Craziness Is The Day

Lifting, sweating, moving, packing, driving, loading, on and on and on.  Packing Day at the Baurer Household.   Tomorrow morning my family leaves for Texas. Today we are packing up the whole house and trying to load it into a single trailer.  Most of the furniture has been either sold, given away or already moved to Texas in previous trips this month.  I currently have all my stuff at my grandma's (thank you sooo soo very much grandma for letting me use your garage space!), along with most of the other stuff that my family isn't planning to take to Texas with them.  Earlier this year I took an entire van load to her house of my stuff, then last night I took a entire car load of my stuff I had in Canada, and this morning I took out all the seats in the van and took a whole van load of stuff for the garage sale we'll have this month.  There's at least one more van load that will be taken to her house yet.  This is going to be one BIG garage sale.  If you want to come, keep an eye on my Blog and Facebook for the exact date (TBD) in July.  Most everything from computers, to clothes, to electronics, to furniture, to just about anything else you can think of, will be sold for $1 or LESS.   Everything MUST GO!   I am hoping to sell as much as I can to raise a little bit more money to help me survive next year in Canada, since I might not have a job.  Every bit counts.  We'll sell food too, and it will be at my grandma's house in Princeville, IL.

Anyways, the house it abuzz and we have Two Men & A Truck here packing the house for us too.  If we can't fit all the stuff in the trailer (hopefully we will), we might have to take the van (which was planning to stay in Illinois).  Craziness is the day!

How's your day going?

SLI Class of 2015/2016

Emotion.  Tears.  Sadness.   My heart is filled with many feelings at this moment in time.  As I sit here writing this I am starting to realize the realness even more so of the events of this weekend.  I graduated Servant Leadership Institute.  I spent the last few hours tonight with my class, the last for a time.  I have spent the last ten months with these people, no, that is not fair to call them people.  They are children of God; Brothers and Sisters in Christ.   They are so loved by their Father in Heaven, by their families and by me.  My heart has grown because of them, they are deep within me.  Oh how they have blessed me.   My heart is soft and open, I do not know how exactly to react to these feelings.  I never wanted them to come, yet here they are.  My classmates, my best friends, my siblings in Christ’s family.  These masterpieces of God’s creation mean so much to me. They have…. have… I…. I cannot begin to describe they love they have poured out over me.  I look at any and all of them and I see God in His glory.  I see the love that Christ has shared with them being poured out. 

Saying just even summer good bye’s tonight was so hard.   I don’t like saying good bye.   I know that I will be returning in a few months, yet life won’t be the same.   Each of us will be going our own ways, some staying some going.   But the atmosphere of SLI has passed, a new atmosphere is here.  We have been given this opportunity to create the atmosphere that we want to live in with each other.  

Emotion floods me.  I have been with my friends for the past ten months nearly every day. Now, I said good bye to them for a few months, hoping that before everyone heads off to the next part of life, that we can get together yet again.  Though life will take us far and wide, the relationships that we have built this year will last forever in our hearts. 

Janette, Jasmine, Sierra, Rosalie, Brooke, Ariel, Daniel, Dana, and last but certainly not least, Amanda.  SLI Class of 2015/2016, I love you guys, will miss you greatly over the summer and hope to reconnect this fall.  I am looking forward to how God will use you and where He will take you.  He has wonderful plans for each of you, and His heart is big and loving.  He will take you where you are to go.  He will carry you through tough times; He will love you always.  When your heart breaks, remember that He is the healer, He is the provider, He is the comforter.  He will always be with you; to guide you, to love you, to encourage you.  He is an ear, He loves your voice.  He loves you.   As your father, He protects, guides and sets the example for you.   Trust in Him.  Lean on Him.  Listen to the Holy Spirit, who is by your side always.  As you have all spent the last ten months to Sit & Soak, now Go & Glow.   To God be all the Glory.

I have loved being part of your class this year! Thank you for accepting me in and allowing an American to join your family.   I am so blessed to have you guys in my life!  My eyes are watery and my heart is soft, I love you guys.   Be blessed as you have blessed me!

