Klink

Choosing the political candidate that I support for president has never been a problem for me until now. I have always made my decision early in the race as I align the candidates beliefs with my understanding of conservatism: the political philosophy to which I subscribe. However this election has placed me between a rock and a hard place. I strongly believe in the three legs of the stool of conservatism: strong national defense, fiscal responsibility in the government combined with the current need to shrink the size and scope of government, and the role of the government to preserve the life and liberty of it's inhabitants by upholding the laws that prohibit and punish criminal activity and that preserve the life of the citizens. However these tenets have not been displayed by the nominee for my party John McCain: he consistently opposed Bush's tax cuts until recently, fought for the equivalent of amnesty, and undercut many of the attempts to grow the economy on the part of the Republicans by decrying supposed corporate greed. His political decisions have been deplorable and you add to that the fact that he personally is somewhat of a mad dog in his approach to interpersonal relationships. Ask me privately about this last blemish. As you can see I am fit to be tied because I certainly cannot vote for the socialist propaganda of the most liberal candidate in our lifetime. My only recourse is to enter a write-in on the ballot and look forward to days when true conservatives will once again speak out for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness according to the constitution of our fathers.

Perhaps I should give an update to my life. Halloween is rapidly approaching and right behind it is November. It's hard to believe that we are this far into 2008. I'm trying my best to become a good pastor. I want to be competent in as many ways as possible. This particular week I have my sermon done fairly early. I completed it early so that I could continue to work on my thoughts for the week of prayer that I'll be doing next week at Burleson SDA School. I'm going to be talking about characters from the bible. My goal is to highlight some of the experiences of these characters when they where younger. I've entitled my series: Lessons from the Little Ones. Hopefully it will strike a few chords with the little ones that listen to it. Liz is trying to make the best of her situation as she takes care of Alexander and helps coach Matthews intramural soccer team. Lately she has been having a tough time being separated from family. I hope that she is able to find some way to deal with her feelings. Her mother is coming in a few weeks and I'm hoping that will make her feel a little better. Matthew seems to be doing pretty well. He enjoys soccer and he is part of a book club. Little Alexander is growing so much everyday. We're hoping that he will stop throwing up as much as he has been. We're concerned that it could be damaging if he continues to throw up a lot. Well my thoughts are long but the time is short.

We have had quite a lot of things happen recently and honestly our lives are still in flux. Liz took her NCLEX on Friday of last week. Unfortunately she did not pass. She is very upset about this and views this as a personal failure. She had a lot of pressure on her because we need to her to work so that we can pay on our student loans that are coming due. We needed her income. However we do have some money saved up and we might be getting some more money from Karen's estate soon. Liz will be able to take the test again in 45 days or so and then we will be able to reassess her job prospects. However because Alexander is not taking a bottle and we are having trouble finding someone who can care for him on a changing schedule Liz will probably not work until January. This solves the problem with childcare and the bottle and it also means that we will be able to visit our family for the holidays.

As I become more comfortable with being a pastor I am finding that my schedule is filling up. Perhaps it is only temporary, but at the moment I see several weeks ahead of me that will be very busy. I think that I need to be involved in activities that will further the gospel. However sometimes I feel that the meetings that I am required to go to are more for the amour-propre of others. I also need to explain that this journal will be a mix of my private thoughts and biographical detail. This journal is a place for me to exercise my thoughts as well as keep an intermittent written record of my life.

Right now it's dark outside and while I'm mostly referring to the fact that it's nighttime I'm also referring to the fact that I can't see very far in my life right now. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that for the past four years my life has been a series of events. These events have expectations. That means that I'm either experiencing the events like: getting married, graduating, having a baby, moving and starting my career or I'm anticipating these events. Now that these things have happened the beacons of my existence are smaller and harder to see. I think though that I need to keep looking where I'm going. I don't want to end up in the wrong place.

There has been a movement away from conservative values in this country. The leaders of this movement have been academia, the media, the entertainment industry, and the political left. However the "right" has been moving left as well. How do I know this. Well, in order to establish that there has been movement we have to establish the starting point. In this case the starting point is the the three legs on the stool of conservatism: strong national defense, fiscal restraint and social conservatism. The first two legs of the stool should be on the government's explicit agenda.

