Welcoming an IVEPer: A journey of learning, growth and connection

Editor’s note: Dan Zook is a finance associate/accountant in Mennonite Central Committee U.S.’s Financial Services department, and is based in Akron, Pennsylvania. He supervises 2024-2025 IVEP participant Ester Joel from Tanzania. 

The past two months with Ester Joel from Tanzania have been busy, but also a great learning experience for all of us involved. The timing of Ester’s arrival meant that she could come with us on our Financial Services departmental retreat. This was very helpful because we were able to get to know each other outside the confines of a cubicle or a Zoom call. One thing that we learned about Ester early on at this retreat is that she is very competitive. Any game we played, she was always trying her hardest and won KanJam and basketball a lot! We came away from this retreat knowing a lot more about Ester, and we could not have asked for a better start to the IVEP year.

While some might think that finances are boring, it is clear that Ester enjoys the work that she does. Since she has financial experience from her previous work in Tanzania, it has been very informative to hear how she has completed similar tasks to what we do here.

As with all new jobs, we have given her a lot of information in a very short time. At times I feel that we have given her too much information, but Ester has picked up on everything very quickly and is always eager to learn a new task. During her year with us Ester will be helping with processing payments to make sure they go out on time, monitoring our fixed assets, budgeting for both the MCC U.S. and East Coast programs and many more tasks. This is a busy time for the whole department, so I am glad that we are able to rely on Ester to complete her tasks and that she strives hard to make sure that her work is accurate.

In the past two months Ester has already done quite a bit of traveling with her host family and with other IVEPers. She has shared some of these experiences with the group and it has been great to hear these stories. One story that she shared after the IVEP retreat in Harrisonburg, Virginia, was that while attending an Old Order Mennonite church, she was not used to the slow singing. She knew the songs and was often on the next word while the rest of the congregation was still on the previous one. The takeaway for Ester from this experience was to start singing a little quieter so that people couldn’t hear if she was ahead of them!

While it has only been two months so far, we are eager to get to know Ester more throughout the year and to be able to hear more stories from her many new experiences.

Banner image: Ester Joel (front far right) and her colleagues take a boat tour in Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, during a Financial Services departmental retreat. Photo courtesy of Dan Zook