Spring Band Showcase

Last night I had the privilege of attending my three brothers' band concert. It was nice that the concert happened to be the week I was in the city visiting. Sitting there last night brought back many memories of when I was in high school band. ( Lots of great memories!) It made me wish Ruth had a high school band she could play in. Darius, Charles, and DanRon are very musical and they did a great job!

We Are Family

Here are a few snap shots from the weekend. It was nice to be able to connect with 12 of my siblings and their families. After all our time on the mission field we sure missed those connecting times.
It was of course SO NICE to spend at least part of the day with a couple of my kids. Caleb and Kris dropped in and it was a nice surprise to have them bring me flowers! That sure made the day VERY special. (Pretty great kids, aren't they!) It was also nice for the rest of the kids to call.

This is a picture of me and two of my sisters. Although I don't think we look that much alike, people have mistaken us for each other.

This is a picture of me and two of my brother's and their wives and one of my sisters.

This is two of my brothers and three nephews. They are enjoying some "guy time". They were playing on the computer, shooting some baskets, and went to a field to play baseball. I know Titus would have loved to hang with the guys.

What family would be complete without some teen girls hanging together? It was so much fun to see them enjoying spending time together. They gave me lots of different poses. This is their serious one.

Happy Mother's Day Holly

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Mother's Day is special and we decided to do something as a family for our "Mom". We couldn't give her flowers in person as she was away in Chicago so we decided to make her a flower gardern instead. The flower garden is looking a bit empty as we were not able to plant the flowers due to cold mornings of frost. That will come though so don't worry. Anyway, from all of us to you Holly, have a wonderful Mother's Day. We love and miss you!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Let me introduce you to three wonderful ladies that have made a difference in our lives. This spry young lady is Vern's mom. She is so full of life and is the heart of the Dyck family. She is always serving others. She loves dressing up and acting silly. ( Hmm, I don't know anyone else like that, do I?) She is a woman of God and a prayer warrior. She leaves a sweet fragrance where ever she goes.




















This is my dear mother. She has had many health struggles through the years and yet she has raised 15 children. My parents will soon be married 50 years and 49 of them they have had children in their home. As you can imagine my parents never had much money and so there was a lot of sacrifice that went into putting food on the table. I remember one birthday, all my mother wanted was a new broom. She has lived and continues to live an unselfish life. All 15 of us children know and love the Lord.










This beautiful lady is my grandmother. She is such a gem. She had a very rough upbringing but she did not become a bitter person. Instead she has such a sweet spirit. She has been everything you ever would want in a grandmother and so much more. She is 92 and is such a joy to be around.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO OUR SPECIAL LADIES!

Not So Fun Hightlights From My Road Trip

Thanks for your prayers! I made it into the city in fairly good time. I left a little after five. and as you can see from my first picture I drove through a couple of hours of pretty dense fog. It was nice when the fog lifted. (smile) Then there is of course fun times of waiting in line at the border, in tolls lines, and general traffic. But over all the trip was uneventful.

Road Trip

Early tomorrow morning I will be taking off for Chicago. I will be spending about a week in Chicago with family and then I will be heading up to Waukesha to pick Zachary at Bible school. My mother's health is very poor and so I want to be able to be a help to my folks. My parents are also going to be celebrating their 50th anniversary next month so I will be working with some of my siblings on planning for the big party. It will also be very nice to connect with our kids again. I would appreciate your prayers as I travel tomorrow. I am gald I won't have to deal with any snow. (smile)

Cave In

These are a few pictures of our house in jungle camp and as you can see there is a bit of a cave in. Our students build their house with poles and then use plastic for the roof and sides. Since there are two staff families that move up to jungle camp every year there are two staff houses that stay up all year round. Last year we got a new roof on the staff house that has been ours these past five years. The old roof had leaked for over 20 years and it was also very dark and hard to see especially if it was a rainy day. We were thrilled to have a new tin roof put on our house last year. There were even a few clear plastic panels which really brighten our place up. The team that was putting our roof on last year checked out our beams and they seemed like they were still strong. We got a lot of snow this winter so maybe it was too heavy for the roof. When all the snow melted and we went up to check on our house, we found the CAVE IN. The walls of our house are plastic so we always have a lot of repairs to make on our walls but it looks like this year there will have to be some major work done on the roof before we move in.

Come One, Come All

There was a crowd of people gathering in the gym here on campus last night. One of the main events for the evening was a dessert auction. This was another fund raiser to help raise money for field trips. As you can see all the desserts looked wonderful. (YUM, YUM!!!) The auctioneer did a great job of trying to sell the goodies while getting the highest price possible. Ruth was able to get in on the action by helping to display each item being bid on. It was fun to see everyone getting into the spirit of the auction to help raise money for the school. I would like to say it was a success but for those walking home with no dessert in their hand it might have been a sad walk home. (smile)





























There were a couple of musical performances by students from the academy and one little girl did an awesome hula hoop number. However the other main event of the evening was a mini musical called "Stone Soup". The 1st-8th graders have been working very hard for several month on this mini musical. Last night they presented it to family and friends. Titus played the part of a traveler. Anyone who knows how much he loves walking sticks can see his part was perfect for him. The kids did a great job and it was a lot of fun watching them. There were two ladies heading up this play and working with the children and they put in many hours outside of official play practice to see this whole thing come together. But all their work and effort as well as the childrens' paid off and it was an outstanding performance!

Pizza Anyone?

Ruth and Titus have the privilege of going to school right here on the campus. The school is called the "NTMC Academy". It is a small school of 39 students. It is so nice that the kids are in a Christian environment with a staff of teachers who not only educate our children but have a desire to see them grow and walk with the Lord. They try to make school as affordable as possible. The tuition covers only the cost of books, heating and electricity, and things like that. There isn't money for extras like field trips. So this past week has been a week of fund raisers. On Saturday there was a Bike-A-Thon. Tonight there is going to be a dessert auction, and from the 7th - 9th there is New Orleans Pizza Fundraiser Nights. Every pizza that is bought from someone from the school, New Orleans Pizza is donating half the proceeds to the school. (Way to be New Orleans!) Ruth was not able to do the Bike-A-Thon since she was working. However, she did want to support her school and she loves pizza. So she had a couple of friends over and treated us all to a pizza supper. It was such a nice treat, plus fun, knowing that it was helping out her school.

RENEWED

Ruth and I woke up and took off early this morning for a trip into Toronto to renew Ruth's U.S. passport. Her old passport had expired and we were waiting for her to turn 16 so she could get an adult passport. We don't know yet whether her Mozambique trip is going to work out but we want to have everything in place for her to travel. Everything went well and we were in and out of the embassy within a 1/2 hour so it worked out that we only had to pay for a 1/2 hour of parking. (YES!) We were pretty close to the 1/2 when we got out of the embassy so Ruth ran the couple blocks to the parking lot to get our keys and turn in our slip. It was quite funny because there was a man who walked out of the embassy the same time we did and when Ruth took off running he was blown away at how fast she could run. (All her jogging in preparation for field day is paying off. SMILE!) Ruth is looking so serious in the picture as the lady at the photo studio would not let her smile in her passport picture, even though the application say that you can smile. Oh well!









Do I need to say more, I think the cup speaks for itself, the trip was a success!