When the snow had been shoveled off the track at our kids’ high school in Maine, track practices could begin. Most years that was possible by April. Among the conditioning workouts and the individual event training soon came the rehearsal of skills for the various relay events that my children occasionally were part of. For each of these events, whether a sprint relay like the 4x100, or a mixed distance event like the medley or the 4x800 meter distance, or some other combination, unquestionably the most critical few seconds are those when the baton is passed from one runner, nearly spent and exhausted, to the next, standing fresh and eager to run. Well executed, the transition could mean the difference in a place on the podium and a team record, or frustration with time lost or even a disqualification for passing the baton outside the specified area. Watching them learn and practice their timing, communication and coordination skills made me appreciate their results all the more. But execution when they were engaged in the excitement and exhaustion of the race was often more challenging than they had anticipated.
In the medical field we have learned that a similar high risk situation is the transition in care, from one baton-carrying provider to another, whether that be doctors, nurses or others. And since these kind of transitions happen many times each day, even small risks multiplied by countless patients mean that someone somewhere is going to suffer when a key detail of their care is missed and the baton falls on the track, or remains in the hand of the prior runner.
Mission presidents in some respects are relay runners too, and care providers, who have to hand off to the next runner an important baton. Well actually it is a host of batons. We don’t get spring practice to rehearse the process with the next phase runner. But we do benefit from some institutional experience and a standard checklist to follow covering a few of the critical hand-overs that must occur seamlessly. But since each mission president functions in a very different setting, even though the title may appear similar, the task ahead for us is uncharted in many respects.
One of the rather unique, contrary to prevailing wisdom kinds of things about church leadership is the very short hand-over allotted to many offices. For Mission Presidents the overlap between arrival of new and departure of the old is rarely longer than 24 hours and may be an hour or less in some circumstances. Couple that with the sleep deprivation of jet lag and it would seem almost certain that the baton will fall to the ground somewhere. But there is wisdom in this approach, foolish as it seems to conventional wisdom. The mission president must approach his task with enough of a feeling of inadequacy, and enough of ignorance, to always seek the guidance he needs from above, not from the former occupant of his new chair.
While this is especially important for the missionaries to whom he will minister, it also has value with regard to dealing with members and other church leaders. The young missionaries, whom of course we love and think are the best, get to start afresh with the impressions they will make as they meet with their new president, free from any detailed briefing and hence bias from me.
So what is on the checklist? Aside from the details of how to find the washing machine, and the wifi password in the mission home, we will provide to the new mission president a sample suggested schedule for his first month. I sat down to look at that the other day and mapped something out that included visits to interview missionaries in their apartments or districts, some zone conferences, meetings with the district presidencies, speaking in various branches, a couple of days for a whirlwind trip to visit saints in the mission branch and meetings with his counselors in that branch, undoubtedly some last minute temple recommend interviews as people in hords head to the temple in July, and all culminating with a rather significant departure of the very best of his missionaries- 10 of them, almost 20% of his forces. He might take a peek at that and decide to never unpack!
With that schedule in mind, I see my next few weeks filled with 1) efforts to try to resolve problems that have lingered so that he doesn’t need to even know about them, and 2) endeavors to fortify the members and missionaries such that there is a sort of “autopilot” effect for the first few weeks. We have met with two dozen people this week on varying matters of progress- missionary applications, priesthood ordinations, temple recommends and support applications- as we have worked in Ho Chi Minh City, An Giang, Tien Giang, Tra Vinh, Can Tho and parts in-between.
These visits have impressed upon me how much progress has been taking place while we have been here, and often while we were not looking. The gospel grows along family trees, and seeing now more and more families eagerly preparing to make eternal promises with each other and with God as part of his plan to bring to pass our eternal life and happiness emphasizes that powerfully. So where two years ago was just one hard working young man who was a member of the church, there is now a three generation family of engaged and growing members of the church. Where once was a small group of three members and a few other friends meeting to pray and sing in a tiny upstairs room, is now a group of often thirty members of all generations and ages in several extended families engaged in the work of loving and serving one another- even when they have differences of understanding, and bearing with one another’s weaknesses. I will resist the temptation to go on into boasting, but not the opportunity to “glory in the Lord” as did Ammon. It is a wonderful work and a wonder that has come to pass, and is still coming to pass.
It is often small details that seem to point out the Lord’s hand in this ministry. One such was evident today, as we traveled with Judy Battchi, a long term friend, who has been visiting, and just happens to speak Mandarin fluently. We visited my counselor, deep in the Mekong delta in the small village outside of Bac Lieu where he lives with one daughter. But today, of all days to visit, his other daughter from Cambodia, and who is also a member, though perhaps less frequently attending church there, was visiting. And with her she brought her Chinese husband, who speaks Vietnamese hardly at all, but who could easily speak with Judy and ask all sorts of questions that have been unanswered in their years of marriage.
The miracles, small and large, will continue, even as we stumble into the baton exchange zone, tired and panting, and therefore willing to hand the task to younger and fresher legs, and with complete confidence that the grace of a loving God will compensate for our inability or lack of practice in handing off each and every unfinished detail. Our checklist of checklists continues to grow!
