The Art of Saying "No."

260

August of 2000, we made the transition from Tennessee back (for me) to Iowa.  We found a newly remodeled house large enough for us in Newton.  The boys were 8, 6, 3, and 1 respectively.  We were close to my parents and brother and closer to Amy’s sister, Molly in Hannibal, MO.

I knew things would be difficult. I just wasn’t sure “how” or “where” they would be difficult.  And of course, the “trouble” came from directions I was not necessarily expecting.

Some interesting tie-ins for me personally were that John Mathis, the warden, was friends with my parents.  Also, my mother was good friends with Warden Mathis’ secretary.

I also had some history with the IFI-counseling staff.  I had gone to Central Bible College with one of the counselors, Steve Castaneda.  I had even sung at his wedding in 1984.  I had met another counselor, Gary Cox.  He was also a Central graduate and originally from my home town of Knoxville.  He had previously been an instructor at Iowa Christian College (ICC).  I had been a featured artist at a Youth Weekend at ICC one time and we had a lengthy conversation, but he didn’t remember me.  Dan Kingery had been a volunteer who was hired as a counselor a month before I arrived.  He also lived in Knoxville, but originally was from Newton. The previous Program Manager, Bruce Paulus was someone I knew from Central.  The “Drug Treatment” counselor was of Sri Lankan descent and from England, her name was Mickey Pope.  The Aftercare Manager Greg Allen was from Pella and it just so happened that I wrestled against the Pella squad he was on.  Of course Sam Dye was the director.

I had a clear belief that I was “assigned” by God to be there.  It was a fall-back position I went to often that first year when things were bad.  The Holy Spirit was communicating clearly to me at that time, probably because I was so desperate and so inadequate.  It was a hard start, but a good one (not one, however, I’d like to repeat.)

Prison itself has a very static culture and there was a firmly established culture at IFI when I arrived.  There were so many “things” floating around and I knew enough at the time to not answer any questions or requests. I was there to learn and absorb.

None-the-less, I was bombarded by questions from the inmates, DOC staff, and IFI staff.  I can’t describe to you how intense the questioning was. “Can I do this, can we get that, will we do this, hey, Bruce said this was going to happen, I was promised that, I have an idea, are we going to do this…”  These questions came from everywhere, particularly IFI members and volunteers.  99.9% of my answers were “No”, “I’m not looking at that right now” or “I’ll check and I might get back with you.”  I committed to nothing. Mainly because I didn’t know anything, but also I immediately knew, IFI needed to narrow its focus.  The amount of peripheral stuff that was floating around was un-do-able.

Needless to say, I immediately started pissing people off. DOC staff, IFI staff, volunteers, and IFI members alike.  There were so many under-the-table-end-around-pet-projects out there, I thought I would just go ahead and squash them all.

Not fun, but necessary.

chris