Until next God wills us to all meet again,

Joshua Baurer

SLI Year 2

At long last, after many complications and bugs being worked out, I have been informed the results of my application of SLI Year 2.   I have been accepted!  Woo Hoo!   Actually all three of us who applied, Janette, Brooke and I, were accepted!   How cool is that?   I'm really excited about this new adventure God has for me next year.   I will primarily be serving in KCA, Operations and Helps.   SLI Year 2 is a "volunteer" year, where I get to dig into these departments of Koinonia full time.  I'm so excited.   Way back when, many, many weeks ago Bryce had told us not to worry about SLI Year 2, and praise God, He helped "forget" (mostly) about it and not worry about it.  I am so thankful that I didn't worry, since it would of cause lots of unnecessary stress.  Praise be to God!

Quite An Eventful Last Day

The Last Day of SLI

To start off, this morning in class we had a previous SLI graduate come in and share his testimony with us, give us post-SLI advice and he shared his thoughts with us. I loved it and it was very valuable. The whole time thus far that he was with us was about 45 minutes (plus 30 minutes during devotions).   For the next 15 minutes he led us in a time of worship, also very valuable.  I was sad when it ended, for I felt fully in the presence of God.   Then, about 10:00am, we had our break.   During our break we were in the back room talking and chatting away.  Bryce came in, joined the conversation a bit, though I noticed he was a bit distracted - but I though nothing of it at the time.   He then looked around in the shelves and such for who knows what, typical of Bryce.  Then he walked out.   We, thinking nothing unusual about it, except that he wasn't really getting on to us for not being back in our seats after break time was up, continued chatting away.  After a short bit, we noticed an egg smell, almost like rotten eggs.   We looked around a bit trying to find the source of the smell until it occurred to us that Bryce had finally played a end-of-the-year prank on us.  Bryce had set off a Stink Bomb in the room.  To no surprise Bryce, along with a couple students, had left the room and were holding the door shut.  At first we thought he did something to the water in a mug on the table by the remaining cake and tried to play a prank back on him (in a small way), but he assured us that he did nothing to the water.   Finally we found the small broken glass bottle and yellow goo under the mug, that was the source of our smell.   So we ripped up the paper that was under it and took it out in the hall as if we were going to throw it away, however I took it down by Bryce's office to let it ferment his office over the weekend.

After this, we did a little bit of review, clean up and food prep for tomorrow.  A little after 11:00am we all left for a restaurant called Jacks to eat out with our instructors from the year.  It was a really good meal.

In the later afternoon/evening Abi, Julia, Daniel and I went to Skyzone Trampoline Park as the adults were heading out to eat together.   It was a blast!

On the way home, being after 6:00pm and not eaten supper yet, we were hungry.  Our original plan was to make some frozen chicken fingers once we got home, but Julia really wanted Chinese.  So, with her offering to pay, we stopped at a carry out Chinese restaurant and got some food.  While we waited for out food we walked over to a near-by pet store and got to look at some cool birds.  Once we got home, we sat down with our Chinese food and watched Inception.   - A really great movie.  It really makes you think - I've seen it 7 or 8 times at least, and yet it's still good and I learn new things.

Castle Cake

This past week, my baking went to another level....

So For a celebration of 5 birthday's in our class (Janette's was on Tuesday so we celebrated hers and all 4 of the summer birthday's then) I decided to make a cake, as usual.  However, I thought up of a really big great idea of a cake: A giant Castle consisting of 30 cakes.  When I got this idea, I drew up models of it and everything.  But then as I was looking into it, I realized I, in no way, could afford even a third of the cost of this cake. So I dropped the idea.

Shortly after Someone was going through my drawing book and was asking about these drawings in it.  So I shared the great idea I had and the fact that it won't happen though because of cost (I predicted that it would cost up to $60).  Well that person disappeared and returned a little bit later with an envelope containing $65.   They said they saw my passion, excitement and love for this and they wanted me to pursue this.   So they donated the cost (plus $5 incase I went over budget) to see me create this awesome cake.  At first I refused the gift, but after a bit I felt God nudging me saying something that He's been talking to me a lot about lately, "Freely give, freely receive." So, I accepted the gift and started planning the cake.  I made some 3D digital motels first...

