SPlog

Big Birthday Party Posted 11-05-08

On the 23^rd of October, I had my birthday party, and invited my whole youth group and some other friends. I asked everyone to come in a costume, any costume.

~Sam Paasch

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18^th Birthday Posted 11-05-08

On the 11^th of October, I turned 18. I am excited that now I am able to get my full drivers license, vote, and buy super glue.

~Sam Paasch

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2^nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do Posted 11-03-08

The last Saturday in the month of September was testing day for my taekwondo school. It’s been a year since I achieved the rank of Black Belt, and after a year has passed, a student can test for their second degree. So I tested for my second degree and passed. Now I am 2^nd Degree Black Belt in the Martial Art of Tae Kwon Do. It was a great testing. My friend Moses tested and passed for his Brown Belt. Another friend tested for his Orange belt. I am excited that I pased and am already learning my new forms (patterns). I will now have to wait 18 months before I can test for my 3^rd Degree. So hopefully I’ll be testing spring of ’09.
~Sam Paasch

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Tae Kwon Do Nationals Posted 11-03-08

The NPTA (National Progressive Taekwondo Association) is the organization that I belong to. Each year they host the National tournament in Springfield, MO. This tournament is for all NPTA schools in the US. Currenty there are 18 schools in the organization. This year I was able to partisipate in several events. And I was awarded with medals for the events that I placed in. I was entered in 6 events: Traditional Form (Pattern), Team Form (Pattern with 2 or more people), Musical Form, Sparring (fighting with gloves, foot, and head gear), Board Breaking, and Blow-Gun (a gun that shoots needle darts when you blow in it). I placed in…

• Team Form | Bronze Medal
• Musical Form | Silver Medal
• Sparring | Silver Medal
• Board Breaking | Silver Medal
• Blow Gun | Silver Medal

~Sam Paasch

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Vacation Bible School Posted 11-03-08

Our church, Hillside Baptist Church, has church VBS every year. As usual the teens help the teachers in several things. The VBS is each evening Monday-Friday, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Toward the end there is a final lesson of the day that normally the director teaches. Well this year the Pastor and Associate Pastor decided to have a different speaker each night for the final lesson. I was asked to teach the Wednesday night lesson. This was a awesome experiance for me. Matt got to do the Tuesday night lesson, and Dad got to do the Thursday night lesson. I got to teach about Adam and Eve in the garden, and how they sinned, and because of that sin, they were separated from God. I gave the plan of salvation in a clear way. It was an awesome experiance and one that I will cherrish for life.

~Sam Paasch

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Summer Camp Posted 11-03-08

Ok I sorry I havn’t posted what new with me… It’s just soo hard to find time. But this last summer I went to summer camp. It was through our church (Hillside Baptist Church). We went to Sagmount Baptist Youth Camp, opperated through Baptist Bible Fellowship. The date was July 14-18, (Monday- Friday). Our guest speaker was Bro. Dave McCrackin, who preached awesome sermons, and gave Baptist history before each service.
There we also did several activities like sports, and talent. I had the privlege to design our church “sports” shirts. Pictures are below. We had enough boy to make a full basketball team with 9 players. We won 3 games, which was a first for our church for a long time. We played baseball, but lost our first game and was eliminated. We also played volleyball and won about 4 games in that too.

We also did a lot of talent. We had several people singing for the Lord. I was entered in several catigories and our award system was: Good, Excellent, and Superior. A side not is that only two people can get supperior ribbons, and most of the time only one person got it in that certain catigory. Here is the list of events I was entered in…

• Instrumental Group| Good
• Quartet| Good
• Small Group (5 members)| Good
• Male Vocal Solo| Good
• Large Ensemble| Excellent
• Art| Superior
• Instramental Solo (I used the Banjo)| Superior
• Song Leading| Superior – My friend Silas won this also
• Piano Solo| Superior
• Preaching| Superior – Both me and my friend Moses won this

