, even the teachers, some teachers didn’t know how to speak good English. So they preferred to teach us in, in local language Luganda. So the thing, which helped me a lot, was at my new school in the city, they were teaching French, and French was a new language to all the kids including the Kampala kids.\nSo I knew that all of us were new to French. I decided to concentrate on French and I passed it very well, so that earned me a lot of friends, because a lot of my classmates used to come to me for help in French. And also I passed my maths very well. So that also brought me out a lot of friends and yeah, it started calming me down a little bit and that I could use to do with it.\nRobin: What religion did you grow up in? What was your faith and your background at that time in your life?\nLamech: In my village, I was raised up as an Anglican Protestant and yeah, it’s, it’s very interesting that even when I was a kid, I never really enjoyed the being preached at because you know, sometimes you could see the priests in the village doing something different from what they were preaching.\nSo that alone made me not enjoy being preached that. When I got a chance to go to the city, I felt a little bit more free from my parents’ protection. I wanted to explore more. So I started visiting different churches, Catholic churches, Pentecostal churches, even mosques.\nAnd that’s how I actually ended up going into the Christian Science church. I found something different, in the Christian Science church and that attracted me a lot.\nRobin: How did you learn about Christian Science?\nLamech: I remember, I just completed in my ordinary level. In Uganda, secondary school is divided into two sections. The first four years is called the ordinary level. And then the second two years is called the advanced it’s what you call a high school in the U.S. So after my ordinary level, I was in a holiday and I decided to escort my friend, Luke, his uncle big Scruffy’s and what, I didn’t know that his uncle was a Christian Scientist.\nSo they were in another room talking about their business. I was remaining alone in the sitting room and I saw these little Sentinels. Do you remember this smaller type? Yes. So I picked it, I started reading it and when the uncle came back in the sitting room, I kind of irritated put it back because I had not asked for permission, but then get someone to say, Oh, don’t worry.\nYou can have, you can have it. If you want more, I can give you more. So he gave me about 40 Sentinels, and I took them home. I read them from cover to cover. And one thing I was realizing, or what I discovered is that almost all the testimonies in these Sentinels, the were all referring to Science and Health, and I didn’t know what Science and Health was.\nSo I brought the Sentinels back to this gentleman.\u00a0\u00a0 First of all, I thought they weren’t for keeps, so I was returning them after using them, but also, I wanted to ask him about Science and Health, and where that was a dictionary. So the gentleman who was so happy to tell me more about Science and Health.\nSo he brought me a set of books. Now, you remember, I only asked for Science and Health, but at this time he came with this set of books, that was Science and Health and the Bible. And he told me these are; the books were used in our chat. And if you want, you can actually come and visit our church. I was of course, very excited and the following week had to go there.\nI found only three people sitting in the hallway and I thought maybe I was late. So I excused myself. I said, I’m so sorry. I’m late. They said, no, no, no. So they said, okay. I said to them, can we enter? Where are the rest? They said, we are the only people. And to me to look, it’s so different. And this, when I said, can we enter?\nThen they said, no, no, no, we are doing it here in the hallway. So there was no room for them. And it was that’s where we did church in the hallway and they never had any Quarterly. They would just open it randomly and read. And I actually thought that was the way to do the service. Until when one visitor, Dr. Nancy Dorsey from the U S. came to visit our church and she picked interest in me and she actually disclosed it to me that there was a better way to hold services.\nShe talked to me about many other Manual- based church activities. So for me, I was now very happy to have someone who knew more about Christian Science, because originally I was the one trying to study and answer all the questions.\nI was talking to my friends, I was sharing about Christian Science, and everything I was discovering and applying and getting the results. I was sharing them with my friends and everyone was getting excited and interested and the more they were getting interested, the more I was yearning to share with them. And remember, what I didn’t tell you actually is that I used to be a very shy, when I was growing up, and this sharing of Christian Science, of the truths which I was learning, actually helped me and helped me to overcome the shyness. Yeah.\nRobin: One of the things that strikes me is your willingness to share, but also the lack of fear that, oh, there’s only a few people, you know, no big deal. How did, as you began to learn and practice and, and discover, what changed? What was it besides the shyness? What did you see happening in your life?\nLamech: Well, a lot of things actually changed in my life. First of all, the way I was seeing the world. For example, I remember when I was growing up in my village, in my church, they really never talked about healing.\nI remember when I was growing up in my village and somebody was very sick in my village. That is when they would call in a priest to come and pray for that person to go to heaven, if he or she dies. And no one ever talked about healing or praying for somebody to be healed. And now here I was reading about how people are applying a way of praying and getting healed.