So I spent 11-12 hours between Friday and Monday to create this awesome cake.  I was exactly on budget ($65) until I realized that I ran out of cooking spray and a few things, so I ended up being $8.40 over.  Not bad though.  When I went to buy the cakes and frostings, I emptied Walmart's full shelf of one of the kinds of cake.  And thankfully too, for that was all I could afford come to find out.  So instead of 30 cakes it was only 20 cakes.  In the picture of it, the closest side is chocolate and everything else is vanilla, except the little bumps on top which are lemon.  

Here are each of the different steps of the cake making:

Sunday Evening Fun

So EXCITED!   My mom arrived tonight!!!!! Welcome to Canada, again, Mom!  She'll be staying for the Graduation this weekend, and my dad, sister and Andrew will be coming up on Thursday, so exciting!    Now she'll be able to celebrate her birthday with her twin sister (Laura - who I'm staying with) on Tuesday the 21st.    Jim & Laura went down to Detroit to pick up my mom this morning - her flight landed around noon I think, and they then drove her back.   - I also finally got in a good hour of walking in tonight too.  It's the first walk I've had since surgery - it's so nice now to be able to walk this much with out my lower torso hurting a lot.  I've found that I can get energized by taking a walk and it's even more fun, because I use it as a worship/prayer time.   God is sooooo Good! Praise God!

Tonight after supper I got a special treat - ish.   I found yet another benefit of having surgery: By Doctors orders I'm not suppose to lift anything heavy for another couple weeks.  That definitely includes lifting hay bales.  So while I am typing this, Jim, Laura, Linda, Leah, & Julia are out baling hay (Daniel is at a friends house).  So while they left to go do the hard work, I got to do the dishes and stuff.  It was actually quite a bit of fun, I put on some worship music and didn't want to stop when there were no more dishes to wash.

Though I didn't get all done today what I would of liked, today has been fun and worthwhile!  Thank you Lord!

Sunday Morning Surprise

Well, since Daniel was going to a friends house after church today, him and I drove separate. He took the motorcycle and I had my car.  He left a bit earlier the I did, but not by too much.  This morning I was serving on the Parking Team, which is a ton of fun.  I have to be at church for the parking team for just before 8:30 am.  As I was pulling out of the driveway (8:00am) I was debating if I should take the freeway route or the back road route (normal way) to church.   The instantaneous long debate in my head ended with take the normal way, the back roads - thank God!   I put some worship music on and went driving.   A little over 10 minutes into the drive I passed what I initially thought was someone riding a bicycle down a hill (which there were a lot of today), but as I drove on my mind came to focus and I realized that it was Daniel walking the motorcycle.  So I stopped, and backed up to him to see what the problem was.   Come to find out, he had a flat tire.

Normally that would be no big deal (relatively), he would just call his dad and get it fixed up.   However there were a few problems: 1) Jim went with Laura to pick up my mom in Detroit this morning and 2) Daniel forgot his phone at home.   Praise God that I "just happened" to be driving by at that moment, and Praise God that He told me to take the back roads to church!   So after a while of thinking, we agreed that the bike likely wouldn't legally fit in the back of my car.

Then we remembered that at the beginning of the year Daniel had put a bicycle tire pump in the trunk of my car, so we pulled it out and tried it.  It was broken with no pressure. So Daniel took it apart and re-put it back together again nearly half a dozen times trying to fix it.  Thankfully I had a pocket knife with a screwdriver in my car along with a flashlight and a magnet - all became very useful in this process.  Daniel had tried using my phone to call Jim & Laura, but neither of them seemed to have their phones one.  Neither did Leah pick up her phone, so we texted her (she didn't pick up because she didn't know my number and her phone was telling her that a call was coming from Peoria IL).   After I identified myself via text, she called and brought the horse trailer with her to church.

While we were waiting for her, we got a little bit of pressure coming out of the pump and pumped up the tire, only to have all the air leak out very quickly.  When Leah got their with the trailer, we loaded the bike into the trailer and headed off to church.

