Camping

This past weekend we went for a family camping trip at a campground about 15 minutes away.   The best of my knowledge, it was the first time I have camped in a tent and stayed in the tent the whole night.  When we lived in Texas (the first time) we use to camp out a lot in our backyard, but I don't believe I ever stayed the whole night, without coming back into the house.  I haven't really been much of a camper.   But I did spend the whole night in the tent this past weekend.  The Schlip's had a tent, but we borrowed a much larger tent from some friends - and boy was it large.  It had two rooms and Jesse and I estimated that the floor could fit two queen beds and one double bed.  But on top of that, Cristina slept in the truck bed and Jesse slept in his hammock.  The smaller tent wasn't used at all, except as a game tent late into the evening Friday night. 

We roasted hot dogs and brats over the fire, along with s'mores.  We also got creative with roasting Cheese Puffs, whole apples, spider dogs/octopus's (a hot dog cut to look like a spider or octopus), and Jesse got the idea to cut an apple in half and roast it over the fire with some marshmallows stuffed in between.   

For breakfast we ate cereal out of mini, individualized, cereal boxes, roasted mini sausages, and roasted/non-roasted mini powdered sugar donuts.  We also had water and apple cider to drink. 

We had a wonderful time. 

Friday night when we first got there, Steve, Jesse and I played some catch with a football, and then later Cristina and I played catch until supper.  It was a lot of fun and some great quality time.    

Gateway & Witness Rock

A few weeks ago I got an email from Gateway Church down in Dallas, Texas.   This is the church that our SLI class went to for a Leadership conference several years back.    The email told me that there were only 200 tickets left to there Gateway Conference 2018 (again the same Leadership/Worship conference).  (200 tickets may seem like a lot, but for this church it is very small.  Gateway Church, according to their website, has over 39,000 active members).

Seeing the email excited me in a way that was like, "Yeah that is cool, it would be really neat to go, but no I can't go."   I had decided that I couldn't go for several reasons, 1) I would have to ask off work and school - neither of which I want to miss, 2) it would be a lot of traveling (which I don't mind generally, but with life seeming so busy as it is, I didn't think it would be that good of a time), and primarily and most of all, 3) I simply could not afford it.  I do not have that kind of money laying around.  

However, I felt that nudge from God prompting me to go anyways.   I thought that was crazy - I tend to think a lot of His ideas are crazy.  But I kept feeling the nudge and the stirring in my heart for it.  i didn't lose peace at all about it.  So I decided that I would do something that is really hard for me to do, and I would wait.  I have a bad habit of impulse purchases and actions.   I love new adventures and great deals and gifts, but, in this case, especially since I really didn't have the available money, I wanted to be absolutely confident this was God speaking and not my jumping on a crazy fun idea on my own.  So I waited and prayed.   Whenever I prayed about it I continually heard God tell me to go and that He would provide.  That right there is a theme that He has been working me on.  He will provide.  If God says it, then He will do it.  What He says will be done.  As His own living word says in the Bible, His words do not return void (Isaiah 55:11).

That weekend, I woke up Saturday morning with a spring in my heart to act upon His prompting.  I felt complete peace and confidence that this was God.  So, before doing anything that morning, before food, quiet time, showering, etc... I went and registered for the conference.   Since I was a late registration, I had to pay the late registration ticket price, and both of the afternoon/evening breakout discussion groups were full.  I am not sure now what will happen with that.  

But, I also felt the freedom to register for something else too.  I also purchased the discounted (discounted if purchased with a ticket) Live Stream of the conference and all the sessions so that I can go back and watch all of them On Demand until September 1, 2019.  In total, the conference cost me $258.  Again this is money that I don't have, but I have complete confidence that He will provide it since He said so.  Along with that expense comes travel expenses as well.  Primarily for the sake of cost, I am driving down and back (roughly 12-13 hours each way).  GasBuddy.com estimated me around $100 to drive their and back (a benefit of a Prius).  On top of that will be food for nearly all of my meals.   The Conference is on a Monday and a Tuesday and includes a lunch for both days.  Supper and Breakfast are on my own.  Thankfully my dad had enough points to get some free hotel nights to house me while I stay in Dallas for three nights (which is a huge provision already provided), though the hotel doesn't serve breakfast, so I will have to get food for that.   Overall I am estimating that the whole trip will cost me about $500, give or take.   So that is something that I would ask for prayer for: as you feel led, pray that God would provide in a way that glorifies His name and pray for continual peace and confidence in His provision.  I do not know if He will provide all in one sum, or if it will be from multiple sources, or over time - but I do know He will provide.

