Friendly Voices

In early 2003, I took my final college test and officially earned my degree. For the following six months, I gave out a multitude of résumés, had dozens of interviews, and held a few temp jobs. Unfortunately, I did not find anything permanent and the state agency helping me find work, vocational rehabilitation, said not to expect to get hired and gave me numbers to nursing homes.

This did not sound like God's plan for my life, so I moved back in with my parents. During school, I started working on a few web sites for my church and a few others and thought to try web development as a career. It started out pretty well and in 2006 I started working with another church's web site, I'll call them The Rock.

I have never met anyone from this church, but still felt part of it. Every week, I listen to Scripture

readers and sermons to put online. Posting pictures, monthly potlucks, class schedules, I knew everything that was going on at church. It has been years since I needed to look who was preaching, I could tell by voice who was giving the message as I knew all the regular speakers.

Unfortunately, a new pastor came to The Rock in 2017 and he decided to not only take care of the congregation, but also the web site. January marked my last time updating sermons, seeing the weekly bulletin, and knowing everything that was going on each week.

Yes, they were a client that paid for my services, but I felt like more than just an independent webmaster. Maybe I get too involved with some clients, but I think it's part of trying to help make their online appearance the best it can be. I know I'm not a great business man, I have a hard time charging for an hour of time when I only worked less than ten minutes. It's what pays the bills, but still doesn't feel right.

In January, I had a total of 5.5 hours of paying work for the entire month. The Rock was 1.75 of it and an infrequent client was another hour. Moving forward, I'm now down to one regularly active site and a few very minimal sites. That doesn't cover much time in a month.

As of today, I'm not sure what God has in store for me. I have been asked for years about writing a book and have started to make an attempt of it. I also contacted several schools about speaking, but haven't heard back from any of them.

The quad life is like any other with ups and downs. I'm very thankful for all the years of work I have been given and will wait to see what comes next.