Almost

Howdy!!

Well tomorrow we head west. We stayed an extra day because one of my clients here decided to buy some new computers and office equipment and he wanted me to set everything up before I left. Figured we could put off one day for some extra trip money.

Everything has pretty much sold. The guy who bought our bed came yesterday and picked that up. I gotta say, that was the hardest thing to sell... the bed. That thing was so firm and comfortable. I especially missed it last night while sleeping on the floor.. lol !! Oh well, it's jut stuff and can all be replaced. The guy who bought the bed is an ex-deputy sheriff and boy did he have some stories to tell. We actually ended up talking about God. He, like allot of us just went through life on cruise control... one day that changed for him. He has since retired from the force and has oppened a furniture shop where people that don't have allot of cash can but furniture at really good prices.. and if they don't have the money he lets the people pay for it over time without charging interest. When given the chance he shares the gospel with these people as well. Pretty cool ministry if you think about it.

Today I'm finishing up the network I started yesterday. When I'm done here I'll go back home and take the last little bit of "stuff" to Goodwill.

Hoping to leave out at about 8:00am (if I can get the wife up that early). It's going to be so hard to leave our son here. He is 19 almost 20 and wants to stay here, at least for now. Going to miss him bad.

Peace out!!
Tim
P.S. Please keep us i your prayers as we travel this weekend. Thank you!

Closer

The last few days have been really strange. One minute I'm really excited about moving, the next I'm so angry I can't stand it. Funny how things change as we get older. When I was younger, moving was no big deal at all. I am excited about the future though, and that's not happened in some time now.

We did sell allot of stuff. The guy who bought our bed was kind enough to let us keep it until tomorrow so we'd have something to sleep on. Couch sold, some tables and bar stools. We still have a yard sale sign out in the front yard and everything that we are selling is right there in the garage.
What we don't sell we are giving to Goodwill.

I did get the transmission serviced today and I changed the air filter. Already had the oil changed last week. So I feel pretty confident that the car will be OK. Still looking to leave Thursday morning if everything goes right. So far things are working out good. They were supposed to be out on Monday to turn our power off, they did show up, but only gave us a notice that it was going to be shut off... so the Lord provided us the time needed with power. Even though it's Georgia, and never really gets cold, the nights right now are getting into the 30's.

I'm getting rid of all my computer stuff so I won't be posting on here as much after tomorrow. But I still will be posting with my Blackberry.

Peace to you all,
Tim

First post

Sell, sell, sell !!!

Today is Sunday, we put out all the ads yesterday for the moving sale. It's about 10:30am our time and so far we've not had much traffic. We've had allot of email and phone inquires, but not allot of traffic. Of course it doesn't help this being only the second day after Christmas. We still have a few days before we go and we'll continue to try and sell stuff right up till we go. We are leaving Thusday morning bright and early. I figure that will put us in Ogden Sunday evening if all goes well.

I will continue to post from the road. I know not many people read my postings, but that's OK, it helps me to write things out like this.

Tomorrow I'll be getting the car worked on. I want to get the transmission serviced and get all the belts changed before we go. Not sure how much all that will set us back, but gotta have it done. Rather do it here at a reasonable price than out in the middle of no where and pay through the nose for towing and repairs.

Until next time... Peace,
Tim

Merry Christmas

I woke up last night at about 2:30am, normally when I wake up like that it’s because I have so much on my mind about bills pilling up, looking for work, ,meeting my families needs. This time I had something else rolling around in my empty head. It hit me, despite everything that is going on in my life, no job, bills pilling up, loosing everything (Stuff), this is the best Christmas I have ever had. I know that sounds crazy. But this day, I am more blessed than the richest men in the world. You see, for the longest time I felt God had abounded my family and because of that my faith in Him was dwindling. But last night when I woke up I was shown the truth, He has never left us, and He now has us in a place of total dependency on Him. My friends, there is no greater place to be! I am so lucky, I’ve been shown the true meaning of life. I’ve been shown what’s left when it’s all stripped away.

Every since I lost my steady job over 15 months ago, my biggest fears were coming to pass, slowly we were loosing everything. My biggest fear of all was becoming homeless, this coming week we will be homeless. But that’s ok, I now know that the living God well take care of us. He will meet our every need along the way. For the first time in my life I now live without fear of what is around the corner. The not knowing if you will. For I now know that know matter what lies ahead for us, God has prepared the way and He will not leave us or forsake us.

It’s funny (not really), but we as a society have it all backwards. We think that God wants us to be happy, and to be happy we need more stuff. First part is right, God does want us to be happy, but His meaning of happiness is so different from ours. I used to think that way, how can anyone be happy without having “stuff”? The truth is, the only way we can fill that void in our hearts and lives is with Him. I have literally surrendered all, not by choice mind you! But because of where the Lord has brought us to, I can honestly say I am the most blessed man on the planet today. I have never been happier! Thank you Lord God!

Merry Christmas my brothers and sisters!

Love,
Tim

Long time

WOW!!! It's been a long time since I've posted on here. Life just seems to get busier and busier. It’s funny; I remember thinking as a child that as I would get older life would get easier. I could not have been more wrong!

