Year end Letter 2014

Year 2014

Dearest Friends and Family:

As this year ends I reflect on what was accomplished 

and what I can do to better my next year. 

I cannot believe it is 2015. I wonder where the time went?

My son Tim has moved out and is now living with his girlfriend Rachel.

They both attend classes at Western Illinois University in Macomb Illinois.

May the lord bless them as they find their way in this world; as they learn and grow, 

may they make the right decisions. 

My son Ken is doing better in school. He has not been struggling as much this year. He looks forward to joining the soccer team or the football team next year. He also looks forward to the STEP program in which he will be working part time after school. 

My wife Jill earned her Medical Coding Specialist certificate at Black Hawk College. She is now working on her degree full time. This year she got knee replacement surgery; she hopes to get the other knee replaced as she works toward attainment in a new career. On her spare time she does many activities with the church. She works with the cookie walk, Pricilla circle, bible camp, and plans for the Liturgists.

Me; will, for the most part, this year has been pretty good. 

In July I took a trip to visit my sponsored child Jacklieth in Cartagena Columbia. 

I needed to get away for a bit and unwind. I had a fun time in Cartagena.

I stay active swimming at the YMCA and with my art and writing.

I was honorary promoted to Midoru Kyoshi –

Shichidan-ho 7^th degree black belt in Shurinju Ryu Karate Do this year.

Because of my community service to others Master Stevens honorarily promoted me.

I hope to do my martial arts full time and teach a regular karate class again one day.  

The only downfall is that I still have to deal with constant pain and tingling through my spine, shoulder and fingers. I go to the VA in Iowa City frequently for pain shots and physical therapy. Winters are always hard on me.

I pray that 2015 be as blessed as my 2014 and that one day my pain is relieved.

In the next year we are preparing our future to move and to start a new life in New Mexico.

We hope to be in New Mexico in the summer of 2016. This will be a better climate for my body ailments and a warmer place to retire.

I wish all of my friends and family a blessed year ahead.

Have a great 2015 my friends and family!

Mr. Timothy L. Kerofsky, MA and family

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015!

Cristopher Columbus

Columbus Day, what can I say?

Columbus was a brilliant sailor and navigator,

But he lacked leadership and was not a good governor.

He, like most men, took advantage of the brutality of the time.

He mis-treated slaves and tortured them.

Under the authority of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand,

He was to discover new land, and set up a spice trade route to China,

In exchange for gold and slaves for the Queen.

He departed on August 3^rd, 1492

and commanded three ships;

The Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria.

Although Columbus was in overall command,

the Pinta was captained by Martín Alonso Pinzón

and the Niña by Vicente Yañez Pinzón.

They stopped for supplies in the Canary Islands.

He discovered the Dominica’s on October 12^th, 1492

and named the island, San Salvador.

Then he landed in Cuba on October 28^th, 1492

thinking it was China, but it was not.

Then he landed in Haiti on December 5^th, 1492.

He named the island Hispaniola.

On December 25^th, the Santa Maria ran aground

and had to be abandoned.

Columbus himself took over as captain of the Niña,

as the Pinta had become separated from the other two ships.

Negotiating with the local chieftain Guacanagari,

Columbus arranged to leave 39 of his men behind in a small settlement,

In which he named La Navadad.

On January 6, 1493 the Pinta arrived and the ships were reunited:

They set out for Spain on January 16, 1493.

The ships arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 4, 1493

And they returned to Spain shortly thereafter.

Upon his return he persuaded the King to finance another voyage.

He did three more voyages between 1493 and 1504.

He was looking for the lands that Marco Polo discovered,

But never found them; the land of Nanking China.

In his failure to govern a new land, he was brought back in chains.

He died a poor lowly man...

Columbus did not discover America!

A Norse Viking from Greenland by the name of Lief Erikson

whom was the son of Americea landed in America which he named as such

500 years before Columbus sailed.

The closest Columbus got to America was the Bahamas off of Florida.

Columbus did not sail around the world!

A brilliant navigator by the name of Fernadad Magellan did.

Magellan set sail on August 10^th, 1519.

He reached the Eastern edge of the known world,

Before he was killed in the Battle of Mactan in Zebu Philippines,

by a blow to the head with a bamboo stick in April of 1521.

His crew completed the voyage to Spain.

