As of today, I FINALLY received my tax return from the IRS. I've been thanking God ever since on account of a couple different reasons. One, my banker told me a lot of people just call it a wash and never see their return after their identity has been stolen. Two, I'm able to put that money into savings after having expected to not be able to put any money towards saving this month due to trying to give myself a little more cushion in my checking account. Right now, I feel so extremely blessed to be able to put money towards saving when so many people are hurting financially. Many people don't have a job at all much less make enough to be able to put some towards savings. That is a huge blessing, and one that I don't take lightly.
I prayed tonight the same thing I was praying when the economy first collapsed. My prayer is for every able bodied person to find a job. Obviously, this sounds completely unreachable, but I happen to believe in a God who can do the unthinkable. Back in 2008, my pastor was asking me what people needed right then as he was making plans to plant a church and wanted to know the needs of the community. My answer was simple, "People need jobs." This is still true today, as many people are either unemployed or underemployed. The problem seems overwhelming to an ordinary person. What's the solution? A lot of people say education is the answer. I happen to be in education myself of course, so I think that's a good start. To me, though, it has to be more than just education. We need people to create jobs out there, both at home and abroad. This is why I now want to start an entrepreneurship school in Haiti somewhere down the road. My good friend Ryan has started one in Myanmar and I am so excited and inspired by it. You may be asking why not start something like that here in the states. There are a couple reasons for that. One reason is that I've always had a heart for overseas missions ever since I started going overseas back in 2006 on mission trips. Secondly, every small business person I talk to here talks about how we're so over-regulated in this country for our small businesses. That sounds like a lot of extra stuff to think about that would just add to the huge learning curve that I'm about to take on anyways.
A few years ago, I wanted to study international development at Eastern University. This is something I still might pursue down the road perhaps. If it's anything like my bachelor's education was, though, much of it is unnecessary and I can/will learn a lot more from being on the field. There are a couple people I'm seeking out as mentors in the field, the first and most obvious one being my friend Ryan in Myanmar and the second one being another person who is in the business of providing jobs for people in a developing country. A third and I'm sure is going to be phenomenal resource will be my own dad, who has been in business his whole adult life as far as I know, at least since he finished his duty with the army and graduated college. Both he and my mom have always helped me out with encouraging words and wisdom my whole life and it seems even more so in my adult life, although maybe the difference now is more my perspective as an adult than it was as a kid.
This is a pretty scary career move, have I mentioned that yet? I mean, I have really good job security where I'm at with great health and retirement benefits and I'm about to throw all that out the proverbial window. As my friend and mentor JD once said though, our only true security is in Christ. Something has been pulling at my heart for something like this for years now, and if I continue to ignore it I know I'll regret it down the road. I'm willing to fail, which isn't something I'm usually able to say. As of now, I'm not sure how far down the road this will all start to happen. Right now I'm thinking probably 3-5 years but things have started moving much more quickly than I expected so it might end up being sooner than that. Only God knows, right? All I'm called to do in the meantime is be faithful with what He's given me. I'm called to be the best teacher I can be while at the same time start to pursue this other career. It's undoubtedly going to be difficult to balance those two things, but I think I can handle it. Maybe I can't handle it, but if I'm faithful I know God will be faithful and fill in all the details. Yesterday, two people brought up the need for our faithfulness as believers in God. These are two people that I look up to and respect immensely, and so when they both said the same thing in different contexts I suspected that it might be important to listen to both of them and try and apply it to my own life.
In other news, I finally feel stable again mentally, another thing to be grateful for. I've started setting a bedtime for myself and seem to function at a lot higher capacity when I get 8.5 or 9 full hours of sleep a night. This sounded ridiculous to me when someone told me that is what they required but I guess I don't care anymore since I've seen amazing results just from getting an extra hour of sleep a night. The average is 8, so maybe I'm above average? God has been so good to me lately, and I just want to bring praise to His Name. Now the only thing is remembering to bring praise to His Name even in the difficult times when I can't feel Him surround me.