\nSo to me, that was very unique. And also I remember Yeah. I remember when yeah, I’m trying to remember something. Yes. Yes. I discovered that you can actually pray naturally and talk to your good which was not without a mediator. Unlike where I was raised. It w every time you had the problem, you had to go to the priest and they pray.\nThey prayed the prayer for you. And here I was doing it, myself, and also another thing, which struck me, was the difference between heaven and hell. In my original\u00a0\u00a0 region, I used to know that heaven is somewhere up there where you can only reach after death. And here in Science and Health, we’re talking about heaven and hell, right here.\nYou can actually choose to be in heaven or hell right here. So those, those where I really saw a different to me to make me actually make an opinion. But so this, everything that I was discovering, I wanted to share it. And it was creating a lot of questions. You know, people, the one I was talking to, they were asking me more questions and it caused me to study more so that I don’t look a fool.\nI wanted to be able to answer all the questions. So I think that must have also encouraged my study of Christian Science.\nRobin: Well, you really had a turning point, as you were moving through your education, when you had a trip to Boston. Tell us a little bit about how that impacted your career or your educational journey at this point.\nLamech: Well, yeah, first of all, it was a very big opportunity. This is something, this was a big dream to travel to the U. S. was really a very big opportunity for me and changed everything almost because I remember before traveling to the U.S., I had plans to join Principia College. I had actually tried to apply, and the application process was going on well.\nWhen I reached Boston, I remember I was sitting in the Mother Church. And then I was sitting here to this next, to this young lady called Meredith. And she looked at my nametag, and said, “Are you from Uganda?” I said, yes. She said, “I think I know you.”\nAnd I said, no way, you, you can\u2019t know me because I don’t even have a relative in the U.S. How do you know me? Then that’s when she told me that she had watched my application. She was, I think, working as an intern, so she had seen my name, and she said she worked on my application, and I’d been actually admitted.\nSo it was very exciting to know that the process was complete and that had been admitted. But now, when we were doing some of the sessions that the Mother Church, I came across the word, the CSO, then what I discussing about CSO’s. And I was asking them, what was it? So they told him that there were student organizations at colleges and universities and they talked about, all what they do.\nAnd it was very exciting. So I wanted to know how do people create CSOs? Then they say, if only one individual, even if you are one at your university, you can actually start one. And because I’d never heard about CSOs in my country, I said, I want to do this in my country.\nSo when I came back to Uganda, I decided to cancel my application to Principia and applied, to go to Macquarie University so that I can start this CSO there. Now this was when I shared this with my friend, Dr. Nancy, she wasn’t\u00a0\u00a0 about, cause at Principia you had the scholarship and I actually had taken it for granted. I had assumed that because she had helped\u00a0\u00a0 me in my last year, final year at the high school, she was not going to help me at the university, which wasn’t the case. So, but I did it, I wasn’t so scared because you know, almost all my entire education journey from primary through secondary, people were helping me. Different people, God were using people to help me with my school.\nSo I knew even here God was going to use someone to help me go to this university. So I continued the praying and believing that someone is going to help me pay for the school fees. And indeed, somebody came up. And this is how it happened. That was a student, a young lady who came to do research in Macquarie University.\nI think somewhere, they talked about me and this lady, when she went back to the U. S., she discussed my story with her professor, a professor at MIT. This gentleman offered to pay for my entire tuition at the university without really meeting me. He didn’t even try to contact me, to talk to me. He just offered to pay for my tuition. Now I had to look for where to get my application and meals.\nSo that’s how I came up with an idea of setting newspapers.\nRobin: So you had your school taken care of, right. But yet you still had to find a way to live. You had to make a living. Right. So I can see how your entrepreneurial spirit began to thrive and flourish, right?\nLamech: Yeah. And the two are so natural because I don’t remember really trying hard, but everything was just working out so naturally.\nSo I came up with this idea of setting newspapers, to professors at the university, and some students who can afford them. I could wake up in the morning, pick the papers from the suppliers and then slide the papers under the doors of the homes of the professors. So that by the time they wake up, their papers are right there. And I had this policy, I was not asking for money right there. I waited until the end of the month. And then it gives them a beer, an invoice, and the professors really loved it so much. And I worked like that for about three years in my entire university. Now I also have had to share with you that when I visited the U.S., I met many, many friends.\nI met many\u00a0\u00a0 friends from all over the world. People from different countries in Africa, from Asia, from Canada, from everywhere. And they were all great people. And among all of these people whom I met and made friends with that was a special person called David Maxwell, who was a student at the University of Texas. He is currently working with Texas Instruments. And he came to visit me in Uganda the following year in 1999. And he brought me my first computer.