Our church one the talent award, which was the second year in a row. Praise the Lord.
It was a great time to get to know each person in my youth department a lot better. Also it was the ideal time to get to know God better. We had three from our youth group saved the first night! It was a wonderful time. Our church won the Bible award which includes preaching (both from our chuch one superior), Bible Memory, Bible Quiz (Our Church got 1st and 3rd), and Girls Reading (Abigail got superior). The bigest award is the Church Award, which is given to the church with the most Christ-like spirit. The camp director has several people watching the campers to see which church demonstrates good sportsmanship, maintains a good spirit, and is most Christ-like. He annouced that he heard our church named several time to be the most Christ-like from his spotters.
At the end the award were nice, but the they really didn’t mean as much to the group. The talent was for the Lord, Most of the group was challenged for God. What we got out of that week was something that no earthly thing could replace or even represent. I’m remided of the verses in Matthew 6:19-21:
¹⁹Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
²⁰But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
²¹For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
~Sam Paasch

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Swimming Pool, and Kung Fu Posted 06-12-08

Thursday the 12th was a long day for me. We had recently got a 13 ft. swimming pool, but when we filled it up, it wasn’t on level ground. So Thursday my job was to dig out the new place for the pool, and level it out. It took me all day to plow up the yard, rake and hoe the dirt to level it, and after several long hours in the heat… it sill isn’t level!!! Oh well it’s better than before. Also I had to trim someone else’s lawn too. After the pool was moved, I washed up and headed out for the movies.
My best friend, Silas, called and informed me about going to the movies to watch Kung Fu Panda. I wasn’t sure if I could go at first. He was calling others to go too. But it ended up only four went. Silas, Kristi, Abigail, and myself. As I headed out the door, I grabbed something to eat on the way. We arrived at the theatre, but couldn’t find Silas or Kristi. They had called us and said that they had already got their tickets, but we didn’t see them. It ended up that they went to the wrong screen. But after a few phone calls (I love cell phones) we were able to get together to watch the movie.
After the movie we stood and talked awhile in the parking lot. We were going to go to Mic’D's, but my mom wanted me and Abigail home right away. (She was tired) So we came home and got ready for bed. And that’s how it all happened.

~Sam Paasch

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New Instrument, and a Fallen Tree Posted 06-11-08

I’ve been wanting to learn to play the mandolin after I get the banjo down pretty good. I’ve kept my eyes out for a good one for a good price. I didn’t expect to buy one until next year maybe. But this week things changed. Towards the end of last month my mom found a mandolin for sale in an add. I looked up, and studied about the instrument online. Sunday the 1st I went out and looked at it, then came home and found the same exact model online for about $300-$400.
Monday the 9th, I planned on going out with my Youth Pastor, to go door knocking and pass out VBS fliers, we were going help a missionary out with a fallen tree in her yard, and also I was going to buy a mandolin while John (my Youth Pastor) looked at a guitar.
John picked me up in his truck, and then we went to pick my friend, Moses, up too. First we went to look at the guitar and buy my mandolin. The mandolin was privately owned by an older gentleman. He enjoyed our company after losing his wife last august. He told us many stories, and showed us a picture of himself while he was in the Air Force after WWII. I bought the mandolin, which is a beautiful instrument. I have a picture attached below.
Getting close to lunch, we left and headed to John’s house, where his wife was fixing our food. After we ate, we decided to saw up the tree in the missionary’s house instead of passing out VBS fliers, because it was raining. We arrived at the house and John started working on the tree with the chain saw, while Moses and I did the manual labor and carried the logs and stacked them neatly along the fence. After a long while of working in the rain, the chain on the saw snapped. Our luck! We made a quick trip to the hardware store, and we were soon back working on the fallen tree. Moses and I started to sing camp songs while we worked, yelling the tune out so it could be heard over the chain saw. Needless to say after yelling the songs in the rain, our voices were a little sore that evening. It took us all afternoon and into the evening to finish cutting the tree up. (We didn’t get to go pass out VBS fliers) But we got it done and finished. We came home dirty, soaked, and sore from carrying the logs. But we had a good time, working together.

