Smokey Seattle, Smokey Spokane, Dusty Tim, but PROGRESS!

Hey everyone!
Well the last two weeks have truly been a whirlwind of activity: traveling, planning, spending money, cleaning, and breathing in lots and lots and lots of smoke!  I'll get to that in a minute....

I mentioned in my last post that I decided a couple of months ago to sell my house in Spokane and get rid of all the stuff that is holding me back from living the life I really dream of.  So two weeks ago I began to plan in earnest my cleanup of the property and clean-out of my storage.

For the first time I can ever recall in a total of 15 years of living in the Seattle area, we had a really terrible smoke problem.  The smoke was coming from forest fires in Canada, hundreds of miles away!  It hung around for a few days and it was very depressing and unpleasant.  I was hoping when I left on Friday afternoon (Aug. 4) that it would get better by the time I got to Spokane.

Unfortunately I was incorrect....

In fact, the smoke kept up from Seattle, all the way across the state, almost 300 miles (500 km!).  It was also 95 F (36 C) for pretty much the whole weekend.  It was hot, dry, dusty AND very smokey!!  But despite being unpleasant, it was a productive weekend!  I didn't get everything done that I needed, but now I have a good idea of what I do need to do.  Still a lot to do, but I'm just praying for God to intervene to make it a bit more do-able.

Same Picture of Spokane: day I arrived (Aug 4th) and Aug. 13
Photo by Young Kwak

Unbelievably, by Monday (the hottest day of the weekend: 97F/37C), I was actually starting to get used to it a bit.  Maybe it was the fan that I brought to keep me cooler in the garage, but I did much better!  I cleaned up the yard, garage and loaded up the car to head back to Seattle.

As I did not have any extra vacation time to burn, my managers very generously allowed me to work 4 - 10 hour shifts Tuesday through Friday last week.  Let's just say God helped me get through the planning phase, work phase, and the long hours for the rest of the week in good condition!  Super grateful for that grace! However, when I got home on Friday night, my body was done, exhausted!

So after about 10 days of what seemed like constant activity, my body just kind of shut down.  I guess I needed some rest!  But Saturday came and I was back to my busy self again....

Even more amazingly, that weekend really helped me to have so much more energy.  Since Saturday I have just been working diligently on organizing, getting rid of stuff and just generally getting my act together.  I am very much making up for a lot of lost time in the past 9 months or so when I was too exhausted to do much of anything.  It still takes a bit of motivation, but when I get started, I do pretty well.  Thank you God!

Another funny thing has happened lately.  I updated my resume and put one of the places I was looking for work was London, but I was still listed as being in Seattle.  So I have been getting a TON of solicitations for work in Seattle.  I finally stopped answering them because there are just too many to respond to.  I love my job here, so I am not ready to make a move here....  So, I put myself in London on career websites.  Hopefully that will take care of all the solicitations (except the ones I am looking for)!

Well, that is about it for now.  Still so much to do in preparation for selling the house, please send prayers and good thoughts for the sale of my home.  Kind of looking for a bit of a miracle as the house and one garage do need to be completely painted, not sure how I'm going to come up with those funds as there will likely be some lead paint disposal involved.  Oy...

Anyway, thanks for looking in on me. Hope you all have a great week and I'll continue to update as i have time, news and energy to write!  Love you guys!

Fast Wrap-Up and Hope for an Incredible Opportunity?

Good evening!  Thank you for another rousing chapter of "What's Up with Tim?"!

So, just a little follow up on my weight loss and health saga...  After being on solid food for about a week now, I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed because I've gained back a few more pounds than I wanted.  I think I'm at a net weight loss of about 25 pounds, but not 100% sure, it could be less.  The cravings have subsided a bit more so hopefully my body becomes less and less ravenous. 

Either way, I'm trying to be careful to not go overboard...  Just wanted to be open about how things  have been going.  Gotta be honest, it's been a bit discouraging.  I'm just trying to remember how much progress I have made, and not focus on the temporary backslide as my body readjusts....

So, funny story.  I've lamented over the last month about how much I have missed pizza.  Well, come to find out, it looks like I have a legitimate gluten intolerance.  After having a few pieces of pizza yesterday at work, courtesy of our managers (thank you!!), let's just say I was not feeling very well yesterday at all.  I'll leave it at that.  Lesson learned, and since my craving for pizza has actually diminished, I don't feel the need for it now...  Weird, huh?  Oh well, that's a good thing. 

Also, on an even more bizarre note, I actually crave things like salad now.  I mean really.... salad?  Me, the carnivore?  I'm pretty shocked and amazed... in a very good way!!  So I actually went out and bought fixins for a salad (with some chicken) which I plan to enjoy thoroughly....  Tonight I went out and had a Yelp Elite event where I went to my first ramen restaurant.  And even though I am not a fan of soup, I was shocked how good it was.  S.H.O.C.K.E.D.!!  Made by a chef that was taught by a master ramen chef.  Who knew such a thing existed?  It was amazing....

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So I want to share something.  I have a feeling it's going to be a bit long-winded, but I promise you, I'm going somewhere with it, so bear with me as I share some very deep and personal things from my heart.

Since I have returned from Germany, life has been extremely challenging.  At the time, life was just very overwhelming to me.  There were always multiple things that seemed to constantly knock me down and try to discourage me.  Often times I would turn to God for healing and strength, but more and more, I turned inward. 