\nRobin: Oh, wow.\nThis was so exciting because you know; I’d never even used the computer now to get one of my own was a big thing. I remember before he came to bring me a computer, we used to just write through post office. It could take a month for my letter to return and another month to receive his response until when Dr. Nancy allowed me to use her personal email address. She could allow me to type in her computer in her email inbox. And yeah, that’s how we used to communicate. David brought me a computer and it was so exciting and I taught myself how to use the computer and Pam came. And I said, can I do something more with this computer? And that’s how I came up with an idea of typing my coursework.\nHow many people had a computer?\nLamech: No one, there was not another student. I was the first one to have a computer in my class, at least.\nSo when I submitted my work to the professor, he was so happy and actually ordered all the students to type their work because he said I can’t read your handwriting. Most of you write really so badly. So I want to type your coursework like Lamech did. So they ran to different secretaries nearby all around the campus and pay for their work to be typed, but that was a big challenge because you know, the secretaries didn’t know how to keep the time, you know, the deadlines, but also they never knew how to correct the mistakes that students were making. Most of them are mistakes. So this made me to think about, the opportunity\u00a0\u00a0 of typing student’s work using my computer\nso I went around telling students my friends and my fellow students let’s look here. I can type your work. So I opened up a small shop outside of the campus and I called in people to come bring their coursework to type. I remember typing my first work I was getting from students. They all sat there, I put their bench, they sat there in front of me and they just stared at\u00a0\u00a0 me.\nAnd I never, I never really enjoyed it. I never enjoyed being stared at. So I came up with an idea of bringing in Christian Science literature, because I had a lot of Sentinels and Journals at home. So I brought them in so that students could keep themselves busy studying this as I’m typing their work, but it didn’t work because now every student who was reading Christian Science literature, they were asking me questions.\nSo instead of typing, I was busy answering their questions. And so I had to hire someone now to type their work, as I explained to them, Christian Science. And that is how the Christian Science Reading Room started. So, time came when a lot of students were bringing into their work. And I said, now, how can I also attract other students, who are not bringing in their work?\nAnd that’s when I got an idea of opening up another section in the Reading Room. So I created another alternative library and I went around the university, calling in students to come to this alternative library because, you know, in the university library, there were less books and there were many students. If you wanted a book then, you had to book for about maybe a week in advance.\nSo I was telling this student that he had, there is another alternative library, which where you can actually get a book without lining up without having to book a week in advance. So a lot of students came for these textbooks. But now that we’re seeing these Christian Science literature, and they were asking questions and, and I was always busy talking to students.\nSo then, you know, it was exciting to see all these people coming and filling up the entire Reading Room. And then I said, but these are the students. How do I attract in other people who are not students? And that’s how I came up with an idea of bringing in a telephone booth. There were very few people, who had the mobile phones, and even telephone booths were not very common there, you had to go downtown to find one.\nSo bringing it to your community was the biggest thing. And many people were so happy to, to see this telephone booth. And they used to come in and then to use a phone, but then they see, a lot of people, reading and they were like, what is going on here? They come in. And then we talked to them and the time came when it was always very full.\nAnd it’s brought in people from all walks of life to come and discuss Christian Science.\nRobin: Well, it’s just amazing Lamech, to hear you and your enthusiasm and your spirit and see how you were so willing to share. And so unafraid, this shy bashful little boy from the village has turned into this incredibly gregarious spirited, inspiring businessman, while you’re going to school.\nIt’s really amazing. And then to see how that blessing transformed your life. Tell us a little bit more so let’s, so let’s move forward into graduation time. So you’ve graduated now, and you’ve got a thriving business. So what happens then?\nLamech: Actually, before graduation, there is even something, which I did more, because there were now many students were being exposed to Christian Science and that I was even inviting them to church. Some did actually become church members. I also decided to start a CSO in my university. It wasn’t so easy, but yes, with all the knowledge I was getting, on a daily basis, I was able to overcome all the challenges.\nI remember for example, someone asking, why does Christian Science, which I lecture one of the professors and said, well, you know, when they are planning to register a student organization, we have to go through all the money, carry on demonstration. Yes.