You cannot understand how poignant and significant to my life the title of this post is to me. It's INCREDIBLY exciting and humbling to finally be in Germany, but it has been an absolutely grueling journey to get here. First let me say, thank you God for allowing me to come here!!! I not only believe this is your dream (hey, it was YOUR idea after all!), but it has also become my dream, the very thing I have lived my life working for over the past nearly two years of my life. There have been some incredibly low and discouraging times, countless times I have simply had to "push through"... Doing a remodel project at my age and in my shape (morbidly obese) was an incredible challenge, pushing me absolutely to, and beyond, my limits. I have pushed myself physically, spiritually to the point of exhaustion many days, to the point of poverty financially, and (I say to my shame) did not push me to my knees nearly enough.
I have felt very alone in a lot of ways the past couple years. My plight was to do this remodel on the house, which absolutely stole every bit of my spare time, spare money (ha! Who am I kidding, it was mostly on my credit cards...), and energy. I absolutely poured myself out on that project. But again, the focus was to finish so that I coud eventually make it to Germany....
I posted the last time on this blog in Oct 2012, just about 6 months ago. I'm sure there was a few minutes in that period of time that I would have posted something, but I feel comfortable that this blog simply was not much of a priority for me. That being said, a lot has happened in the past 6 months, so as is my custom, you may want to get comfy as I have a lot to say again today. Before you consider not taking the time to read this, I would encourage you to anyway. God has done some really remarkable things and I really hope it will encourage you as much as it has encouraged me. So here we go....
So I was able to get a few days off to see family for Thanksgiving in November and had gotten a free night's stay at Red Lion Hotel in Seattle also. It was nice to get away from the house, the projects, the responsibility and dust... It was great to spend time with mom and Russ and Owen, even if for a short time. For that Saturday, I met up with Shane and another Tacoma brother at the LeMay Auto Museum and I was in heaven!!! There were over 300 cars there and I'm sure I was leaving a path of drool behind me, seeing some amazing cars... a 1906 Ford Model N. Model N? What the heck is that? It came before the Model T, and it was NOT built on an assembly line. Awesome! Saw a 1949 Tucker. Tucker? What is that? There were only about 50 made and only 6 still are known to exist in the whole world. They are SUUUUPER cool. They had everything there... I think Shane and this other brother were a little surprised, apparently I know a lot about cars and shared ALL of it with them that day. At least they didn't tell me to shut up.... LOL.
From there, I had set up to meet some of the "mature" singles at Cheesecake Factory in downtown Seattle, but I had to check into the hotel first. The free night I got there included $39 for parking, that was the only way I would have been able to do it. I got checked in, took my bags to my room (top floor with view of the city and Puget Sound, thank you very much) and went off to meet up with the singles. I was running a bit late, but as soon as I walked out the door of the hotel it hit me. I stopped for a moment and took in the sights and sounds of Christmas in the city. Christmas music played, the trees were lit and it was dark. Thousands of people were milling about the city. I took a deep breath and thought how I loved the city. My second thought was "Why do I still live in Spokane?" LOL. At any rate, we had a very encouraging time and got to see Kathy Meyer Estabrook, Lyn Lauzon, Eric Blumer and Chelsea Lauzon. Then I went back to my very schwanky room at the top of the Red Lion. God is so good to me.
I wasn't able to get off enough time over Christmas to see family, so I stayed in Spokane. My stomach hadn't felt well for a few days, but it was nothing too serious. So I was invited over to the amazing Omneris and Alberto Bisono's home to celebrate a Puerto Rican Christmas eve dinner with their family and the food and company were really amazing. Omneris is such a great servant and sweet friend, what a great memory it was. However, on Christmas morning, my stomach problems came to a head. I was soo sick and naseous! I had an invite to go over to the Bannings for dinner and by the time I was to go over, I felt just well enough to go. The prime rib was amazing, so was everything else for that matter. Got to spend time with the McCunes, too, super encouraging. Even though I was not able to spend time with my physical family for the first time in 43 years, it was still a good Christmas... and I got sick on my day off so no attendance points for work.
So, I have been very grateful for my job at Xerox/ACS doing reservations for Red Lion and selling tix for Ticketswest. With that said, their attendance policy totally made me struggle, not for any other reason that they had to set their rules based on the fact that a lot of people took advantage of the system. At any rate, I was let go on Feb. 8 because I had called in sick on the 5th and 6th. I was very ill on the 5th and couldn't even get up to go to the doctor because I felt so horrible. I did go on the 6th and got a dr's note, but it wasn't enough to keep me from getting the full two attendance points. It put me at 7 points exactly, where they would determine if I should stay or go. The decision was made by someone in another city, not by someone who knows how I work with customers or with my co-workers. Needless to say, the day before they let me go, I was a little bit ticked off. 3 days later about 1.5 points was to drop off and there would have been no issue. I couldn't control how sick I was or when I got sick. The only conclusion I could come to was that God allowed it to happen this way.
Then it occurred to me that maybe this was God's way of saying, "It's okay Tim, it's time to get ready to go to Germany." Suddenly, my attitude changed. I couldn't wait for them to can me, in fact, my manager didn't call me in until 6 hours into my shift and I was a little annoyed it took so long. I think my manager was a bit shocked that I seemed cheery about the whole thing... Oh well... So then I had to get busy!
So I started putting my stuff up on ebay, craigslist, giving stuff away, finishing the dining room project and dozens of others around the house. I also opened up my house for a "moving sale". In March in Spokane, a moving sale basically means, "come on in to my house and buy my stuff!" That felt a bit weird, but God certainly blessed it. I made about $500 the first day and about $300 the second day. Two people even came back a couple days later and bought my stereo and other stuff.
