I’ve been going through some childhood papers, sorting, filing, (pitching!) and it’s been very special (and funny) to get these glimpses into the “young Karl.” Many things I remember, others come as a surprise to me.
I was very touched to discover a very simple piece of paper that I had written and colored just a year after my little sister, Blessing Faith, was born…and died. I didn’t want to forget her.
She lived only 5 days due to a very rare birth condition where her brain did not finish developing. I got to hold her, and my parents later told me that my strength and trust in the Lord at age 12 helped them through it. It was something amazing for me to grasp at that time, not understanding the simple faith of children and how it can often help us more complicated adults!
Anyway, here is a close-up of what I wrote, and a PDF of the entire sheet is linked below. I wanted to make sure I never forgot that day, and here, 30 years after making this simple piece of paper on Blessing’s birthday, I am getting my wish. I am remembering.
(Click to View Larger)
Some might ask why my parents named her Blessing Faith. Well, the answer is quite simple. Right away when she was born, it was clear her life would be very short. In fact, the doctors predicted only hours at first, and yet she held on for several days.
My dad was the senior pastor of our church, and people would say things like, “How terrible” or “What a tragedy” or “How unfortunate,” etc. I remember my parents explaining to me that her life was a Blessing, and it was their Faith in God that helped them trust Him through difficult times like this. And that we too, as her siblings, should see her as a Blessing to our Faith.
I will always remember holding her and holding back my tears so I could be strong for my dad, and silently thanking God for my Blessing and asking Him to give me Faith like my parents.
Blessing Faith did a work in many people’s lives in our church. In fact, I remember my mom saying that she led more people to Jesus in five days than some Christians do in their entire life. Those words have always stuck with me.
Now, 31 years later, I remember her still. And I look forward to meeting my sister, the Blessing, someday. Because that’s what Faith is.
Recently while I was in Canada speaking at a conference my wife posted on facebook that the pressure was on her to be “as fun as daddy” while I was away. Well. She pulled out the stops and took Luke to a Monster Truck Rally! Something even I have never done, and it’s all Luke’s been talking about every ten minutes for days on end! I may have trouble getting back on the “funnest parent pedestal.” Go Mom!
One of the highlights of the Monster Jam was the Mega-Saurus. This mechanical beast that came out breathing fire and literally chewed a car in half! It was almost more than my six year old’s brain could handle!
He came home saying, “Daddy, I wish you had a Mega-Saurus for my toy cars.” So, I answered. “Why, of course I have a Mega-Saurus! Every self-respecting dad has a Mega-Saurus! What kind of father would I be, if I didn’t have a Mega-Saurus in the garage?”
His eyes about popped out of his head! “YOU h-h-h-have a Mega-Saurus?” He stuttered?
“Of course I have a Mega-Saurus. Do you have some cars you would like to cut in half?” (Perhaps I could regain my funnest parent status after all!)
“Yeah!”
I headed toward the garage with my six year old in tow; he was practically stepping on my heels he was so eager to see my Mega-Saurus! I grabbed my Mega-Saurus, and also the Vice so that we could flatten some cars for his new Monster Trucks to drive and jump over, and headed up to his play room.
Once at this Car Table (Luke has a Car Table instead of a train table) my Mega-Saurus came out from under the table breathing fire and proceeded to chew through two of his older cars. He was beside himself with delight.
We next used the vice to squish six cars (I had to set a limit or he’d have had to flatten ‘em all this week!) so his Monster Trucks could drive over some destroyed cars!
Never once in the entire process did Luke mention that my “Mega-Saurus” was anything less than the real thing. Why? Because I was pretending with him. Of course it was real. His cars are real, the crashes are real, the noises he is making from the engines are real – the dirt he sees flying off the wheels (that isn’t there) is real. Just as real as my “Mega-Saurus.” After all, my Mega-Sauraus did come up from under the table making monstrous noises before it devoured those two poor cars!
When you join your kids in their imaginative play, you enter their world and you create a love bond that is beyond description. They know it is play – but they see that you are joining them, and it is more powerful and effective that a hundred “I love you’s” because it is how they want to be shown love.
I know all too soon Luke will be too old for toy cars… he’ll just want the keys to my car. But by then there will be things I’ll want to share with him, warnings and instructions and I want to have a foundation of Mega-Love. And it starts today with not being too busy to chew some toy cars in half.
