Everywhere I look I see symbols of my grandparents love. Love for each other, their kids, and grandkids.
The lighthouse shaped lights at the end of their drive way that my Opa made for Oma. (She loves lighthouses.) Oma tells me that she cooked the chicken for dinner in olive oil because it’s healthier for Opa. (He had a stroke several years ago, and eating healthier is now a constant.) The wood shed in the back yard, the place where MANY a project has been worked on and completed by the both of them. Opa would do the wood work and Oma painting the finishing touches to cars, trains, and rocking chairs for dolls when the grandkids were little to plaques for their wedding day and now even more cars for their great grandkids. Their extra room holds bookshelves with pictures of their four daughter’s wedding days, their grandkids senior pictures and several miscellaneous pictures from the past several years. Really I could go on…and on…and on.
The past few days have been filled with memories of raising their children, visits from grandkids, and trips they took to see us all. Each one has been told with a smile on their face. There was laughter at the memory of shenanigans their daughters pulled when they were younger like throwing their stuffed animals on the floor so their parents couldn’t hear them walking around upstairs and more. There were stories of overflow camp sites where they could hear the bears outside in the night and their trips to Florida to visit grandparents. Those became stories of their daughters all grown up and letting them go. They started families of their own, and the love they showed their daughters, the family values and love for God is the legacy they have passed on.
I am so thankful that I have gotten to spend this few days before training camp with my Oma and Opa. We laughed over games of Mexican Train, and poked fun at each other constantly. I have gotten to tell them all about the World Race, they got to sit here and watch me figure out how to finish packing my back pack and experience with me how God provides in unexpected ways.
Tomorrow morning I leave for training camp with a full heart, a thankful heart, a heart SO ready to share this legacy of love with those I am about to encounter; my teammates, the missionaries we will serve beside, and the people that are about to change my life.