Oh, also I don't have the church's Parking Team Leader's phone number, so he had no idea why I never showed up pre-1st service.   I was suppose to be out in the parking lot by 8:30am, but I didn't get to church until nearly 9:20am.   All was well though, well almost all.  We found out later that while Leah was coming home the bike tipped over and broke a mirror.  Otherwise, all it well.  

Surfacing Emotions

After staying at the church late Friday night, I headed home.  On the way home I put on some worship music and told the Holy Spirit to come.  Though some focus was on driving, now was a time that I could also focus on God more.   I was alone and had worship music on.  I didn’t think that He would come like He did though.  Praise God that He came, I am so blessed.  He came as a person in the passenger seat and I just felt that I could talk to Him about some struggles that I’ve never confessed to anyone, including myself.    I told Him how scared and worried I was.  So many "What if...?"'s, "How will I...?"'s, "When will I...?"'s, and "what...?"'s. So many questions, fears, worries, and thoughts.    As I was saying them, and God was speaking through the songs and directly to me, I started crying.  I was so strange to literally be bawling while driving.  If felt good though to be able to release what’s been inside of me for so long.   I had put my arm around the passenger seat as though I was putting it around the Holy Spirit and that helped keep me focused.  He spoke to me so much encouragement, and most of all, He just listened with encouragement.   At one point I just felt Him telling me to pull over (since I was close to Crosshill) and finish this before getting home.  I was on the side of the road for a long time bawling.   God worked many things then.   After a long while, I knew that I should be getting home and to bet, since Midnight was approaching.   But I didn’t want to leave the Lord’s presence.   What slowly got me to ease off of crying so much and eventually back to driving, was when I realized that I was on my last Kleenex.   Oh, God did so much there, I hope that He continues to do that work.  Thank you Lord!   - to be honest, I don’t remember  when I’ve cried that much.  I know that I’ve said that in previous posts before, but this time I cried harder, purer, and even more.  God is slowly pulling my different emotions to the surface.   Praise God, He has a plan.  

Fears

So this morning I sat down in prayer and put some worship music on to just sit and worship God.   The song that played was "No Longer Slaves".  If you haven't heard it the most repeated line is, "I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God."  This is always a great reminder.  This morning God was reminding me that I haven't surrendered all my fears to Him, I had done some, but not all.  So I started searching for specific fears that I hadn't surrendered yet.  I found a few and was praying about them, but in the back of my head I asked myself, "what specific fears have I not surrendered?"  God answered my question in a very unexpected, fearful way.  My eyes immediately popped open and right next to me climbing down the wall was a huge spider with a leg-span of 4-5 inches.  Let's just say that I.... I... am not a huge fan of spiders, actually I'm not a fan at all, especially when they are huge and sneak up on me like this. The thought of "I'm no longer a slave to fear" left my head that very instant.  I jumped back and tried to smash it.   It really shook me up and I felt God speaking to me through it.  I heard my iPod playing as my heart was pounding 100 miles per hour, "I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God" That really convicted me and I knew that God was telling me to surrender ALL my fears, not just the ones concerning my future.   Wow, I'm still really shook up.... Thank you Lord for answering my prayer and please help me surrender this fear to you.  I have a feeling that surrendering this fear will be harder than I thought, I am really, really scared of spiders....

So Blessed

I don't even know where to begin here.  ...   God has blessed me sooo much!   I received a package containing some letters from some very close dear friends/family.   Reading them brought me to tears, I am just so blessed by God to have such a relationship with these people.  I am so blessed to have this connection and openness with them.  I am so blessed to be surrounded by friends and family who love me and are willing to talk to me to encourage me, share their lives with me and just be my friend.   God has blessed me so.  I love hearing how peoples lives are doing, it encourages me and reminds me how thankful I am when I talk with my sister (which I do often), when I talk with relatives and with friends, particularly my classmates at SLI.    God is such a good father.  He is looking out for me.   I am so blessed, Thank you Lord!    I'm nearly crying just writing this, I am just so full of emotion for how much God has blessed me, how much He's using me, and changing me and the people that He's put in my life.   God is good!  I want to go on about this, but I feel like I am being repetitive, I just want to say how thankful I am.  God has blessed me beyond count with such an AWESOME Family.

