As I sit down on New Year’s Day to type this out I think back on the
year that has just passed. On one hand it seems like just yesterday I was
writing this for 2018. On the other hand, however, that seems like eternity
past.
Back in February of 2019 I had the opportunity to go to an Expository
Preaching Conference by Dr. Steven Lawson of One Passion Ministries. (https://www.onepassionministries.org/)
This was an excellent conference targeted to pastors and elders. I have heard
much from Dr. Lawson this year as I have listened to his Men’s Bible Study on
the book of Romans. There is a link to that from the website referenced. He
also has a mobile app that has the link available. At Northwest Bible Church we
have just finished up Dr. Lawson’s series on Foundations of Grace where he
shows how the whole Bible teaches the Doctrines of Grace, including Total
Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and
Perseverance of the Saints. I have also enjoyed listening to his Expositor
podcast where he shares in about 5 minutes ways to minister to a congregation,
primarily through expository preaching.
On the family front, it’s amazing to watch my children continue to grow
up. Justin became our fourth homeschool graduate. Meanwhile, at the other end
of the spectrum, I have been continuing to teach David to read. Paton is
continuing to excel at his violin playing. Sarah has been taking piano lessons
from a lady in our church, and is making great strides as well. Melody started
in American Heritage Girls. (https://americanheritagegirls.org/)
Paton, Samuel, and David are involved in Trail Life USA. (https://www.traillifeusa.com/) I am
leading the “Foxes” (the kindergarten age where David participates). It has
been fun, but challenging, to lead these youngest of Trailmen. After having
hardly ever going camping for most of my life, (We went a handful of times as a
family when I was a boy), I have been participating on a mostly monthly basis in campouts for the older Trail Life boys,
including Paton and Samuel.
This year I have also been able to enjoy being a grandfather. I won’t share too many details on my
grandchildren’s lives, because I feel it is their parents’ rights to determine
how much to share online. I will say, though, that between all three of my
married children I have four beautiful grandchildren. It is exciting to watch
them grow, and I’m very happy to see my children and their spouses either actively
homeschooling, or preparing in that direction as their children approach school
age. It’s amazing to see the little “carbon copies” of my own children in my
grandchildren. I see that in Brittney’s family and in Michael’s.
This year we got to try our second attempt at keeping chickens. Someone who was moving away gave us their
chicken coop and two hens. Sarah wanted some ducks. So we bought three baby
ducklings. Unfortunately, before we had the coop we had them in a cage, and a
predator made off completely with one of them, and badly injured another. I
never remember feeling so sad to have to kill a bird. But it tugs at the
heartstrings of a daddy’s emotions to take the life of his little girl’s pet,
even if it was the most ethical thing to do. The poor little duck had a broken
leg and was in obvious pain. The last remaining one has acclimated to his two
chicken friends. “Joey” is a big healthy duck now. The chickens, even though
they are both hens, have been named Melissa and Doug, presumably after the
creators of wooden toys that the kids enjoy.
The most significant development for me personally this year has been
my employment/career scene. At the beginning of 2017 I was at Dolese. Though
every job has its challenges, I had resolved within myself to remain content
and stay at Dolese for the long haul. I have had many jobs throughout my
working career. I really don’t enjoy the interview process and the onboarding
process of a new job. Plus, as I had turned 50 at the end of 2018 I know that job
seeking tends to become more of a challenge as the competition is cheaper, and
more recently trained at their colleges and universities in the latest
technologies. But the Lord had other plans for me in that arena. In March I was
laid off from Dolese, along with two other coworkers. I still keep in touch
with my favorite manager out there. Incidentally, I was not reporting to him
when I was let go. That ended a three year, three month stint at a place that
underwent several changes during my brief time there. I found out later that
several more of my coworkers were let go. All of this was foreshadowed by the
unexpected termination of the CIO back in May of 2018. She was a good leader,
and a lady I enjoyed working for. It is sometimes hard to tell what a company
is thinking when they get rid of so much of the talent and experience that they
possess in such a short time frame. In any case, I wish them well and hope that,
despite what I consider foolish choices in purging their workforce, they are
able to keep from running this very old and established Oklahoma company into
the ground. I enjoyed the experience while it lasted.
On May 1, I started employment at MidFirst bank. MidFirst is a good
company. They almost seem “security conscience to a fault.” If you are a
customer of MidFirst, you shouldn’t have to worry about viruses infecting their
systems, as none of the developers have access to the internet on their work
computers. This can make a day in the life of a software developer a bit of a
challenge. Fortunately, they did allow me to bring my personal laptop with my
hotspot on my cell phone. So, I was able to browse, unhindered, technical
websites that helped me to do my job. Probably the most helpful programming
site that I like to refer to is https://stackoverflow.com/ Anyway, in the Lord’s providence a position
opened up at Delaware Nation Industries, a contracting company at Tinker Air
Force base. This position was with the very same team that I had worked with
previously from 2013-2014. When I went to the interview I sat in a room with
three former colleagues and friends, along with the manager whom I had not met
when I worked there the first time. We worked well together previously, and I
knew it would be a good match once again. Though I felt a little remorse
serving at MidFirst for only six months, and leaving my coworkers there with a
massive project and an aggressive schedule, I hired on with DNI in November
2019. I believe it was September when I interviewed with them. But for a
position that I was being hired for, there is quite a process involved prior to
employment. My every intention at this point, is to continue in this position
as long as I can, for many of the same reasons that I gave earlier. Not to
mention that I have a great working relationship with the guys I knew
previously. In hind sight, I believe that the position at DNI is a better
opportunity than even what I had at Dolese. So, the Lord certainly had His
plans that He was working out in my life, though it was difficult to see while
walking through it. That is where faith comes into the picture. In the
transition from MidFirst to DNI there were some questions regarding health
benefits that caused us to explore other options to insure the family. I will
say that MidFirst had very good benefits. Later I discovered that the benefits
at DNI were actually a bit better than what I was originally led to believe due
to a miscommunication early on. Walking through these issues presented their
own challenges. All in all, I am satisfied in the way it worked out, and I look
forward to pressing on in 2020 to help my new team at DNI to be successful in
all our endeavors.
Things continue to go well at Northwest Bible Church. It is an honor to
lead God’s people with the other two elders, Alan Conner and Alan Loeffler. I
love our congregation. I have witnessed the joys of seeing new families coming
to the church, the bittersweet emotions of talking to one of our elderly
members just a few days before attending his funeral, rejoicing with the birth
of children to our members, and so on. All of these experiences are common to
all members in the church. But seeing it all from the perspective of an elder
in the church has been a real blessing. As time goes on I more and more
appreciate Reformed Theology. Reformed Theology is simply biblical theology. I
hope to continue reading more and continuing to grow in faith in 2020.
