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Originally appeared in APeX Attack #1 (February
1998)
The Year In Review
By Gene Monterastelli
Here is a collection of thoughts and experiences from the
past year.
Hello, My Name Is Gene
From time to time we find ourselves sitting for hours on
end working in booth space. Doing that sell, sell, sell. We try
to be dynamic, charismatic and as engaging as possible to convince
people of the quality of our product. This creates an interesting
dynamic. When you are in this state of mind you try to engage
everyone possible. This is a very good thing, until you leave
your booth to go to Taco Bell for a little lunch and you are
still talking to everyone you meet. Everyone looks at you like
you are a serial killer, just tip toeing around you, trying not
to make any sudden moves. Me: "Hi. How are you doing today?"
Other person in line (OPIL): "Fine (leaning over to get
a better view of the name tag I have forgotten to take off, but
still trying not to get too close) Gene." Me: "So what
group are you here with at the conference?" OPIL: "What
conference are you talking about? I am just trying to get a few
tacos." Me: "Make sure you sign our book so we can
get information to you in the future." OPIL "What ever
you say," as they clutch their children's hands tightly
backing out of the restaurant with out their food.
BYOBPV (Bring Your Own Bulletproof Vest)
We did a workshop on evangelization, which included a sketch
about the disciples right after Jesus was crucified. It was a
very interesting endeavor. To do this, we had to become these
men. We had to understand how they were feeling. These were men
who had given up everything in their lives. They had just walked
away from their families and their jobs to follow this preacher
and healer. They thought he was going to bring about "the
Kingdom of God" right before their eyes. After following
this man for over three years, he was dead. He did not die in
any ordinary way, but he was publicly humiliated, tortured, and
then killed in a very brutal manner. These men, who had given
their lives to follow Jesus, must have felt confused, scared
and betrayed. To make matters worse they now feared for their
own lives. Three days later Jesus appeared to them in a form
which at first appeared to be a ghost, later to be realized as
a resurrected body. Jesus told this group of men, some tax collectors,
some fishermen, to go out and baptize and convert all living
beings. In going through the exercise of finding out who these
men were and really getting inside of their heads, two ideas
struck a deep cord with me. First, it broke these people out
of mythology. It is very easy sometimes to chalk up the stories
told in the Bible as just stories, people and places that have
no relation to my life. They are sometimes viewed as stories
with a "moral of the story" to be learned. At no point
have I ever doubted the reality of these men and their lives,
but sometimes it is very hard to relate to the situations and
lives of people who lived two thousand years ago. For the first
time in my life these people became very real. They were very
extraordinary men, not just members of an extraordinary story,
for they believed in Jesus when it certainly was not en vogue
to do so. They were men with families and jobs. They were men
who struggled with life and faith. They were men just like me.
The second idea which struck me in this exercise was the endeavor
these men where called to make of their lives. They were called
to go baptize all living things, to tell the world "You
know Jesus, the guy who was just crucified? He is the Son of
God!" They could have been killed, some were, for what they
believed and said. Realizing what they did and in what context
they did it gave me new eyes to look at my own life. My vocation
may not be so hard. I get to travel the country meeting great
people, getting to play everywhere I go. At no point do I ever
fear for my life for what I say or what I believe. Not to minimize
the amount of hard work we do, but in comparison to the first
disciples, the times I have been born into and the vocation I
have been given are not as burdensome as I sometimes make them
out to be.
The Bearded Woman in a $400 Suit
From September 23rd, 1997 to October 3rd, 1998 I (as affectionately
refereed to it) "moonlighted" at Andersen Consulting.
Now, I know it is hard to believe that working from 60 to 112
hours a week is moonlighting, but for nothing else but sanity’s
sake that is how I had to refer to it. It was a way to remind
myself what my actual goal was. Working both jobs posed some
interesting challenges, like being able to change into a suit
in an airplane bathroom at 4 a.m. so when my plane landed after
working a diocesan conference I could go straight from the airport
to work. Even odder than the life style itself, I became something
akin to the bearded lady in my professional environment. When
new people where added to our team or when someone was stopping
by to see what we were doing I was never introduced for my technical
ability. I was introduced as the guy who can balance anything
on his nose. Not introduced as a contributor to the team, just
a physical anomaly. To say the least (like I ever said the least
about anything) it has been a bit of a lifestyle change going
from a yuppie computer programmer of one of the world's top information
systems developing consulting firm to something which can be
best described as a cross between an itinerant preacher and a
juggler. Still, in all of it, some how we are getting our ends
to meet. I wish there was some way I could do the Grace we have
experienced justice in words. Every time we have needed something,
it has just shown up. Every single time we needed more work,
a donation, or a new challenge, it has come. So many times in
the beginning I wished we could be doing the ministry full time
instead of one or two shows a month, but we were not ready yet.
The ways the ministry and we have grown over the last 15 months
is so amazing and in retrospect it all happened at the right
time. I still lose sleep some nights wondering if I have lost
my mind trying to be a part of this (Will it really work? Am
I making a difference?) and wondering if this is the endeavor
I am supposed to be part of right now. But it is comforting to
see how a group of experiences come together in one’s life
and form a path, a vocation.
The International Conglomeration Known as APeX Youth Ministries,
Inc.
It is really amazing the façade of professionalism
we have been able to provide to the outside world. We have been
able to convince the world that we are a business, which is true.
In every sense of the definition we are a business (if you asked
the federal government or the District of Columbia they would
both say we are). It is just the fact that we are not your traditional
business. Many times we will get calls wondering "if someone
from APeX would be able to come and present for us." ("Yes,
we will send out one of our many minions.") Recently I received
a call and the person on the other side asked "If we were
open on Saturday in case he needed to call us." I can just
imagine the picture someone has in his or her mind when I answer
the phone at 10am, "Good morning, this is Gene." They
can see me sitting in an office somewhere busily doing paper
work. If they only knew I was standing in the hallway (at one
of the two phone jacks we have in the three-story house we live
in), still in the cloths I slept in the night before, with a
piece of burnt toast in my hand and my hair sticking straight
up in the air (not too much unlike Brad's). |