I called home yesterday and my 3.8 year old daughter says, “Daddy it’s 14:18 o’clock and are you coming home soon?”
I last saw her on Sunday afternoon before I had to leave for a four day business trip to Perth, Australia - a 4 hour plane trip to the other side of Australia.
It’s been a pretty full on time here. I work in the health industry selling products to the blood banking section of the Red Cross in Australia.
I’m here on a fishing expedition to increase my sales by $140k p/a in a previously unfruitful part of my business. On top of that, I have accompanied my colleague on multiple training sessions throughout the world of business.
So it’s been business all the way for the last 3 days and tomorrow I go home. I just got back from an awesome dinner at a restaurant called “C Restaurant.” This place is on the 33rd floor of a building in down town Perth - Australia’s fourth largest city. And it rotates 360 degress so you get to see the whole of Perth about 4 times during your dinner.
Perth is an amazing place. It’s located in the state of Western Australia - a region of Australia milking the daylights out of the economic growth of China. Western Australia (WA) has heaps of natural resources and the economic boom in this state is riding on the coat tail of China’s hunger for natural resources.
We were staying at a suburb called Scarborough Beach - right on the coast line of WA. Our hotel had balcony views across the Indian Ocean. Having the sun set over the ocean is a rare treat for a person living on the eastern seaboard of Australia - so you can imagine my mesmerisation at the colours before my eyes of a skyline where the sun has set and yet reflecting off the ocean.
At tonight’s dinner table, I was surrounded by the who’s who of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (ARCBS). I was sitting at my table and looking into the faces of my 5 guests and pondered upon the influence sitting at my table.
It was a surreal experience as these days, my professional reality is growing further and further apart from my personal and faith based reality. Even though I should have been pursuing major business opportunities from these people, my mind couldn’t wonder far from the homeless man I saw on the streets of Perth the other day as I was having lunch.
This guy wore torn jeans and a flannel shirt. He was bare foot and the soles of his feet were black from walking around bare foot. He was sitting metres away from where my collegue and I were enjoying a nice lunch and a fat slice of cheese cake.
I talked about this homeless man with my colleague and she dismissed the whole thing the following way, “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.” What a huge cop out! Jesus deliberately hung out with such people simply because they were sick.
He didn’t wait till they asked for help. He didn’t look down on them. He hung out with such people. As I was having my dinner tonight and suffering in the environment of small talk with people you really have no interest or commonality with, my mind raced to where the homeless man was sleeping tonight.
I stay in the best hotels and eat in the best restaurants in Australia. However I’m beginning to despise my corporate reality. Scripture tells me to worship God with the fruit of my lips and sharing my goods with people in need. Corporate life is the exact opposite of this.
Corporate life shouts, “It’s all about me and do whatever it takes to reach your goals.” Jesus says to deny my life and in doing so, I will find it. Corporate life says to focus on goals and implement strategies in order to achieve budgets. Scripture tells me to share my goods with the poor.
So I now hope you can share with me my delight in the fact that I am going home tomorrow. I have a 4 hour plane ride and lose 2 hours in time zone difference - rendering my work day complete. The icing is in the fact that I get to hold my family again and be in their presence.
The cream is the fact that I can forget about corporate life until Friday hits. My thorn is the thought of where the homless man is spending tonight.
Tags: perth, western australia, corporate life, christianity, missional
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