Running to the Darkness

It Is Only a Car!

 

Last night Gary and I were returning from visitingng with the two pastors and their wives who partnered with Indian Creek in the What If the Church...series. Imagine three preachers in a room...we enjoyed sharing stories about God's provision and works we have witnessed in our perspective church bodies. So when we got in the car, I was surprised to see that it was 10:57!

We were heading home east on 135th when I received a text from Rachel's mom asking me to ask Luke to call when he was with Rachel so she could know how Rachel was doing! Since I had talked with Luke less than 30 minutes before so I was surprised. So I tried to call Luke and didn't get an answer. Then I received another text from Tina saying that her husband, Steve,Rachel's dad had talked with Rachel who was crying and had called him from someone else's phone because she couldn't remember Luke's phone number. He said that all that he could understand was that she was at 135th and Hemlock and had been in an accident.

Let's turn around, Gary! I insisted. 

So we turned around, heading west again on 135th and only had to go a few blocks when we could see blaring red and blue lights in the middle of the next intersection. We could also see a couple of firetrucks and police cars. As we approached the intersection we saw a white king cab pickup truck overturned on its left side. Rachel and Luke were nowhere in sight but as we pulled up to the intersection we saw their black honda crunched and mangled in the center of the intersection. I searched frantically with my eyes for Rachel's little body. There was not even an ambulance around.

I am getting out, I told Gary. As soon as the car stopped I hopped out. As soon as I did I saw Luke in front of the firetruck and then I saw Rachel huddled on the grass on the corner with her knees pulled to her chest and her head in her arms, crying. I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. Luke joined me and Gary as soon as he found a place to park the car.

We love you! I tried to comfort her. It is only a car! You can always get another car. They are replaceable. You are not!

Rachel ended up going to the Emergency Room but x-rays revealed that her hand that was burning and   her foot that was sore were not broken. The air bag had deployed and she had had her seat belt on.

Tonight we are grateful that the car was totaled but Rachel was not!

 

NEW--There Is No Place Like Hawaii...I mean, Home!

Wake up, Kendalls, you really are back in Kansas!

 

God really outdid Himself in the creation of Hawaii! Gary wondered if maybe it wasn't their original Garden, but then wasn't the entire earth Adam and Eve's playground? 

Words cannot adequately describe the breathtaking beauty and awe inspiring landscapes!

Spectacular beaches and incredulous shoreline that never ends! There is always another amazing display of God's masterpiece just beyond the last point your eyes reach! An endless demonstration of  the ultimate artistic handiwork!

I am experiencing some technical difficulty that is extremely frustrating! On July 1, I downloaded pictures and composed a blog. Then the very next day on the same computer with the same camera and hard drive, no pictures would magically transfer from the camera to the hard drive of my laptop to typepad here to share. I worked at it for a long time. Wondering if it was the battery, my camera, the cord, the memory card, the USP port, I tried them all! How could I write about Hawaii without the pictures! That is why there hasn't been any or a a blog for several days. We are still wrestling with the equipment! Tonight I took the camera with battery and memory card to Best Buy to see if their Geek squad could help. He sent me home with an external card reader! YEAH!

Alas, Gary sat for about two hours and downloaded every picture from the memory card to his loaner computer. And now I wanted to display the beauty of the Most HIGH God with some exquisite pictures! Much to my dismay, the camera blinked the same error message as before, "Communication error" so I am only writing this bit now and will write more later when we can get to the images.

Until then, no ear has heard nor eye seen what God has for His people!

No Wonder They Call it Paradise!

