Gabe The Cake Man (Sweet-ish Chef) and Livvy go to Country Lake Retreat Center for Elementary Camp for Southeast Christian Church

Four times in the month of July, Livvy and I went to Country Lake Christian Retreat Center to be missionaries for the 3rd - 5th grade Elementary Camps.  This was pretty fun!  Before the first camp we were pretty nervous because we did a skit in front of the whole group of children but it turned out to be great!  The children were great listeners!

Sweet-ish Chef and Livvy doing a skit at Elementary Camp for SECC 2014

Livvy read a "Big Faith Story" to the Sweetish Chef

Livvy and I got to pray with campers during their prayer-walk

Each time we went, we brought cupcakes that had candy Lego blocks on them.  The children got to have the cupcakes on their last day of camp at lunch time.  When the children came on the prayer-walk, we gave them each a Lego block and they built a structure that was to represent the hospital or clinic we are trying to raise money for.  Then three students prayed for the project.  One would pray for the missionaries that will be needed to go to the hospital, one prayed for the people that are sick that will go to the hospital and one prayed for the rest of the donations that we need to come in.  That was actually one of our favorite parts about doing this!  It was so fun to hear the other children praying for the project and they asked us some really awesome questions!

Week 1 of camp cupcakes - we decorated them with Lego candy

The first week we made 208 cupcakes.  We had heard that there were about 160 campers and 30 staff but then we found out that some of the leaders didn't get any cupcakes the first week, so the next week I (Gabe) made 216 cupcakes all by myself since Livvy was AT CAMP.  Here are a few pictures of all the boxes of cake mix and eggs just from one week of camp!

I used 10 boxes of cake mix for week 2 of camp 

30 eggs to make the week 2 cupcakes!

I did it!  This is 216 cupcakes to take to camp!

where is Livvy when I need her?  Oh yeah, she is at camp!

Livvy and her best friend, Sophia going to camp as campers

It was actually pretty fun to go up to camp and meet Livvy there for week 2.  She did a great job with the skit even though she was a camper.  We didn't stay for the worship service after doing the skit so Livvy could feel like she was just a camper.  We didn't have her stand at the prayer station for the prayer walk either because we wanted her to stay with her group.  That seemed a little weird not having her there.  It made me realize how much we work together on this!

my best friend Isaac helped us make the cupcakes for the 3rd session

we made and decorated 270 cupcakes!

this was the most cupcakes we have ever made for a single event!

Week three was fun because my friend, Isaac helped us decorate the cupcakes.  It is always more fun when you have friends helping!  He went to camp with us that night too.    For the last session of camp, Livvy and I did another video while we were decorating 240 cupcakes.  The video we made was actually for my brother, Isaac.  You can watch that video in the blog post that is right before this one.  We made it because we thought he would be able to show it to the Governor's Scholar Students that he is a part of right now but in the end, he didn't get to show it.  We aren't sure how God is going to use that video but we know it is for a reason that we made it.  For some reason it was hard to make it.  It took us about 20 tries!

The 4th session of camp went super well and the children asked really good questions when they came through on the prayer walk.  Both Livvy and I are glad we got to be part of camp this summer!  It was fun to be able to tell almost 800 children about the project and to tell them that they can do big things for God too!

Sweet-ish Chef and Livvy waiting to do their skit

Many children told us that they want to do something for God too!  Some of them are going to try to get a Samaritan's Purse catalog and get some stuff for people.  Other children said they want to help us!  We know that there were lots and lots of snack tokens in the offering buckets!  That is so huge to give up snack because that is one of the best things that you get to do at camp!  We don't know how much was raised yet but we will update the post when we know.

Gabe The Cake Man and Livvy give a pep talk to the Bellarmine 2014 GSP students

So this video took us many, many, many tries...like maybe 20 tries!  But we finally got it right and once we put it up on youtube, we sent our brother, Isaac the link.  Isaac is at Governor's Scholar Program right now and he was going to try to show it to all the GSP students at their last conference together, hoping that all the students would be a Number 1 Team Member and that our story would inspire them to do big things too.  However, as it turns out, GSP does not allow anyone to talk about charity fundraising like this because almost everyone there is involved with some sort of fundraising or whatever, so it would be about 350 students all talking about their favorite charity.  We do not know why God does not want us to show it to all of them after we made it, but we are trusting that God will use it anyway and that there is some other reason that we took all the time to make it.  

PS:  Tonight is our last night of camp.  After we are all done, we will post pictures and videos.  We will try to put up some of the voice recording that we have done of the children praying for our project because that has been pretty cool too!  

Here's a preview of the camp cupcakes for this week!

Swedish Chef (Sweet-ish Chef) goes to Southeast Christian Church Summer Camp

Livvy and I get to do something super exciting!  We are going to be the "summer missionaries" for Southeast Christian Church's elementary summer camps!  We decided to make a little "trailer video" to give the kids a clue about who will be there (us).  We impersonated the Swedish Chef but we called it the "Sweet-ish Chef".  We would really appreciate your prayers!  Pray that we glorify God and that we inspire the children to try to do BIG THINGS for God!  Pray that the Lord gives us donations through this as well...Here it is:

Epic Fundraising Yard Sale for Gabe The Cake Man & Livvy's Hospital Project

Livvy and I have a wonderful friend.  Her name is "Miss Bev" and she is like a part of our family!  When we first started our project she told us she wanted to be on our Number 1 Team (which means she wanted to raise $350).  Miss Bev doesn't have much money so she decided to have a huge yard sale by asking people to donate whatever stuff they wanted to get rid of and we would sell it to make a donation to the hospital project.

