Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.

- Rabindranath Tagore

Inspirational Music

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanks-giving

A God, bigger than I can wrap my mind around.

A Mother, whose Love is stronger than my head is hard.

A Father, who worked and works harder than I can even imagine just to give us kids the chance to take the opportunities God's given us.

A Sister, who never let her size stop her from being my big sis.

A Brother, who saved my life.

A family, willing to drop everything to make sure I wasn't alone while I faced the hardest trial yet.

Friends, worthy of the Title of Bru.

So many others, whose lives have shown me that I have a reason to hope, to hope in redemption.

Friday, September 25, 2009

original

I don't get lost; I get there a different way. - Caleb Baber

Molly and Caleb


This is a picture of Molly and I. I like Molly a lot. I'm going to meet her family this weekend; I'm stoked.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Well now, lets see what this summer has been like...

So, the last update I seem to have written was towards the end of my stay in Denver. Oh, how things change. I am now in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) India, but not without making a few stops has yours truly gotten from there to here.

Let's start with the end of Denver. I drove home to Norfolk but decided I was getting bored so I totalled my truck to make things a bit more interesting. I did, however, overlook my need for it as transport to Tennessee the next week so it was regrettable timing. Well, as I always say "Bash on Regardless." That last sentence was a lie, I only found that phrase this year in Hyderabad and find it intriguingly vague, yet wholly entertaining. So I flew to Tennessee instead of driving. This meant getting picked up by a very good buddy in Nashville and a visit to the Burn. This would be the burn unit in Vanderbilt. It was incredible to go back...to walk through the doors I had been taken out on a stretcher only months before to the applause of many incredible individuals on the nursing staff. I was able to see some of the nurses who I knew well and even eat supper with my friend Liz who is one of the most caring people I know and a very good nurse to me. Then I stayed with Danny (who, by the way, I met in the Burn as he was also electrocuted last fall) and visited Cleveland and saw a few friends before they went to Central America or something. I think they were doing some sort of missions trip, haha. They were going on a Medical Missions trip through the University. The I went to Bonnaroo with Danny and his crazy fun friends for almost a week. 80000 hippies is too many to be in one place. Then we (Danny, Doug, and myself (Doug would be one of Danny's friends who i would now call a friend)) road tripped back to Nebraska with them staying for a few days before they continued on to the west and the mountains. I then made a weekend trip to Wichita to visit my good friend Nate Purdum with Charlie and Jason. Then spent the next extended weekend in Seattle with my Aunt and Uncle. We also scooted up to Whistle, BC (thats in Kanada) for a day which was awesome. Then I was back in Norfolk for a week or so to enjoy the county fair and my friends and family. At one of these intervals at home I managed to buy another car, this time a car not a truck. Then I went to Sunshine Festival with my friends Joy and Lee. Got back Saturday and then Wednesday July 22 or so I flew to Mumbai. I had a wonderful experience there kicking it off with getting left at the airport at 2am and having to find the number for my host but eventually catching up the next day. I also met a few english bloke at the Cafe Leopold as well as spent a day at an AIDS clinic. Then to Hyderabad where I was again forgotten at the airport but just caught a cab to the base. Spent the week at our school getting to know my boys a bit more with the Nebraska team. I would like to note that I drove a scooter as well as a manual Jeep on Indian roads for several km. Yep, on the left side of the road and everything. Crazy fun, eh Anthony. Then we came to Kolkata the team left friday and I've been staying with a friend from Norfolk at some friends flat here (by friends I mean Melissa arranged to stay with them but we only just met them here in Kolkata). I visited Mother Theresa's resting place and the home of the Missionaries of Charity as well as worked at Prem Dan, one of the homes she established. I have also seen quite a bit more but do not have the time to elaborate. Next I travel home to Norfolk and then two days later move to Cleveland, TN for the fall semester at Lee University! It is also of note that I will be getting evaluated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for my shoulder and its adamant lack of nerves over the first weekend in September.

Well, there you have it, the rest of the story, well, for the last 2 months that is.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Well, Last week in Denver

Hard to believe its almost over. It seems like I've hardly started the projects I have been working on. I plan on leaving for Norfolk friday whenever I finish up work. I'm very excited to be getting home earlier than I was originally planning. I miss my family and friends.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Denver

Well,
I've been here a week. It's been quite a change in many ways. There is more and less. More view, activity, and recreational options such as snowboarding. Less friends, hangin out at night, and doctors visits. I guess you can't have everything. Thats ok. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve in any capacity at the Dalit Freedom Network. I'm very excited for what the organization is stepping into and how they are workin their butts off for the Dalit people!

Yesterday I was going through letters from the children to their sponsors and putting them together with the students report cards. I was very happy to get to work on Uddamarri's letters. It was great to get to see my boys letters but also to see the amount of work that goes into getting those letters out to every donor. I also saw many of the children I met and interacted with while in India as well as many that were sponsored by friends of mine!