~Sam Paasch

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Mowing Saturday Posted 06-08-08

Saturday the 7 was crazy. I had three lawns scheduled for me to mow. Also I had a friend’s graduation party planned too. I missed out on Church VBS visitation, but I’ll try to be there next time. On my my first lawn, I was able to play a joke on my best friend Silas. But the joke somewhat backfired a little. Anyway, on my third lawn, I started to wish I had brought the sunscreen to re-apply. Also a neighbor, came to me while I was mowing, and asked me to mow some of her lawn too. So I mowed a total of three and a half lawns. Great for me, but bad for that day.
I didn’t get done until after 4:30, which meant that I was already 30 minuites late for my friend’s graduation party. So I hurried home and washed up, got dressed, looked up the address, and hurried off with my sister. We arrived late, but that was okay, the party was come and go when you want. There we ate, played games, played volleyball, and had a lot of fun. Abigail and I came home later that night, I took a shower and went to bed, tired and burnt.

~Sam Paasch

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A fun Evening Posted 06-07-08

Thursday the 12th was a fun day. Abigail and I was allowed to invite friends over for that night. We played games, had some snacks, and watched the movie Godzilla. Someone brought great homemade cookies too, my favorite. We had about 7 teens total, including me and my sister. It was a fun time. After the movie we talked for a while longer. It was great.

~Sam Paasch

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Not a normal Sunday. Posted 06-04-08

Sunday the 1st, I had the van route with my older brother Matt. He had also picked up my friend Moses (his brother-in-law) to take with us. Sunday afternoon I went over Matt’s house to help him finish his bathroom. He had been having chest pains and needed help. During the work, his chest pains worsened so we went to urgent care. There he was what he had. (I can’t remember but if you CLICK HERE, you can go to his blog and find out.) Since we stopped by urgent care, we were late for choir practice. In fact we missed it completely. For the evening service, the person who was suposed to sing a special didn’t have her music, so the Song Director asked me to sing instead. (I’m sort of a backup singer/pianinst/organist.) Anyway we had a missionary that evening, the Eberhard Family. I sang a song titled It’s Still the Cross. I was really nervous because I had little time to prepare, but I know that even if it didn’t sound great, God enjoyed it, and that’s all that counts.
That night we went to McDonalds with a lot of college kids, and other church members, and had a fun time.

~Sam Paasch

A Long Night. Posted 06-02-08

Friday night was busy. We had a Youth All-Nighter at our church. When we arrived, we set up the volleyball net, and could play football, basketball, or volleyball. After an hour of playing sports, we played a game called “Bigger or Better”. In this game, groups of 3-5 are sent out with a penny, and they are to go door-to-door, trying to “trade” for something bigger or better. My group traded the penny for a quarter, then a candle, volleyball, glass milk jar, laptop case, and finally a DVD player. Some items that the other teams brought back included a Japanese rice maker, antique table, non-working refrigerator, and a 6-foot wood fork. My team won with the DVD player.
Then we started working on the culottes and scrubs for camp. We cut the patterns so the ladies and girls can sew them together. They have about 70-100 pairs of culottes /scrubs to make! After a couple of hours of cutting the patterns out, we cleaned up the big mess, and started playing games. Shortly after the girls left to go to the house, while the boys stayed at the church. We had a lot of fun with pushup contests, 3-man pushups, and other things of that sort. We even took the wheel bases off the trash cans and started racing them around the fellowship hall. One would sit on the small base while the other would push. We were going pretty fast when someone slammed into the wall, creating a hole above the trim. That’s when we decided to stop and play flashlight tag instead.
Only one person would use the flashlight, as he would hunt the rest down. We played in the basement of our church, which includes all the sundayshool classes. All the lights were out, and the best place to hide was the kitchen, behind tables, or inside cabinets. We played that game from 1:30 in the morning till about 3:30. We had a devotion at 3:30, and then cleaned up any messes we made. After that some went to bed, sleeping on chairs, or tables, others (like myself) went and practiced on some camp songs until 5 in the morning. We played some other games and stuff, and pretty much stayed up all night/morning.
At 7:00 we had to get up to clean, and vacuum the church, and get ready to leave. We all were walking around half dead, with a dazed look. But we all had a great time.