\nAnd they were asking me whether this wasn’t a cult. And this one professor asked me, how many of you, I mean, are you in charge? I said we’re 20 to 30. And he said, you see, that is a cult. You can’t\u00a0\u00a0 be only the 20 people in charge. And I say sir, I don’t think that is that qualifies us to be a cult because if you are saying, we are a cult, because we are few, then it means even the big churches were once a cult, because there is no big church which started big, they all started small.\nI knew a cult was something which controls your thinking. And Christian Science was actually the opposite because we don’t even have a preacher. So you read on your own and discover things on your own, which is actually the exact opposite of a cult.\nSo when I explained this to the professor, he allowed me to register and I was at, I even shared that with one of the Catholic Dean of students. He had given us permission to meet in one of the Catholic student center. So, yeah. And also what I did before graduation is I did some research because I knew that I discovered that that was a lot of ignorance about Christian Science on the campus.\nSo I wanted to do something which could help people understand more what Christian Science is. So in my final research or thesis, I decided to research or to write about why there is an increase, the number of people moving from the mainstream religion joining the newly introduced study like Christian Science.\nSo I made sure that in my literature review, I quoted something from Science and Health. And now I knew professors who are going to wonder where to find it, this book. So I made sure I place a copy in all departmental libraries of the university and also in the main library. So that when they see my quotation or citation, they at least know where to get the book.\nThis actually worked out because this research is one of the projects I passed very well. So when I graduated, my business was running well, the secretarial bureau, turned into a computer teaching institute center. I had made friends with people who graduated in computer science, so I persuaded them to come and teach computer because I bought many other computers and placed them in, in the Reading Room to type people’s work.\nBut then I was wondering, what do we do with the computers in holidays? So that’s how I came with an idea of teaching computer science, to students in holidays.\nAnd what is interesting, even those who are studying computer science at the university, they could come and practice because at the university we have two computers and the students were many. So sometimes some students were not getting a chance to get hands-on. Practicals. So they came to my business to come and practice what we were learning at the university.\nSo the business was moving on well, and I decided to add another business there because I really didn’t have yes, I started it a taxi. Yeah.\nRobin: You needed something else to do. Cause you weren’t busy enough. Started the CSO doing a research project, running a business, sharing your faith. Not enough, not enough going on, right, Lamech?\nLamech: I kept on thinking, what can I do more? Yeah. So the idea of the taxi came up and of course I love driving. So this could give me a chance to drive. And yes, the taxi business also, I started and was moving on well, but this is also the time when the Mother Church learned about my approach, my new approach of mixing the Reading Room with other businesses and they felt that was a good mode of doing business or, or exposing, you know, bringing the Reading Room to the people instead of waiting for people to come to the Reading Room.\nThey decided to appoint me as the international coordinator for the sales of Science and Health in East Africa. And this was so exciting for me. And I decided to do a book launch, at the Reading Room, and I remember hiring tents and hiring entertainers, people are beating drums.\nAnd then I, I invited all the media houses in Uganda to come and be present when you are doing a book launch. And actually one of the, the newspaper called the book, the local newspaper. Yeah, mid is they covered us and yeah, it was a big thing. And the Mother Church wanted me to go outside Uganda, share and train other people on how to sell or share Science and Health.\nI remember putting in a lot of books in my taxi car and then drive off without even knowing what the exact route to go to Kenya or Tanzania. But this had up to me because I remember driving in the city in the city and then stop and ask for directions, but also ask whether that is the bookstore and then talk about Science and Health.\nI was praying for protection in all of this, you are driving to a new country. You don’t even know the road, the directions. So you had to really rely more on God, God\u2019s protection. And I remember one time I was driving to Mwanza.\nThe first time I drove to Tanzania and the week I was driving through a national park and I found a roadblock, there were soldiers and they said you can’t drive there because it’s dangerous. But then I told them, I’d driven a very long distance from home, and I was nearing my destination, so I couldn’t stop there.\nSo they were so nice. I talk to them nicely and I shared with them about Christian Science and Science and Health and I even gave them two free copies of Science and Health. So they were so happy and they gave me an escort, a policeman with a gun to drive with me through the park. And this man, we went on talking and discussing about all the good ideas I was discovering in Christian Science and he was so much interested.\nSo when he reached into Mwanza, he said, I’m going to help you even look for a safe hotel. And he actually went ahead and looked for me, booked for me a nice hotel where I started making now contacts. So to the Christian Scientist in Mwanza, I called the number which I found in the Christian Science Journal, but it wasn’t working.