 So grateful to a dear friend who kept encouraging us to get to Hawaii! It was the only state which Gary had not traveled. His parents were missionaries when Alaska was the last frontier (1963-1973) and during the summers they traveled the lower 48 states speaking and singing in churches to raise awareness and funds for the mission chuh. As a result they traversed the USA in a station wagon and logged many miles from one coast to the other. So Gary has always had a passion to complete the circuit. About 15 years ago his dad was asked to go to Hawaii and take charge of a Church of God congregation while their pastor and family came to the states for a little r and r. We told Paul and Ruthie at the time that if for any reason they deemed that they could not complete that assignment, we would indeed be willing to make the sacrifice! They decided that they alone could follow that call. What a wonderful place to be! It is not just the beauty of the surroundings but it seems that the entire island is always on vacation. The attitudes are helpful, servantlike and just relaxed! I can't imagine what it would be like to have been born and raised here. Although Gary and I got a chance to peek into that life through the eyes of a 23 year old named Josh. It was 5:00 a.m. and we had already deposited Kristen and Josh at the airport for their flight to Oahu. They wanted to tour Pearl Harbor (and get a bit of a break from the parents). So since we still had an hour before the Maui Dive Shop opened where we were to pick up our gear and begin our snorkeling excursion, we decided to stop at Kahi Caffe, a tiny little restaurant manned or womaned by a sole server, cashier, baker.

They had just opened at 5:00 and she had one other customer, Josh in the shop. He ordered a slice of french toast with a dolb of peanut butter. We ordered two cheese omelets (should have only gotten one--they were bigger than a Chipolte burrito!). Anyway Gary and I sat at a table outside (only seating) and Josh sat right beside us at the next table. Curious what someone his age was up to so early I asked him his name and we started talking. He said that he had been out late and his "friend" had had too much to drink and forgotten that Josh was riding with him. Josh's only means of transportation otherwise was a bike so he was trying his best to get to work from there. He had decided that the best way was to ride the local bus. He would be about a half an hour late but he would be there. He said that he prided himself in never being late and as a matter of fact worked two jobs when many in Hawaii couldn't or didn't hold one job.

Josh said that he grew up in Hawaii on Maui until he was 15 then his family moved to Washington and he graduated from college, majoring in graphic design but just wasn't ready to hit the corporate scene. So he returned to Maui to spend some of his time working at property management and on the ziplines

He said that sometimes when people grow up on the islands if they don't get the opportunity to leave and know that there is more to life than what is here and that there is another possiblity rather than the life they have known, they can get stuck here. (I was thinking, Hawaii! There could be far worse places to be stuck!) But he explained that for some reason the males can take up "fighting" and drinking as a passtime. He said that he had gotten into the fighting until he had moved and coming back he realized the futility and stupidity of it.

I guess Paradise does have its tempations. We talked a bit more with Josh but at the mention of God he quit talking but not before he made certain that we knew he believed that there was a God who loved him. He said that his grandmother had made certain of that and he was glad. And then he stopped talking, a handsome chocolate eyed and haired adorable young man who had obviously never met a stranger... reminded me of our own beloved Joshua Luke. We were going to ask him how we could pray with him or what about this beloved grandmother or how would a God who loved him reveal Himself to him, when he was up and on his bike off to meet the bus and work in paradise.

Aloha, Paradise!

 Hawaii is one of my favorite places on earth now! God really outdid Himself in the beauty! Absolutely, incredible! We took a car tour around the north east side of the island and were in awe at every turn! The switchbacks remind me so very much of the tea gardens of my beloved Sril Lanka! Absolutely breathtaking!

I Wanna Know What Love Is

Enjoyed attending The Bridge in Anderson, Indiana this morning for worship and hearing from God's Word. Today's message was the final investment of the Summer in the 80's series.

Amazing! How does God do that? We know that the Holy Spirit was speaking directly to us...He was just using the mouth of churchplanter and lead pastor, Chris Mishler. Chris is leading the Bridge, one dynamic church in four locations to be a missional church  where they connect His people to the people who need to know Him.

Chris said that it is not when people see how much we love God that they decide to connect to God. It is when we love the peop;e that they see His love and want that love for themselves!

And so We Must Go to demonstrate that love by feeding the hungry, standing beside the broken. Fill us up, God and send us out! Fill us up and send us out!

We must love like Christ that people can see the love of Christ. The disciples went because Jesus sent them. Thaey followed because He beckoned them. Often God's call is absurd and overwhelming.

Obviously, Jesus didn't care what people thought of Him. He was out to please God. Chris said that he had been disillusioned many times by God. Then he realized that some of his illusions of God needed to be dissed. God never calls us to trust people. We are to LOVE people and TRUST God. Relationship breeds trust. So we must be in ongoing relationship with God.

