My Last Day Having Coffee At Church

2. Okay, today's title is not entirely true. I stopped at church before going in to work today like I sometimes do Wednesday morning to enjoy some coffee with the church staff and find out what's going on with some people and things in Minot (you can learn a lot at church "off-hours") but due to my changing work schedule starting next month -- keep reading -- I won't be able to stop in Wednesday mornings any more. Or Thursday mornings, when Coffee With The Boys starts up in the fall. I'll still get in some cups of java with Sunday morning fellowship after worship service and Saturday morning with Breakfast with the Boys this fall. And that will be a good thing because I should start getting used to less coffee throughout the day. I'm pretty sure at my new job I won't be able to brew a new pot for just myself for I'll be moving around way more than I do at Fast Cash. I can share, it's ok. Really.

8. Including today, that's the number of days I have left working at Fast Cash North for Dakota Pawnbrokers. Fast Cash isn't open weekends, even though I'm counting them in my handwritten journal: today's entry starts out:

Jeremiah 20:7-13                             WEDNESDAY                       June 21
those hiding lights                            0816, 217 [up]                        11706.21
 "under a bushel"                              FAST CASH +10, TRINITY -13

to signify how many days I have left here as well as how many days before I start somewhere new!
It's exciting and unnerving at the same time, for a number of reasons.


11. The number of continuous days I've been on our Wii Fit Plus. STILL the best twenty bucks we ever spent at a garage sale, even if I'm ready to rip the digital throat out of the trainer who keeps insisting that I improve my posture when I am standing up straight! Or is that getting my balance right, which makes me feel like I'm slightly leaning forward to do it? Seriously, it seems as though even a military stance at attention or at ease isn't perfect posture to the Wii Fit Plus ... still, you don't need the trainer to participate in most of the exercises to improve your balance or yoga to improve your coordination. Right now I get this done early morning, which may be earlier morning along with Martha who has for several years now been working seven in the morning to four in the afternoon. It will change a lot of things, getting started about as early as I did when we had the Minot Daily News delivery route. Ok, maybe not THAT early to get devotions in, but close.

36. The number of minutes before midnight that summer officially started yesterday (so that's 11:24 pm Central Standard Time, or 2324 hrs). Jeffrey said he stayed up for it but he wasn't sure this morning; I heard nothing from Sarah about it when I asked, and Martha and I had already gone to bed! That's something I will have to get -- and maybe my body already is getting -- used to, for my work shift at Trinity where I start as a warehouse assistant with materials management starts at seven in the morning and goes to four in the afternoon. The same time as Martha's shift at Trinity in printing services, so we'll both be off at the same time and be able to pick up the kids sooner from Grandma and Grandpa's. Of course, they'll be arriving there earlier the rest of this summer starting the third of July and they'll need to be brought there to get a ride to school. And as they're going to two different schools this fall ... eh, we'll cross that bridge as we get closer!


172. The numeric day of the year 2017 that this is! And if you haven't caught this by now, today's post is all about the numbers. I just chose a cooler title!


1931. I'm embarrassed to say that Onesimos Nesib's life story -- today is the Lutheran Church's commemoration of him who translated the Bible into his native Oromo in Ethiopia and died this day in 1931 -- is not as well known to me. His father died when he was four, and slavers kidnapped him at thirteen and he went through four (or eight, my sources differ) before he was freed at Massawa (now in Eritrea, that broken-off coastline of Ethiopia) and educated at a Swedish mission there. He was baptized in 1872 and changed his name from Hika -- also meaning "translator", ironically -- to Onesimos for the servant of Philemon from Paul's New Testament letter and then got further education in Sweden and after returning to Ethiopia in a roundabout way, got help translating the Bible to account for idioms and had an ... uneasy relationship with the authorities regarding his Christian faith and witness for much of his life.  


What does that say about mine?


David