oh no!, not me (part 2)

about 10 years ago i became part of the management team for an international ministry based in the DFW area. several months had past and all was going well (or so i thought). the person i worked direct for happened to be out of town as part of his usual ministry business. i knew that one of the ministry's executive officers was arriving in town during my supervisor's trip. this executive officer would come to visit us and meet with area ministers whenever he was in town, so naturally, i thought this would be another one of those visits.

oddly enough, during his second day's visit to the office, he called me into a vacant office that he would use during his trip to the area and he gave me the news that he was actually in town to "let me go". that's right, his trip from another part of the country was to "dismiss" me, hence giving me the reason that my position was going to be eliminated. of course i had no knowledge of staff changes that were happening. during the course of his discussion with me, he asked if i was aware of the changes that were going to be made. i told him that i didn't, then his facial expression changed, because my supervisor was to give me notice of the pending staff reorganization. not only did my superior fail to inform me, but i later came to find out that he asked the executive officer to come and release me during the time he was going to be out of town.

so that day, i gathered my things and left only having to return the next morning to finalize some pending financial matters. when i arrived the next morning, i noticed that they had changed the security code on the alarm system (i'm thinking what for? you've got my key). after i sat with the executive officer and walked him through all the pending checks and invoices and so on, i left. i left wounded, feeling how could my supervisor do this to me. to go out of town, go through the expense of flying someone in (on ministry money mind you) in order to release me. the man didn't even notify me as instructed by his superiors. i think that would have left and ANYONE a little furious. that event was the beginning of one of the worst ministry experiences that i had to deal with. anger, bitterness, hurt, disbelief and offence begin to settle in. and if you think that's was the worst of it, in all honesty, it truly doesn't get better for sure.