~Sam Paasch

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Nursing Home VisitingPosted 06-02-08

Our church has special services for folks in the Nursing Homes. Last Friday my Youth Pastor picked Abigail and I, and several other teens to go. We were able sing songs, play our instruments, and be a good blessing to all of the people there. After it was all done, we came home and got ready for a Youth All-Nighter, at the Church.

~Sam Paasch

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Mowing for the SummerPosted 06-02-08

This summer I am still mowing lawns for money. I’m guess I’ll get a different job later. I’m also going to work at the local fair in the Security Dept. That will be fun! Also for the fall I plan on working at the same place my Dad works, Cox Home Support. I’ll be cleaning the equipment that comes in, then packaging it for resale.
Last Thursday I mowed four lawns. I spent most of the day outside in the sun, baking my skin, and staring at green grass. I have a pretty big sunburn now. After it was all done, I went home to eat, and rest.

~Sam Paasch

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Early in the WeekPosted 06-02-08

Sunday the 25th went well. My dad and I went to the Men’s Prayer Breakfast at our church. In Sunday School we were reading about the Life of Joshua, and that day we were going over the Battle of Jericho. My youth Pastor gave us some toy soldiers and told us to “prepare” for battle. Then both teams used q-tips and straws to knock the soldiers down. Our Youth Pastor then showed us that we went to battle “prepared”, but for the Israelites, they didn’t prepare like you’d normally prepare, instead they had to trust God for the victory. Instead of going to battle, the Israelites marched around the city several times.
I sang a song titled He Took the Hill for the morning service. That evening I was asked to play the piano for the services.
Monday my family went to Silver Dollar City for the day. On our way Matt called to talk to Dad. He was having trouble with his bathroom that day. At SDC Abigail and I rode several rides while my parents watched shows. We found some friends there and rode a water-ride with them. We got off the ride, Water ‘Boggin, totally soaked. As we left the park, we ran into one of Dad’s co-workers, so we had to say and visit for a while longer.
Our church goes the hottest week in July, to Camp. Ladies in the church offer to make culottes for the girls. Well one year the girls all decided to match each other for camp, and someone made a pair of matching scrubs for my Youth Pastor. They were very cool to wear that hot summer week, and all the other boys liked the idea of the cool material. So the next year, the girls had matching culottes, and the boys had scrubs that matched as well. They’re great for sports, in the heat of the day. They feel nice, and last year we (the boys) wore our one pair of scrubs every afternoon for sports.

This year the ladies offered to make culottes, or scrubs, for any one, as long as they supplied the material, so my friends and I decided to get camouflage, and I was the one to pick it out. Tuesday I went to Walmart with my grandma to get 17 yards of camou material, but they only had 10. So after a long wait, we finally found out which store in town had enough material. So before Tae Kwon Do, I went to a Walmart on the opposite side of town, and got the material.

~Sam Paasch

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Another Busy SaturdayPosted 05-30-08

Well, Saturday the 24, the family met at my grandpa’s graveside. There we decorated the grave, and sang a song while Abigail played the guitar. We sang “I call it Home”. Then we all went back to the house for grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. I also had to mow a lawn that day. After we ate, and I came back from mowing, Abigail said that we had to mow our lawn before we left, Mom’s orders. We were planning on going to the movies with my friends from church. So we quickly mowed and washed up and hurried out the door. We went to see Indiana Jones: The search of the Crystal Skull. We all (my friends) met at my best friends house, and from there piled into two cars and left for the movies. Abigail and I didn’t get home until after Ten that night.

