You're the only Jesus

Hi everyone,
 I am so excited as I just played two games of crochet (not sure how to spell it but I think that everyone knows that I mean whomping those little balls through the wickets) with my family before my foot started to ache.  WOW--this is so wonderful as I recall sitting here watching them playing a few weeks ago wishing that I could play with them.  PRAISE THE LORD FOR HIS HEALING WAYS!!!!!!
I've been wanting to post about Prairie Days but have been wrapped up with our radionics class.  I'll start out by posting the song that I sang for the group.  Keep in mind that I was weak from cancer so it's not how I would have liked for it to sound.  I don't like to sing when I'm weak, but the Lord urged me to share, so I did.  I can only hope that it was a blessing to those who were listening! 
After I listened to this recording, I decided that it wasn't as bad as it seemed to me so I decided to share it here.  I urge you to go to my son, Andrew's, blog to see the skit that we did about gossip and the boy's Andy and Barny rendition.  That was such a hoot!  Prairie Days was again a special time spent with those we love the most--fellow home schoolers!
Best wishes for a wonderful Sabbath,
Dawn

Harvest of Thanks

We rose early this past Sabbath as we were heading over to Alfred, ND for the Church of God 7th Day's annual Harvest of Thanks. This day is one of the highlights of the whole year for us and we were excited. Jacob snapped this of me as we whizzed down the road in my dad's car.
Harvest of Thanks means lots of beautiful Fall decorations scattered both inside and outside of the church building.

A cute, little scarecrow greeted us when we arrived at the entrance.

Here our menfolk were entering the church. Just inside was our dear friend, Tim K, who was greeter for the day. A little further in was his wife, Kimberly, who always makes me smile. Many others were there whom we love and my heart was filled with joy when they said unto me, "Let us go into the house of the Lord!"
People from Fargo; Devil's Lake; my hometown of Eureka, SD; some of us from the Napoleon area and some from other states meet together in Alfred once a year to worship and praise the God of the Bible who blesses us with bounty.

I was just thinking that we have bounty every year of one sort or another, don't we? On the bad crop years, our faith in God's provision grows so our bounty is one of faith. This year we had incredible crops, so I hope that doesn't mean that our faith will be scarce! That certainly is something to be aware of.

In this picture I was trying to get the musicians over in the corner, but only got our friend, Curt. Harvest of Thanks means LOTS of soul-stirring and often toe-tapping music. I'm not sure why these pictures are so dark but I hope that you can still see them.

This is a picture of the pastor of the Alfred church who is our dear friend--Pastor Steve. You ought to hear him sing praises to our Lord ANY Sabbath, but especially on Harvest of Thanks!

The speaker for the weekend was just phenomenal. We weren't able to attend the first 2 messages on Thursday and Friday night but we were told that soon they will be on the website. If you would like to be inspired to walk more closely with the Lord, you can watch for them right along with us at the Alfred website: churchofgodalfred.com

This is a women's trio with 2 of my dear friends in it. Renae in the middle and Kimberly on the right. You may recall seeing us with them a few weeks back when Kimberly was celebrating her son's birthday and we were invited. Anyway, I just LOVE to hear (even better to be a part of) a women's trio! These 3 ladies voices blend together very nicely! They are the praise team which leads the congregation in a few praise choruses each week. We are so happy, though, that hymns are also a steady part of the musical diet at Alfred!

After the morning service, the Alfred church treated us to a feast of feasts. I was so glad that I had picked the noon meal on Sabbath for my reward meal!!! I actually had 2 desserts without any guilt. :)

After lunch was all put away, the time at Alfred that I love the most came up next. Anyone of any age has always been welcome to share their love for the Lord through a song, poem, or skit during the afternoon program.

I sang, "You're the only Jesus," which is a song that totally changed my life years ago when I felt that there was nothing great that I'd ever do for the Lord. Cora recorded it and I believe plans to post it on her computer as soon as it cooperates. One lady came to me afterwards and said, "The spirit of God fell on us as you sang!" WOW. I had hoped to be able to touch hearts with the knowledge that the world is aching for us to share God's love with them. I pray that my song did for others what my pastor did 22 years ago when he shared it with our small congregation in Bismarck. These words, "You're the only Jesus that some may ever know," have haunted me ever since he sang that song. God bless Pastor Ray for piercing through my "Littleness" and helping me to realize that it's a great BIG thing to love others in the name of Jesus. AMEN?

I forgot to mention that Andrew and I sang with the choir in the morning. I love singing in choirs and it brought me great joy that Andrew WANTED to sing along. We sang a song I'd never heard before called, "Crimson Stream." It's words have been flowing through me ever since as I realize that when I am cleansed in the stream of the blood of Christ, I am TRULY clean. WOW!

