Schwalk Family Update

Hello all,

We just wanted to touch base with all of our friends and family and let you know the exciting adventures our family is involved in.  As most of you know, Kim and I have felt the calling from God to reach outside of our family and bring children into it.  We started the adoption process back in September of 2011 looking for which direction God was sending us.  We prayed over it a lot and the resounding answer we kept getting was a local adoption through CPS/Foster System. 

            We found an organization that really grabbed us in October called Arrow Child and Family Ministries, and began the process of joining with them on our search for the child/children that God has set aside for us.  After all the classes we had to attend and all the background checks, we are still waiting on the State Inspections so we can be ready to go when we find our children.  We thought we were going to be in a holding pattern until everything was completed, however God had better plans.

From April 1^st through April 4^th, we got the opportunity to help out a foster mom that needed to go out of town for work through something they call respite.  For those that have not heard of respite, it’s pretty much foster care for a short period of time.  We had the wonderful opportunity to watch two beautiful 3-month-old twins.  Even though we did not get much sleep during that time, we were able to be there for not only the kids, but were also able to let the foster mom go take care of her job responsibilities without having to worry about the kids she has had since they were 11 days old.

          
Even though we are being blessed by God for letting us do this for him, we kept feeling that he had bigger plans for us while we wait on his timing.  This is where the fun really has started lately.  On March 24^th, we were able to join with others in our church and around the area to help an organization called Feed One to package enough meals to feed over 270,000 children in Zambia in just a few hours.  It just blew us away seeing what a little over 1,000 people can accomplish with just giving up a little bit of their time.  This got our Adult Bible Fellowship (ABF) class thinking what more can we do.  The answer God has given us:  Go to Guatemala and help my children in need.

       
   Wow.  Guatemala? Are you sure there is nothing here that needs to be done? Hmm.  OK Lets go.  That is the conversation that went on in my head for about 30 seconds once I heard the calling.  However we don’t know how God will provide everything that we need to do his calling.  We have partnered with an Orphanage just outside of Guatemala City and will be heading down there to help add on to the existing structure from July 21^st through the 26^th.  This orphanage sadly has had to turn children away right now because they do not have the room to accommodate the need in the area.  The problem is that the orphanage does not have the money to complete the needed additions.  That’s where God has tasked our ABF group to help out as well.  We feel that God wants us to come up with the money we will need to complete his work.  The problem we have is its $20,000 plus the expense for all of us to get down there. 

 
         That’s were I hope you can help us out.  There is no way we can pull off Gods work for us without help.  My hope is that you will pray for us as we follow Gods calling, and also pray if God is calling you to help out in any way.  I know that we all have our daily vices that we spend money on.  It could be our morning coffee from Starbucks, our $10 we spend on lunch each day, or the Restaurant that we go to for dinner.  What I am asking you to do is ask God if he needs you go drink Folders Coffee for a while, bring a ham sandwich for lunch, or spend less on the dinner you have at night.  I know this can be hard and a little bit of an inconvenience, but if this is something that God is calling you to do, then think of what He can accomplish with it.  Any help that you can give will be greatly appreciated and put toward Gods calling in this area. Donations can be made straight to Kim and I, or you can make them out to First Baptist Church Burleson and earmark them for the trip to Guatemala if you would like a Tax Donation slip.  

I look forward to seeing how God will use all of us in this ministry and we will keep you updated as things unfold.

                                                                                                         
  God Bless,
 The Schwalk Family

Who is that stupid

I have a question for you.

Let’s say that you just started a new job. You don’t know anyone there and are not quite sure what is acceptable to do and what is not. Would you then decide on your own that it would be ok to switch out the computer that is sitting on your desk for one that is sitting at someone else’s desk just because you like it better? And better yet, would you do that with out asking someone if it was ok?

That is what someone did here at work yesterday. She decided that it would be ok since she felt that she should have the best possible computer that she could have. But since she didn't tell anyone that she did this, when the person whose computer was switched came in and it wasn’t hooked up right, he told me it didn’t work.

Well after I looked at the machine and noticed that the wrong computer was at his desk and the label that was on his computer was now on the other machine I had to assume that someone "walked off" with his computer and tried to cover it up. Well I then had to inform my boss by phone what was going on since he had not made it into the office and he came to the same conclusion.

Needless to say that when we found out what had happened we were planning on just placing the computer back where it needed to be and have a talk with the new employee on why she can't do that.

But then the new employee walked in while me and my boss (head of IT) were switching the computers back and coped and attitude with us about we shouldn't touch her computer. When confronted with what she did, she of course said that she didn’t do it and that the computer was there when she started. Little did she know that we had just done an inventory of all the computers and re imaged them as well this past weekend.

