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| Election poll sunburn?Yesterday I worked the election. I went to the polling place at 4:45 a.m. and didn't leave until 8:30 p.m. And I came home with a bright red sunburn around my neckline. My face and arms were a bit pink too. Weird. It must have been the particular gym lights I stood under for 16 hours because it certainly wasn't the sun. I got there in the dark and left in the dark. There were a few windows but they were not hardly dominant, and they faced north anyway. Who would have thought that I would have needed to wear sunscreen to work an indoor election?
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| LIfe UpdateWow it has been a long time since I've blogged. In short, my car continued to break down so a couple of weeks ago I bought a new car: a diesel Jetta, so it gets great mgps and it's not falling apart. I love it! I am taking classes at WSU and enjoying that. I am set to graduate in 2011. I received a scholarship that covers all of my school expenses so long as I teach in a hard-to-fill area (i.e. Wichita) after I graduate. That was an answer to prayer and confirmation of my calling to teach. Otherwise I am still at Red Lobster and I work in my dad's office once a week. I just got my substitute teacher license renewed so I will begin subbing again probably once a week. I am still involved in my church's young adult ministry but I have handed off the leadership position so I can focus more on school. I am still loving being a youth sponsor. So life is good but not too busy.
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| Endless ShrimpImagine your job, whatever it is. Now add to that image brief interruptions every few minutes. Now imagine that the busier you get, the more frequent these interruptions become. Further imagine that if you do not keep pace with the increasing busyness, the very people who are interrupting you constantly will become cranky. Now on top of all of that, imagine that your pay for the day is determined by these needy and potentially cranky people. And as a general rule, the more demanding and less understanding the person, the less less inclined they are to think that you deserve to earn a living. And there you have Red Lobster's endless shrimp promotion as experienced by the servers.
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| School, Car, Money, and Above All ... GodWow, God is good! A lot has happened in the last semester and right now I am just basking in how well God has taken care of me and given me direction.
I have spent a lot of time preparing for school next fall. I have applied to Friends, Newman, and WSU which required sending a lot of transcripts and filling out forms. Friends and Newman both offered me scholarships but not enough to make their schools affordable. Because I already have a degree, my financial aid options are limited. That leaves me attending WSU because it is relatively cheap. However, I did not want to attend WSU until I visited with the head of the history department at Heights High School. He told me that when hiring new teachers, he feels that WSU grads are better prepared to teach history than Friends grads. I do not yet have any scholarships at WSU and I was starting to freak out about that because I want to avoid debt as much as possible. But I gave it to God and I feel an amazing peace even though I am enrolling without knowing where the money will come from. I will take out some student loans, but I hope to keep that to a minimum. Part of my deal with God a year ago was that if opened the door for me to go to school by providing the money, then I would walk through that door. I feel complete confirmation that God is calling me to teach and that this is not my own aspiration. So I am trusting that God will still provide the finances.
My car has also been falling apart. Mostly it has little problems, simple things that do not keep it from running. My radio antenna broke off a while ago. I bought a new one for $10 only realize that I can't fix it unless I open the trunk and the lock on the trunk no longer responds to a key. The automatic release broke before I bought the car, so I have been trunkless since Halloween. The car has pulled to one side for probably a couple of years in spite of repeated realignments. Finally my mechanic discovered the problem and fixed it but said I needed four new tires before it would stop pulling altogether. I put off buying tires in hopes of replacing the whole car. I did not want to sink money into a junk car, but neither do I have money to replace it. I started asking God for a car and I felt His response was, "You already have one." So I conceded, and about the time I decided to keep the car and fix it back up, the pipe that feeds the exhaust into the muffler broke. A new exhaust system costs a couple hundred dollars. There goes my whole stimulus package just making my car usable for the foreseeable future.
So a couple of weeks ago I took my car to get new tires. Tires Plus had a 20% off sale going on and I ordered the cheapest ones they had. Unfortunately for them, one of the new tires had a hole in it so they upgraded me free of charge. I came away with $83 tires but paid only $60 each. Then yesterday I took my car by Exhaust Pros to get an estimate for my muffler problem. Rather than replacing the pipe and muffler, the guy just patched it for $50. It took all of 15 minutes and cost much less than I had expected. My car no longer pulls to one side and it is relatively quiet! It might be 14 years old, but it runs smoothly.
Now I just need to get the trunk lock working, which my mom offered to help with. Then I can play around with the radio antenna. Joylin is going to give it a new paint job this summer. It will be like a new car but at a fraction of the price!
On top of all of that, my classes for the semester are over. I do not have to take finals. So now I can do my Spring cleaning and get my house back in order before my summer class starts (which I do not know how I will pay for, but I'm not worrying about that right now).
Travis has agreed to take over leadership of the Bridge ministry team starting this summer, so come Fall I will not have those administrative responsibilities to deal with. I have full confidence in him and feel great about stepping down.
I am thoroughly sleep deprived and I have a long to do list, but my heart is light. It is amazing what a difference it makes when I am trusting God to lead me rather than thinking I have to make it all happen myself. Things just work out better when God helps orchestrate them.