 So I will be leaving around noon on Sunday, September 30th to drive down to Dallas.  Why wait till noon to leave?  Several reasons, first, I get to serve on parking that morning at church, and it will be a REALLY, REALLY BIG DAY that morning (that may be too much emphasis, but it hopefully gets the point across).  It is going to be really busy.  Instead of having the regular parking lot, plus buses shuttling people back and forth between one of the city high school parking lots (just down the road), we are going to have buses shuttling to and fro the high school (potentially both parking lots), the city elementary school parking lot (a bit further away), and our Bloomington Campus (a lot further away - this campus was launched just a few Sunday's ago).  Why the big crowd? And could I really ask off my parking opportunity to leave earlier on this trip? Well I could take off, but, one they will need all the help they can get, and two I want to be there for the reason of the big crowd.

That Sunday is what we are calling Witness Rock.  If you read Joshua 24, you will notice about half way through Joshua tells the people of God to chose who they will follow.  They chose God and Joshua then says they are witnesses to their choice.  He also sets up a large rock as a "witness" as well.  We, at Eastview Christian Church,  are doing just that.  We have been going through the whole book of Joshua the last year and are boosting off hard and with great umph.  We want this not to be just another study, but an experience, thus the name of the final mini-series: The Joshua 24 Experience.  In that, on September 30th, we are doing just what Joshua did with the people of God, we are setting up a rock as a witness of our choice to wholly follow God.  We want this to be a visual representation to us and a reminder to us that we have dedicated ourselves to God, and that rock will be our "witness" before God.  Hence the name of the "event": Witness Rock.   (this rock is 1-2 stories tall and is currently in the newly constructed courtyard just outside the church building hidden in a huge box (to be revealed at Witness Rock).   This will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and we are only doing this once.  Meaning that all of first service (babies through 120 years old), all of second service (babies through 120 years old); all of our evening service (babies through 120 years old); and all of the Bloomington Campus (babies through 120 years old) will be attending this one "event" at 11:00 am at Witness Rock.  Thus why all the bus shuttles, and people.   I am expecting well over 6,000 people to be coming - it will likely be a lot more.

So I am choosing to stay for Witness Rock and help out with parking (I can't wait - it is going to be so much fun!!!) before leaving for Texas.   I will be leaving parking early, promptly after Witness Rock, in order to get on the road as early as possible.  The parking leader gave me permission to park in the main church parking lot by the road (everyone is encouraged to park in one of the other lots and be shuttled here) so I can get out in good time.  

Extended Stay....

....in a bathroom.   Yep that's right, I got an extended stay in the bathroom yesterday.  I did my morning routine, just as usual yesterday, but when I got out of the shower and brushed my teeth, I turned around to head out of the bathroom.   However, I didn't open the door, not because I didn't want to or something caught my attention, but the door wouldn't open.   I could not get the little level to turn to unlock the door.   Not wanting to yell or cry out loudly to get someones attention to help me out, I tried a handful of different options.   I fiddled with the level over and over, trying to turn it this way or that, trying both directions and such variations.  All with no luck.  I figured that I could try to use a non-body part to pry the lever open.  I tried my nail clippers and my tweezers, both with no success.  So I tried to unscrew the lock contraption thinking that if I can take it off, I can force the lock open.  However, I had little tools to work with being stuck in the luxury of the bathroom.   I tried all that I could find: tweezers, nail clippers, and a nail filer.   None worked.    I didn't have my phone with me nor did really want to yell.   (Keep in mind that this bathroom is in the basement and I am the only person who sleeps in the basement).  I knew that everyone was up and moving - and some had already left for work or school.   So, all throughout the processes and attempts mentioned above, I spent a good amount of time knocking on the walls.   Louder and louder.    Still with not any visible success, I tried to knock in different ways.  I tried knocking on various parts of the wall, on the door, on the counter top, and on the vent.  After 15-20 minutes, I finally got the idea to try to lift the door up and open it, that worked!! Yeah!!   

Wait - Blogging From Email???

Okay, this post is kind of a test, but an informative one.   I have have been told that someone who is suppose to get my blog emailed to them whenever I publish a new post isn't getting them. (If you fall into this category too, please let me know). So I've been rummaging around my settings to see how to fix that problem.   In doing so, I noticed an option to be able to write and publish a post via my email.  I was given an email address, that I could partly customize, in which would publish my email as a post to my blog.  So this email / post is that very thing.  This post is an email that I am typing up in Gmail.  If you are reading this on my blog, that means it worked!  Yeah!!   As Mr. Whittaker would say in the intro to old Adventures in Odyssey cassettes and CD's, "Let's see if this thing works!" 