There was some pretty great stuff donated!  In fact, we made a quick video to show everyone how much stuff was there!  Here it is:

Here are a couple of pictures of some of our favorite stuff:  (In the end, we raised almost $2,000!)

Rumble in the Jungle...got my George Foreman and my Ali punching bag

This is an epic helmet

We knew it would eventually come to this...Sponge Bob would need to save Isaac from Taylor!

This was our favorite Yard Sale Visitor!

His name is Duke and he is awesome!

Livvy decided she needed to try out this keyboard but it tired her out!

My Little Pony Cake for a Special Number One Team Member

Not every cake that we make turns out great without some problems.  Take the My Little Pony cake we made for our friend, Mia for example.  This was our first full sheet cake.  Did you know it takes SIX CAKE MIXES to make a full size sheet cake?  (That was not the problem though)

We used frosting that you buy from the cake decorating store.  This was not the usual brand that we had used before, so that could be part of the problem.  Or, it could be that we had to heat our frosting knife in hot water and maybe too much water was added, even though we shook off the water each time; or maybe it was that my dad opened the oven door to let the oven cool down quicker and it made the kitchen humid.  No matter what, this cake was very frustrating!  The piping around the top edge kept sliding off like an avalanche!  In the end, it didn't look quite as neat as I like it to look but we ended up taking everything out of the refrigerator and putting it in a cooler or in the small fridge that we have, so we could put the cake in the fridge till we brought it to Mia's party.  Even then, just before we cut the cake, some of the top piping slid off!  Thank goodness the cake tasted great even if the icing didn't want to stay on!

Muhammad Ali Center Congo14, Bruno Mars, Gabe The Cake Man & Livvy-Bug Will Make a Great TEAM

Two weeks ago we had an amazing turn of events in our project!  It hasn't really gotten us many new donations, but we got to do some super cool things!  First, we were called by the Food Network Channel to see if we wanted to try out for a kid cooking challenge contest show.  (We said, "No".)  This was an honor for us to realize that they saw our WAVE3 news spot from when we made Abbey's wedding cake, but the opportunity didn't really seem to fit with our project and we don't really want to do things for fame.  We are trying really hard to just keep doing what we are doing so that God gets all the glory.

But on that SAME DAY, we were called by the Muhammad Ali Center because they wanted to ask us if we wanted to be a part of their upcoming press release they were having to tell the press about who their A-List singer is going to be in September for their Congo14 event. (It is Bruno Mars) It was pretty cool how this is working out that the Muhammad Ali Center is going to be doing this event in Louisville and the Congo at the same time to celebrate the anniversary of when Muhammad Ali fought George Forman in Zaire (which is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) 40 years ago, and we are trying to get enough money to build a hospital there!  The Ali Center wanted to know if we would speak at the Press Conference and tell about what we are doing to help the people in the Congo!  We said, "Yes", not because we wanted to speak, that was actually super scary, but because it seems like we have some shared goals. WDRB News included us just a tiny bit in their story about the press conference on the news that night.  You can see that here:  WDRB News Clip

In the end, it was scary but also kind-of fun!  We got to tour the Ali Center for free and we got to go back to Sullivan University to learn two more super cool things!  Chef Richardson taught us how to print out an edible image (which our wonderful friend, actually my mom's best friend, Denise who owns Big Idea Media Group, made for us with the Congo14 logo and an image of the Rumble in the Jungle on it) and put it on a cake.  We also learned how to do rainbow piping around the cake!  Here is a video of us learning this stuff at Sullivan: Click Here.

Here are a few pictures of the cake:

We gave our speeches but they were not on the news or anything.  Many of the people at the press conference came up and talked to us after it was over and took our card with the link to our blog, but nothing has really come from that.  My dad thinks this is because God wants to prove that it is only HIM doing this project with us!  God is using children like us to bring in the donations so God wants to show He can do this big thing through the least likely source.  Livvy & I think this is true.  So far, it is really children doing their 1% or people donating their 1% that have gotten us to 37%!  Anyway, if you would like to see our speeches, click this and go to the 8:34 minute mark.  We are super excited that the Ali Center people have told us we can come to the Congo14 celebration and even meet the ambassador of the Congo and Bruno Mars.  We are hoping this means we will meet Muhammad Ali too.  :)  

Thanks for reading about it and most of all, keep praying for us!  (And by the way, everyone really seemed to like the cake.  We had made it a surprise by making the cake batter into a tie-dye pattern with red, blue, purple and black!)

Blaise-the-Batman-Boy-Hero and Sweet Efrata are Helping Build The Hospital

Meet our little friend, Blaise...we think he is about the cutest child on the planet!  Blaise just turned 5 and he loves all things related to Batman!  We think he is a SUPER HERO because he asked his family and friends to just give donations to the hospital project instead of getting him presents.  What five year old does this???  Blaise is pretty special because he was born deaf but he has a cochlear implant and can hear now.  His family adopted a little boy from another country with the same problem and he had not heard anything for the first 4 years of his life.  Thankfully, they got him a cochlear implant too and he has been hearing for a year.  What a wonderful family Blaise has!  Anyway, we decided to to make a Batman cake for Blaise because he is definitely on our #1 team for his unselfish ways!  His efforts made $170. in donations!

 Now meet our friend Efrata.  She used to live in Ethiopia but has been adopted and lives here in the United States.  She heard Livvy & I talk at the Block at Southeast Christian Church and she also decided to ask for donations to the project instead of birthday presents!  She just turned 12 and was so sweet and excited to be a  part of the Number 1 Team!  She didn't want a cake so we gave her one of our aprons.  Her efforts raised $345!  We feel so incredibly blessed to become friends with such amazing children!