Things have gone from bad to worse for my family and I. I have not had a steady job now in 15 months other than a couple of small contract jobs for a couple of days here and a couple of days there. I did have that one job for 8 weeks a few months back that I thought would turn into a permanent job, but thanks to budget cuts, that never happened. That job ended on Nov 13th 2009.
I did hear from an old friend who offered me a job, a really good job. The problem is the job is in Utah and I’m in Georgia. We have exhausted all of our savings, in fact, we won’t have next months rent (January) and we have not been able to pay our gas and power bill for 3 months now and they are going to shut that off on Monday (Dec 28th). So the job thing couldn’t have come at a better time, but we are struggling to find a way to get out there. If we have to we are going to open up our home one day next week and sell everything in it, keeping only the clothes on our back. I have to say, I never thought I would be one week away from living in my car, especially at 51 years of age. If we can just get through the next few weeks I think we will be ok.
My faith through all of this has been tested like never before. I do not have any sense of God being a part of my life at all, let along supposedly taking care of us. I’ve known the Lord all of my life, and never have I felt this way. Totally abandoned! I guess it really doesn’t matter if you live a good life or not. If you care more about other people than yourself. If you give to those who are less fortunate or not, it doesn’t matter because life is what it is, just life.

As I can, I will post here as to what is going on.

Oh, by the way... Merry Christmas everyone!!
Tim~

Sunday 08/23/09

Greetings,

Here it is Sunday and another week gone by and another one starting. Last week was a good week other than feeling a little under the weather most of the week with a cold, everything went well. I started working at a different school on Thursday and I'll be there tomorrow as well. Most of the schools only have one full time IT person and at the start of the school year that is in no way enough to get all the work done in time. Still hoping this turns in to a full time position, I probably won't know for sure until the end of next month.

Things at home are OK. Did get into a fight with the wife Saturday. Since she works nights I don't see her at all really until the weekend. So as the week is coming to a close I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with her. Now understand, our lives have been under allot of stress do to the fact that I've not had steady employment for a year. My wife does not handle money stress well at all. Even though I get paid this coming Friday my check will in no way cover all the bills. Anyway, so Saturday morning rolls around. I go in to wake her up and I'm in a great mood. Make a long story short, all she can talk about is money and what we're going to do. I tend to live more in the moment and thats always been one of our many conflicts. Needless to say that set the tone for the entire weekend. Pretty much ruined mine, if it had not been for a dear friend that cheered me up Saturday night, the weekend would have been a total shit storm.

I'm looking forward to the coming week. I have to say, if some things don't change in my life soon, I'll be making some serious changes. Life it to short for all the bullshit I have to deal with.

Peace out,
Tim

P.S. Football season is only a couple of weeks away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go BOLTz!!!

After 1 week

Wow!! Finally found the time to sit down and write a little something here. With the start of the new job and all I’ve been hard pressed to find some free time during the week. The job is awesome! Last week was pretty hard for me though. Most of what we did was set up new and existing computers in the classrooms including computer labs. Don’t ask me why, but they take all of the computers out of the classrooms for the summer. So we ended up moving about 1500 computers and monitors. About half of the monitors are still the old CRT (Tubes) models, 17 inch ones at that. So needless to say I was dragging ass the last part of the week. This next week will be more along the lines of setting up software on the systems, user management, printer setups, and things like that.

I’ve been told that I’ll only be sharing responsibilities between 4 schools and the IT directors there. School starts this Monday so all the kids will be back so I think our roll will be more along the line of support for the teachers. Really don’t matter to me… as long as they keep paying me.

Peace

I'm a workin man again !!

Yeah buddy !!! I'm a working man again. All of the paper work went through ok and I got the call about 4:00pm this afternoon... I start tomorrow morning at 8:30.

If you see a guy dancing in the streets tonight... it's me !!

Peace out,
Tim

Monday

Well I went to court this morning. I was totally prepared to tell the judge that my landlord was all in the right and that I did owe him the money. The judge never let things get that far. Seems since my landlord (who is a really good guy despite all of this) accepted partial rent from us for July, so he can't sue us for July. So the case was thrown out. Now our landlord must file all over again for the month of August since he won't take any money from us for August. So I'll be back in court in two weeks unless I we can reach some sort of agreement. We'll see.

I saw G.I. Joe over the weekend. I have to say that I really wasn't expecting much. After all they have stripped away everything that was and is the true G.I. Joe. But I went in with an opened mind. I was pleasantly surprised big time. None stop action from beginning to end. Good story... great action and effects. Even if you don't know much about the cartoons this movie is based on you'll still enjoy it... stands on it's on just fine.

I also finished up all the paper work for my new job over the weekend. I'll find out later today when I start for sure... Thank you God!!

Peace to you all,
Tim

Awesome News

Well after 11 months and 20 days I finally have a full time job again. On Tuesday of this week I went for an interview with the Beaufort South Carolina School District. I was being interviewed for one of 3 IT positions covering all the schools in the district. I had all the position requirements except for one, I didn’t have the A+ certificate they were looking for. For those of you who don’t know what that cert is for, it means that you know how to repair computers and such. Since I had over 6 years experience repairing computers and printers plus 2 more years on the Microsoft Help Desk support Microsoft employees I was hoping that my experience level would equal out having an A+ certificate.