What did Columbus really accomplish?

Not much.

He never found the lands of Marco Polo.

He never discovered America.

And he never sailed around the world.

He persevered, kept striving, and never gave up.

But in the end died a poor lowly man.

NO RESPECT

I have been having a rough few days.
My shoulder pain, tingling, and imbalance is acting up.
My wife is in the hospital.
I have bills to pay and things to deal with.
I have been under stress lately.
And all I need are people disrespecting me.
This is what I hate the most.

So today I am at the Aldi store parking lot to get some groceries.
And this lady there tells me that she hates people who take advantage of the system,
and that she can fake walking with a limp and walking stick too.
That there is nothing wrong with me.
Excuse me? 

For one I was not walking with a limp,
I use my cane for my imbalance I get.
Two I have tendinosis, tingling, and pain through my shoulder and spine.
Three she did not look disabled to me.
The way she was walking either.

The bitch got in my face and I told her to back off.
She called me a evil name which usually I ignore,
and I turned around and said, "You do not know me!"

She jumped in her car,
in which she did not have a handicap sticker displayed either,
and she was in a handicap spot.

She slammed her car door on me, as I was trying to explain my situation.
It was the last straw for me to deal with such a bitch.
I swung my walking stick at the car and I think broke a headlight.
As she sped away....

The staff manager heard the incident and talked to me to calm me down.
I sat down a moment. And then I did my shopping.
Some of the shoppers in the store chatted with me
and thanked me for my service in the U.S. Navy.
This cheered me up a bit.

My friend on Facebook sent me this quote:

 "Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard.
Do not let pain make you hate.
Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.
Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, 
you still believe it to be a beautiful place."
 — Iain Thomas

What do you do when you always try to be nice,
but still get put down and disrespected by others?
Like today before the Aldis indecent,
I let a man driving a truck out into the street,
you know how it is to wait to get into the street from a road.

Then I held the door open for this elderly lady,
and I helped a man in a wheel chair into his car at the YMCA.
I do these nice things, and a b*tch disrespects me.
Not right; not right at all.

"Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor."
1st Corinthians 10:24 ESV

This is what I always seek to do my friends and peeps of my blog page.
That is to do good works, no matter how I am treated.
However, it pains me to be mistreated.

I will keep striving. Tomorrow is another day. 

The Struggles:

"That is the way I run, with a clear goal in mind.
That is the way I fight, not like someone shadow boxing."
1st Corinthians 1:26 NIV

Monday 08 Sept 2014:

This morning I got up at 0600;

I made me a strawberry and banana breakfast smoothie.

I then took my son Ken to school.

At 10:30 my wife Jill and I left to go to the hospital.

She got ready to have her knee replacement surgery.

I stayed there and chatted with her in the hospital room for a bit.

At noon the pastor, Pastor Flo, from the church showed up.

She went and visited Jill before surgery.

I sat in the waiting room after that until after 2PM.

I then went to go pick up my son Ken from school.

Then we drove across the Davenport Bridge to find my friends house,

my friend Joe still has to give me back my papers.

I am writing a letter to Cheri Bustos for my Social Security Disability Claim.

I have been fighting for it for nearly six years.

I was injured while in the service and have stenosis to the spine, nerve damage,   tendonitis to my right shoulder, and other damage acquired.

We never found my friend, and I am desperate to get my papers back.

At 5PM we went to the hospital to visit my wife and sons mom, Jill. 

She was not out of surgery yet.

At 6:30PM my wife was finally out of surgery and we got to see her.

At 8PM my son Ken and I had dinner at Rudy’s Tacos.

Then we went home and watched American Ninja Warrior off the DVR.

Tuesday 09 Sept 2014:

Today I got up at 0600 again.

I made another breakfast smoothie and took my vitamins.

I took my son Ken to school.

Then I took my wife some study items at the hospital.

I stayed for a bit.

Then I went home and started to field day the house.

I spent most of the day cleaning.

At 3PM I picked up Ken from the school.

Then we went to go visit his mom.

For dinner I made him spaghetti and marinara sauce.

I then cleaned up the kitchen.

Then my son and I watched YouTube videos and Netflix.