Karen died last week after more than a year of battling lung cancer. About six months ago it appeared that she was in remission, but  in June the doctors confirmed that the cancer was present in her lungs and adrenal gland. A few weeks ago she started having problems with shortness of breath again and she was readmitted to the hospital. Her lung collapsed and she rapidly deteriorated. As her condition worsened Kathy and Bob felt that Liz, Matthew and Alexander should come up to spend time with her. They flew up early on Friday the 26th of September. She died on September 29th. On the following day I flew to Michigan and joined Liz and many other family members as we prepared to have a celebration of Karen's life. On Thursday evening we had a party at Kathy and Bob's that was heavily attended by many of Karen's friends. I know that it was very hard for Liz to lose Karen. She was her mother. Karen was a wonderful woman. It never makes sense when you lose someone you love and no one should ever try to make sense of it. Certainly God was aware of this outcome, but God is the God of the living. He never desires the death of anyone. Jesus took away the second death at the cross. He provided the resurrection for those that die in Him. When He comes again He will take away the first death and the grave will be swallowed up in God's great victory.

I would like to update the reading public on the recent events in my life. On May 4 Liz and I graduated from Andrews University. She graduated with her B.S. in Nursing and I graduated with my M.Div. After we graduated we moved out of our duplex in  Berrien Springs, Michigan and moved down to Niles, Michigan to live temporarily with the Whites. We wanted to stay until the baby was born and then move down to Texas. On the weekend following graduation I flew down to Texas and attended the Burleson church. I also spent time with the Adams who are members of the Crowley church: the church where I spend most of my time. I was able to rent a house in a subdivision that is developing. The house continued to be worked on while we waited for the baby to be born. We had anticipated that the baby would be born early in June. However as the baby's due date approached we began to worry that the baby would come later than expected. This would have been a problem because we had already told the Texas Conference a date that we would be heading down to Texas. In addition the moving truck had been scheduled. So as the due date continued to approach we decided we would induce labor. We began inducing the labor on thursday June 5, 2008 and the Alexander Thomas Baldwin was born early Friday morning the 6th. The monday following the Alexander's birth I helped the truck driver load up our stuff that we had moved into storage in Berrien Springs. Then on the following weekend we left Michigan and began our trip down to Texas. We first stayed with my family and in Ohio for a few days. Then we made our way down to Huntsville, Alabama and stayed with the Evans for about two days. After that we continued on our way and stayed in Texarkana for the last night of our trip. We arrived at our home in Texas on thursday the 18th of June.

Life is full of learning. Lately I have realized the necessity of being intentional. Plants,animals and other organisms have less intentionality built in to their design than humans. Human beings, myself included seem to function most efficiently when we are purposeful. Discovering how to be purposeful is difficult however. This is because we have so many choices to make or to neglect and in addition we are not completely in control of ourselves. Spiritually I find that being intentional can be difficult because it often means that I need to do what I don't want to do. When we look at the tree the tree does not make the decision to do what it does not want to do or for that matter it does not decide to try and do something that it does not know how to do. Natural forces act upon the tree and the tree responds per it's design. Unlike the plant kingdom the animal kingdom responds with choice to the forces of nature. However animals excluding humans do not self evaluate. They are capable of making decisions that seem best given their previous experiences, but they cannot interrupt the chain of events by analyzing their decision making process. Man inherently has the ability to wonder whether the actions he makes are the appropriate ones. This self-evaluative process is further complicated by the emotions we experience. While I know that what I am describing is something that lacks complete definition I am starting to see that it is imperative to remove as many obstacles as possible. In order to be intentional I need to remove items, habits, thought processes that inhibit me from acting. I also need to add habits and thought processes that enable me to make the correct decisions.

This week has been exciting. We went to the doctor Monday for our scheduled ultrasound. We were going to find out the baby's gender. After checking in a nurse ushered us into the Ultrasound room. We were both anxious and excited. Liz really wanted a girl and at first the Ultrasound technician was having trouble seeing if the baby had a penis. I could see on Liz's face that she thought it might be a girl. The tech told Liz to lie on her side until the doctor came in. Apparently that would cause the baby to move and possible give a good look at his or her genital area.The doctor came in and after using the ultrasound machine to do a cross-section of the area. She quickly and emphatically said it's a boy. I was very happy but I could see that Liz was stifling her emotion. After the doctor talked to us and we printed off the ultrasound pictures Liz and I separated. I went to a small waiting room and Liz went to the bathroom to get a sample of urine for the doctor's office. As Liz came she was directed to stand on a scale. Turning back Liz looked at me sitting in the waiting room. I could see her eyes welling up with tears. I jumped up and ran over to her. Liz was really crying. The nurse asked if the tears were happy tears and she said no. This left the nurse a little confused. The next few days were hard for Liz as she came to terms with the idea that she would have another boy in the house. A couple of days after the ultrasound Karen called the house to tell us the result of some tests that she had done to state the condition of the cancer in her body. Miraculously the cancer is completely in remission. Liz wasn't home to hear the news. But after she left a message on Liz's phone and Liz called her she was overjoyed that Karen was cured. The tremendous relief and happiness that came from finding out that Karen was better made Liz so happy that the thought of having a boy turned out to not be that bad. She is still coming to terms with it but the future looks brighter.