We need to let God love us however He wants to love us...sometimes it is THROUGH the pain and not away from it or around it. Do we want to be glorified or do we want to glorify Him?

 

 

Enjoyed attending The Bridge in Anderson, Indiana this morning for worship and hearing from God's Word. Today's message was the final investment of the Summer in the 80's series.

Home Free!!!

She wanted to go straight from her home to her eternal home in heaven! After two trips to the ER it became evident to her that she would no longer be able to live independently in her residence alone as she had since her mother died. Valera had lived alone with her mother, Margaret since her father had died more than twenty years ago. When Margaret went home to heaven Valera was content to stay in the same home.

I first met Valera sometime In 1984 when Gary and I were serving at the First Church of God in Shawnee, Kansas and the church had determined that God was leading them to reach out to Olathe and start a new body. Five families were driving into Shawnee from Olathe and were concerned for their neighbors and coworkers who were far from God. Valera Bachman and her mother, Margaret lived in Overland Park and were attending a church in Kansas City Missouri but felt compelled to join the effort because Olathe was closer to them then the First Church of God in Kansas City, Kansas. Valera's father was a pastor and had planted a church in Lawrence, Kansas decades prior. But Valera and Margaret had the experience and the faith in God to know that He could do it.

From the very beginning they were all in! Although Margaret was well into her seventy's and Valera was nearing retirement from teaching in the Shawnee Mission School District, they had hearts to invest their lives, effort and gifts for the Kingdom of God for things that they knew would outlast them. Margaret was an avid prayer warrior and a positive encourager. Valera jumped into to teach the kindergartners.

That first Christmas in 1985 Valera brought me several little gifts, one for each of our children. She said she knew the church was small but she wanted the pastor's children to know that they were special. She had experienced the sacrifice and wanted to be an encouragement and blessing in our lives! When Gary conducted a funeral she told me that her father had always given whatever extra monetary gift he received for funerals to her mother so she could buy a new dress.

Over the years Valera became my personal confidante and prayer warrior. I remember calling her when I was struggling with parenting four little ones under six years old and she said she certainly would pray and that she did. And I know that she had not stopped. She call from time to time to keep up with their current status and most recent needs to pray.

Two weeks ago Wednesday night when Valera left Indian Creek Community Church she waved to me from across the atrium saying that she would call me the next morning. However when a friend took her home that evening she collapsed on the kitchen floor. After an ambulance ride to an unfamiliar hospital Friend, Tracey was waiting when the paramedic hopped out. When Tracey asked if Valera was still unresponsive, he declared, " Not anymore. She was talking in the ambulance! It is a miracle! He said. She was unresponsive! It is a miracle!

We all knew because she had insisted that everyone be aware that she had a DNR or as some term, an A.N.D (Allow Natural Death). She definitely didn't want to go anywhere in between here and heaven. That night in the ER the para returned to Valera's bedside to bring her a consent form to sign because he said that she honestly was not going to be around to sign it!

A few days later she was released to return home. There devoted friend, Tracey kept watch and cared for Valera in Valera's own home. (Tracey even got to sleep in Margaret's old bedroom. We were so glad when Judy, Valera's beloved sister-in-law came to stay awhile. Judy was only here a little more than a day when she realized that Valera's breathing was again more laborious that she could handle at home so they were headed to the hospital when a kidzAlive! team member stopped by to pick up the material that Valera had been working to complete. Valera had enlisted the help of those who came to visit her to cut out the materials for the children's classes through August!

For the second Wednesday night in a row I missed Alpha and headed to the hospital to be with dear Valera. This time there was no party in the ER. The request was made for no other visitors as breathing was requiring all of Valera's energy and focus. Still she wanted to talk! We stayed until we were satisfied that she was resting well and that if we didn't leave she would get no sleep trying to keep us company.

