I’ve had a recent rash of requests for an update a la Motor City News, so here goes…
When I sent the final episode of Motor City News I was preparing to move back to Rochester and get married. These I have accomplished!
The last 16 months have encompassed some of the biggest transitions of my life, and I think the perspective of over a year makes this much easier to write than a month or two—I won’t get bogged down in the details.
I learned important lessons of humility, rest, and patience on a trip to Jamaica. Since then, the project has floundered, and God has led Belinda and I to spend more time focused on the ministries we’re already a part of.
We had a wonderful wedding, and honeymooned in Puerto Rico. Unforgettable, of course.
In August 2010 Belinda and I began unofficially taking on the responsibilities of Service Coordinators for our church, and have recently become part of the local missions committee with a focus of helping our church and its small groups connect and serve in our city. In some ways, this is the beginnings of the fulfillment of a dream.
At the end of last summer Belinda began working in electrical engineering, giving me permission and freedom to spend time finding a career which I would enjoy. A period of confusion and joblessness ensued. After a few months without success in finding a job in engineering or otherwise, I began working part time at an amazing little used bookstore (Small World Books—check it out if you’re in Rochester). I started there in February.
By the middle of March God made it clear to us that Belinda should not continue working at Harris. After a lot of prayer and counsel, she put in her two-weeks. At that time all the job leads I had had dried up, and we expected to be without an income for a while.
But God provided. I got scheduled for a second interview for the day before her last day with an organization called CompassCare Pregnancy Services. They’d interviewed me months before for a COO position (which I was clearly not qualified for). After repeated attempts to follow-up, and receiving little feedback, I’d given up. Now I was being called back for a second interview.
In the preceding months as I’d been attending career fairs and the like I’d taken to introducing myself this way: Matt Sones, Mechanical Engineer. I want to change the world. The mission of CompassCare is to erase the need for abortion by turning a woman’s fear into confidence. Sounds a lot like changing the world.
I got emailed the job offer that night (the night before Belinda’s last day)—a position as Assistant to the President, since I matched the organization in values, but not the COO position in experience. I feel blessed beyond measure to say that at 25 years of age I am in my dream job.
In other news, Belinda and I are both involved in children’s ministry at church, and we’re co-leading the best small group ever—sometimes very challenging—the highs and lows of life can be oh so high, and dreadfully low. But we walk through them together with Christ behind, before, and beside.
Learning to be a husband is fun, hard, and rewarding. I am stretched more and more to forget myself. And I’m deliriously happy.
Current spiritual thought: evil is evil. It’s really, really bad. Terribly, awesomely, wickedly bad. And that’s what I was. I am so bad Jesus had to die for me. But I’m so loved that he was glad to (these thoughts significantly influenced by Denes House and Mike Donehey).
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