What Mega-Saurus can you bring to life? The result will be a some Mega-Love shown to your kid.
If they are willing to be the rear end of a cow with you!
This is Sara and me practicing in my Cow Costume (which I still have 20 years later!) eight months before we were married.
I got it for a Christmas Play where Hark, from the Herald, traveled through time to interview different characters from the Christmas Story (shepherds, wise men, innkeeper, etc.) in order to discover the “True Meaning of Christmas.” However, I thought it was too sacrilegious to have “Hark” interview Mary or Joseph in the Nativity, so I had him interview a cow off to the side instead.
I was very excited when I got my two-man, er, one man – one fiance cow costume, and Sara was happy to help me figure it out and practice with it while were on a Thanksgiving retreat with my family that winter.
Cow or no cow, we’ve made quite a team over the last twenty years!
Instead of a Christmas Letter this year (December was just to crazy this year!) I opted for a more electronically savvy method, and created a video to reflect on 2011. Besides, it was too hard to choose which pictures to put into a letter – we started one, and which pictures to choose, was so hard!
This year included a trip to California to see my childhood best friend, Andy, get married, (and a trip to DisneyLand while there) and another trip back later in the year to perform my first wedding for his little sister, Lindsay!
We enjoyed many visits from friends coming to enjoy Colorado and stay with us (when are YOU coming?) and enjoying this beautiful state ourselves as we still discover its vast beauty!
Luke turned 5, and wanted a “real Jeep” for his birthday, so I rented a Jeep for the day! I started “Dad School” a mini-home school to focus on the areas he needed help, and also “Family Pit Stops,” our evening family devotional times as he got old enough for intentional spiritual input from Dad.
Sara is a table leader for MOPS at our church and I continue to write a children’s church curriculum called DiscipleTown in addition to leading Kidology. I wrap up a two year column in Children’s Ministry Magazine after being named one of the Top 20 Leaders in the past 20 years, which was a pretty big surprise and honor. We added three new employees this year, with new VP of Operations starting January 1st, so we are pretty excited about what God has in store for our little ministry.
In addition to my fourth Yosemite Summit, I also got to take Luke and Sara this year – and seeing Luke discover my favorite place on earth, and show him all my “secret places” the tourists walk right past was a real treat, and watching him find his own, “secret places” that he wants to come back to someday. And extra bonus, after speaking at two camps this year, was being invited back to one on short notice (a previously scheduled speaker got called to heaven on short notice) I took my dad with me and we added on a trip to Yosemite, just as father and son – yet another highlight of the year for me personally.
So 2011 was a busy year, but a good year. In 2012, I hope to find a slower pace and perhaps some more margin, but am still eagerly excited to see what God has in store for my family.
Thank you to everyone who calls us family, friends, and who supports us in prayer. If you are not a part of my personal prayer support e-mail list, it’s called the Kidology Champion Prayer Supports List, and you can subscribe here. Just update your Kidology Newsletters to include that list.
I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and we wish you a Happy New Year from our family to yours!
This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.
DAY #22: Tennis Balls
OK, this post isn’t really about tennis balls, it’s about my grammy, but I knew that title might generate some curiosity and therefore some clicks!
I am Thankful for My Grammy! (and Tennis Balls… keep reading!)
I do not mean to elevate any relative above any other… I am thankful for ALL my relatives, and love them all differently and in different ways. But my Grammy B will always hold an extra special place in my heart. One of those reasons she and I kept secret. It wasn’t until after she passed away, that I finally let the secret out. In fact, at her grave side service, they let the children draw on her casket, and I drew a tennis ball on her casket with the words, “I win.” Relatives looked at me a little confused (and perhaps slightly shocked!) Here is why.
One of my “Kidologist Secrets” of relating to kids is to have fun games or “inside jokes” with the kids who I love. It makes them feel special – and let’s them know they are more than just another kid to me. They are unique. They are one of my favorites. I’ve always had a running joke that I was my Grammy’s favorite of her nine grandchildren. Of course, I assumed every grandchild believed that! But it was a theory I loved to humorously defend. In fact, at my grammy’s wake, in one of the photo albums featuring full sized photos of her grandkids, when I discovered I was on page one, I proudly declared, “See!? I was her favorite!” and was greeted with groans and rolled eyes.