Thursday night Gary and I went to Shawnee Mission Medical Center to be with Valera before leaving town for the annual International Convention of the Church of God in Indiana (which the Bachman's had attended on numerous occasions) and then spend a week of vacation. I knew that I didn't want to go without seeing her and praying with her. We spent some time and she was struggling for us to understand her because of the oxygen mask that was helping her to breath but she managed anyway.She wanted to again remind us of how very good God had been to her to provide people at just the right time to be there for her. All she could talk about was His goodness!

I hated to leave town when she was so weak. I knew that the plan was to consult the doctors the next day to get their collaborated advice. We were flying all morning, though I was in the air, my heart was back in SMMC with sweet Valera. Mid morning I heard that doctors were going to allow her to get rid of the oxygen mask and work toward getting to go home with hospice and she was jubilant! Tracey told me that Valera had a huge grin on her face and was rejoicing that they were going to honor her wishes not to go to invasive extremes to delay her departure. She told them that she was planning her trip to heaven! She wanted it to be a happy occasion! Of course it is for her! It is those of us who don't get to go with her that are sad! We will certainly miss her presence here!

Valera lived well and finished the race here going far more than the estimated distance that doctors had projected early in her life! My heart is sad as I can't even grasp the reality that the reality is: she is no longer here! The body she spent her days here housed in is dedicated to giving knowledge to medicine that others might benefit. Even in her dying she is thinking of others and giving! There is no doubt in my mind that she is rejoicing running through heaven greeting the host of others who beat her there: there is her father, her mother, one of her brothers, many from Indian Creek: Wayne Stout, Spike Jones, Larry Thomas, Lowell and Wylena Burns, young Bob Shuler, Jeff Williamson, and our own darling daughter--Megan. And then there are the hosts from the Bible who have been her inspiration over the years: Esther, Moses, Joseph, Mary, Paul, James, John, Rehab and the list goes on and on until the ultimate resident, Jesus Christ greets her Himself!

Enter in, dear precious sister Valera, daughter of the King, find that mansion. Our lives have been enriched and the body has been enhanced because of Valera Bachman's living her life in sacrifice for the Kingdom of God! May her legacy of children in the Lord go on and on and on!

Though it is indeed difficult to say good-bye here, it is exuberant to think of Valera forever in heaven whole! HALLELUJAH!!!! Precious to God is the death of His saints! HALLELUJAH!!!!

No One Knows the Day Time or Hour

Last Friday and the one before that I spent in Hospice Care  Volunteer training at Olathe Medical Center. It was very informative and inspiring.

Basically, hospice's goals are to ensure no one dies alone, uncomfortable or afraid. Interesting. Even the best of nurses and volunteers who walk right up to death's door with people can't cross over and see what is beyond nor can they determine exactly the time of departure.

It has been my honor to be with many in these last moments when they are actually on the launchpad into a different life and existence but the truth is we don't all get that warning or time to linger with loved ones.

One thing I learned is that it is important when we are with someone to be fully PRESENT in the moment. Difficult with all of our electronic distractions. However we learned that four things can indicate that we value the one where we are.

We value them if we gve them our acceptance. Acceptance of where they are and where they are not.

Acknowledgment of someone's presence shows value.

We demonstrate value of one another by giving attention. Eye contact and direct conversation are indicators of attentativeness.

Affection is a display of value, a physical display of our love and care.

In our lives daily, it is important to acknowledge, accept and give attention and affection to those whose presence we value in our lives because none of us know the day, time or hour when that opportunity will be gone. Let's value those who are in our life today, right now!

Happy 70th Birthday, Mom!

Seventy years! Wow! Mon has shopped her way through the years! She taught me and Kristen everything we know. One year when I was nine months pregnant with Jeremy , we shopped. shopped and shopped so long that I was hospitalized the next day with pluesy!

Mom raised four daughters and one son in a time when life wasn't easy! I will always be grateful that mom wanted a boy badly enough to have four girls! Thanks, Mom!

Happy Father's Day!!!!