On a very different note, I have found that all the activities available has been taking a toll on my legs. Nothing to worry about, but I have had to take it easy today because of how incredibly sore and worn down they have gotten. I wouldn't have it any other way. I have said it before but I'll say it again: I won't be the thing holding me back, I already have plenty of things doing that, my attitude will not hold me back.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Snowboarding

Yesterday I snowboarded. The only way to describe it is a blessing from God, an outpouring of His Amazing Grace into my life! I can't believe that a mountain was open on May 2nd with enough snow for me to try, but A-basin was. So the video I put up shows me getting up the first time! God gave me the strength to just start snowboarding! I made it down the entire first run without falling, and I started from a normal run not the little bunny slope. God is incredible! I made it to the top of the mountain and down a few of the hardest blue runs. The day was not without complications; though, my leg actually came off on the lift! It didn't fall, but my leg was totally out of the socket on the prosthetic so it looked like my leg was broke in half. We were able to get it back on in such a way that I rode my board off the lift like a sled and out of the way. I also had to ride with an incredible amount of pain. I gladly accepted that bad with the good God was giving me. The day was an incredible success!

So I woke up today and I feel like I got hit by a train. Every inch of my body is aching, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Walking

God is Good.

God is Sovereign.

I have said those two phrases from close to the beginning. He most certainly is both, completely.

I have no words for what it was to stand again, to take the first step and continue walking, to carry my crutches to the car, and be unable to stop smiling.

X walking
running
hiking
X riding a bicycle
riding a motorcycle
snowboarding
dancing
climbing
swimming

yes, thats right, i just jumped right on and took a friends bike for a ride around the student union at UNL! i think it's a good first step towards getting back on my bike (motorcycle that is).

Looking back over the last 7 months is more like trying to remember the last 7 years. So much has happened. In many ways, I'm not sure I would recognize the guy I was that morning. In so many though, I feel like I'm the same old Caleb.

its my birthday today. what a present!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Destiny

Tuesday. I'm sorry, I was going to talk about Tuesday first but I'm listening to "In Christ Alone" (my hope is found). I don't know what else to say but you need to listen to it, and that means being quiet:




No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow'r of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow'r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow'r of Christ I'll stand.

Thats the last verse...........
this has brought me right to Tuesday without even realizing it. I haven't stood on my own strength and two feet since September 20th 2008. But no power of hell or scheme of man will keep me from being able to again. I haven't been promised that it will be Tuesday but i think it might be. It is fully within the hands of my God! I do want to go back to the lines: from life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny.....this most assuredly includes every step taken to get me from who I was when I met Him to the tower that September Saturday. I hope that the truth of who He is settles into my own heart. I hope it settles so deep that as it is fire it consumes me to the uttermost and continues His redemption of this man.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

I put a video on the bottom, watch it

i came across this today and was brought to tears, not tears of longing so much as tears of hope. to see with my eyes what can be is incredibly good. i cannot explain how this video drives me on, along with Psalm 27:13-14:

What, what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living! Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.


tomorrow, or rather later today i guess, i am going to the prosthetist. my wound/burn doctor said last week that i could get fit and begin wearing the left leg to see if the open areas would continue to heal with it on. so i hope to get fit for my left leg and talk about upgrading to better ankles which means legs on which running and hiking and perhaps swimming, snowboarding and dancing can be learned again. we'll see. i'm stoked to get this process started, in some ways it seems like a long time, but in reality its been only a few months since i walked. God's grace is incredible. i wonder if it's possible to overuse that word...GRACE. maybe, maybe not.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Reading finally


So, I'm awake. I'm ready to go read. I like the sounds of that.

A deep breath: held, lost, and gasped for. Perhaps finally caught.


I just decided that more than anything else right now, even than the big summer plans I've been hatching, I want to read a book and finish the darn thing!

I picked up a copy of this and took it halfway to bed, then put it down and went back to the bookshelf because that sounded better. After repeating this too many times I opened the book I wanted to read before I set about crawling back to my bed. This one was Oswald Chambers biography. I almost didn't pick it up in the first place because I thought I was in the mood for something with more energy or entertainment value. I did pick it up. I opened it and realized that I had read it up to page 82. I thought I had a good chance of finishing it so I took it back and made it all the way. As I opened it in the warm light of my bedside lamp the rush of memory flooded in. Now I'm losing my composer and getting my keyboard wet. I was reading this very book the night before I went hiking that Semptember Saturday..................................I remember how hard I was trying to read a chapter a night no matter how late I got in from being as college as legit college gets or how early I had to get up to make coffee before I left. I remember vaguely making head-way in the book as well as in establishing again the simple practice of enjoying a good book while quieting my mind of the dreams of tomorrow (which really did pull a lot of weight and still do, much more than the worries of the day). It's interesting that I would find this tonight. I watched the picture Garden State for the first time tonight. It's a story of a young man who finally finds himself and strength to be himself with a thorough washing away of his old facade. I don't have a direct comparison at all, but the film made me think a lot about the things I like about myself and the things about me that not only honor God but bring Him joy. I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd try reading.

I don't know what else there is to be said other than the hour is late.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

I think I'll post on here from now often

Well, I think Caleb'sRoad is not anywhere near finished but I do think that I want to write on this blog instead.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Thursday, March 5, 2009

well, i shrunk 2 inches yesterday and did 10 push-ups on my toes today. its a bigger deal to me than can be understood by most.