Wednesday 10 Sept 2014:

What a heck of a day.
Too long for a Hump Day Wednesday.
I got up at 0730
(fell asleep at 0200, so more sleep than last night)
I made my breakfast smoothie and took my vitamins,
then I reorganized the master bedroom,
but did not get it done before I had to pick up Ken or my wife Jill,
At 1100 I left and picked up Ken from school,
came home and went back to organizing,
then at 1430 (2:30PM) left to pick up Jill from the hospital,
she did not get to check out until 4PM,
a shout out to Kara Ade for getting a walker for my wife Jill,
after checking out and Ken bringing most of the gear down to the van,
we gave Jill's mom Jackie a ride to her car,
then went and got the prescription at HyVee,
then came home and ordered Pizza Hut,
but the driver went past our house and turned around in the cul de sak,
I was pissed and Ken and I went to Pizza Hut and complained,
they deliver to our house all the time,
so how can they say that they cannot find it?
We ended up getting our pizza for free!
At 1930 (7:30PM) we ate pizza finally.
Then at 8PM we watched the presidents address about ISIS

and then America's Got Talent.
Now it is time to sleep for a change...

Prayer today on this Wednesday of Pain:

Almighty Father, Thank you for your love, grace and mercy.
I pray that my discomforts will turn to comforts, my pains to gains,
my deprivation to more blessings, my losses to profits,
my tears to smiles, my sorrows to pleasures, my illness to wellness,
my debts to credits and my dreams to realities.

As the scripture says:
"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."
And he "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Psalm 147:3

Jesus by your power, relieve the sharpness of my pain and tiredness,
my tingling and shaking, the ringing in my ear and equilibrium imbalance,
and help me through my turmoil; but above all, Jesus,
heal the wounds of my soul.
And even though I find it hard to pray, yet shall I ever say:
Thy will be done. Amen.

Lord send the healing hands of Jesus down
and heal my ear ache and imbalance
as I wait for the VA to get an appointment; give me the strength.
Amen!

23 Years of Marriage!

23 years of marriage:

Married at the Stanwood Apple Orchard in Stanwood Washington

on August 3^rd 1991. 

It was a simple country wedding;

Yet beautiful.

I was an insulator then and a BM2 (Boatswainsmate Second Class)

in the Naval Reserves working for CHB5 (Cargo Handling Battalion 5).

In 1992 I became a cook and went to duty as a cook for a boarding team on the

USS Underwood FFG-36 and did boarding ops as well,

during the Counter Drug Operations in the Caribbean.

In the mean-time my wife, Jill, was moving all of our household goods to

Charleston South Carolina.

In 1993 I was assigned as a pantry cook on the

USS Richmond K. Turner CG-20

where I did a Mediterranean deployment.

My first son Timmy was born during this deployment.

It was one of my biggest joys to see him for the first time after the deployment.

In 1994 I was in operations in Bosnia;

Called Operation Provide Promise

And Operation Deny Flight.

I missed my son Timmy’s first birthday

And we celebrated it after I returned.

In 1995 I was assigned to LEAP (Light Exeo Atmospheric Projectile) test 3.

This was in San Juan Puerto Rico.

In 1996 I was promoted to Second Class Cook

And assigned as a Stateroom Supervisor on the

USS John C. Stennis CVN-74. 

In 1997 I was away from my family again on a Shakedown Cruise.

My wife was stuck at home taking care of the kids,

taking care of the finances,

And preparing for each move from ship to ship…
I know this was hard for her to do and my hats off to her. 

In 1998 I was assigned to the Auxiliary Security Force

in Newport Rhode Island. 

Finally some shore duty and family time.

My second son Kenneth was born that same year.
I was actually present at his birth.
This was a precious moment for me. 

Two years of well deserved shore duty.

In 2001 I was assigned as a Speed Line Supervisor on

the dreaded USS Belleauwood LHA-3.

In 2002 I was assigned as a Master at Arms for a roving patrol

during West Pac 2002.

That same year I helped build an orphanage in Africa,

during Humanitarian Ops.

In 2003 I injured my shoulder when a cabinet fell

during the dry dock maintenance period.

In 2004 I was promoted to Master at Arms first Class.

I worked as a Cell Block Supervisor in the Brig.

And I worked as an Acting Lieutenant during

Prison Escort and Detainee Ops in Kuwait and Iraq

and worked as a Security Officer during West Pac 2004.  

In 2005 I went to rehab at Great Lakes

and worked doing administration duties.

