Meeting people

Today began by following what is beginning to feel like a kind of pattern - breakfast, preparation for the devotional time, before travelling to the other Team Hotel to do my duty there. One team official came to the Oasis but as he was a French-speaking country one of the other chaplains, who is himself from a French-speaking African country, led a Bible Study for him. My German colleague and I who were on duty listened and learned as much as we could! Lunch followed, when various people who're often around at the same time said hello and had brief chats - an important part of chaplaincy is dependant on building relationships so it's always an advantage (and quite amazing) when relationships can begin to be built so quickly. After lunch, my practice of 'loitering with intent' paid off as I was able to meet one athlete I'd spoken to 2 days ago (the day before her competition) and spend sometime chatting about how she felt about not doing as well as hoped/expected yesterday. Later on, I was also pleased to bump into an athlete connected with Loughborough whom I hadn't met before and introduce myself, before heading to the stadium to watch 2 other Loughborough athletes perform in their events. Once those events were over, I returned to the hotel just as our canteen was finishing serving food, and then did went to the Internet lounge to write this blog - and ended up in an interesting conversation with a team official from one the smaller nations of the world. On my final return to the room I share with 4 other chaplains and our administrator, we discovered that for the first time during waking hours since we've been here we were all 'at home' at the same time. We ended up having a good chat and really good laugh. I think all of us were nervous about sharing a room with so many other females but it's working out okay. This is a feeling shared by many athletes too, as like us they can end up sharing rooms with people they hardy know or don't know at all.