Day 206 (Prayer-a-thon)

Some of the other students and I spent a few hour calling alumni asking if there was anything they would like us to pray for. It was funny watching my dormant call center skills begin to stir and come back to life. Of course, calling people for prayer requests was a lot more pleasant than trying to get people to schedule their sleep studies or OK a shipment of CPAP supplies. It was doubly annoying because I was trying to help them and they were just being cheap, stubborn or both. (The medical patients, not the alumni)

It was actually a very healing experience to be in a call-center type of situation that had almost no pressure attached to it. There are some horrendous calls that I had to do in my past jobs that I will never forget. Some people think that they have the right to say whatever they want to a person who is calling them when they don't want that person to be calling. I've had people swear at me, say extremely vulgar things, and just be plain rude.

Luckily, none of the alumni behaved that way. There were some really sad stories tonight from the calls, though. There are a lot of people in pain out there. But, there were also some amazing calls. I spent almost 20 minutes on the phone with a man who graduated in the late 60s that told me about what his seminary experience was like, and another man in Colorado whose prayer request was that the Presbyterian Church would ordain all types of people regardless of who they are. I put a gold star on his prayer request.