\nI decided to write to them on the email and I checked, they were not answering my email. I stayed there for two days and I wrote about three different emails and they were not responding. So I decided to leave Mwanza and then continue to Nairobi in another country, Kenya. So when I asked about the direction to Nairobi, they showed me, it was actually on the opposite direction of where I was staying.\nSo I decided to change my hotel and then go stay in their direction, find another hotel. So that’s what I did. And as I was driving and looking for a hotel, I saw a signpost of a hotel and I said, okay, I’m going to stay in this one. I kept on following the signposts and twas leading me off the road.\nAnd this is not what I wanted to do really, because I wanted to be on the main road. But the signs were taking me to the deeper, deeper inside. But anyway, I decided to book in and when I start checking in into a new hotel, I went back and wrote another email from the internet cafe, telling them, the Christian Scientist in Mwanza that I have changed my hotel from the first one to now a new one.\nThis is when they also checked the email. They checked the email and what was very interesting is the new hotel where I had checked in was just separating walls, perimeter walls, with the church in Mwanza, Christian Science\u00a0\u00a0 church.\nSo they came running to my hotel and they said, how did you discover us? How did he know that we are staying here? I say that well, they said they showed me the church and I couldn’t believe. So I knew to us now, God is work. And this, it charged me more. I felt like a brand new battery. I felt now I have more reason now to do what I was doing.\nAnd I, because I knew God was on my side. And so that was a good experience for me during this work for Science and Health, selling Science and Health in East Africa.\nRobin: You know, what’s interesting Lamech, cause I’m often asked about how do I get experience, and how do I learn about this and how do I learn about that? We’re always talking about volunteering. If you can’t find something to get paid, are you willing to work, to learn, are you willing to give back, are you willing to volunteer so that in that place that you want to ultimately get to, are you willing to do that?\nYour willingness to jump in, cause I know you had your businesses back home that are helping support you, that this activity was really from the goodness of your heart, right?\nLamech: Yeah, it\u2019s really been interesting. I think my passion to do volunteer work is just natural because I did many other things on a voluntary basis.\nAfter I started working for the Mother Church, I also worked with the Principle Foundation, which is found in Kansas City. They had a program in Uganda, called the Uganda Project, and they were helping kids in both primary and secondary institution. And I was their facilitator. I was doing voluntary work as a volunteer.\nWhen I finished that, that’s well that’s, that is how actually ABF also contacted me, made contacts with me. And I volunteered. Yes. Yes. The Albert Baker Fund wanted to expand to Africa. They contacted me towards the end of 2003, but we really started working in 2004 and I volunteered to work as a representative of ABF in Africa for five years.\nThey hired me in 2009. So volunteering is no problem with me. The main force, which drives me, is the fact that I was helped in almost my entire education journey. People helped me in my primary school. People helped me in my secondary school, even at the university.\nSo I decided, I promised myself that if I start working and earning something, I’m going to do the same.\nI’m going to be helping people to access it. So when ABF came in and contacted me, I was very happy because I knew it was going to help me achieve my dream, fulfill my dream of helping people, access education without actually much struggle because again I was thinking I was going to make money and then pay it to my set up from my pocket.\nBut now ABF is here, wanting to pay for students just with my support. So that, that pushed me to work all those years as a volunteer. But you see what is interesting even after being hired in 2009, I still didn’t give up. As I continued doing volunteer work with other organizations. For example, I volunteer, I still volunteer with Santi Africa Foundation and nonprofit organization, which helps students in primary and secondary in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.\nI’m also serving on the board of the international school called Three Rivers Academy in Kenya. I’m also serving on the board of a vocational training Institute in my village, in my home area called the single vocational Institute. And I’m also a board member or championing a primary school.\nSo I’m doing all this on a voluntary basis, even when I have a paying job. So to me, anything which has to do with education, that is my passion and that more is I always just do it without even thinking. Yes.\nRobin: Well, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Albert Baker Fund?\nLamech: With Albert Baker Fund, I’m working as the African Program Managers and we have operations, or our program is in 13 countries in Africa.\nWe do work with universities, good universities, in every country to provide assistance, financial assistance to those practicing, active Christian Scientists who are struggling to find tuition. And my role is to actually verify. I work with a team of in country representatives together with an African processing agent to verify that the information given to us by the students and the universities is genuine.\nOnce we verify and confirm that the information is okay, then we pay for those students. But also my other work is to mentor these students.