I felt the interview went well, but the guy did keep bringing up the fact that I didn’t have an A+ cert. I figured if it was meant to be it would happen. Happy days!! I got the call this morning that they wanted to offer me one of the 3 open positions. All I have to do is fill out all the paper work. I still have to pass the background and drug test, but I already passed a background check for the USPS so I know that won’t be a problem. I haven’t touched drugs since I was 25, so I think I’m ok there… LOL. They want me to start work this coming Tuesday so I’ll probably take the drug test on Monday.

These last 11 months have been the hardest of my life. I know we all go through the ups and downs of life. But I was really beginning to think the pit I was falling in was never ending.
I’ll keep posting about all of this and more over the next few days.

Peace to you all,
Tim

August 6 2009

Greetings,

Currently my life like the rest of the world is in disarray. I've been out of work for several months and my family life sucks as well. But is life has taught me anything, nothing stays the same. So I know brighter days lay ahead. One good thing on the horizon, it's almost time for the football season to start... and Sons of Anarchy is coming back on in Sept.

I did go for a job interview yesterday for the Beaufort county school district. They are looking for 4 IT desktop support people. I think the interview went well. We are supposed to know for sure by this Friday. I've still been driving Limos for a good friend of mine, but there has not been much work. This is the slowest time of the year for them.

I watched Rescue Me last night (love that show). This one was a good one... the scene at the end between Tommy and Sheila was freaking HOT! No sex or anything, just the way she was explaining her attraction to him was... WOW!! Doesn't hurt that she is one hot lady! If you've not seen the show, take a Tuesday evening and watch it... It's for sure one of the better shows on the tube. "Tube", lol... can't call them a tube anymore can we... tubes are long gone from TV sets.

Peace out!!
Tim

Seasons

1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

Came across this powerful story and wanted to share it with you.

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted them to learn to not judge things too quickly, so he sent them each on a quest to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. He sent his first son in the winter, his second in the spring, his third in summer and his youngest in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no - it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed, he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

After hearing all his son's responses, the wise father replied, "Sons, you are all right -- because you have each seen only one season in the tree's life. But you cannot judge a tree, or a person, or anything else by only one season. Most things can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons have come to pass".

Peace,
Tim

No one stopped

The other day I was coming home from downtown Savannah. To get from downtown Savannah to my house you can take the expressway for a faster trip. The ramp I normally get off on is always backed up with cars. When I say backed up I mean there are about 25 – 30 cars from the stop light to the beginning of the off ramp. On this day at the bottom of the ramp there was a man & a woman standing there on the sidewalk by the stop light. I could see that they were probably in their 50s or at least looked like it. I could also see they were holding a sign but from where I was in line I could not see what it said. I figured they were there asking for help as I’ve seen other people there doing the same thing. As the light changed and all the cars moved down the ramp I began to notice that not one person was stopping to give them anything or even ask them if they were ok. After a few minutes I was finally close enough to see what the sign said… “We are stranded and need help”. By the time I went through the stop light still not one person had stopped to help in anyway.

Now I know what your thinking, most people are afraid to stop or think that the person you are giving money to will just blow it on booze or drugs. If you’re a so called Christian this is not the way you should be thinking. Because what they do with the money you gave out of the kindness of your heart is between them and God. We can never truly know someone's motives, only God knows their heart and they will have to answer to Him for what they do with the kindness you showed. Christ never gave restrictions on kindness.

Matthew 25:40 "As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me".

US envoy says world must push for peace in Sudan

SaveDarfur.org has a post called "US envoy says world must push for peace in Sudan" that's worth checking out...

By FOSTER KLUG WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's special envoy to Sudan said Tuesday that the world must make urgent efforts to help the African country fully apply the terms of a 2005 peace accord that ended a 22-year civil war between…

Amazing !!!

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio...and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned....but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is...how He spoke the universe into being...how He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire...etc. etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) .....and I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking...."How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???"

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath.
And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!
It was because he started talking about laminin.
I knew about laminin. Here is how wikipedia describes them :"Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue." You see....laminins are what hold us together....LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what laminin LOOKED LIKE.

But now I do.
And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)....
Here is what the structure of laminin looks like...AND THIS IS NOT a "Christian portrayal" of it....if you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see...



Amazing!

The glue that holds us together....ALL of us....is in the shape of the cross.
Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth , visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things were created by him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. "
Colossians 1:15-17

Call me crazy. I just think that is AWESOME!
Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross.

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin "glue" would look like long before Adam even breathed his first breath!!

Rome is burning

The article below was written by Stanislav Mishin, a blogger and columnist for the Russian newspaper Pravda.

American capitalism gone with a whimper . . . . .
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us (Russia) about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blinds the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox (Russian Orthodox) churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery with out a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

Stanislav Mishin

Praise report

Glory be to the living God !! Yesterday my landlord informed me that he wanted us out ASAP. Understand, our landlord is a good man, he just can no longer carry us. Since I've not had a steady job in 8 months we've always been behind in rent. He has never charged us a late fee and always tried to work with us. I could tell when he called he was at the end of his financial rope as well. I could feel this coming, so over the last few weeks we had been praying for a miracle from God to somehow meet our needs in this area. With each passing day nothing changed. I knew that if there was not some kind of divine intervention that we were going to be living in the street.