~Sam Paasch

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Having Fun at the SwingsPosted 05-22-08

If you lived in Springfield for some time, you would probably be aware about the old “Barn Swings” located in Seymore, about half an hour south of Springfield. This place was a barn that was turned into a… well I don’t know what to call it… they hooked up some swings to it and you would jump from a high position and be thrust round and round the swings. Most had two swings for double swinging. One would jump first, then the second would jump when the first was halfway around. This place was really popular. But a couple of years ago the barn caught fire and burned down. They tried to rebuild, but the origional building was “Too close to the road”. So they built instead outside big swings, and renamed the place “Sport Swings”.
Last Tuesday, my home school co-op went to the Sport Swings for an end-of-year party. There we got to swing, and had other activities to do. My favorite was the Huge swing called The Beast. Me and a couple of others (two alumni girls) climed the tall steps and were attached to the swing Superman Style. (that means that we were strapped in where we would be lying flat facing the ground.) On the count of three we jumped up and were free falling to the ground, then swinging ’round and ’round.

Attached is a photo of the old origional barn swings, 2 photos of The Beast and barn, and 2 of me on the new swings.

~Sam Paasch

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Grades Finally Posted!Posted 05-19-08

I finally got my grades for my OTC classes. For Spanish I recieved a B, and for Micro Computer Applications I got an A. I am very happy with these grades. Yahoo!!! Now next fall semester I will be taking College Pre-Calc. This is going to be an intersting class, and I am not looking forward to it too much. Anyway, right now I’m celebrating, especially for my Spanish grade, because that was my hardest class last semester.

~Sam Paasch

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A busy SaturdayPosted 05-17-08

I’ve been doing pretty well, lately. Today I had to get up and mow a lawn, then hurry and get ready for a job interview, then back into my jeans and t-shirt to mow two more lawns. When I got back home my brother and sister-in-law were there. They came down to visit her sister who recently had a baby. While they were here we went to see my grandpa’s gravestone which was just placed a day ago. After some pictures at the graveside, my brother and sister left back for the hospital. Oh and while they were here, I was able to trade out my laptop memory and upgrade to 2GB instead of only 1GB. Now my laptop is really running smooth.

~Sam Paasch

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Website finally finnished!Posted 05-16-08

Well today I finally finished the website. A day earlier too. One awesome new feature is a daily Bible verse. Now I’m going to work on my business website, samsbuttons.8m.com. If you havn’t seen my whole website yet, I suggest you look around. I thinks It’s awesome, for me anyway.

~Sam Paasch

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Finals Week at OTCPosted 05-16-08

This week was finalls at Ozark Technical Community College. On Wednesday I had Micro Application final exam. That is a class that covers Microsoft Office. I’m supposed to find out my final grade by the end of this week. Today I took my Spanish final. My teacher said that she will post the grades tonight. I hope I get a good grade.

Thanks for reading…

~Sam Paasch

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Slide show ViewerPosted 05-14-08

I finally found a slideshow program to create small slideshows for websites or blogs. I created a cool slideshow, and added it to mychurch.org/sampaasch. I have also been working on my website. The pages are almost ready, and the update date is May 17. The pages that will be added are, blog, about sam, hobbies, news, and more. Also I plan on June 21 or 28 to be the next update time. Anyway, view the photos by clicking on the link above, or go to the home page and view them.

Anyway…I’ll write later

~Sam Paasch

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My first public blogPosted 05-13-08

This is my first blog that is public also. I am finnally an artist on myspace. So now I have the ability to host 3 of my songs there. I’m also on Facebook and Mychurch. But I will say that alot of my blogs will continue here on my personal website.

This was fun…see you later

~Sam Paasch

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Banjo at ChurchPosted 05-11-08

Tonight I was able to play the banjo during the offering at my church. The song I played was “I’ll Fly Away”. This song is able to be downloaded from my banjo page. CLICK HERE to view that page to download. I was very nervous during the song, but with God’s help I was able to get through the whole song. It was fun. I’ll have to post more later.

~Sam Paasch

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My first Blog, Today is Mother’s DayPosted 05-11-08

This is my first blog entry on my personal website. This is great!!! Today was mother’s day, Abigail and I bought my mom a webcam. This was so she could talk to family over the internet. My oldest brother Matt has one built into his laptop and we got to see how it worked earlier. The webcam is cool. Today we were able to talk to my other brother. He and his wife live in another city and could not visit today. It was neat talking to them (almost in real person). Wow!! When I’m older they’ll probably have 3-D holographics video conferencing. This was fun.

Bye…

~Sam Paasch