April 2009 – A Shepherd's Story

Troops

April 20, 2009 Rev. Johann CaauweLeave a comment

For the last month, members of the Wisconsin National Guard 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team have been at Fort Bliss preparing to deploy to the Middle East. While it is not unusual for Ft Bliss to have units like this preparing to mobilize, it has been a somewhat unique opportunity for us, since we were told there may be dozens of WELS members serving in this unit.

For a few months now I have been working with the WELS Military Services committee to do what we could to serve these troops while they were training at Bliss. We thought we might have a communion service on post for them. We did receive permission from the installation chaplain's office for such a service, but logistics made that planning difficult, since the different companies are on different schedules and are working at different areas (Fort Bliss is a really big place—1700 square miles big).

However, this hasn't been much of a problem since several of the soldiers were able to get time off and transportation to come to our services at Trinity. They arrived in as many as three 15-passenger vans. Most of them were WELS members from Wisconsin (and a couple from Minnesota), but not all of them were. I never really did get a good count, but we have had approximately 20–25 troops here on a Sunday.

Even though we live in a military town and it is completely normal to see soldiers in uniform pretty

much every day (even though my boys, especially Andrew, still tends to shout, "Soldier!" whenever he spots one), it is not all that common to see that many ACUs in church. And still more—well, I'm not sure what word to use—to have a table at the Lord's Supper with a dozen brothers and sisters who are here (in our church) because it's a WELS church just like theirs back home, but who are here (Fort Bliss) because they have committed to serve us. I guess I just consider it a privilege to serve them.

Some of them are already leaving this week. Others will have a 4 day pass next weekend. We are hoping that as many as possible will make it next Sunday, when we'll have Pastor Paul Ziemer, the WELS national civilian chaplain, fly in to talk about WELS military services and to preach and to meet some of these men and women.

The picture in this post is from Easter Sunday morning, a shot I snapped from the back of church just before the service started.

Play Ball

April 7, 2009 Rev. Johann CaauweLeave a comment

This evening I was finishing up at church and remembered that the Twins were playing game #2 of the season tonight. So I pulled up the At Bat app on the iPhone and within seconds I was listening to the radio broadcast of the game that was in the bottom of the 9th with two outs and the Twins were down 3-5. But it was time to head home, so I grabbed my phone and left. The audio paused for a second or two when the phone switched from wi-fi to 3G, but I was able to listen to the rest of the game as I drove home. I was at the last stop light when Alexi Casilla singled with the bases loaded to win the game.

I haven't been able to listen to Twins games regularly since 2001, my last summer in Minnesota. Since then, I have subscribed to MLB's Gameday Audio so that I could listen to the games online. But that was only useful when I was sitting in front of a computer and not doing anything that required concentration. So, not often.

So hopefully this year I'll actually be able to catch some more games than I have been in the past. That will be nice.

New grass

April 1, 2009March 3, 2010 Rev. Johann Caauwe1 Comment

Yesterday the landscapers finished the work we wanted done at the house. They finished the sprinkler system and laid sod in the back yard. I was pretty happy with how it all worked out. The house came with an allowance for appliances, but since we didn’t need a refrigerator, washer, or dryer, they gave us that credit toward landscaping in the back. The front rock or sod was also included with the house. I hoped that the allowance would be enough to be able to sod most of the back yard, enough to at least give the kids a place to play. But I wasn’t sure because we had also used part of allowance to get pedestals for our front-loading washer and dryer.

But as it turned out, we were able to get sod for as much of the yard as we wanted, rock for one side of the house, and the irrigation system, all for just $50 from our pocket. Good deal.