Many people shared of their musical abilities and their love for the Lord. Here is our friend, Curt with his 4 children. I think that Cora will play their video too if her computer ever cooperates. You absolutely have not lived until you have heard these 4 children sing the praises of our King!

We all laughed when Curt said to the sound man, "Turn the blue mic down." The blue mic was in the hand AND mouth of the youngest of their family and he was having a GOOD TIME--even BEFORE the song began!!!

Man, can this guy play the trombone!!! I told him that I used to play trombone but gave it up to continue studying voice when I went to collage. He laughed and said, "I'll never give up playing this thing." Matt is a wonderful musician AND a wonderful man of God!!!!!

These are the four youngest daughters of our friends, Terry and Cathy with Amber on the piano. We have known these girls since they were little. It's so wonderful to know that they're still praising the Lord on into young adulthood.

Two of my treasures (Cora and Jacob) sat with us while Andrew sat up front with the musicians. He's never done this before, but he had taken along his banjo and thought that he might try his hand at playing backup for any of the songs which seemed to lend themselves to banjo music.

There weren't too many banjo-ish songs, but Andrew seemed to enjoy sitting up by Betty Jo (my dear friend who plays piano over there); Curt (another dear friend who is great on guitar); and Michelle who also plays guitar and is the daughter of my deceased friend, Harris. It's impossible for me to attend Harvest of Thanks and not miss Harris as his smile lit up the whole church that day. HARRIS LOVED HARVEST OF THANKS!!!!!!!!! I STILL MISS HIM SO MUCH AS HE FILLED THE ROLE OF ADOPTED DAD TO ME DURING MY LONG ILLNESS!!

Andrew surprised us by signing up to play a banjo solo. He's such a goof as he told the story about the drunk who told the preacher that the Lord's name was Andy. "Andy," said the preacher, "whatever gave you that idea?" Andrew made his voice drawl out like a drunk (I wonder where he learned that?), "Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me." Everyone laughed and then Andrew concluded the afternoon program with, "I go to the garden alone." I managed to resist not singing the chorus along with him, "And He walks with me and He talks with me." :)

After the program I went in search of my friends, Lyle and Becky. Jacob told me that they had just left so I was disappointed that I hadn't more time to visit with them than when they came in. I was thankful, though, that the Lord answered my prayer for some exercise by bringing me an "Older" woman to walk with. She is my new inspiration, as she is in very good shape, but I kept up with her pretty well. It made me happy to see how much my endurance has improved since I began THE NEW ME DIET a month and a half ago.

We ate a very light supper and then Cora and I helped clean up the kitchen. Robert was visiting with an old friend from Eureka while the boys played football (a first for them). Finally at long last I got to sit down with my dear friend Carla, who is Curt's wife and the mother to those 4 singing cuties.

Carla has been having a long struggle with her health and it was so good to visit with someone who understands how very difficult it is to regain your health after you've been on your deathbed. I love her sooooooooooooooooooooo much. Hang in there, Carla!

As usual, we were the last ones to leave the church. Everyone had gone over to the refinished old schoolhouse except Carla and I and Robert and his dear friend, Elroy. Elroy locked up the door as we left for home. Everyone in the Bornemann family was VERY happy, for the fellowship with those who truly love the Lord is always a joy from morning to night. I was pleased that I had very little pain all day and was even able to go for a walk. We are talking about leaving home at 8:30 in the morning and returning at 9:00 at night. Praise the Lord!

Well, we got home; did chores; ate home made ice cream together; and headed for bed the happiest that we'd been in a long, long time. Thank you, Lord, for the believers at the Church of God 7th Day in Alfred, ND and all who came from far and wide to share in their special day! Thank you, Lord, for making ME a part of your awesome, loving family that is spread out all over the world. Who could ever be sad when they belong to THAT family?

I hope that you all enjoyed reading about the highlights of my day. I hope that you are eager to join us next year in Alfred for their wonderful HARVEST OF THANKS!!!!!!!!!!! Until then, I pray that you'll keep a song in your heart and share God's love with the lonely world all around you.

God bless those who truly love Him,

Dawn

Geography Song

Cora just showed me how to put this video on my blog from her blog. Do you suppose I'll remember how to do it on my own later? I don't usually like to duplicate what she has done but this was MY favorite part of Andrew's graduation program too. Andrew and I had so much fun doing this and, when Clifford Johnson (seen in the kitchen doorway) got people clapping, I couldn't resist joining in. As soon as Chuck sends us the DVD of the whole graduation, we'll put on more video clips--like the puppet show, the slide show, our family song, and speeches. We can hardly wait for it to come, but in the meantime, there's lots of work to be done in the garden; putting things in order here after the graduation; and doing BT sessions.