After my conversation with our landlord I will be totally honest here, I truly felt totally abounded by God. I thought to myself, "this is great! Where are you God? You're WORD promises to take care of us... well?" After about an hour of feeling sorry for myself I settled down. I knew somehow God would take care of us.

About 2 hours later my landlord called back. He informed me that if we could come up with something that he would work with us still. Prior to this our landlord only took full payments for rent, now he was will to take partial payments. There is no other explanation, God touched our landlords heart.

Thank you God !!! You have never failed us, even in our darkest hours YOU have always been there. I want to thank you and praise your HOLY NAME for protection and blessings in my life.

Psalm 30

1 I will exalt you, O LORD,
for you lifted me out of the depths
and did not let my enemies gloat over me.

2 O LORD my God, I called to you for help
and you healed me.

3 O LORD, you brought me up from the grave;
you spared me from going down into the pit.

4 Sing to the LORD, you saints of his;
praise his holy name.

5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may remain for a night,
but rejoicing comes in the morning.

6 When I felt secure, I said,
"I will never be shaken."

7 O LORD, when you favored me,
you made my mountain stand firm;
but when you hid your face,
I was dismayed.

8 To you, O LORD, I called;
to the Lord I cried for mercy:

9 "What gain is there in my destruction,
in my going down into the pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it proclaim your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me;
O LORD, be my help."

11 You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

12 that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.

May God bless and keep you always,
Tim

On the road

I have just returned from Salt Lake Cit, Utah. This was my second trip out in search of employment. Prior to going out this time I had been in contact with the HR department of a pretty big financial institution concerning an IT position with their firm. I was scheduled for an interview on a Wednesday. I had a 50% off bus pass for Greyhound so I was able to go out there for about $80.00. Not bad considering it’s about a 2000 mile trip. The bus schedule had me arriving in Salt Lake one day before my interview. At this point everything seems to be coming together easily. The way it was all coming together I truly felt God’s hand was in it and that this is the direction He wanted me to go in. So I take the step.

The trip goes along as scheduled until we stop for about a 2 hour layover in St Louis, Mo. After the layover there, we head out on the bus. We get about 20 miles down the road and the bus breaks down. I wasn’t concerned at this point. I’ve always felt that everything happens for a reason. Like God’s and steering you in the directions He wants you to go. After about what turns out to be a 4 hours we are headed down that highway again. My next reconnecting bus is in Denver and there is only a one hour window to catch that connecting bus to Salt Lake City. I’m thinking to myself, well maybe the driver can make up a little time along the way. I start praying that the connecting bus is Denver is late or at least they will wait for us. Not a chance! My bus arrives in Denver 4 hours late. The bus to Salt Lake City… gone. The next bus to Salt Lake City was not going out until the next morning at 8:30am. This means I will not be able to make my scheduled interview.

The next day as we are traveling to Salt Lake City at one of the stops for a break I called the HR department and told them what had happened. I was informed that this was the last day of their interviewing process and if I didn’t make the appointment time that I would not be asked to come in another day, at least until they are hiring again.
I was pretty bummed out. I truly felt in my heart that God had placed this job in my lap for me to follow up on.
After a couple of hours of feeling sorry for myself I began to look more at the big picture. I thought, will maybe that wasn’t the job God had for me there, maybe that was just the bait to get me moving in the right direction.

I arrive in Salt Lake City about 24 hours from the time I was supposed to arrive. My brother in law was there at the bus station to pick me up. His wife and him had offered a place for me to stay while I was there looking for work. This was a very generous offer and I will forever be in there gratitude for allowing me to stay there.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of my trip, only the part about the trip that God used me for from the beginning.

It’s now 3 weeks later; I’m sitting in the bus station at Salt Lake City waiting for my scheduled departure time to go back to Savannah. As I’m sitting there, looking around at all the people I notice a young black man in his early 20’s (turned out to be 21) talking with some other men. Seemed they all kinda knew each the way they were joking around and talking. As they were talking I could hear the young man talking about how he was going home after failing a drivers test or something. I also heard him talking about this book called “The Secret”. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about what the author calls one of the natural laws in our universe. This law has to do with magnetism, and how if you think the right way all of you’re hopes and desires will come true. This idea has been bought and sold down through the ages in so many different disguises it’s not funny. Anyway… moving along.

There were allot of people already in line for the bus heading east that I was going to be riding. So by the time I got on the bus it was packed. In fact there was only one seat left, the seat sitting next to that young man I told you about earlier. I stopped and looked down at him and asked if I could sit there, he nodded his head yes, and this is where the real story starts.

