In God's perfect timing, Gailen was ushered into Heaven the same week I was leaving for Honduras with another team. It was hard to believe all that had transpired in his life in one short year. It was hard for me not to cry when I thought of serving the least of the least in Teguc with a new team. But God is Good ALL of the time. He brought a new team of strangers together to work together as Jesus' hands and feet and become like family, again. I am always surprised how seamlessly he brings new teams together. We touched 1814 people both physically and spiritually and we welcomed 116 new Christ-followers into our forever family. Even though it was a hard week knowing that the Veurinks were grieving, it was also a week that I felt that we were making a difference even though I felt less than valuable. God still uses people like me, to share his love and salvation story.
Sam celebrated another birthday in Honduras. I was thrilled that he wanted to go back again. He had such a great experience last year, but he wasn't sure that this year could live up to his expectations. I think he would say that it did. He was up playing "spoons" and Texas Hold 'Em with 6 boys between 13-17 years old. He took the tournament one night. I think it was when they played with goldfish and pretzels. The next night they broke out the chips. It was a bonding time and life skills were learned.
Warms this momma's heart to see him make friends and have adults comment about his mature attitude during the brigades. More than once he spoke up about how he was more comfortable sharing his faith because of the trip. I know he will have life-long memories from these two years. I pray he is really able to live out his faith in a way that his friends see he is different because of going to Honduras.
Jake finished his 4th grade year at the Downtown School last week. It is hard to believe we have had a student in the school for 10 years. It is also hard to believe that he only has one year left. It truly seems like yesterday that he was in preschool and would go with me to work "lunch duty" in Nick's class and was mistaken for a student. Time does fly by without me even noticing. Jake brought home a Pre-Algebra book that was being thrown out with the school's move to Central Campus. He can't wait to start his summer work with his new book. He is very funny. I am pretty sure he will learn the entire book by the end of summer.
Summer has officially started, but the weather has been more like Seattle + nightly storms. Nick still has a very real fear of storms and focuses on the radar on his iPod weather app. I pray he is able to not stress about this in the near future. He finished 6th grade with all A's and one B. I am so very proud of him! He transitioned well even when I was concerned that he would struggle. He has made some good friends and I hope that he continues them in Jr. High in the Fall.
Scott and I are supposed to ride RAGBRAI in a month. I am pretty sure I may actually die. The first two days are SUPER hilly and I am not sure it will end well. I have enjoyed riding to get into shape, but it hasn't included too many hills. I am still not sure what we will be doing with the boys, but now that the Honduras trip is in the history books, I can focus on planning the rest of the logistics for that week.
As my monthly entry comes to a close..... I am sure I have forgotten to include some important happenings, but at this point I am not remembering them. Work has been crazy busy the past few weeks, so I am going to be working a bunch of hours, so I expect to be exhausted.
