The Rest of our Busy Week

Serving Church Lunch It has been a big week! I took my camera to church last Sunday because I gave lunch. Since this was about the 26th time that I was doing this and I had never documented it on camera, I thought now was my chance. Whitney and I had spent Saturday assembling our four and one half roasters of chili and slicing up carrots and celery. The cookies and bars were all baked, the crackers, cheese, grapes and milk were purchased. My dinner list sign up sheet was full. We got to church soon after 8am to start heating up the chili. One of the first things that I did was to turn the breaker to the coffee maker on, then I turned the coffee maker on. It wasn't long before a burst of water came pouring out behind the coffee maker and it wouldn't stop. Thankfully Steve was with me, but he didn't get the water shut off soon enough to avoid "flooding" on the floor. The combination of the shoes I had on and the wet floor had me slipping and sliding as I tried to go from roaster to roaster to stir the chili as it was heating up. To keep things on the humorous side, Steve split the seat of his suit pants as he was mopping water up off the floor. With lots of heads and hands, lunch was served, and cleaned up. And Steve had a different suit on by the time he went to the pulpit. Off to Zambia After church we got ready for a Going Away party that the Young Group was hosting for Tyler. Being very considerate of the fact that I was giving lunch at church that day, his friends decided to have the party be potluck. It was well attended, there was plenty of food and Tyler was blessed. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that event either. The sunglasses that Whitney is wearing above were part of a gift to Tyler from Jon and Amy, and Whitney's head wrap was part of the table decorations that the girls had done for the party. On Tuesday night I had the family in for a last supper with Tyler and he finished his packing. Last year when Tyler went to New Zealand he had borrowed Shane's large backpack. This year he had his own, which was a Christmas gift from Shane. In the picture above Whitney has the backpack on and Kiera is standing beside it to show its size. This is the end of our many games of Catan. It was good fun while it lasted. We are all wondering if Kiera will be warm to Tyler or act like she doesn't know him when he comes home. The "password" right now is: "Tyler is wonderful!" So, the big "emotional" day was Wednesday. Steve and I drove Tyler to the airport in Detroit. I do have to say that in some ways it is easier seeing him go this year than it was last year. We know where he is headed, that he has a place to stay and the organization he will be working with. He will be with a work team the first week and working with a Christian mission. It is two months instead of three. Tyler is also a very seasoned traveler at this point. The hard part is always the health risks and being so far away and not being able to just pick up the phone and call. Somehow I rarely get all my questions answered by email. The blog posts seem so few and far between. God is faithful and I am growing too. So, we send him off with our blessings and continual prayer. We met our good friend/surrogate son/brother Johnny at Applebees in Canton before taking Tyler to the airport. The first stop once inside Detroit Metro was the United Check-In counter, where we soon found out that the plane Tyler was scheduled to fly out on would not be able to take off in enough time for him to make his connection at Washington--Dullus, so they sent him to catch a Delta flight which left at the other terminal and which was leaving a half hour earlier. Tyler kept his cool and we hussled on over there. At the Delta check-in after a long wait in line. By the time he got checked in, there was also a bit of a line at Security, but he made it through without a hitch, caught his flight to DC, then on to Johanasburg, South Africa. I got an email that he had arrived there safely, but that his bag had not come through. Since the work team was coming through the next day, he was hoping they could pick it up and then bring it on with them to Zambia. The rest of the story we will have to hear from Tyler himself. I did hear that he arrived at the school and was already spending time with three of the boys. Steve and I returned home on Wednesday evening after spending some time together at a mall near Toledo. We were going to spend a couple of days for our anniversary at a State Park, but we knew on Tuesday that Laura was going to need to be induced because her blood pressure was too high to be healthy for the baby. Gage and Kiera have been staying with us. On Thursday, our precious grandson was born. On Friday we had our unit Study Group and Chemistry Lab at our house, with a couple of extra kids due to school cancellation because of ice. Life is full, we are blessed and that is especially humbling at this time when we are hearing daily about the tragedy and needs in Haiti. It has been a busy, but very good week.