After a few miles down the road I introduced myself. He told me his name was Tony and that he was from West Virginia. I asked how he was doing; he said he had been better. I could tell that he was really troubled despite the outward appearance of being carefree he displayed in the bus station. He began to tell me how he had been accepted to attend this truck driving school there in Salt Lake. He said after 3 days of classroom study they had them all go down and take the commercial driving general knowledge test. After just a couple of days to study it’s pretty hard to pass this test. Tony failed the test along with about 3 other guys. So now he was on the bus with me and on his way home. After telling me this Tony began to really open up. His frustration with life to this point was all coming out. For the next 2 or 3 hours I was drilled with questions about life. His questions mainly pertained to why he has failed so much in life to this point, not matter how hard he tries. I could tell he had a good heart and was really searching for answers. I asked him where God was in his life. I figured that if he was reading books like “The Secret”, he must have wondered from the truth. He said he was raised a Christian but had not been to church in years. This is where I let go and let the Holy Spirit take over and drive. I was fortunate to have to very important books with me on the bus. The Bible of course being one, the other book I had with me is called “The Hole in our Gospel” by Richard Stearns. Richard Stearns is the president of World Vision. I don’t have enough paper to go into details about the book here. I can tell you that it is one amazing book that speaks the truth about the gospel that is being taught or not taught today.

Over the next 2 days I was able to share allot of scripture with Tony. I know it was only two days with this young man, but I truly believe God’s Spirit filled this young mans heart. On the last day of the trip that we were together a homeless man had got on the bus. He brought a big duffle bag on the bus with him that looked like it had all of his worldly possessions in it. At one point he pulled out a piece of cake that clearly had been taken from a trash can somewhere. Seeing the homeless man brought more questions from Tony about God and where God is in the homeless mans life. I’m so thankful that our Lord Jesus Christ was not afraid to hang out with people like the homeless man we saw. It sure makes it easy to be able to use Christ as the example on how to treat the less fortunate. As we were talking about this man at one point Tony even had to wipe a tear or two away. I knew at that point that HIS love was in Tony’s heart.

Before we parted ways we exchanged phone numbers and email addys. We hugged and said our goodbyes. As I watched Tony get on the bus I said a prayer for him. I prayed that what God had started in that young mans heart… He would finish. I have no doubt He well. His word promises that fact!

It’s been about 3 days since I’ve been home and today I got a call from Tony. I was so happy to hear from him. He told me that he had been reading both the Bible and the book I gave him (I gave him the book “The Hole in Our Gospel). In fact, he said his mother started reading it as well and loved it so far. He is still looking for a job, but he knows now that God is in control and has a purpose for his life. Thank you Lord !!

I know this has been a long one, but it’s something I felt important to share. If you are open to Gods will and purpose for your life… HE can use you anywhere. Look for the broken hearted… the lost… the confused… the seekers… the less fortunate. You’ll find them everywhere and they need to hear the good news. Plant the seed and let the Holy Spirit work His magic.

May God bless and keep you always,
Tim

Your help is needed

Greetings !!

Hope everyone is doing well.

I have a huge favor to ask. My sister-in-law (Her name is Becky) had a biopsy done on her stomach this week. They want to make sure she does not have stomach cancer. They will not get the results for 7 to 10 days. In this time I’d like to ask that we lift her up in prayer. Pray that the results come back negative and that God will get the glory. I’ve seen firsthand God’s healing work on another cancer victim last year. That person is still cancer free.

Thank you ahead of time for your thoughts and prayers. May God bless and keep you always.

Love,
Tim

Malachi 3:3

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining
Silver..

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver." She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire , remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

I don't know about you, but sometimes it sure feels like I'm in the fire way to long... LOL !!

Thank you LORD GOD for never giving up on me.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KEVIN CARTER

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KEVIN CARTER Visiting Sudan, a little-known photographer took a picture that made the world weep. What happened afterward is a tragedy of another sort.

BY SCOTT MACLEOD/JOHANNESBURG

The image presaged no celebration: a child barely alive, a vulture so eager for carrion. Yet the photograph that epitomized Sudan's famine would win Kevin Carter fame - and hopes for anchoring a career spent hounding the news, free-lancing in war zones, waiting anxiously for assignments amid dire finances, staying in the line of fire for that one great picture. On May 23, 14 months after capturing that memorable scene, Carter walked up to the dais in the classical rotunda of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library and received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. The South African soaked up the attention. "I swear I got the most applause of anybody," Carter wrote back to his parents in Johannesburg. "I can't wait to show you the trophy. It is the most precious thing, and the highest acknowledgment of my work I could receive."

Carter was feted at some of the most fashionable spots in New York City. Restaurant patrons, overhearing his claim to fame, would come up and ask for his autograph. Photo editors at the major magazines wanted to meet the new hotshot, dressed in his black jeans and T shirts, with the tribal bracelets and diamond-stud earring, with the war-weary eyes and tales from the front lines of Nelson Mandela's new South Africa. Carter signed with Sygma, a prestigious picture agency representing 200 of the world's best photojournalists. "It can be a very glamorous business," says Sygma's U.S. director, Eliane Laffont. "It's very hard to make it, but Kevin is one of the few who really broke through. The pretty girls were falling for him, and everybody wanted to hear what he had to say."

There would be little time for that. Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. His red pickup truck was parked near a small river where he used to play as a child; a green garden hose attached to the vehicle's exhaust funneled the fumes inside. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note left on the passenger seat beneath a knapsack. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."