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| Year's SummaryWhenever the year turns over, I get a little sentimental and look back
over the past year to see where I've come. Most of this is detailed in this blog as it happened, but I decided to write it up and send it to my long-distance friends that I do a poor job of keeping up with. So here is my year summarized.
Early in 2007 my pastor called me up. When I began attending
this church 2 years ago there was nothing happening for young adults except
for a Sunday school class. As a church of 750 people, we have a large
and growing young adult population. A year and a half ago a young
couple put together 2 young adult small groups but then moved away. I
took the contact info they collected and began organizing some social
activities and emailing announcements. It started small and was even a
little frustrating. Then my pastor called. With pastoral guidance and
the church's stamp of approval, we put together a ministry team. With
the synergy of a great team, the collaboration of various interests and
abilities, the delegated responsibilities, joint ownership, and
personal contacts, the young adult ministry has taken off the ground.
With the team it has been a lot of fun, it is much improved, and it is
less work for me! Now we offer a variety of social activities and
service projects every month with plans to launch a prayer ministry.
And more young adults are getting plugged in all the time.
On top of that, I am a youth sponsor at church with a small
group of high school girls. We have so much fun navigating our way
through life together. It has been an absolute blast and Wednesday
nights often highlight my weeks.
In February, growing frustrations with the management at the
Copper Oven Cafe convinced me that it was time for me to find a new
job. So in March I left the Copper Oven and took a week's vacation
with my family to West Virginia to visit my brother Jason who was
spending the school year there with Service Adventure. As soon as I
got home I began my new job waiting tables at Red Lobster.
The transition was difficult but good and necessary. Getting out of
the Copper Oven was a healthy move for me because and it took me out of
the dysfunction but also out of my comfort zone. I began thinking more
seriously about what I wanted to do with my life. I don't want to wait
tables forever. I have tried several times to find ways to finance
grad school but have hit road blocks. I am not dating anyone so
marriage is just a far off fantasy. Lack of direction made for a
frustrating spring and summer.
It quickly became clear that Red Lobster makes for a
good-paying part-time job but that full-time hours are almost
impossible to come by. It just so happened that at that time Dad was
moving his office out of the house into a warehouse recently turned
into office space just across the street from my parents' house in
Goessel and that he needed some part-time office help. So I have since
May, I believe, been going to Goessel 2 or 3 times a week to do
anything he can delegate. He is a church consultant with consultants
all over the country. They travel to churches in need of professional
advice in areas of building, finances, staff, and ministry. Our office
handles the administrative side of the consulting so I help with the
paperwork, bookkeeping, and menial tasks. I really enjoy it. The only
downside is the 45 minute commute.
About the time I started working for him, my parents
separated. Mom made Dad move out so he now has an apartment there in
Goessel and Joylin and Jeffrey live with Mom, although Dad comes home
and cares for the kids when Mom is working or has meetings. It has
been really hard on the whole family and is hopefully a temporary
arrangement. Jonathan avoids family gatherings but I get to see him at
least once a week at church. Jason came home from West Virginia and
moved in with a family 10 miles outside of Goessel. Joylin is a senior
in high school with plans to become a music teacher. And Jeffrey is in
eighth grade.
This summer my roommate, Anita, and I decided our house needed
a decor update. We painted the kitchen, living room, and some
furnishings, which somehow never goes as smoothly as planned. Many
hours and $$$ later we have a nice modern look to our home. Anita has
gone on to paint her bedroom and is making plans for the laundry room
and bathroom as well.
Then in August, latent dreams of teaching high school
culminated. A couple of years ago I looked into getting my teaching
certification in math but quickly dismissed the idea when I discovered
that it would take me another 3 years to get the degree. I had thought
that should I get my masters I could teach on the college level but it
had become clear that I was not going to get my masters at this time.
So I fell back on my original plan to homeschool my children when I
have them; but remember I am not even dating. Then on a Friday in
August, my dreams of teaching resurfaced with greater vividness than
ever before: If I must have a career, there is nothing I would rather
do than teach high school social studies even if it requires going back
to school. I decided that next year I would apply for financial aid
and see if any of the area colleges would make it affordable for me to
begin working towards my teaching certification. If God opens the
door, I will walk through it. Then the thought occurred to me:
Although it was too late to apply for financial aid for the 2007-2008
school year, there were some entry-level social studies classes I would
need that I could pick up inexpensively at a junior college. I could
take a few classes this year so I would be that much farther along
should God open up doors next fall. That was Friday. Classes started
the following Monday. I applied online to Butler Community College on
Saturday. I was admitted Monday. I enrolled Tuesday morning. And I
was sitting in class Tuesday night. It was perhaps the most
spontaneous commitment I have ever made but I truly believe it was a
God thing. I have loved being back in school. My desire to teach is
stronger than ever. In fact, I just received my substitute teacher
license so I can get in the classroom this spring on my days off.
We'll see how that goes. It is a far cry from real teaching but I am
excited.
So that's where I sit now. The year has been a journey of
change, growth, heartache, and exciting potential. Through it all God
has been my strength and my guide. He is faithful! | | |
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