Generous Connections
Global Nomad
Over the past 35 years, in ports of call around the world, we have sought to locate our Mr Find Anything. A resourceful and creative friend who has multi-connections in a wide range of areas within the port city and beyond. A whole book could be written about such amazing people who have drawn alongside the preparation teams and have become “forever” friends.
One such friend was Graham, “Sir Graham” as we affectionately named him. He was truly an “angel in disguise” for us. It was fascinating to watch him at work. Often we would be driving along in his mini-bus going for a cup of coffee to a favourite restaurant in which he had ongoing involvement as an advisor. He would ask “What are you looking for today, David” and I would share with him that as a result of the increasing maritime legislation, each of the safety life-jackets on board some 300+ now need to have three florescent strips instead of one. This one new regulation meant we need to purchase 600 such strips probably at a minimum of $5 each. Did he have a contact? Without hesitating for a moment, from his mega memory-bank, he gave me three people and their phone numbers to call. One of them would help he was sure.
This would happen almost daily and would range from: venues for international music night, creative ways of marketing the ship, to contacts in the Government, ministry opportunities, potential printers, links with the nearby rural leaders, catering specialists, creative advertising options etc etc. Graham worked for the city council and was often “out in the field” as it were so had his pulse on grass-roots matters. One of his many projects was setting up a re-habilitation group among those being made unexpectedly redundant. He would walk them prayerfully through the painful process and seek to get them re-positioned in a new firm.
He also had the foresight to be part of a group that was formed called J-17. The vision was to have a core group of inter-church networkers from a variety of professions and trades as a coordinating committee for any city-wide event that was taking place. They would offer to be a resource-bank and facilitation group for such events. Thus the wheel was not re-invented every time. This group became the core of the committee for the ship visit as well. Excellent vision!!
Global Nomad
25 February 2010
Posted on: Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 3:24 pm 
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