Five Years Ago

I realized yesterday morning when I woke up that it was March 2nd.  This day is significant to me because it's when I started at my job, five years ago, back in 2006.  I can't believe how time goes by so quickly. 
Five years ago, Arnold and I came back to New Orleans relunctantly.  We had adamently decided after Hurricane Katrina that we were NOT going back there.  God had other plans.  He flung open the doors for us to come back while every other door was slammed shut.  So we loaded up the U-Haul and came on back.  Arnold had a job lined up.  I was searching.  But then one day Arnold went over to the student center to grab him a drink and ran into a girl named Christine that we both knew.  After catching up for a few minutes, Arnold told her that I was looking for a job.  She said, "Well, we're really looking to hire someone, so tell her to come over and talk to my boss."  I didn't really want the job because I thought I was going to get hired on at Enterprise, which paid a lot more.  Fortunantly God knows a lot better than we do.  So after praying and agonizing, and no offer from Enterprise, I decided to go for the William Carey job. 

I came to my new job and sat at this desk.

 We had no internet and no phones.  My phone was a cell phone that I answered.  If someone wanted to talk to one of our employees, I had to physically get up and take the cell phone to them.  As the city s-l-o-w-l-y started to get on its feet, we eventually got internet and phone service.  I tried to get to know each of our students personally, as we only had 100.  And so that is how it all started. 
Now here I am five years later.  I have two nice windows to look out now and I know the job a little better now than I did then.  Things aren't quite as "rustic" now.  We have over 300 students and everything works properly.  I like to think that I've seen everything here and know everything about this place, but when you work with people, there are always still surprises.
I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I could say, "Yeah, I've worked there five years." 
But then again, like I said earlier, God knows better than we do.