Settling in

It has been a month and a half since we moved, and we finally are on a set schedule. The girls have started school, all boxes are unpacked, our house in California closed escrow, and we have successfully adjusted to the CST time zone.

It always amazes me how much God has blessed my family. We are all in good health, we are debt free, we have a roof over our head, and we have food to eat. I can attribute this all to God as I have no control over my health, I am horrible when it comes to big financial matters (such as retirement savings, stock trading, etc.), and I am not the best at selecting the best food choices for myself. It is only through God’s providential guidance that I am in the state I am.

I have been able to go fishing twice since arriving. As a result, I caught 2 fish. Neither were big enough to keep, but it was a great experience to enjoy. It seems the best fishing out here is on a lake. As a result, one needs a boat to get to the middle of the lake. This has caused me to research fishing kayaks. It is doubtful I will get one for the 2017 season, but if I save enough money, I can definitely get one for the 2018 season 🙂

Being a bi-vocational Assistant Pastor is rather weird. It is a role I have not experienced for too long, but I am very excited for what God has in store. Since being here in Duluth, I have been able to share the gospel with several people and see one make a profession for Christ. It was neat to see the “lightbulb” appear when he understood that Jesus came to do all the work of salvation for us and that salvation is not dependent upon our good works or how we live. It is very sad that many people are trapped in the religion of Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Atheism that they fail to see who Jesus is, why he came, and how we can experience life through a relationship with Him.

I am very thankful I can have a second job which is remote work and allows me to be in the tech industry. I like working with bleeding edge software such as Docker, Kubernetes, Puppet, and the like. It also allows me to scratch the itch I have with the nerdy side of tech – coding. I have been able to maintain a legacy PHP app while develop some in NodeJS and Go. Mostly I have been sharing cool things about Github, build pipelines, and the philosophy of “Let the robots do it.”

My coffee survival habit has been amplified by the purchase of a Ninja coffee maker last Amazon Prime day. I was not able to use it until we moved here and I am quite satisfied with how it makes iced coffee. It also gave me a recipe which I have been following for my daily iced coffee – it requires half and half with a few ounces of flavored syrup. I think this is the best approach for iced coffee.