\nSo that is my role with ABF and I’ll tell you I’m so happy. And to have this opportunity to work with the Albert Baker Fund because it has exposed me to many interesting things. For example, I think I’m really so blessed. I’ve seen some privilege, privilege, privilege to, to witness transformation of people and, and also to witness the kind of huge impact made by these students.\nThey do on their communities, in their counties. And Africa is as a whole.\nRobin: Let’s talk about this one in particular, because this, this is one of those organizations that you work with and volunteer, and they came to you with a particular help need that involved a hiring process. So tell us how that worked out?\nLamech: I happen to sit on the advisory board of the Three Rivers Academy in Kenya, a new international school, supported by three schools and organization in the U. S. So I was contacted to be among us, the panelists, the people I to interview and hire the, the new principal of this international school.\nI was so happy when during the interview to discover that the top, some of the top candidates were actually our former ABF students and the way our PhD, PhD, or DAS. So I was forced to dig more for information. I wanted to go back and see, to learn more about these two specific students.\nAnd that’s when I discovered that they were actually originally former teachers in their local schools and when ABF and expanded it to Africa, people thought that it was only for regular students. But I remember when I traveled to these countries and, and told the people that ABF is not only for regular students, it’s only, it is also for other or the students who had stopped going to school long time ago.\nSo I encourage people that even if you stopped going to school long time ago, but now you feel that is a special skill, which you can change your life or help you transform other people’s lives. You are welcome to apply. So this is how they applied. And they came to do advanced diplomas in education.\nAfter that, they also came back to do degrees bachelor’s degree in education, and then they came back to do masters in educational management, and then they didn\u2019t stop there. They came back again to do PhDs. So these ladies are now working in two different universities. One is working as a senior manager of the university.\nAnd another one is teaching, is a trainer is a lecturer in a national teacher’s college.\nTo me, this was so much gratifying to witness the kind of impact, huge impact the ABF is making you know, to this country and what they, they, they, I mean this students and what these students are also passing forward to their communities.\nRobin: Well, it doesn’t stop there. This beautiful young lady is also one of those ABF recipients. You mentioned earlier about helping your local community and the school. So tell us about how you and your sweet bride Joy jumped in and really made an impact.\nLamech: Well, because, because, you know I really enjoy doing volunteer work and giving back to the community, passing forward the blessing and use what it for me, anything which I enjoy, I want to share it.\nI try to entrust other people to do the same, to do their own work, to do, to give back to the community. And the recently, I was working with my wife, this is my wife Joy.\nAnd I was working with her and I to persuade have other big team of professionals to go to my village and help the two schools, which are there. And so Joy and her team, she, we managed it to do a master plan for these two schools.\nRobin: She’s an architect, right?\nLamech: Yes, she does architecture and interior designing.\nAnd we did all this work for free. And you know, this, this is a big team of professionals, engineers, and they all did this work for free because I convinced them to do this because other people were already doing it. I had participated in, in a competition at ATL, a big company.\nYeah. Telephone company in Uganda and the way every other year invite proposals of organizations or over a thousand, right. Over a thousand, a thousand proposals came in his company has over 11 million subscribers. So when they send out anything, many people respond, and so this competition way out of a, I think they were above of a thousand submissions. And they called me. I remember I was living in Nigeria doing ABF work. So I received a call from, from ATL and they said are you Lamech, I said, yes, did you participate? I said, yes. And they said, you have won! We are happy to tell you, we have won, your school has won. And we are going to give you the windows and the doors to your school.\nSo I was using this experience and the incidents to explain to other professionals that look here, you can do this as a social corporate responsibility. And we have been able to achieve a lot because of this initiative. Yeah. A lot of people now I know jump in to this volunteer business.\nRobin: Well, you obviously made a huge impact and that again is in your, in your local community.\nYou’ve really just such a wonderful example Lamech, of how mentoring and reaching out and, being unafraid to, to share the things that you’re learning and what, you know has just been such a blessing to you and your community.\nBegin Q&A\nWe’re going to go right to the Q and A at this point.\nSo Lamech, how has casting your net on the right side. And how has it been to be so fearless and casting your net on the right side impacted your life and your journey?\nLamech: Well I would say it has impacted almost my entire life in many ways. For example, I’ve always learned, I’ve learned never to give up. I, I learned this again by studying Christian Science, because this was the motto of Mary Baker, Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and I’ve learned never to give up.\nI don’t give up easily. And even when I try something and doesn’t seem to go the way I intended it to, I don’t take it as it really a failure. I’ve learned to move with things and know that this is God’s plan. So I don’t really see it as a failure. And I’ve also learned how to seek for protection.