Shortly before the moving sale, I had put my 1978 Honda Civic up for sale on ebay. It only reached $800, which I was very disappointed in. It didn't sell because I had a higher reserve on it. But I did receive a message from a gentleman from Canada and he offered me $100 on top of my reserve amount if I would drive the vehicle to him in Canada. Luckily he only lived about 120 miles away. Now, my Civic was in very nice shape for the year, but it was a 35-year old car that has not been restored or had the engine rebuilt. I did an oil change and changed the coolant and did a lot of praying! God blessed it and got it there in one piece! The gentleman gave me a ride back to Colville, about 35 miles away, then I took a bus back to Spokane. Yay! One down, three to go...
Then I decided to put my van up for sale on ebay. Once again, crash and burn.... So I decided to put it up on craigslist and within a few days it sold. Before I could sell it, it needed to be put back together from a project I started nearly 3 years before. Either way, that van was so clean and nice!!! Got $1300 for it and now it will be used by someone who is going to use it for his new skaters shop!!! So cool. He loves the van and I'm glad it went to a good owner.
I had been praying about getting these cars sold because this was the money I would be living off until I can find work in Berlin. Without these selling, my dreams of going to Germany just weren't going to happen. So, then I decided that ebay has not been the way to go to sell cars, and since my time was running short, I should maybe at least try to sell my 72 Honda N600 locally on craigslist. I put it up about 8am on a Monday and it was gone from my home by 10:30am!!!! I was not prepared for how I was to feel about selling the car that for the last 15 years I had called "my baby". I took lots of pictures of it as they were pulling it out of the garage and putting it on the tow truck. He said the next time I'm back in town, he would love to let me drive it. It has not driven in the past 15 years because the engine needed to be rebuilt so I can't wait for that. The guy who bought it said that he never checks craigslist on Monday mornings because he has to take his daughter to school. For some reason, he didn't need to that morning, so he saw the ad! Now, certainly just to have buyers for these cars is one thing, but it's completely another that the people that bought them did not want to tweak them out, but to restore them and make them the way I had wanted to, but I just didn't have the money or time to do so. That was a real gift from God that these cars would be well cared for. I'm a car guy, it was important to me....
Finally, I needed to figure out how to sell my 98 Honda CR-V. This was a bit different situation, because I needed the car up until the day before I flew out... But I was confident God could hook a brother up. About a week before I was heading to Seattle, a brother posted on facebook that he was looking for a car. I told him that I would be in Seattle the next week before I flew to Germany, and he said he would be interested in the car. We met, he test drove it and he said he and his wife wanted to buy the car. We met on a Friday and I was needing the car until Sunday, so he said that's fine, paid me the full amount of the car on Friday and said I could keep it for the weekend and we could still exchange on Sunday.... Well if that's not God, I don't know what is... Seriously.... I was so blown away. Sunday came, car exchanged hands, and I was just about ready to go.
So I have to also mention that before I left Spokane, the disciples put together a going-away party for me at the church. Amber made a Black Forest Cherry Cake for me and her family made me some Mexican food (which I didn't think there would be much of in Berlin, they didn't have 20 years ago anyway). I shared the story of why I'm going and there was much sharing... I had requested that people share experiences they had had with me that made an impact on them. It was one of the most encouraging times of my life hearing the stories of how people saw me and our relationships. Mark McCune pointed out it was one of the most moving sharing times he's ever seen in over 20 years in the church. I was blown away....
Well, after that, the reality set in. I had to get the house ready for the tenants to move in. There was a lot of stuff to take to Goodwill, lots of trash and a thousand details to attend to. The next 4 days or so were very difficult. Trying to get everything done was exhausting. One night, on 4/1, I was super stressed. I had hoped to be gone on that day, but the touch up paint for the living room was the wrong sheen, so you could see very clearly all the touch up spots. Ugh. So I called the amazing Ryan Baldwin for advice, and wouldn't you know it, 5 or 6 amazing friends showed up to paint, clean and help out. By this time, I was so exhausted I could barely function. Their help made it possible for me to get out of town. It was still 2 more days before I could get it all done, but their help was amazing!!! Even without their help, I didn't think I would ever get out of town.
When I did finally have the car all packed up, it was time to say good-bye to Wolfi. My heart was totally broken having to say good-bye to my little buddy of 8 years. I love that little dog so much. All he wanted was for me to scratch his tummy. He had figured out a week or so before that something was up. He's such a smart dog. It was so hard to say good bye to him, for days he had seen me from 10 feet away through the fence moving stuff, packing up the car, etc. He went to the neighbor's house on 4/1 and you could just see in his eyes, "What are you doing, daddy, why can't I come home?" Totally broke my heart. Actually, I do think he's happy. He has two humans that love him (one of my neighbors wanted a German Shepherd, the other wanted a Border Collie, so they both got what they wanted) and they take him for walks, but even more importantly, he has a little dog buddy that he can play with during the day. They are really fun to watch, they have a great time together. I couldn't give that to him.... Here's a link to a video I put on youtube of Wolfi and Joey playing if you'd like to see my sweet little dog. Wolfi is the bigger one with the red on his face: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eXxpemR7yk
So, when I was all ready and was leaving Spokane it occurred to me that for the first time in well over a year and a half, I didn't have to spend time and money on some project on the house and that I could, for the moment at least, take a deep breath. It was so encouraging not to be enslaved to my house. I love my house. I've never lived anywhere more than 3 years in my life and I was there for 9! Very bittersweet, but I'm glad someone else is able to enjoy all the hard work I've put into it.
Well, due to the length of this post, I am going to stop here and continue tomorrow with the flights and Berlin details. They will be lengthy enough themselves because God has not failed to continually amaze me with everything here. At any rate, if you made it this far, thank you for reading. I'll finish up soon... I promise!!! Bis bald!
No comments:
Post a Comment