until we all reunite in Venezuela in July
| What a summer! Once school let out this year our boys started a dizzying series of trips and adventures that still haven't completely ended.  First, Dave had to go to England on business for the third time in four months (missing his birthday for the second straight year). While he was gone, Tucker took off for M-Fuge in Nashville with a group of youths from our church. M-Fuge is a mission camp designed for grades 7- college, focused on students putting their faith into action. After an intense weekend of preparation the students go into the local community for a week to participate in various ministries.  Philip getting ready for the rapids Before Tucker returned, Philip started his own adventure, heading first to Texas and then Colorado with his grandparents. After soloing on the plane ride between Huntsville and Dallas (!), he was met by his cousin, Grace, and Karen's parents at DFW. They drove from there out to Colorado for a week-long adventure in the mountains around Aspen, including some white water rafting! In the mean time, Tucker returned home and Gerrit departed for Venezuela with a team from our church that was going down to conduct Vacation Bible School for the children of missionaries during their annual meeting. Gerrit gets the prize for being the most adventurous of us all this summer, because when our church team returned to Huntsville, he stayed in | Venezuela! Pastor Jimmy, from the Miranda church we partnered with last year, took Gerrit in and kept him busy for over two weeks until the planned arrival of rest of our family with another group from our church in July.  The Willowbrook VBS team in Venezuela When Philip returned from his trip to Colorado, he was thrown right into the all-star season withhis baseball team. He had missed most of the practices and some seeding games, but was back in time for the tournament. Good thing, too! After a winless regular season, he was able to be an integral part of an all-star team that went undefeated, winning the tournament in three games! And the night they won it, just before the final out, fireworks were set off over in the Huntsville Stars stadium, just a couple miles away. It sure looked to us like the fireworks were for our all stars!  The undefeated All-Star team! With that accompished, the next thing to do was pack and get the the rest of the family ready to head to Venezuela where we'd finally be all together again! Oh yeah, then after that Tuck went to Kentucky on a spur of the moment trip,... |
