Treva Comes on Board

Soon after that experience with the two women at the church, Treva said, “I’m going to quit my job and join you.”

“But how will we put bread on the table?” I asked. We were living on whatever money she was making working in her father’s print shop.

“I don’t know, but you will die from overwork if I don’t, and then what will happen?” Treva asked.

After Treva joined as a full-time volunteer, other volunteers started showing up. The first was David Kimble, whose heart had been touched by news stories of famine in Ethiopia. Against my advice, he quit his job to volunteer full-time for Trees for Life, even though he had a family to support.

“As you’ve been taken care of, so will I,” he said. David became an important and integral part of Trees for Life and eventually became the Executive Director.

Soon we had 15 volunteers. Sometimes all of them were working in whatever space was available in our small office.

While travels took me out of town for months on end, Treva and David became the hub of Trees for Life. David busied himself in executing the tasks and Treva managed the office. She was multi-tasking from morning till late in the evenings. She handled questions from volunteers, answered the telephone with a broad smile on her face, answered letters, paid bills, thanked donors, made sure there was food for the volunteers, and completed many other tasks. While David would lead the staff and volunteers, it was Treva’s desk that was Grand Central Station for anyone with questions, including me. She was the glue that held everything together.

She easily explained her role by saying that mothers are used to doing many tasks at once. Indeed, she was the mother of the Trees for Life movement. The volunteers would go to her if they had a problem. Her eyes and ears were all over the office. She knew if I might have ruffled any feelings in my abruptness and to whom I needed to apologize. She was also the voice of caution, to make me think and slow down on some of my decision making. 

I led the weekly “Who We Are” meeting, in which we discussed the direction Trees for Life was going and why. Everyone in the office defined my role as the visionary, the man in the ship’s crow’s nest. Sparing me from as many other meetings as possible, David and Treva insisted they could handle the engine room of the ship.