The six other people (April, Nkem, Katie, Nick, Alissa, and Kara) who worked phonebooks with me didn’t end up getting the housekeeping job. Apparently they’ll all now be stuffing envelopes through a job they got at another temp agency. Pray that God’ll use that somehow to still do his thing.
Today God did a lot of cool stuff and answered a few of my prayers in ways I didn’t expect. Firstly, the phonebook delivery job ended today. I didn’t even take one as a souvenir, unfortunately, because my conscience got in the way. To be clear, I didn’t pray for this job to end.
Last night, I found out that Hardees was looking for another person to hire for the remainder of the time I’ll be here in Jax. Since I decided I’d like to take this job, Nick ended up going with the five women who switched over to housekeeping jobs today. That meant I’d be the only one working today.
I got to work today and it quickly became clear that this was the last day of work delivering from the warehouse we were at. I got put with two people I hadn’t worked with before — Jason and Vicki. It’s very obvious that there’s bitterness and frustration in their lives. At one point we drove away from a nice neighborhood and the both ranted for a couple minutes about how much they hate stuck-up rich people who expect things their way all the time and bleepity bleep bleep bleep. So… tough stuff.
At one point on the way to grabbing lunch, Jason commented that he’d like to hook up with a woman like the ones from Navs who’d been delivering phonebooks up until today. I commented that “they’re probably not your type of women.” In any case, he told me I was assuming things, I apologized for that, in within a couple minutes we were talking about Jesus and how he’d prefer to have a Christian girlfriend and how he considers himself a Christian even though he’s backslidden. Well, anyway, got to share with him a little bit and though I didn’t have opportunity to get the whole gospel out there, I tried to encourage him a bit to read the Word and let God talk to him through that.
A bit later Vicki and I got to talk a bit while Jason was eating his lunch in Taco Bell. It turns out she hitchiked with her last boyfriend for a while and a lot of Christians gave them rides and fed them at times when they would’ve probably starved otherwise. As a result of this, she decided to buy me half a sub sandwhich for lunch and a soda from Taco Bell. Crazy stuff.
Anyway, I’m just kinda happy about how God had the day turn out. Now I’m also off early so I can get some time to work on Bible study before dinner.
Prayer requests: pray that this Hardees job would work out and God would use me for his purposes there (or even a job somewhere else). Also pray that God would keep working in my life to soften my heart and allow him to change areas of my life that I don’t want to change.
One other prayer request if y’all could: I’ve got a friend named Brandon and he’s got a tough situation ahead of him and doesn’t know how it’s all gonna work out. He doesn’t know God or believe in prayer, but I think there’s hope for him in the situation he’s facing. Pray that God would just do something amazing to bring resolution to this situation and just speak into Brandon’s life.
Also, if you could pray for a guy named Justin, a fisherman I met on Saturday at the beach, that God would just work in his life, convict him of his sin, and draw Justin unto himself.
That’s it for now. Latez.
Eight hour work days can be exhausting. The last couple of days have been better for work and not quite as difficult as the first day. I think it’s been ’cause I haven’t had to sit in the back quite as much and the work has been a little more varied — more businesses and less windy roads, I guess. Today Rob (he drives), Nkem, and I delivered about 696 phonebooks. 1 phonebook = white + yellow for Jacksonville (does not include Jax Beaches).
I’ve been very encouraged lately by studying God’s grace and what it is (a free gift lavishing eternal life upon all who believe that Jesus Christ died for them on the cross and rose again as a sacrice that paid the penalty for sin and removed the separation between man and God). It’s also amazing how easy it is to ignore that great gift and continue living a life marred by sin. I know ’cause I still sin and it doesn’t bother me as much as it should. God did so much for me and yet I … well… that’s the point, I guess, I can do nothing to earn it. It keeps coming back to that. Might be something there.
Well, anyway, I need to bust out and grab dinner. My head aches, too, so perhaps I’ll drink lots of water tonight. Workshop later on and meeting with Engle between dinner and then.
I got hired. For at least the next week I’ll be delivering phone books for $8/hr. Not exactly what I wanted or hoped for, but it’s better than nothing and I’ll take it if this is where God wants me for now. This is the same job that Nkem and Nick are doing already, so I’ll have to ask them what it’s all about, but from what I heard so far it somes kind of laid back so long as you get the work done. Anyway, I’ll probably have stories later.
Tonight, we’re doing a Decades Dance. I think I’ll dress like the 1990s ’cause that’s the only decade I have swag from. That and the 00s.
The job search continues for me and several others. Denny’s fell through for sure and I still haven’t heard back from the place I interviewed. I took a couple tests at a temp agency today for a data entry job and apparently I’m the only one of several Navs here that took it and qualified. I guess 100 words per minute is a “good thing.” Unlike Jake, I currently have use of all ten fingers. QOTD: “I can feel my fingers!” (If Cora has never used that phrase she’s said things similar to it before.)
This morning I drove Nkem and Nick to “work.” They picked up a temp job delivering the yellow pages that should last for about two weeks. I almost stayed there, but I didn’t actually sign up for that job through the temp agency they went through. That’ll be another option to approach later in the week if nothing else works. One thing I realized though is that looking for just any job – whatever can be found – brings you in touch with people you might not usually associate with. I felt out of place when I dropped Nkem off and I’ve been trying to think of why. Different people, different circumstances, different lives? But they all have one thing in common: in some sense or another they’re desperate.
But aren’t we all spiritually desperate? Without Jesus, anyway.
Eh, anyway, halfway completed thoughts. We’ll have another workshop tonight and I need to spend some time on Bible study today. I’ll also meet with Engle (my team leader) for a bit of mentoring.
Keep praying for the people who don’t have jobs yet. I don’t know the exact number, but I think about ten of us still need to find or be called back about jobs. Other then that, I think God’s got a lot he wants to teach us all but there’s resistance. Some thingsin my life I don’t want to change and then there’s other pressures not to change, yet many aspects of my life need changing. Pray for myself and all of us in that way.
That’s all for now. Latez.
Update (6:15PM): So apparently my incredible typing skills are going to result in me getting a data entry job tomorrow. This is not finalized yet, but it seems nearly sure. w00t!