How could a man who had moved so many people with his work end up a suicide so soon after his great triumph? The brief obituaries that appeared around the world suggested a morality tale about a person undone by the curse of fame. The details, however, show how fame was only the final, dramatic sting of a death foretold by Carter's personality, the pressure to be first where the action is, the fear that his pictures were never good enough, the existential lucidity that came to him from surviving violence again and again - and the drugs he used to banish that lucidity. If there is a paramount lesson to be drawn from Carter's meteoric rise and fall, it is that tragedy does not always have heroic dimensions. "I have always had it all at my feet," read the last words of his suicide note, "but being me just fit up anyway."

First, there was history. Kevin Carter was born in 1960, the year Nelson Mandela's African National Congress was outlawed. Descended from English immigrants, Carter was not part of the Afrikaner mainstream that ruled the country. Indeed, its ideology appalled him. Yet he was caught up in its historic misadventure.

His devoutly Roman Catholic parents, Jimmy and Roma, lived in Parkmore, a tree-lined Johannesburg suburb - and they accepted apartheid. Kevin, however, like many of his generation, soon began to question it openly. "The police used to go around arresting black people for not carrying their passes," his mother recalls. "They used to treat them very badly, and we felt unable to do anything about it. But Kevin got very angry about it. He used to have arguments with his father. "Why couldn't we do something about it? Why didn't we go shout at those police?' "

Though Carter insisted he loved his parents, he told his closest friends his childhood was unhappy. As a teenager, he found his thrills riding motorcycles and fantasized about becoming a race-car driver. After graduating from a Catholic boarding school in Pretoria in 1976, Carter studied pharmacy before dropping out with bad grades a year later. Without a student deferment, he was conscripted into the South African Defense Force, where he found upholding the apartheid regime loathsome. Once, after he took the side of a black mess-hall waiter, some Afrikaans-speaking soldiers called him a kaffir-boetie ("nigger lover") and beat him up. In 1980 Carter went absent without leave, rode a motorcycle to Durban and, calling himself David, became a disk jockey. He longed to see his family but felt too ashamed to return. One day after he lost his job, he swallowed scores of sleeping pills, pain-killers and rat poison. He survived. He returned to the S.A.D.F. to finish his service and was injured in 1983 while on guard duty at air force headquarters in Pretoria. A bomb attributed to the A.N.C. had exploded, killing 19 people. After leaving the service, Carter got a job at a camera supply shop and drifted into journalism, first as a weekend sports photographer for the Johannesburg Sunday Express. When riots began sweeping the black townships in 1984, Carter moved to the Johannesburg Star and aligned himself with the crop of young, white photojournalists who wanted to expose the brutality of apartheid - a mission that had once been the almost exclusive calling of South Africa's black photographers. "They put themselves in face of danger, were arrested numerous times, but never quit. They literally were willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believed in," says American photojournalist James Nachtwey, who frequently worked with Carter and his friends. By 1990, civil war was raging between Mandela's A.N.C. and the Zulu-supported Inkatha Freedom Party. For whites, it became potentially fatal to work the townships alone. To diminish the dangers, Carter hooked up with three friends - Ken Oosterbroek of the Star and free-lancers Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva - and they began moving through Soweto and Tokoza at dawn. If a murderous gang was going to shoot up a bus, throw someone off a train or cut up somebody on the street, it was most likely to happen as township dwellers began their journeys to work in the soft, shadowy light of an African morning. The four became so well known for capturing the violence that Living, a Johannesburg magazine, dubbed them "the Bang-Bang Club."

Even with the teamwork, however, cruising the townships was often a perilous affair. Well-armed government security forces used excessive firepower. The chaotic hand-to-hand street fighting between black factions involved AK-47s, spears and axes. "At a funeral some mourners caught one guy, hacked him, shot him, ran over him with a car and set him on fire," says Silva, describing a typical encounter. "My first photo showed this guy on the ground as the crowd told him they were going to kill him. We were lucky to get away."

Sometimes it took more than a camera and camaraderie to get through the work. Marijuana, known locally as dagga, is widely available in South Africa. Carter and many other photojournalists smoked it habitually in the townships, partly to relieve tension and partly to bond with gun-toting street warriors. Although he denied it, Carter, like many hard-core dagga users, moved on to something more dangerous: smoking the "white pipe," a mixture of dagga and Mandrax, a banned tranquilizer containing methaqualone. It provides an intense, immediate kick and then allows the user to mellow out for an hour or two.

