Running to the Darkness

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!

 

It's a Miracle!

I was sitting in the atrium tonight talking with a friend when we noticed four women from the Cancer Outreach support group across the way. We knew them well. They were all fully engaged in a personal life and death struggle with cancer. Then there was our precious Ms Valera! Valera who taught public school for over 25 years and taught at church for 30 years or more! My children loved her! She knew how to coax little boys from their mamas pant leg so that they could venture into the world of learning! And what an incredible prayer warrior! Caring and loving with the gift of encouragement and faith she mentored the younger woman walking a bit ahead of them down the path of life! Her strong pioneering spirit and will have served her well for 69 years! I just love her! She is such a special lady!

She looked our way and I waved at her. She said, I'll call you in the morning! About ten minutes later I received a call from a friend who helps Valera with her doctors' visits and medical needs. She was frantic as she told me that someone had kindly taken Ms Valera home and even followed her inside to be certian that she was safe. That is when she collapsed and the ambulance was contacted to transport her to the nearest hospital, Overland Park Regional Morcial Center. She had been unresponsive to her friend calling her name.

We immediately began to pray. I spread the word around in the atrium to those whe were filtering out of meetings. Then I headed downstairs, making a bee-line for the room where Alpha was meeting. Their topic for the eveing was healing and I knew it! I knew they had planned a generous amount of time to pray healing prayers at the conclusion of their gathering. So I asked them to pray and they took off!

Meanwhile the paramedics arrived, accessed the situation and transported her to the hospital. My friend followed and was there when the ambulance arrived.

The paramedica got out of the amublance, frightened my friend asked, Is she unresponsive?

Not now, he said! She started jabbering in the ambulance! It is a miracle! She was unresponsive!

Praise God! Valera has no desire to ever be resusitated and she has orders to prove it! However tonight she was divinely resusitated and we are so thankful! And so is she!

God, thank You for allowing us more time with a wonderfully amazing woman after Your own heart!

You Are Loved--a community of faith, hope and love!

We were overwhelmed with the expression of love demonstrated by you at the shower on Saturday, June 13 for Jesi and Jeremy's baby boy due on August 15! Thanks be to God for your love and generosity--showering them with gifts of love!

Twenty-three years ago we moved to Olathe in several loads in a horsetrailer and a multitude of cars, vans and trucks! Indian Creek Community Church had been birthed the year before and now the small band of believers helped us move to Olathe from Shawnee, KS. We were blessed that all four of our children were born not only in the same metropolitan area but the very same hospital, Shawnee Mission Medical Center! 

Gary and I were on our own in a new community with family hundreds of miles away and four children age six years old and younger. We found the church to be an incredibly amazing and supportative community to raise our children! Our children were their children. They loved them and encouraged them even pitching in to help care for them. Many helped raise Kristen, Jeremy, Luke  and Megan. Every time I tried to compensate them for their service, they always answered that they didn't want nor expect anything in return. They only had one request and that was that I pay it forward when I was finally able to help someone else.The Church deomonstrated Christ's love for us when we birthed our babies far away from hometown and beloved family! They have stood beside us and watched us bury our youngest, Megan, who was the first one of our family to exit for Heaven! Now we have an investment there!

Now we are blessed to be surrounded by yet another great cloud of witnesses! Our children are all three young adults with wives of their own! And now, we are expecting our very first grandchild! And we already know it is a boy! What a joy it was to have so many who have deposited so much  into our lives celebrate with us the next generation! We are so blessed to be a part of a community of faith, hope and love! We love you all and are grateful to share life with you and yours! What a treat to gather the women present around Jesi at the end of the shower and pray blessings over her and little Baby J before he is born! 

 

Thankful for the gifts of your presents and your presence and your prayers, the greatest gifts of all!

Happy Birthday, Sister!

Sisters are amazing! Truly, gifts from God! They share the same heritage as you. They share the same history! If you are a female, they share the same gender!

I am grateful to God...and my parents, that I have three sisters! I am triple blessed! What a joy to share life with them! We lived together for more than twenty years, sharing everything from beds to boyfriends...though not at the samae time! I am the oldest and my sister, Rhonda facing me in the picture is two years younger. Robin is a couple of years younger and Brigette is three years younger than her. What fun we had growing up! I know that it was tough raising four girls...one Valentine's Day when we were all without boyfriends, my dad bought us all flowers! Now that was an expensive Valentine's Day! (Of course, my mom received some as well!) My dad said that he tried putting ladders outside of our windows but it didn't work.

What a delight it has been to share clothes when we were younger and then sharing our children's clothing. Our kids--ten between us--affectionately call themselves--the cousins! And though miles have separated them, they are close and value you staying in contact with one another. I love it! When they were younger, we made pacts with one another vowing to raise one another's children should something happen to any of us.

Besides our parents, there is no one who has known us longer or shared more! How incredibly wonderful when we each one connected with God and decided to follow Jesus Christ and allow Him total access to our lives! Then we were double sisters because we were also sisters, sharing the same belief and blood line, spiritually! How we revel in sharing insights and newly discovered truth and growth!

Rhonda and I slept together before we shared a bed with our husbands. We fought over covers and Mom had to put a flyswatter between us when we were small to be certain that we stayed on our own side. Later we shared secrets and books, phone calls and homework. I know I didn't appreciate her nearly as much as I do now!

Rhonda was a saver and I was a spender or as Dave Ramsey would say, one was the nerd and one was the free spirit. Guess which was which! Gary knows, ask him! Rhonda and I decided that when we grew up that I would be her housecleaner since she was going to make all of the money and save it and I would clean her house and watch her children. We have shared funds and children but the plan is hard to execute hundreds of miles away!

We supported and encouraged one another even long distance while we were raising our children. We would call each other weekly (before cell phones and unlimited minutes). We were each other's top FAV before Charles Berkeley had one! Both of us were on a limited income so Rhonda would set her kitchen timer and we would talk our allotted minutes...but then I always had something else to say!

We love getting together to share the latest thing God has taught us or truth we have discovered. We share an admiration and adoration of Beth Moore and the value of sharing God's Word with a bunch of girlfriends. We have traveled on many vacations together and she even trusted me enough to follow me to India!

Happy 50th birthday, my sister, my lifelong friend! I love you and value walking through life together and delight in knowing that we will share eternity, too, where we will forever be friends and sisters!