Imagine my surprise when during the memorial service my father read a note written by my Grammy where she wrote,
“To set the matter straight as to my favorite grandchild, not withstanding Karl’s claims to whit – I loved all my grandchildren the same.”
Everybody laughed. I had no idea my claimed to favoritehood had gained Grammy’s attention to the point she decided to set the record the straight in her service! It was all in good spirit, and the teasing I got afterward was well deserved!
But there was a reason I felt extra special I can now reveal that I shared during the service that began some thirty years ago, and that applied to children’s ministry and what I mentioned as I began… the power of secret game that makes a child feel extra special, even for thirty years!
When I was ten years old I saved up my money and bought my own ticket to fly from California to Indiana to spend a summer living with my grand parents. (I did this several times actually.) During the first visit they set up a room for me in the basement that became my home-away-from-home. And I loved these stays with Grammy and Grandpa!
I went to Cubs games with Grampa and learned to sew from Grammy. (That Garfield puppet was the beginnings of making puppet costumes, though Grampa didn’t really approve of that.) I went downtown Chicago on the train with Grammy often and in the evenings watched Columbo and played Rummy – a card game. However, one of my ways of entertaining myself was to toss tennis balls at the stairs in the basement like a pitch back and one time I left them on the stairs and later, Grammy gave me a very gentle scolding not to leave them on the stairs lest she step on one and fall down the stairs. But the next day, I accidentally left all four on tennis balls on the stairs again. Instead of just scolding me, she instead humorously reminded me by saying that she thought my tennis balls were out to get her as they looked like they were coming to get her, because they were higher up the stairs this time, each on a separate stair, and I’d better lock them up, because obviously, I couldn’t have left them there, since she told me yesterday to put them away after I played with them. I played along and said I had put them away and that they must be alive. (I said it in a way that she knew I wasn’t lying, I was playing along.)
The next day, to keep the joke going, after I played with the four tennis balls, I remembered the kind way she had reminded me, but instead of putting them away, I put them in the kitchen, at the top of the stairs, four in a row, across the kitchen, as though they were “alive” and heading toward her room. Instead of her making a joke about it, she simply moved them later, placing them four in row in the basement heading toward my room.
This began an unspoken joke, that lasted thirty years. All that summer, the tennis balls continued to be placed, when the other wasn’t around, four in row closer and closer to the others room, until they were in each other’s bed. Then in our clothes, and then finally just being hidden in places we were sure to find. When I finally flew home, I found the tennis balls packed in my luggage. Grammy assumed the game was over. Little did she know!
When I returned the next summer, the tennis balls returned with me! Any time I came to visit as a young college man, a tennis ball was hidden in her home. I once lived with her for a summer in college and the tennis ball war was resumed though we never spoke a word of it! When she came to visit me, as a young married man, soon after, I would find a tennis ball somewhere in my house. Even as she lived in different states around the country, and me too, the tennis ball war continued, often with years between the secret placement, though over the years, it had at some point gone from the original four to just one strategically placed tennis ball. Many times we simply had to just buy a new one. It didn’t matter. It was more about leaving a tennis ball behind. It was our way of saying, “I love you, you’re special.” It was Grammy’s way of saying to me, “You’re still that little playful boy to me, and you always will be.”
I’ll look at tennis balls and cry sometimes now and people will think I’m nuts. But you will understand. A silly yellow ball holds a lot of love for me. All because my Grammy decided to be playful with a child, and then just decided never to stop. And people wonder why I thought I was her favorite. I’m O.K. with all her grand kids thinking they were her favorite. They all were, in different ways.
The same can be true in your kids ministry. You can have favorites. EVERY kid can be convinced that they are your favorite. And they can all be right!
People ask me all the time what’s the secret to connecting with kids. Have you figured it out yet? YOU are the secret.
This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.
DAY #18: My Dad
While there may be some sons out there who have had the honor of having their dad appear on the cover of TIME magazine or some other newspaper or periodical, I must say that I can say, as the son of a preacher man, I was the proudest (in the most Godly way, of course) when MY dad made the cover of a magazine that I think says it all. You can have your TIME magazine “Man of Year” or People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” titles. In 1996 MY DAD made the COVER of a magazine whose bi-line is:
“A Wise Person Displays Understanding By His Godly Life as Gentle Servant.”
