Merry Christmas everyone!
I’m sorry I’m getting this up late but this is much more than just a
Christmas greeting. I tried to type up something
quick on Christmas Eve Day but my Internet service timed out while I was typing
so when I was finished and hit “save,� I lost everything. Frustrating… yes, but worse things have
happened.
Spending the holiday season away from home has been harder
than I expected it would be (no offense Mom).
Luckily, though, I got to wake my family up extra early to video chat
with everyone as they were about to open their presents. I’d love to be with them but Following the
Son has its sacrifices and I knew good and well what some of them would be when
I left last July.
I have depressing news as well.
For the second straight year, tragedy has invited itself to spend the
holidays with my family. My dad’s eldest
brother, my Uncle Dennis, passed away without warning at his home in
Scottsdale, Arizona back on December 16th. He was one of those men who loved REALLY hard
and was addicted to making people laugh by just showing his fun, goofy
nature. His service is going to be held
after the holidays on January 7th—what would’ve been he and his
wife, Barbara’s 33rd wedding anniversary.
This is one of the last pictures my dad and Uncle Den took together
God has shown me the importance of providing support for my
family in person so I bought a plane ticket to get me to Arizona in time for
the service. I’m only staying for four
days, though, before I get right back on a plane and head back here for a
second month in South Africa (we’ll be working in Cape Town at a mission called
“The Jeremiah Project�). Losing two of
their brothers in the same year is really hard on my aunts and uncles so please
keep us all, especially Dennis’ wife and son, Kevin, in your prayers about that. Prayers for the many hours on a plane coming
up for me would be awesome as well.
Support raising is suddenly much more important for me
because of how expensive it is for me to travel back to the States to be there
for my family in Phoenix. My $2400 round
trip ticket literally doubles the remaining cost of this trip for me. I definitely consider this to be part of my
mission trip but it’s just very unexpected so your continued financial support to
help me bear some of the burden of this extra expense would mean the world to
me!
The sudden news of my uncle’s passing is even harder for us because
of the upcoming one-year anniversary of my dad’s passing. I can feel the emotions welling up as New
Year’s Day approaches but my team is full of people who genuinely love me and
are here for me. I’m very comforted by
the people around me. Every day and
holiday is still kind of unexplored territory for me since it’s still been less
than a year. I just don’t really know
how anything is going to hit me yet.
Please keep us all in your prayers about this as well. I still can’t get over the irony of how I’ll
be spending the one-year anniversary of losing my dad by learning how to be a
dad, myself. Eight toddlers, all in that
stage of the “terrible twos,� definitely has been keeping me busy and I have to
admit that I fantasize about what it’d be like to only have one to take care
of.
The long days full of diapers, screaming, crying, whining
and more diapers have definitely taken a toll on my immune system. With toddlers come germs, which were
responsible in sending me to the doctor’s office last week to get a massive
shot in the rump. Kameron and I both
were having dizziness, a weird headache, weakness and the worst chills and
fever I think I’ve ever had. That day
was still really productive, though.
Tommy and one of our ministry contacts, Ferdie, and I sorted through at
least 100K diapers and re-stacked them by size after building and installing
divider panels in the storage shed where they keep them all.
The productiveness from that day made up a little bit for
the embarrassment from a couple days before that. I set out to clean out the gutters here at
the toddler house and, of course, the ladder we have here was a little too
short. To see what I was doing, I was
standing on the top bar of the ladder (not a step) and it folded up on me,
rocking forward and breaking the window I was in front of. It’s actually not that expensive to fix but
my ego account took a severe blow that day.
At least I got to redeem a few of my handyman skills with the diaper
storage shed.
Again, please keep my family in your prayers, Merry
Christmas and I love you all! My next
blog is going to include a poem I’ve written to my dad. You may not understand it—I hesitated to even
post it—but I think enough of you know the details where you would appreciate
it. It’s really not for anyone but my
dad, anyway.