That same year we, my family and I, bought a house in Moline Illinois.

My dad, mom, Uncle Gary, brother in Law Kent, and Sister Tammy

All helped us move in.

In 2006 I temporarily worked as the Lieutenant

with the Naval Sea Cadet Core.

 

In 2007 I was at home awaiting retirement orders.

and happy to be settled down with my family finally.

In 2008 I went to work to make ends meet at Per Mar Security.

I only worked a few months and went back to college instead.

The GI Bill and the Illinois Veterans Grant was a big help in making ends meet.

In 2008 I received my AA Business Administration Degree from the

American Intercontinental University.

In 2009 I applied for disability for my knee, neck, right shoulder, tingling, shaking,

and equilibrium imbalance I have from injuries I have acquired over my Naval Career.

From 2008-2012 I taught private karate classes in my in house dojo;

The Kerofsky Family Dojo.  

In 2012 I earned my BA in Arts from Western Illinois University.

In 2013 I became an Official Sea Cadet Lieutenant

and worked as a Training Officer at Great Lakes Illinois.

In 2013 I earned my Masters in Arts from Regina University.

It is 2014 now and my wife and I are on our 23^rd year of marriage,

There was sure a lot of moving, transferring,

lot of time away from my family on deployments,

lot of hardships, but lots of fun times as well.

Fun times most remembered with my kids were at Disneyland

and Knott’s Berry Farm in California.

Going on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and

going on the Viper Roller Coaster.

This year my son Tim moved out of the house

To pursue college life with his girlfriend Rachel,
My wife got a medical coding certificate
and is now pursuing her degree. 

I retired from the Sea Cadet Core,

I honorary received a 7^th Dan rank promotion from Master Stevens

due to my community involvement in helping children,

I went on a trip to Cartagena Colombia to visit my sponsored child Jackleth

through the Children International and the Fundación Amigos de los Niño’s,

We got our roof repaired on our home, my dad, uncle and brother in law

fixed the kitchen ceiling which still needs plastered.

We are having some ups and downs this year, but will get through it.

Over the past few years since I have been retired from the Navy;

I have been trying to make up lost time with my wife and kids.

Especially my youngest son, Kenneth, who has taken things hard.

What a life together so far.

What will the next 23 years bring?

My uplifing experience at the Templo!

Today my family and I went to the water park at White Water Junction in Rock Island.
While there I met this tattooed christian man named Marcus: He prayed for me.
He invited me to a Christian concert at his church called the
Templo Elim Spanish Assembly of God.
The concert was from 5PM to 8PM. And half of it was in Spanish.
It was loud in the church with the music echoing throughout 
and I did get a head rush a couple of times.
My friend, whom I just met at the church, got me a drink of water. 
I had to calm my head for a bit. So I sat in the back room. 
Then we went out into the church. He did a Christian Rap.
My friend, Marcus, whom I met at the water park read a poem. 
And another guy did a rhyme. 
The pastor was a 25 year old man named Joe from Chicago. 
He asked what our pet peeves are; I shouted "people who do not use their turn signals".  
He agreed with the pet peeves and said, "give up your worries to god."
His testimony was uplifting. He talked about his father and how he was mistreated. 
And how at the age of 18 he spoke at a church and his father was in the back of the church;
he looked and saw him and forgave him then. 

The bible scripture was from Mark chapter 2:

Jesus Forgives and Heals a Paralyzed Man 

 

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, 
the people heard that he had come home.  

² They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, 

not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.  

³ Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.  

⁴ Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, 

they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it 

and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.  

⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
⁷ “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! 
Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
⁸ Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, 
and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?  
⁹ Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ 
or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?  
¹⁰ But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” 
So he said to the man, ¹¹ “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”  
¹² He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. 
This amazed everyone and they praised God, 
saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

 During the last part of the sermon people in the front stood with letter 
and it all spelled out the sentence; 
"I have issues." 

He talked about the root cause of sin; which is really us. 

Then he took the "I"s away and rearranged the people in front;
the sentence now read:
"JESUS SAVES!"
  
What made this service uplifting to me was toward the end we all went up to the front;
where everyone prayed for us. We prayed in a line. 
I do not know what God Yahweh has planned in my life,
but I do know there is something left for me. 

Rather it be working with more children, teaching karate again, mentoring, 
or whatever he has planned;
I will do!