Monday, August 11, 2014

Thank you

Before this semester begins, I want to take some time to share that I am deeply grateful for all the help we’ve gotten this summer since Beth has been sick. We were talking a couple days ago about how this has been a really hard summer for the two of us, but that despite this, the kids have had as full a summer as they’ve ever had. This is because of so many different people carrying us along.

I’m thinking of families that took kids to baseball practice, or that swung by to see who could go to the park. There were more offers for summer kid activities than there were summer days to accept them. I’m thinking of our church buying the kids school supplies before we’d ever had the thought, “we should figure out what to do about school supplies.” There were cards, facebook messages and e-mails, and genuine concern. I was touched when the librarian whom I’d never met saw me with the kids, connected the dots, and asked how my wife was feeling. People cleaned our house, mowed our lawn, did our laundry. People came from a long way away just to sit by Beth’s side during those first terrible weeks. There was meal after meal after meal. And there was prayer, which we have felt, and I’m not just saying that.

Several have asked, so I’ll just include here the most recent schooling update. As of this writing (8/11) Isaac (g5) will be at King, Suzie (g4) at Montessori, Eli (g2)and Steuben and Leeli (pre-K) at Mark Twain. Four schools will be a drag, but we are still glad that the American public school system, for all its faults, is nimble enough to accommodate four last-minute Stipps.