There is probably no better description of my dad, so posting the cover of the magazine cover my dad was on was the best way I could think to “toot his horn” today, though it will embarrass him. Such is his character, for he made the cover of SERVANT magazine:
Humble Servant, Doug Bastian
That’s my dad. (Click to enlarge the cover in a new window)
I’m thankful to him for so many reasons, I should probably write a book about it someday, all the wisdom he has given me. As I’ve often said, he is a great dad not for being perfect, but for being real. There are no perfect dads. The best dads are not the perfect dads, but the ones who don’t pretend to me. Kids figure out early on that dads aren’t perfect, and think they have something on dad when they figure that out! But when dad blows their own cover by admitting their own humanness, and admitting they are on a journey in life, and inviting their children to walk with them on the journey of parenting and walking with Christ… the impact is trans-formative. Not only in parenting, but in the life of the child.
Mac and PC
I posted A Tribute to My Dad in the past, with lots of fun pictures of us from a long time ago, so I won’t post those pictures again or get too wordy again. This time, I justed to say THANKS to my dad for not telling me what it meant to be a servant in the home and in my ministry, but showing me. In fact, I don’t think he ever did actually tell me. He just lived it, and it just rubs off. And when I heard it preached later I thought, “Oh, that’s my dad.”
I’ve said it a thousand times,
“Discipling your kids isn’t something you ought to do… it is something you are doing.”
Your kids become you! My dad often quoted to me I Cor. 11:1, where Paul said to Timothy, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” In other words, where I saw my dad being like Christ, he wanted me to be like him, and when I saw him not being like Christ, he hoped I would have the objectivity to not imitate him in those times. I hope the same for my son. But for better or for worse, more and more, I am becoming my dad. It’s a scary thought some times (!), but over all, it’s a good thing. And that’s why I’m thankful for his example.
This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.
He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. - Proverbs 18:22
My mom had me start praying for my future wife when I was just a little boy. Perhaps she knew that the woman who had to live with me would have a tough assignment! Hyper-creativity, late hours, boundless energy and a dizzying number of hobbies and interests! A man who will starve to death if someone doesn’t remind him to eat or work all night if no one tells him to STOP and go to bed. A man who comes up with Big Ideas eight times a day – and needs someone to say, “that’s a good one…. no.” And who understands that the confidence he protects is much more fragile than it appears.
Karl, Sara and Luke's hand!
Life with Sara (and Luke) is a constant adventure. We live a rather simple and quiet life now, since we aren’t in weekly church ministry, we live to serve churches all over the country via Kidology.org from our home in Colorado. Sara enjoys ministering to moms via her MOPS table (she is a table leader) and through keeping this man going. “Did you take your heart meds?” (Ah!) “Have you eaten?”(Doh!) “When is your conference call?” (Yikes!) “When is your next column due?” (huh? Oh, no!)
Me and My Woman
Like every married couple (I hope!) we’ve struggled to learn how to do this “married life” thing – how to love selflessly and unconditionally. Marriage is a journey filled with ups and downs and when you see many marriages fail and many spouses give up on each other when they hit difficult times, I am so thankful to have a wife who has stuck with me even when I’ve been unlovable. Her grace in the difficult times has been a model of Christlikeness. Her willingness to trust me when I believed God was telling me to lead – like to sell our home in a bad economy and take our family across the country, and she said, “Where you go, I’ll go!” She has forgiven me when I’ve needed it, trusted me when I’ve said I think this is best for our family, and supported me when I’ve asked to put our family finances at risk for the sake of Kidology or a church ministry – her grace and trust and loyalty have meant the world to me.
And I’m thankful.
I recently did my first wedding, and preparing the message was insightful because I don’t feel like the “perfect husband” but here I was helping prepare a young couple, and a cousin of mine (Lindsay Blackwell) for her wedding, and preparing a message on marriage for those who would be gathered. They asked me to present a message that would not only be beneficial to them, but to those who would be gathered there. It was a good exercise for me – to be reminded of what makes a good marriage – and it was encouraging, because I felt like what I was saying to the audience was a good description of how our marriage operated. I’d have hated to stand up there and feel like a hypocrit! But in the end, I was saying what I lived, and how my own marriage operates, and I have Sara to thank for that, for a husband can not lead a home, unless he has a wife who will follow.