By 1991, working on the dawn patrol had paid off for one of the Bang-Bang Club. Marinovich won a Pulitzer for his September 1990 photographs of a Zulu being stabbed to death by A.N.C. supporters. That prize raised the stakes for the rest of the club - especially Carter. And for Carter other comparisons cropped up. Though Oosterbroek was his best friend, they were, according to Nachtwey, "like the polarities of personality types. Ken was the successful photographer with the loving wife. His life was in order." Carter had bounced from romance to romance, fathering a daughter out of wedlock. In 1993 Carter headed north of the border with Silva to photograph the rebel movement in famine-stricken Sudan. To make the trip, Carter had taken a leave from the Weekly Mail and borrowed money for the air fare. Immediately after their plane touched down in the village of Ayod, Carter began snapping photos of famine victims. Seeking relief from the sight of masses of people starving to death, he wandered into the open bush. He heard a soft, high-pitched whimpering and saw a tiny girl trying to make her way to the feeding center. As he crouched to photograph her, a vulture landed in view. Careful not to disturb the bird, he positioned himself for the best possible image. He would later say he waited about 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would spread its wings. It did not, and after he took his photographs, he chased the bird away and watched as the little girl resumed her struggle. Afterward he sat under a tree, lit a cigarette, talked to God and cried. "He was depressed afterward," Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daughter."

After another day in Sudan, Carter returned to Johannesburg. Coincidentally, the New York Times, which was looking for pictures of Sudan, bought his photograph and ran it on March 26, 1993. The picture immediately became an icon of Africa's anguish. Hundreds of people wrote and called the Times asking what had happened to the child (the paper reported that it was not known whether she reached the feeding center); and papers around the world reproduced the photo. Friends and colleagues complimented Carter on his feat. His self-confidence climbed.

Carter quit the Weekly Mail and became a free-lance photojournalist - an alluring but financially risky way of making a living, providing no job security, no health insurance and no death benefits. He eventually signed up with the Reuter news agency for a guarantee of roughly $2,000 a month and began to lay plans for covering his country's first multiracial elections in April. The next few weeks, however, would bring depression and self-doubt, only momentarily interrupted by triumph.

The troubles started on March 11. Carter was covering the unsuccessful invasion of Bophuthatswana by white right-wing vigilantes intent on propping up a black homeland, a showcase of apartheid. Carter found himself just feet away from the summary execution of right-wingers by a black "Bop" policeman. "Lying in the middle of the gunfight," he said, "I was wondering about which millisecond next I was going to die, about putting something on film they could use as my last picture."

His pictures would eventually be splashed across front pages around the world, but he came away from the scene in a funk. First, there was the horror of having witnessed murder. Perhaps as importantly, while a few colleagues had framed the scene perfectly, Carter was reloading his camera with film just as the executions took place. "I knew I had missed this f--- shot," he said subsequently. "I drank a bottle of bourbon that night."

At the same time, he seemed to be stepping up his drug habit, including smoking the white pipe. A week after the Bop executions, he was seen staggering around while on assignment at a Mandela rally in Johannesburg. Later he crashed his car into a suburban house and was thrown in jail for 10 hours on suspicion of drunken driving. His superior at Reuter was furious at having to go to the police station to recover Carter's film of the Mandela event. Carter's girlfriend, Kathy Davidson, a schoolteacher, was even more upset. Drugs had become a growing issue in their one-year relationship. Over Easter, she asked Carter to move out until he cleaned up his life.

With only weeks to go before the elections, Carter's job at Reuter was shaky, his love life was in jeopardy and he was scrambling to find a new place to live. And then, on April 12, 1994, the New York Times phoned to tell him he had won the Pulitzer. As jubilant Times foreign picture editor Nancy Buirski gave him the news, Carter found himself rambling on about his personal problems. "Kevin!" she interrupted, "You've just won a Pulitzer! These things aren't going to be that important now."

Early on Monday, April 18, the Bang-Bang Club headed out to Tokoza township, 10 miles from downtown Johannesburg, to cover an outbreak of violence. Shortly before noon, with the sun too bright for taking good pictures, Carter returned to the city. Then on the radio he heard that his best friend, Oosterbroek, had been killed in Tokoza. Marinovich had been gravely wounded. Oosterbroek's death devastated Carter, and he returned to work in Tokoza the next day, even though the violence had escalated. He later told friends that he and not Ken "should have taken the bullet."

New York was a respite. By all accounts, Carter made the most of his first visit to Manhattan. The Times flew him in and put him up at the Marriott Marquis just off Times Square. His spirits soaring, he took to calling New York "my town."

With the Pulitzer, however, he had to deal not only with acclaim but also with the critical focus that comes with fame. Some journalists in South Africa called his prize a "fluke," alleging that he had somehow set up the tableau. Others questioned his ethics. "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering," said the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, "might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." Even some of Carter's friends wondered aloud why he had not helped the girl.

Carter was painfully aware of the photojournalist's dilemma. "I had to think visually," he said once, describing a shoot-out. "I am zooming in on a tight shot of the dead guy and a splash of red. Going into his khaki uniform in a pool of blood in the sand. The dead man's face is slightly gray. You are making a visual here. But inside something is screaming, "My God.' But it is time to work. Deal with the rest later. If you can't do it, get out of the game." Says Nachtwey, "Every photographer who has been involved in these stories has been affected. You become changed forever. Nobody does this kind of work to make themselves feel good. It is very hard to continue."

Carter did not look forward to going home. Summer was just beginning in New York, but late June was still winter in South Africa, and Carter became depressed almost as soon as he got off the plane. "Joburg is dry and brown and cold and dead, and so damn full of bad memories and absent friends," he wrote in a letter never mailed to a friend, Esquire picture editor Marianne Butler in New York.