Alongside that He has blessed me with AWESOME Friends!   My SLI classmates are basically my family, they are my best friends and have really touched my life in more ways than I can express.  They mean a ton to me and it makes me so sad that I won't be able to see them over the summer.   They bring joy, life and encouragement.  They bring love, excitement, and a fun environment.   Thank You Lord for the more-than royal gift you have given me, of letting me get to know these such awesome people.  I've had such a blessed year with them and it's sad that the year is coming to a close.   ...  here I go again, crying.   God has soo blessed me, I cannot express how He's blessed me so.   Wow, I didn't think I would get this teary-eyed writing this, haha, I guess that God is just showing me how much I love them.  How much I care for them and have been blessed by them.   They, my SLI classmates (Dana, Daniel, Amanda, Brooke, Ariel, Rosalie, Jasmine, Sierra, and Janette) have taught me so much and have a very special place in my heart.  They have helped me in so many areas in my life and are such inspiring, loving, caring, and encouraging.  They ....  they.... I will really miss them..... they mean a lot to me and I have loved getting to know them.   Again, wow, I didn't expect that writing this would be so hard to keep from crying.  I'm getting very emotional.   Sigh.... they are so precious and special.  They have made such and impact on my life and I just want to thank them for that!  Thank you SLI Class!   You have blessed me sooooo much!!!!!!  Praise GOD!!!!!!!

Art Revelation

WOW!  Man, God, you are really showing me a ton, thank you so much!   In one of the past chapters Tommy Barnett was talking about the miracles within my house.  The abilities within me.  I just have to find them, recognize them and the use them.  At the end of the Chapter I continued on to the next chapter, but shortly had to stop and come back.  I wrote in the space below the last paragraph, “For me/My hidden abilities:”   And below that I wrote “Art?” I have loved art – it was a High school favorite, and I was really sad when High school ended because I wanted to continue it.  I, as a senior, got out 3 weeks before everyone else, yet I came back those 3 weeks just for art class.  (I had forgotten all of this until now).   I then was sad that it was all over and I didn’t pursue this love.  In fact I haven’t really at all done anything with the creativity that You’ve given me that I love so much for the past year.  I now see that I want to find the talent that you’ve has placed within my house; within me, that I may purse it.  I keep getting this feeling that I should take up art again.  So I decided that after I read a few more chapters I would go to the store and get some art supplies.

As I started to drive, I was thinking, the hardest part of this will be getting my creativity flowing full steam again, I have a hard time coming up with ideas sometimes.  But then as I drove I past a cemetery.  You took me back to memories, good ones, of my dad taking us to walk around cemeteries looking at all the old tombstones.  You told me that is where I can get ideas, just take my pad and pencil there and see what you show me to draw.  As I continued to drive you revealed even more to me, more that I had completely forgotten about.

In Art in High school I had an art teacher who was actually a real artist.  And over and over again there were projects I was working on (mostly with clay) that she said will not work.  Things that she said won’t be supported and won’t survive; things that don’t make sense to work, and things that won’t turn out – so don’t do that.  Well I did these anyways.  It was worth the risk, some will fail and some will work amazing.  I didn’t want to make a boring old box, I wanted to make in different, unique and creative.  I wanted to use the creativity that you’ve given me Lord, to do something with it.  And the things that she said wouldn’t work worked, and the things that won’t stand because they aren’t supported stood.   All to the point where she told me that she wasn’t going to tell me anything like that anymore because somehow (I now see it was by God’s grace) they work and turn out. She told me that she was just going to stand back and let me do things my way.   She just pushed my creativity to a new level and really encouraged me.  

I see that You are telling me, this is me.   You’ve given me great creativity and I need to work it.  Some things will fail and some will work amazing.   I am to work my creativity in life and You are there and will help me through and guide me & bless me.   I am to take what I’ve learned  through this and apply it to my life.  Take my abilities and use them.   Don’t let other people’s disapproval or negativity stop me.  Lord, you’ve given me a creative mind and you want me to us it.   Your going to give me success and your name will be lifted up!   Praise you Lord!