Growing up, I always thought that my mom ran the household and she did have lots of input. However, I distinctly remember the day that it dawned on me that my dad was not only the leader but a strong leader and entrepreneur. He didn't need a college education or a masters degree, it was a gift. He just did it! All of my life I remember, his many businesses and projects to inspire income for our big family! And he never complained, he just did it. He began at a young age. He was separated from his own father through a decision of his parents to divorce over which he had no control. He was abandoned by his mother as she left the tiny rural town in Kentucky for the big city of St. Louis hundreds of miles away for work and her own life. Burl Gene Barker was raised by a large loving extended family that included a grandmother, cousins, uncles, aunts and others. I am told that as "the baby" he never lacked for attention and affection.

I am grateful for his contribution giving me life and the deposits he continues to make in my life. He is a lover of nature and the down-and-out. He is a rescuer. He takes in every stray that comes around. He can't help it. He cannot NOT feed the hungry in his path. He is an incredibly hard worker. He will work tirelessly from sun up to sun down and get up the next day and do it all again. Yet he is a kind and generous boss. He is self taught so he encourages trial and error and discovery. Grandson, Luke loved it when at a young age my dad sent him to move my mom's car that was parked in front of the tower at the dragstrip. Luke loved his grandpa and desired to please him. And besides that what red-blooded boy wouldn't jump at the chance to sit in the driver seat. He never bothered to tell my dad that he had NEVER been behind the wheel of a car! (Unless you count the time when he was two years old and he broke free of his car seat to climb over the front seat and pull the car out of gear sending it rolling down our slopped driveway and right into the pillar of our home that separated the sides of the garage and moved the very foundation of our house! All on a Sunday morning and in the seconds Gary ran in the house to collect me and Megan, for Megan's very first Sunday to church)

My children loved to go to Pap Paw's (and still do) in Kentucky and discover the latest race car, moped, go cart, riding mower, Corette or truck that he was driving! They were always more than available to ride along with my dad to run errands and always came back with treats (except when they devoured them before they got back.)

Dad's heart is as big as the outdoors he loves! He tried an office job once but just couldn't stay in the office! My favorite is when working for the paving company and drag racing on the weekends, he found a way to turn his hobby into his full time life work! What more could you ask for but to do the very think that you love and have a burning passion for all day every day! Certainly, as the manager or owner of a dragstrip you really don't get to do as much yourself but my dad loved enhancing the experience for other die-hard drag racing enthusiasts.

I remember several summers taking a couple of weeks off and taking the kids to Tennessee while Dad was operating a track in Bristol. He had bartered for us a hotel room so the kids and I would sleep until we smelled the Wendy's next door cooking lunch then we knew the gates were open at the track and it was time to go see what we could do to help. Luke actually when he was in high school spent some time in the summer helping out and loved it.

My dad was the only male in a house full of women until I was ten years old and after four girls, a son was born! I used to think that my dad was a quiet man but maybe it was just that he could NOT have gotten a word in edgewise! But Dad loved his daughters! I remember when we were all of dating age--wait a minute! Can you imagine, FOUR teenage girls in one household!!!??? One valentine day when we were ALL boyfriendless because we had just not found our prince charming, my father actually sent us all roses for Valentine's Day! And of course, my mother had some too! I can still see five bouquets of roses on the piano!!!!

My dad has had a huge impact on my life and I know that I am a kinder more generous and more passionate woman because of his influence and I am forever grateful!

This is a tribute to my dad, Burl Gene Barker! I love you!

Up, Up and Away! Adventure Galore!

 Since Jeremy was taking Gary to the Royals' game for Father's Day, I thught it would be fun for  Paul and Ruthie and I to get out to a movie. The new release, Up was the movie that came highly recommended and was showing close to thehouse to the housel AMC for convenience.

Exasperated recently at circumstances and funding challenges, I tweeted, Who in the world would pray for the HILL country anyway?" A friend responded almost immediately with, I guess that would be a hillybilly!

Gary and I prayed for the hill country! And now we are daily encouraged by the same encouragement that Joshua received! Be bold! Be strong! (Not because things aren't hard) but because God promises His presence for the journey!

In my 34 years of living in relationship with Jesus Christ, I have found the greatest romance and adventures that I could have ever dreamed! How does a barefoot hillbilly from Kentucky get to trapse all over India? Only God!