Job

Someone asked what kind of jobs I've done...here's the list:

-Frank’s Nursery: This was a plant and craft store. I loved this job. It was a great way to start. I learned to run a cash register. I learned to drive a tow motor. I learned everything I know and some of what I remember about plants there.
-McDonald’s: I only worked there about 6mo. When I worked there they just introduced breakfast.
-Country Dinner Theater: I was a hostess. I seated people and also cleared tables. This was a fun job. I got to see the plays, too.
-Peterson’s Plastics: This was the summer after high school graduation. It was hard and hot work and I was one of the youngest in the place. My friend and I talked about the other workers in our limited Spanish. I was glad to move on to college and determined to never work in a factory again! (Never say never)
-I worked in the library at college every year I was there. It wasn’t much but I enjoyed it a lot.
-College summers I worked at Cedar Point in the Hotel Breakers. I started as a cashier and worked my way up to Front Desk Manager. I really liked this job. This was where I learned that if you treat your employees well and set the standard for work by working hard yourself you get more work out of your best workers.
-I got married February of my senior year in college. I finished by independent study. I went to work full-time at Cedar Point Hotel Breakers. Before the hotel opened (it was only open during summer) I worked in the reservations department.
-In the fall that year I started working at a family owned pharmacy out in the store running register, stocking shelves, and tons of dusting.
-In July 1980 I accepted my first position as pastor at a very small and struggling Nazarene church. I was there until June 1983.
-I was pregnant with Beth when I left that little church. We moved to Toledo and started attending the church Nelson grew up in. They wanted to hire me as their Associate Minister of Youth and Music, but the senior pastor (whose wife had lost several babies through miscarriage) didn’t want me to work until after Beth was born. So I started as that position in November 1983. I was there until December 1984.
-In December 1984 we moved to Wisconsin where I became the pastor of an even smaller Nazarene church. They paid me for 6mo of the year I was there. Financially it was one of the hardest years we’ve ever known, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
-We stayed there a year and then were asked to come be the Assistant Pastor at a church back in Ohio. The people agreed to pay me $50 a week and allow me to rent the old parsonage of $400 a month. You do the math. This was a difficult time, but a growing time for Nelson as he started his own construction business. Several of the leading people at this church were military men and they pointed me in the direction of military chaplaincy. I was interested because the salary and benefits would provide some seriously needed financial support to my family. So we packed up me and the girls and while Nelson stayed in Ohio to finish a house he was building we moved out to KC where I would complete my M.Div in preparation to join the army.
-I was not military material. I realized that quickly. I took a position at a church in KC. It was a struggling church and we learned a lot together. I was in that position from October 1987 until August 1989.
-During spring semester at NTS I took a course called CPO: Clinical Pastoral Orientation. I fell in love. I realized the chaplaincy for me was hospital, not military. I moved into CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) and stayed through October 1991. I would still be there if the guys up the ladder from me would have moved on, but with no slots to move into I had to move on.
-December 1991 I began as a chaplain at an agency back in Ohio that worked with extremely troubled kids in out of home placements. In 1995 I began training in Pastoral Counseling. In 1997 I transitioned totally out of chaplaincy into counseling within the same agency. While with that agency I directed the Day Treatment Program and was out-patient family counselor and finished up as the residential counselor finishing in 2001.
-We were foster parents from 1992 until 2001, taking a small break from 1999 until 2001.
-I took a position as an interim pastor in a Mennonite church from June 1999 until October 2001.
-In June 2002 I started working at a convience store. I worked there until October 2003.
-I worked at a local family owned deli from December 2003 until February 2004.
-I started working in the packaging program of Transformation Network in October 2004. I moved into supervising that program with RCompany in March 2005. I accepted my current position as Reentry Development Coordinator in August 2006.

I think I’ll take the day off.