Kickin' it, Northside!

I lived in South Minneapolis almost as long as I lived in Aurora, Colorado.  It seems strange that I have now spent more years living outside of Colorado that years in it.  South Minneapolis, despite being in the Hood, is a place of comfort to me because I know it so well.  This week Heidi and I are staying at some friend's house in North Minneapolis, which is totally foreign to me.  They live a couple miles from the tough part of Northside in a quiet neighborhood near a major freeway.  Our friend's house is peaceful and well decorated and we are enjoying our time here.  It has been great to save so much drive time on my commute to work and to go running in a new area.  Shingle Creek is two blocks away and has a trail alongside it that goes for miles.  I did not know that it existed before this week and I have enjoyed running there the last few mornings.  We do think about how we long to have our own place again and hope for the day when we can move out of Heidi's parent's house for a place of our own.  Until then, we remind ourselves to keep our heads up, trust in God, and keep saving money.  It is a huge blessing to be back in the city, even if it's for a short time.  Thanks, Snyders!

Thoughts on my time of unemployment.

From September 1, 2009, until the middle of May, 2010, I (Tim) was either unemployed or underemployed.  For 6 weeks over the holidays and all of March and April, I worked at Costco part time.  The rest of that time I was without a job at all. (I did watch some great kids on Wednesdays and got paid $50 each time, which was nice.)  My daily routine was to run in the morning, have a quiet time after breakfast and then spend much of the rest of the day applying for jobs.  I had two group interviews, four or five phone interviews, and about 8 or so face to face interviews during that time.  I applied for several hundred jobs.  When I finally got a job offer, it came from the same place that had turned me down for a different position.  I didn't take the interview seriously and almost turned down the second interview but now I am glad that I did not.  In fact, I prayed about going to the interview and felt strongly that I should go.  When they offered the job, Heidi and I went to different rooms and prayed about it for a while and both felt that I should take it.  We both heard from God that it was a prophetic act to take this job.  (In the Bible, prophets often did unusual or counter cultural things to show people what the Lord had to say about certain situations.)  While the Lord is giving us installments of understanding about the prophetic act, we still don't understand completely and are waiting on Him.  I get to work with people in a vulnerable state who need a tremendous amount of encouragement.  They are all in the beginning stages of finding a job, which is a tough place these days, and my recent experiences make me better suited to empathize and encourage them.  I am glad to have a full time job again and excited to see what the Lord has in store.

Our little peanut

Here's a few pics of Jackson

                                                                                                Trying ketchup for the first time!

We love our pastor

Today at church we celebrated twenty years of service at Bethel Christian Fellowship of our pastor, Jim Olson.  We also celebrated his completion of a PhD from Bethel Seminary.  Our church is so blessed to have such a caring and multi-talented pastor.  Heidi and I have two memories of Pastor Jim (we'll call him PJ in this blog entry).  First, when we found ourselves at Children's Hospital in Mpls with our sweet, five day old Jackson, PJ came and encouraged us.  It was the hardest time of our lives, taking the little guy to the ER and seeing him go through a battery of tests after we had not slept the entire night, and we appreciated PJ's visit so much.  Second, last summer, when we struggling through the decision to not go to Africa, PJ was with us in the struggle.  He then went on his Sabbatical but made sure that we were left in good hands with Pastor Dave Ogren.  Pastor Dave O was awesome and we appreciated PJ's wisdom in knowing that Pastor Dave O would take care of us.  When PJ returned from his Sabbatical he spent some time encouraging us even though he surely had plenty to keep him busy.  On top of taking care of us, he is an outstanding preacher.  We love PJ and feel so blessed to have him as our pastor.

The first Good Diction music video

We are taking a detour from our serious posts to put up the video for our favorite local, independent band, Good Diction.  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Qv47377QI