\nI trust God for protections. I take my life. I look at God is Love as a, you know, I always compare it to is the way wax protects the car from the dust. So if you have complete confidence in the truth, which you learn, you will know that you can’t be affected by any harm. So we are always protected and I’ve applied to this in my entire life.\nI’ll give you an example because when I was growing up, I used every time I’m moving at night through the forest, going home to the main road, this terrace that you move with a stick, a reed. It protects you. I don’t know how that was true, but what is interesting that even when I had the stick, I was always very scared until when I was exposed to Christian Science, then I knew that actually our protection comes from God.\nAnd that is when I started moving without fear. So that has been actually, that’s a big change from the way you used to see things. So knowing that you are always protected by God is, is, is very, very important in my work. Even when I traveled to countries where I don’t know anybody, we keep expanding, ABF, keeps expanding to other new countries and they I’m always the first person to visit.\nAnd usually what I go to a country when I don’t know anybody, but I’m always very confident that God is going to protect me, is going to show me the right people to talk to. And that has worked for me, very well.\nRobin: So we have a question and the question is maybe share an experience or some challenges that you’ve faced during your volunteer work.\nLamech: Sometimes I actually see when I when I’m faced with a challenge, sometimes I celebrate, it’s weird. It’s weird because people are always, they’re at this time when they are faced with challenges, but to me, every time I have a challenge and I see it as an opportunity for me to, to, to, to pray and apply Christian Science.\nAnd every time I solve a problem or a challenge, I celebrate.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m like, yes, I know this one. So it is always for me it’s celebration. So I don’t really see it as a challenge. It’s an opportunity for me to celebrate again after solving this\nRobin: Lamech, you you’ve been so wonderful and so generous with your willingness to share your thoughts and your journey. It’s a remarkable journey. I can’t wait to share it with those who weren’t able to join us today.\nIf you’re interested in helping to improve Africa and the lives of Africans, you can go to the Albert Baker Fund website and you will find wonderful information there.\nAnd if you’re a student in Africa, I know we’ve had some that have reached out. Be sure that you check the website and there’s lots of information right there. Lamech, and his team will be happy to help you. If you’re interested in North American programs, you can check the website as well for that.\nAnd. If you are interested in the Career Alliance and connecting with folks like Lamech or career allies, or looking for jobs or looking to connect with one another, go to the ABFcareeralliance.org. If you’re a student or, you know, a student, be sure and share with them about our Brotherly Love scholarships. We are accepting applications for those.\nFollow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And remember, to cast your net on the right side. We have a stellar example of one who has done that and is doing it. And I can’t wait to hear the new stories and I can’t wait to do Lamech Robin, number two down the road, so we can pick up some of the things that we didn’t get to talk about today.\nLamech: Yes, you’re right. It’s true.\nRobin: It was a terrific time and you’re so, so gracious for staying up so late in your neck of the woods with, with those sweet babies, they’re close, I’m sure by the side and until we meet again, my friend and all of you that are out there, thank you for joining us today. In two weeks, we’ll be back with a focus on human resources and how we approach and move through this time with all things that are new. It’ll be exciting show with Beth Trevino. She’s the HR director at Principia College.\nLamech love you, man. Thanks so much.\nLamech: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.\nRobin: Look forward to seeing you soon.\nLamech: All right. Bye bye and greetings to everyone.\nRobin: You too, brother.", "date_published": "2021-03-12T02:43:33-08:00", "date_modified": "2023-08-21T12:23:14-07:00", "authors": [ { "name": "Gabriel Serafini", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/author/admin/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bddbb394eff14300a8d1b157a5407e4c7c907bc3c74f4f50f8313e8ef70c0f?s=512&d=mm&r=g" } ], "author": { "name": "Gabriel Serafini", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/author/admin/", "avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/24bddbb394eff14300a8d1b157a5407e4c7c907bc3c74f4f50f8313e8ef70c0f?s=512&d=mm&r=g" }, "image": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/files/2021/03/net-effect-38-lamech-katamba-man.jpg", "tags": [ "Africa", "Business Management", "career success", "education", "entrepreneurship", "Higher education", "Homepage Featured", "Net Effect Career Conversations and Connections", "Podcast", "Videos", "Webinars" ], "attachments": [ { "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/429/files/2021/03/Episode-38-Lamech-Katamba-Manager-of-ABFs-Africa-Programs-in-13-countries.mp3", "mime_type": "audio/mpeg", "size_in_bytes": 56705781 } ] }, { "id": "https://abfcareeralliance.org/?p=3321", "url": "https://www.albertbakerfund.org/2020/12/11/net-effect-34-hilary-harper-wilcoxen-director-of-mission-advancement-for-team-long-run/", "title": "Net Effect #34: Hilary Harper-Wilcoxen, Director of Mission Advancement for Team Long Run", "content_html": "\nTopic: “When one door closes, where do you find the next door?”