For a lot of years (even before moving to Germany in 2013), I was just in survival mode.  The challenges were large and they were too much for me to bear myself.  However, in my sinful nature, too often I would not take them to God.  To my shame, I have to admit that the longer the challenges persisted, the more I relied on my own strength.

This was a perfect opportunity for Satan to start acting in my life and my heart and to draw me into sinful behavior that slowly, incrementally, pulled me away from others and ultimately from God.  My lowest point was in May 2016.  I was trying to buy a newer car to replace my '86 Toyota that was beginning to have a lot of problems.  But everything went wrong on the deal. 

To make a long story short, the deal finally went through after a ridiculous number of text messages, time and effort spent, and far too much stressing about it.  One night at the apex of my frustration, I ended up yelling at God at the top of my voice while driving down the street, "demanding" that something needed to break.  I just couldn't handle any more.

The reality was that my relationships in my church had nearly completely dried up.  Despite pouring myself out to get time with people, and having very few friendships to show for it, I had an opportunity to make some badly needed changes.

I'm so grateful for Jermaine Peacock.  He led the church in Spokane for the last few years while I was living there and in June 2016 he had posted that he was going to be in town (just a few weeks after I cried out to God).  At the time I was not aware of why he was going to be in town until that Saturday when he posted that there was going to be a church planting of the International Christian Church movement. 

I was so excited because I had wondered if they had a church here!  Although I had heard some not-so-encouraging things, I decided not to listen to hearsay/gossip, but I decided to look into it for myself.  I was so discouraged by this point, I figured I didn't have anything to lose by going.  Despite this, I did still go with significant trepidation.

But the good news was that it was so refreshing!  It was so much like the church that I had been baptized into back in 1993.  It felt weird at first, but the more I learned, the more it fit perfectly with my own convictions! 

But even though the move to the new church was kind of a no-brainer, it was still very difficult to leave the very church (and the relationships) that I had been a part of for over half my natural life. I had to acknowledge the possibility that most people would not understand.  I knew that I stood to lose a lot of close friends because of perceptions of this church.  But a renewed relationship with God was the goal here, and my relationship with God was revitalized.

Despite being actively involved in my previous congregation for many years, I never felt my true talents were valued there.  I acknowledge that I could be wrong, but that's how I felt.  As a result of some sin that I had been involved in, I was restored when I joined the church.  But it was well worth it!

Not surprisingly, in the year since then, Satan threw everything but the kitchen sink at me:  Constant and significant illness, discouragement, financial problems, relationship issues, etc. etc. etc.  And all of the sudden I was super weak physically and spiritually again. 

I was struggling so much and Satan kept throwing curve ball after curve ball at me.  I say to my shame, once again, I allowed myself to be in sin again, feeling totally weak and utterly hopeless. In April, I was asked to stop coming to church for a while until I could work out these issues and start loving God again, instead of myself.

And that's when I decided to do the juice fast: to gain my health back and start rebuilding my relationship with God.  I was so physically weak before the fast that I could no longer trust myself to make good decisions because I just wasn't thinking clearly.  I literally locked myself in my room until I started to get healthy again, which has only been in the last few weeks.

Thankfully, and by the grace of God, I was once again restored to the fellowship on July 23!  I'm embarrassed to say that that was the 4th time I had left God in my heart to the point where I had to be restored to him and to the fellowship.  But my heart is in such a different place now, and it feels like God is blessing the changes he has allowed me to make in my heart and in my daily life.  I still have a lot to learn and grow in, but my heart is nowhere near where it was just two months ago!  To God be the glory!


So this is why I shared this:  God is moving in an area of my life that I am absolutely, completely, and totally over the moon about.  A few weeks ago, I got a message from a leader in our church in London.  For the past year, he has been aware of the fact that my heart has been to return to Germany.  It's likely that this leader will be sending out the church to Berlin next year and they have encouraged me to try to find a way to move to London as soon as I am able to get training. 

This is what I was trying to share on July 17th in my facebook post: "Be still my heart.  I hope this is an open door for me.  My heart might just explode..." 

There is so much that would need to happen for me to be able to do this.  I am currently preparing to sell my house in Spokane.  If I am able to sell it for a certain amount, I should be able to pay off all my debt, go to school for about 6 months to get my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Certificate and prayerfully be able to return to Berlin next year.  Having this certificate in hand would help me immensely in finding work in Berlin.  It's my best shot actually.  I didn't know that before going over in 2013.

So I hate to ask for more prayers, but I'm asking God for my house to sell for $128,000.  With this, I would be able to move to London, go to school for about 6 months to get my TEFL.  Please pray for me to be able to take care of everything I need to this weekend when I go to work on my house in Spokane so that it can be put on the market next week.  Please also pray (I hate asking so much) for cool weather.  The forecast s calling for almost 100 degree weather (38 C). 

I'm so excited for this time.  God has been so merciful and patient with me. I truly don't deserve him! Thank you for reading this blog post to the end.  I know it was long, but there was no way to say the things I wanted to say in a short space.  I'm so thankful that you were willing to persevere through the long text.  Thank you!  And thank you for your friendship and support! 

Good night and stay cool this week while Seattle heats up!  Would love to hear your thoughts and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions!  My email address is timmorse@outlook.com.

Thanks!!