Then she changed her story saying the other computer didn't work and that is why she switched the computer with the one that was at an empty desk. After we told her that we know that the computer works and that the other computer was not at an empty desk, she decided to claim that she didn’t know that she wasn't allowed to move computers.

To make a long story shorter.....She only lasted 2 days at a new job. The crazy part is that if she had just told the truth and not made up a story she would have just been talked to about it.

I guess that the moral of the story is tell the truth and don't try and cover up a mistake.

Just some of my Favorite Calvin and Hobbs

Anything is Possible

It has been along time since I have posted a blog on here and for that I am sorry. But for some reason I have had nothing to write about. I thought about writing about how people change around the holidays but I didn’t feel like it. Then I thought about writing about how glad I was to see the Longhorns win the National Championship, but thanks to lexrob.com that was already taken care of. Then I thought about one of my Christmas presents. It was a Texas Longhorns Hat. Now normally this wouldn’t be that great of an idea to blog about, but it is special because of who it came from. It was from an Aggie!!!! This started me thinking that if an Aggie can look past all of the hate between the two colleges and still find the ability to give me the gift I wanted, then maybe anything is possible. Maybe one day celebrities will have a long lasting marriage. Maybe one day Baylor football wouldn’t be a joke. And maybe one day Oil Companies will not have to charge us way too much for gas. What else do yall think might be possible?

I Stole this

Ok, I am going to start out by saying that I stole this blog. But it raises a good question and I would like to get everyone’s take on it. I commented to the original post but it was an old post so probably not going to get a response. So here it is .....Sorry Brady wherever you are.

How do you define God as being omnipotent? Do you simply state that God can do everything and leave it at that to explain itself? There is a problem with doing that. The problem being in the factor of evil. Can God sin? Can God do evil? These are questions that come up if you only say that God can do everything. So how do you answer those questions if you say God can do everything?

My comment was : I am new to the whole philosophy thing but I would say that GOD can do anything and everything. I do believe if God wanted to he could sin and he could do evil. I believe that the fact that he has the power to do these things and chooses not to is what makes him the awesome God that he is.

I would enjoy reading your answers to this question

ITS TEX

Have you ever met someone and thought to yourself, "I he/she looks just like ....".
Well that is what happened when I was surfing the web and came upon a group picture of the band "CAKE". While most people wouldn’t know him....this looks just like my brother-in-laws brother-in-law.

This happens to me a lot and has led to some embarrassing situations. I was at the Atlanta airport on my way back to Texas for a few days when I saw someone across the terminal that I swore I knew. Well I called out my friends name and for some reason he didn’t look up at me. I figured that it must just be too loud for him to hear me so I decided to walk up to him. Well when I got right next to him I said “Hey John". Well the guy looked up and right away I could tell that he was not my friend John, but it was too late to keep from looking like a complete idiot.

So the moral of this story is: make sure you know the person before you walk up to them.

Uncle Rico in da House!!!

You are Uncle Rico and could throw a football over
them mountains.


Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
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For Sale

I have a question for you. With the number of people that have bought a house, why hasn't the title company’s gotten a system down where you can close in 1 hour.

I bought my first house last week and it was the worst thing that I have had to go through. I was originally supposed to close at 8 am on a Thursday which would have been great cause I could have started to move in Friday night so my weekend wouldn’t totally been shot. Well that 8am time got pushed back to Friday at 8am. That would have been ok too. Sure it would make for a hectic Friday, but at least I could start moving that night.

Well that didn’t happen either. By this time I was starting to get upset but my builder and my loan officer both assured me that it would happen by 12 noon. Well 12 noon came and went without a call from anyone. So I called them.

Turns out that the paperwork wasn't quite ready but it should be done within 1 hour at the latest. Well 1pm didn’t happen either. So I called everyone again. They told me that it shouldn’t be much longer and that I should just be at the title company by 3pm.

Well I was ready for this to be all over so I went up to the title company at 3pm and told them that I was there to close and they told me that it would be another 30 minutes before the papers were ready. Well 30 minutes isn’t that bad so I was kinda excited. Well what the front desk forgot to tell me was that this was not the normal 30 minutes that everyone in the world goes by, this was the 30 minutes that title company’s go by.

Well to make a long story a little shorter, those 30 minutes turned out to be 3 hours. I could have worked all day and still been there by the time that the papers were ready. Me and my wife didn’t sit down to sign the papers till 6pm. That put us there till 7pm. Now everyone knows that banks don’t normally fund past 4pm but somehow everything got taken care of that night and we got to move in on Saturday.

And so I will leave it at this. If you are about to buy a house, do not plan anything till everything is said and done and you will not be disappointed when your plans fall apart.