The Joshua 24 Experience

Now that school has started back up and I am now in my second year of college, things are starting to get a bit busier.   My schedule is filling up a lot more than I had anticipated and I am finding myself in the hard decision making spot of what to keep in my schedule, what to rearrange and what to throw out.  The weekend prior to school starting, I went to the ISU Young Group (Apostolic Christian) Summer/Fall Retreat.  That was a lot of fun, but also it filled up a lot of time.   Now that the school semester is back and rolling again, Thursday night Bible Studies from the same group at ISU have started up again.  During the summer I had joined another Small Group via the church I attend, Eastview Christian Church, and the group had met on Thursday nights.  With school starting and schedules changing, we split the group to have whoever could come, to come on Sunday nights, and everyone else could come on Thursday nights.   However this week the Eastview group is meeting on top of the ISU Bible Study on Thursday night, since the Sunday one was cancelled.   The group leader is considering going back to only Thursday night.  If that happens, I will have a tough decision to make - do I stick with the ISU Bible Study, which I felt like God lead me to a year ago and told me this was a place to connect, or the Eastview Small Group, which I am starting to connect with.   Part of me is slightly leaning to the ISU group, but I do want to connect better with the church that I am at.  

Also, to complicate things, my church is wrapping up a  year-plus long series on the book of Joshua and is doing a "experience" that has been in the workings for years.   They are doing a 6-week end to the series, walking though Joshua 24, calling the whole experience "The Joshua 24 Experience".  This experience is aimed to draw the church body closer together and closer to God.   Each week will have a different focus, and in the middle will be a big dedication.  Like the dedication in Joshua 24 where they rededicate themselves to God and they stand up a rock as their witness, we will do the same.  On September 30, we, as a whole church body, children and all, will gather around a nearly 2-story tall rock (that is currently hidden behind a large box just outside of the church) and rededicate ourselves to God, having this rock be our witness.   As we walk though this 6-week experience, we also are all, individually, are walking though a 40-day devotional written by our senior pastor and two other pastors in the church.  The devotional book, published this year and printed this past June, is called "The Joshua 24 Experience".  The sermons each Sunday will align with this devotional, and help lead us closer to God and each other.  The devotionals are short, but are aimed to be able to fill it with my thoughts and experiences.  There are lots of open pages to write and the devotionals challenge us to do so.   In addition, we are all also involved in "tents".   Just as Joshua and the People of God traveled and rested together in tents in the wilderness and the promise land (at first) with their families and grew with those around them, we will do the same.  Whether out tent is out small group, our family, our coworkers, or a larger group at the church, each week we will dig into Joshua 24 all the more in our tent and grow closer to each other.  My tent is my small group (which is the complication, because it meets the same time as the ISU group - if we move to Thursdays).  In our tents we will expand on what was taught in the service the past Sunday and what we are learning and going through in the devotional.   I am really excited for this whole experience and I know, I am confident, that God is going to do great things through and in and from it!   Yeah God!  I can't wait.   We started this past Sunday (September 9, 2018).  

(if anyone wants the devotional, let me know and I can get you one)

Travel To Texas

A lot has happened over the last .... long period of time.  At the beginning of August, after the exciting weekend up in Wisconsin for our Baurer Family get together, I headed down to Texas with my Dad.  We got up early and .....  well before I get there, lets back it up a bit.

The week or so prior to leaving, I was quite conflicted on where I was going to travel to (since I had that week off).   Without repeating too much detail (from my previous post "Travel-A-Mania"), I was debating whether to go to Canada or Texas, or even both.  I had a mixture of lack of peace and an unsettled feeling about what I was going to do.  I kept praying about it and asking God for clear direction and peace.   That Sunday morning (in Wisconsin) I had decided that I was going to go ahead and make plans for the following day and forget about the nagging lack of peace.   God had given me little direction, other than a "wait" in not-so-direct words.    But as I started to make plans, I was quickly surrounded again with worry, anxiety, and stress.  I felt nearly optionless except to take it all back to God and lay it all at His feet and Trust Him.   I was no fun, but boy was it worth it.  Once I gave Him the worry, stress, and anxiety and gave Him my trust to lead me where AND WHEN He wanted to, all of the stress, worry and anxiety disappeared, and I had a peace about it.  I was wanting to get an answer quickly because if I was going to drive down to Texas that Monday, my dad could have come with me since he was returning home to Texas then too.   Later on that evening, during a great time of corprate family worship and hymn/praise singing, God gave me the go ahead to go to Texas the next day!

That night, after driving back to Gridley, Illinois (~3 hours), I packed and headed to my dad's place in Tremont, Illinois (~ 1 hour closer to our Texas destination).  The next morning, we got up and left around 4:00 am on the road to Texas.   I started out driving while my dad slept and several hours later we swapped.  It was a great trip, God certainly blessed us indeed!   Most of the trip that wasn't spent sleeping, we listened to an audio book of the first Wingfeather Saga book: Over the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness.  I've read the book twice and this was my dad's first time.  It was soo good yet again.    The drive to West, Texas - where my mom and Abi live was 14-15 hours.  My dad had another 1.5 hours left to drive after I dropped him off at his car (at the airport).   We had driven my new Toyota Prius down - it did great - Praise God!