Later,

Dawn

Prayer service

I'm absolutely exhausted but I am encouraged to continue sharing to help others know a little of what to expect when it's your turn--plus it's just good therapy for me to write. Well, this is the way my mother looked in her pretty coffin. The necklace and earrings were given to her by my dad on their wedding day. It was hard for me to put them on her and think that they would be gone forever. My sister-in-law, Sharel, asked the mortician to take them off of her and give them to me afterwards. He said that they would be able to do that so then I wanted her to wear them as they were very special to her.

The mortician (Mr. Carlsen) said that she was so full of air because they kept trying to resuscitate her. The doctor was her friend, and did not want to give up on her, so he kept trying and trying but it was no use. Mr. Carlsen told us on Sunday that much of the swelling would go down but she still looked puffy in the face and neck here on Tuesday afternoon. She also had a bad bruise on her hand where they tried to get an IV started. She was shutting down, though, so nothing had worked. The bruise was on the hand away from the public so you had to really look to see it for which I was thankful. Here is my mother--Erdmuth (Kusler) Delzer. She used to say that her parents never gave her a middle name becuase they gave her such an ugly first name and that was enough. She liked "Erdie" much better and nobody even knew that her real name was Erdmuth. Her parents were both born in Russia and immigrated here as a young married couple.


Today went better than I thought it would so I praise God for all of your prayers. Still, these are the facts. My oldest brother has not responded to anyone since Saturday night so we don't know if he'll be at the funeral or not. He wasn't there today. My dad is NOT coping. My second oldest brother took him to the doctor for something to "Calm" him down this morning as he is a wreck. How I wish that I could have been given an opportunity to do a session (or 300) on him, but I wasn't. My youngest brother ruined his brain cells on drugs decades ago. I should have known better than to leave something real important to him as it bit me again today. He didn't tell my dad's sister from Bismarck about the prayer service. She came with a cousin of my dads who found out about it somehow. She kept saying over and over, "I didn't know about this," and glaring at ME!!! Thanks a lot Rick!!!


I'll write more later about how wonderful the pastor was and the friends the Lord sent to comfort me, but for now I'll just add this video. Our family sang one of our favorite hymns AND CAN IT BE. It went well and then I sang FIND US FAITHFUL. Cora videoed it with her camera so I'm not sure what the quality will be like. I know that it was far from my best singing but then, I've never sung for my mother's prayer service before. I wanted to do it, because I knew that she would have wanted me to sing, plus I had ulterior motives.

I spoke for a little while how I learned in '06 on my deathbed, that it was killing me to cling to all of these petty little grudges. I spoke of the joy that has come to me from learning to forgive others. Then I said that I want to leave to my children an example of faithfulness to God as He has blessed me soooooooooooo much. It was very hard but it was also very good. THEN I sang. Praise the Lord for the strength He gives us when He asks us to do something very difficult. Robert would call it "Stretching."

I can hardly wait to write more about seeing my Uncle David right before we came home. I haven't seen him in years, but it was as though we'd never parted to be in his big, strong bear hug tonight. :) His love carried me through my difficult teenage years as mentioned in my post called FULL OF BEAUTY. Some people just light up the world with their smiles. :) This is the only picture that I have of Uncle David and I together and it's taken in mom's kitchen. My brother, Rick, is in the white sweater. It sure was cold for April.


Well, here's the video. Thanks for all of your prayers and please continue praying us through tomorrow too. I'm praying for a rich harvest of souls for the kingdom to come out of mom's funeral--so is the pastor. :)

This is the last picture that I'll ever have taken with my mom. I'll say again that I hope that nobody is getting grossed out by this but it IS THE LAST PICTURE THAT I'LL EVER HAVE TAKEN WITH MY MOM! Death is real and it is permanent. In my case, my mother was sick 3 hours before her death. PLEASE people, if you love somebody, tell them every time that you think it because there will come a last time (if they go first). Aren't her flowers from our family just lovely?

Here I was trying to comfort dad minutes after he saw

mom's body for the first time. He hadn't seen her since

Saturday night when she collapsed right before her death.

I'll never forget how he sobbed, "Erdie, why did you leave

me?" as he wept over her body. How can you comfort

somebody who loved a girl for 70 years? They met when

he was 9 years old and he's 79 now. He said that he

always thought that she was such a pretty girl!

What more can I say but the words of Job, "The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed by the name of the Lord." He doeth all things well!!! We just don't always understand what He is up to.

I love you all,

Dawn

PS. Andrew said that it would take too long for him to get the video on tonight as he's just beat. He cleaned grain before and after the prayer service so I'll post it later on in the week.