Nevertheless, Carter carefully listed story ideas and faxed some of them off to Sygma. Work did not proceed smoothly. Though it was not his fault, Carter felt guilty when a bureaucratic foul-up caused the cancellation of an interview by a writer from Parade magazine, a Sygma client, with Mandela in Cape Town. Then came an even more unpleasant experience. Sygma told Carter to stay in Cape Town and cover French President Francois Mitterrand's state visit to South Africa. The story was spot news, but according to editors at Sygma's Paris office, Carter shipped his film too late to be of use. In any case, they complained, the quality of the photos was too poor to offer to Sygma's clients.

According to friends, Carter began talking openly about suicide. Part of his anxiety was over the Mitterrand assignment. But mostly he seemed worried about money and making ends meet. When an assignment in Mozambique for TIME came his way, he eagerly accepted. Despite setting three alarm clocks to make his early-morning flight on July 20, he missed the plane. Furthermore, after six days in Mozambique, he walked off his return flight to Johannesburg, leaving a package of undeveloped film on his seat. He realized his mistake when he arrived at a friend's house. He raced back to the airport but failed to turn up anything. Carter was distraught and returned to the friend's house in the morning, threatening to smoke a white pipe and gas himself to death.

Carter and a friend, Judith Matloff, 36, an American correspondent for Reuter, dined on Mozambican prawns he had brought back. He was apparently too ashamed to tell her about the lost film. Instead they discussed their futures. Carter proposed forming a writer-photographer free-lance team and traveling Africa together.

On the morning of Wednesday, July 27, the last day of his life, Carter appeared cheerful. He remained in bed until nearly noon and then went to drop off a picture that had been requested by the Weekly Mail. In the paper's newsroom, he poured out his anguish to former colleagues, one of whom gave him the number of a therapist and urged him to phone her.

The last person to see Carter alive, it seems, was Oosterbroek's widow, Monica. As night fell, Carter turned up unannounced at her home to vent his troubles. Still recovering from her husband's death three months earlier, she was in little condition to offer counsel. They parted at about 5:30 p.m.

The Braamfonteinspruit is a small river that cuts southward through Johannesburg's northern suburbs - and through Parkmore, where the Carters once lived. At around 9 p.m., Kevin Carter backed his red Nissan pickup truck against a blue gum tree at the Field and Study Center. He had played there often as a little boy. The Sandton Bird Club was having its monthly meeting there, but nobody saw Carter as he used silver gaffer tape to attach a garden hose to the exhaust pipe and run it to the passenger-side window. Wearing unwashed Lee jeans and an Esquire T shirt, he got in and switched on the engine. Then he put music on his Walkman and lay over on his side, using the knapsack as a pillow.

The suicide note he left behind is a litany of nightmares and dark visions, a clutching attempt at autobiography, self-analysis, explanation, excuse. After coming home from New York, he wrote, he was "depressed . . . without phone . . . money for rent . . . money for child support . . . money for debts . . . money!!! . . . I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain . . . of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners . . . " And then this: "I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."

Life update for 02/12/09

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted here. So many things have happened, so many things have changed but yet many things are the same. I'm still in Savannah Georgia. Although back in Sept I did make an attempt to find a job in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since I'm in the IT field Salt Lake is one of the hot spots for the IT industry. In life timing is everything, and unfortunately my timing to go out there and look for a job was off. 3 days after arriving in Salt Lake the stock market started it's downward spiral and the job market doors shut. I was staying with family there, but with the doors closing I figured I better get back home to take care of my family there. Since then I have been doing odd contract jobs with different companies. Mainly IT consulting stuff. I have also been working part time for a local computer repair shop here in Savannah. Even though it's part time the money really helps. Still behind a couple of months on rent. But we have a wonderful landlord who is so understanding (God bless him).

Things are looking up though. Around the first of January I was contacted by this head hunter company about a local job here in Savannah servicing Dell computers. At first I was told I was perfect for the job. Then they said sorry but they needed someone with A+ certification (which I never got). I've always found the certification stuff kinda silly. I have over 10 years of experience in this field but because I don't have a piece of paper I'm not qualified. Anyway, about 3 weeks go by and I get an email from this same company for the same position. Seems now the company is willing to count the experience as good as having the cert. After a couple of more weeks of back n forth emails I was accepted for the position. Last Friday I took the drug test which they should have gotten the results back from like the next day. Due to some kind of mix up I won't find out till today. I already passed all the Dell tests, so soon as they get the results back I can start working (Thank you Lord)

To be honest my spiritual side of life has been as dry as my job search. I know God is there and is very concerned with every aspect of my life. But I've just been dry in that area. It's not HIM, it's me. I've just been so focused with finding work, trying to take care of the bills that I've put HIM on the back burner. As we all know, that is the opposite of the way it should be. This last week it's been hitting me hard how backwards I have it. So every day I've been starting in prayer time with HIM. I can feel the difference already. I don't know why we as humans tend to rely on our on so much. It never works out and in our heart of hearts we know better.

Better stop for now. I'll post here how the job thing along with my walk with the LORD.

May God bless you and keep you always..
Love,
Tim