this week has been, and continues to be, a big
week for us. things started off with a
bang as we rang in colleen’s birthday “extravaganza style” – birthday masks,
Swedish fish scavenger hunt, pazookie (a giant cookie slathered in ice cream
& topped with peanut m&ms), roller-skating and all. tuesday we celebrated meg’s birthday – no
less extravaganza-esque with bungee-jumping for the birthday girl & ses
amigos, pizza & the biggest red velvet cake ever, and today we get our
other sarah back (miss lapp is coming back to us after going home from africa
in january to be with her family after her mom was diagnosed with cancer). then tomorrow is molly’s birthday – [insert more birthday fun here].
yesterday
was a celebration of a different kind, starting with an early morning. at 5ish sarah and i walked over to get
colleen from her host house, and the three of us walked over to the base. there we met up with the rest of our squad to
send our brother, mark, off* in true family style. before we could get started, tho, sarah was
commenting on how chipper the guys were.
laughing, they said it was because they had stayed up all night playing
a few games of catan (i had never heard of settlers of catan before the race,
but in no less than two weeks, it was obvious that catan was more than just a
game. sometimes, i think it’s more
important to them than eating is…).
“oh, so you went to bed late then?” sarah asked.
“no, we finished putting it away a few minutes
before you got here,” kyle said.
“did you seriously stay up all night playing?”
sarah replied.
after a long pause, an innocent smile and a look
that clearly confirmed her question, seth & danny just happened to walk
into the room, one rubbing his eyes, the other yawning. in unison, we broke into laughter.
of course they had stayed up all night playing
catan. they love catan. mark loves catan. and playing a new version of the
game…twice…into the wee hours of the morning…allowed them to spend mark’s last night
hanging out, uninterrupted by us girls, doing one of their favorite
things. we laughed and joked about it
during breakfast. we were still laughing
about it as we earnestly thanked god for catan & catan-bonding-time, for
our brother’s tender heart, curious, bold spirit and natural leadership, for his
travels, for his sister & for his family.
as we sat in the quiet house leaning on &
reaching out to one another, our laughter & prayers filled the silence of
the early morning. a few bittersweet
tears spilled over and rolled down my cheeks as the emotion of the moment
washed over me. the sadness of knowing
mark would not be with us today to welcome sarah back, to celebrate molly’s
birthday, or to experience these next few months was certainly real. but more importantly, our rag-tag group of
brothers and sisters were able to come together yesterday morning to celebrate
almost nine months together, to celebrate leah’s recovery so far, and to
celebrate what god has in store for mark in these two months before we’re
reunited for final debrief in nicaragua.
let the celebrations continue…
*mark left yesterday morning for canada to be
with his sisters, mom & dad as his youngest sister recovers from a recent
car accident. praise god her body has
healed & she has a wonderful, positive perspective. she & her family are adjusting, however,
to the changes that naturally have to take place with the conditions that
remain unhealed – she has lost all vision in her left eye & has only
minimal vision in her right eye. mark is
on his way back to help everyone with the transition & to simply be present
to help and encourage and love on them.