While in Texas I had spend the first several days with my mom and Abi, though Abi wasn't around much with work, band camp and all.  We did go shopping and got to hit a few places throughout Waco, and at my mom's insight, we drove by Magdalena Market so I can at least say that I've seen it, even if I haven't been to it (Though I don't know if I have ever watched the famed show that Chip and Joanna are on).  Mom paid for a haircut also - shaved on the sides and the back leaving the top long - though both her and Abi tried to get me to shave off the man bun.  Abi almost convinced me to shave it all off and grow all my hair out - not just the top - kind of like my brother Jonathan is doing.  But for the day, I just shaved the sides and the back and they trimmed about an inch off of the top.

Part way into the week I was conflicted yet again and felt that I should maybe head to Canada yet still for the Friday night group that I really wanted to be at, and to see friends and such on top of that.  I felt so conflicted and then in praying about it and thinking on it, I decided to go - meaning I would not get to spend time with Dad on this trip. However, the last night before leaving, as mom was making supper, I felt God tugging on my heart to go take some time with Him completely alone - I usually do this with a drive with Him.   I said no, as we were about to eat, and I know for myself, and it seemed to be for my mom as well, that we wanted to spend our last meal together.   I told God I could do it after supper.  But God insisted I do it now.  I told God that I didn't want to disappoint mom, as I haven't seen her since before last Christmas and now this is out last meal together for a while - she was really looking forward to this meal together (as was I).   So I told God I would wait.  Yet God didn't budge.  He wanted me to give up what I held dear and what I didn't want to disrupt to follow when He took a step.  And He took a step out the door and down the road.    So with a heavy heart I followed.  It was really hard for my heart to tell mom that I wouldn't be home for supper - and even worse, as I had put off going so long with God, right as I got up to go, mom finished supper and brought over the plate of food.   But I followed God, and went for a long drive out in back roads of Texas.  He let me stop and examine a cotton field (I don't think I've done that before) to my delight.   He brought me to some beautiful sights and let me enjoy some exciting and fun roads.   And here and there was bits of conversation between us.   In those conversations I felt God remind me what He had told me before I came to Texas: that if I go to Canada, it won't be as easy as I think it will be - it will be a lot harder.   He then gave me a choice, and told me that I can stay in Texas for the rest of my travel time, or I can leave for Canada.  He left it up to me.    Thinking more about that and even getting God's own thoughts on it, I decided to stay in Texas - which, praise God, brought lots of joy.    The next day I got to help my mom mattress shop, since her back has been really hurting her, and we spent the day together.


Friday night I got to go to a band thingy Abi had at school.  My dad met me there - my mom had gone the prior week - and we watched her play together (we also got to see her boyfriend, Alex, there too as he is one of the conductors).   As I walked into the room, a few minutes late, the band instructor was welcoming the audience and telling them about the band routines.  I noticed Abi dead centre in the half-circle formation the band was stationed in on the stage.  I also noticed the girl standing next to her lean over and tell Abi something and they both seemed to laugh.  I didn't think much of it.   Afterwards, Abi told me that when I walked in, her friend leaned over to her and asked her who the guy with the ugly man bun was that just walked in.  Abi told her that guy was her brother.  Her friend told Abi to have me cut it off (or something along those lines).  That got me thinking - not that I need to be a people pleaser nor do I need to shape myself by what other people think of me, but that I should take into account respecting others in my actions and fashion.   This kind of piled on top of the nearly-convincing Abi and mom had done earlier that week, and when I talked to God about it, He gave me the go-ahead (which made me laugh).  I had decided to ride back to my dad's place with him that night and spend the weekend with him.  So, on the way home to his place, when he asked if he could pay for a haircut to shave off my man bun, I accepted.

The next day I had Great Clips cut it.  And not just cut it off, but shave me pretty much completely.   However, they noticed how long it was and decided that it was just long enough to donate (WOW GOD!) - it needs to be at least 12 inches long to donate.  So they cut it off and since I was donating it they gave the haircut for free, plus gave us two $2-off coupons to use for later.  They gave me my hair and the paperwork and envelope to send it off in.   So I mailed it off to Wigs For Kids.  

That weekend I had a great time with my dad and got to go to his church, which I've been wanting to do for a while.   I also go to meet his pastor (there are like 10 or so people in his church - its a small home church) - which I have really looked forward to - I've met him once before for breakfast/lunch last year.   It was really great and encouraging.  God used the message to speak into my life where I was at and also used it to line up with some other things He has been showing me.  

Then, the next day, I headed home, and had a wonderful drive back with little issues.  The break problem on my car started to faintly act back up while in Texas, but wasn't near the problem as it was before.  

God is good, and He provided so much for that trip.  My expenses for the trip, looking back on it, were covered and exceeded with provisions!!!  WOW GOD!  Praise His name alone!  He is faithful!