\nAbout Our Speaker:
\nAs Director of Mission Advancement for Team Long Run, Hilary spends most of her time helping kids living in high poverty access enrichment programs that will give them their best shot at a happy and productive future. Team Long Run’s free programs combine running and active play with reading and literacy, and serve more than 6,000 children coast-to-coast.
Hilary’s work experience has run the gamut—from professional model and dancer, to campaign director for a US Congressman, director of development for a large arts organization, college professor in Principia’s theatre and dance department–and eventually an elementary classroom teacher and education innovator. Hilary firmly believes that everything she has done in her career up to this point has prepared her for her current role at Team Long Run.
\nQuestions we’ll be discussing with Hilary:
\n– How do you go from being a professional ballerina to a campaign director for a US Congressman?
\n– If you are looking for a job, what does it mean to start with what you have “in the house”? (2Kings 4:2)
\n– What if you are directed to a totally new opportunity where you have no experience or particular education?
\n– And, when one door closes, where do you find the next door?
Hilary earned her BA in Political Science from Columbia University, and a Masters in Performing Arts and Dance from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She currently lives in Bridgeton, Maine.
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\nTopic: “How do future leaders of the world connect in the mountains of Pennsylvania?” Let’s ask these two!”
\nAbout Our Speakers:
\nBecca attended Principia Upper School and Principia College, graduating in 2015 with a BA in International Global Studies. Throughout her childhood, Becca attended Crystal Lake Camps (CLC) as a camper. During college, she worked at CLC as a camp counselor and co-directed the Leadership Training program for two summers. After graduating from Principia, she and a friend spent 7 months traveling and working in New Zealand and Australia. She returned to camp for one more summer as a counselor, then stayed on year-round as a Program Coordinator until becoming Director in the summer of 2017.
Alex was born and raised in Massachusetts. He attended Principia Upper School and then Principia College, where he majored in Political Science and Government. He first came to Crystal Lake Camps as a camper when he was six years old. Eventually he became part of the summer staff, then head staff, and now he is in his third year as a full-time Camp Administrator at Crystal Lakes Camp.
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\nTopic: “Follow Her Career Path From Summer Camp Counselor to White Water Rafter to Marine Scientist!”
\nAbout Our Speaker:
\nThis week on the Net Effect we welcome Holly Valentine, Aquarist with Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. Holly’s work as a marine scientist focuses on conservation, education, and research, through which she inspires people to care for and protect our oceans and our planet.
Holly is a caretaker in the Fish and Invertebrates Department of the aquarium, where she manages and maintains the main gallery. She describes it as “filled with fish from all over the globe, invertebrates that will make your imagination run wild, predators you can only get this close to in captivity, and more!”
\nHolly earned her Bachelor of Science in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina where she was assistant editor of the MarSci publication and a 4-year member of her college band. She has a certification in Swift Water Rescue.
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\nTopic: “The changing needs of students, distance learning, and how ABF is helping students navigate through these challenging times”
\nAbout Our Speaker:
\nDr. Ritter is an accomplished college educator and administrator with extensive experience developing innovative programs and services for students. He is well-known to the Christian Science community through his 23-year career at Principia College, where he held a variety of positions, from Professor of Chemistry to Provost, and Dean of Academics. Most recently he was Founding Dean of the College of Individual and Community Health at Bemidji State University (BSU) in northern Minnesota.
Dr. Ritter earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Delaware; and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware.
\nPart of our Net Effect Conversations series: https://www.albertbakerfund.org/category/net-effect/\r\nSubscribe to our YouTube channel here
\r\n\r\nThe replay of our September career conversation with Dan LaBar, innovative educator and community-builder, is now available in video, podcast, and transcript. Click “Watch Net Effect Replays” below!
\n