Here is a PDF of my message in case it might encourage or help you. L.O.V.E. That Will Succeed by Pastor Karl Bastian (PDF 131 KB)
This is part of a series called 24 Days of Thankfulness. These posts are in RANDOM order, NOT priority order. Each is something I am thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving.
DAY #12: Luke
Yes, it’s been said in my house, many, many times…
But all kidding aside, I love telling the story of April Fool’s Day, 2006 when my life suddenly changed forever by a phone call from my sister asking me to help with a situation with a baby in need… later that day, I would be driving home with a baby that would become my son.
I still remember the moment (and the spot) on the I-294 when this baby was looking at me with wonder in his eyes, and I was trying to guard my heart against getting my hopes up, (the birth mom had offered him to me) and I heard God say, “Hold Nothing Back.” It was only three words, but I knew what it meant. It meant to open my heart to him, regardless of the consequences. Even if I did lose him. It wasn’t a promise that I’d get to adopt him. It was only a command to open my heart 100% regardless of what the future held. I turned to him and said, “Luke, I will love you, no matter what happens.” He closed his eyes and fell asleep. I began to cry. I believe in that moment, I became his father.
Elements of the story has been shared elsewhere on this blog, and more details I tell in person, not online – but every adoption story is unique and wonderful, but the sum of it all, is that God gave me and my wife a son.
This morning he made me breakfast:
He is the most loving and kind boy I have ever known. He fills our days with happiness and craziness even when we wears us out and tires us out. I was hurting from fifteen years of being childless while my life revolved around children and helping others love and minister to children. I honestly don’t know how I’d be doing today without the Gift of this boy, Luke Given Bastian.
I am so thankful for him, I could burst. There is no achievement or earthly success I have gained that matters to me any more, other than to see him look up at me and be happy. That’s why I stop working when he enters the room. He is my #1 job now, my ministry is important, yes, and satisfiying, yes, but my joy and happiness and deep fulfillment comes from pouring into this little guy.
Being the “Kidologist” is fun – I get to equip and encourage folks and follow God’s Calling on my life to serve others and reach many kids with the Good News of God’s Love and train others who minister to kids – but first and foremost, I’m just another Dad. And I’m loving every day of it.
Today I launched a little Thanksgiving Project over on Kidology.org called “24 Days of Thanks-Giving” – basically I am providing a simpleWord doc you can download and every day from Nov. 1 until Thanksgiving add ONE thing you are thankful for.
It’s really just something I need to DO MYSELF – but I thought maybe others might want to join me, and I’d enjoy reading/seeing what others are thankful for. So you are welcome to use the Word doc, or just post in the forum what YOU are thankful for! So let me begin today, with my first post. These are NOT going to be in priority order, otherwise I’d have to go God, Family, etc. and then later on, people might judge me for putting one thing “above” or “before” another – so right out of the gate let me say, these posts will be in RANDOM ORDER of things I am THANKFUL FOR!
Thanks to winning a boxed set of the Charlie Brown Holiday specials from Steve Tanner at a past Kidology Christmas Party White Elephant gift – Luke is now hooked on “The Great Pumpkin,” and watching it over and over!
He loves the opening scene when Lucy “kills” the pumpkin, so when we stopped on our Daddy/Son day to pick out a “Great Pumpkin” he said, “we must get a big one to kill.”
Here he is ready to begin the slaughter of our very own Great Pumpkin!
The fatal stab is struck and alas, the Gret Pumpkin is dead.
About to open up the pumpkin and see the inside of the head and the “brains!”
Luke thinks the “brains” of the Great Pumpkin are pretty gross! Especially, when I tell him we need to reach in and pull them all out!
But, he does like the smell! LOL
The “brains!” Looking tasty!
Carving “The Great Pumpkin!” Daddy did most of this part, (of course!), but Luke drew what he wanted on the pumpkin with pencil and daddy followed it on the pumpkin pretty closely.
The Great Pumpkin and the Great Kid!
Putting a light inside the Great Pumpkin!
Now it’s time to bake the seeds!
The day ended when Mommy called to say good night and Lukey was able to tell her about our day and introduce her to The Great Pumpkin out on the front porch!
