Weekend Visit to Elkhart, IN

This past weekend I preached at the RPCNA of Elkhart in Elkhart, Indiana. It was the first time that we had ever been there and we did not know what to expect from the town or the people. We were impressed the congregation there and found them to be very friendly and wanting to please the Lord in many areas that Reformed people fall short on!

Anna and Owen could not wait to leave for our little get-away. They sat in the yard for some time reading and playing. Anna kept asking questions about Indiana and what it had to do with Anna? "I am Anna, what is Indi-anna?"
We spent the afternoon with a wonderful family that shared a lot of church planting stories as well as other things of the Lord. Ritva is a master level gardener and by the looks of her landscape, church planting is not the only thing that she and her husband are successful at planting. It was the most beautiful landscaping that I have ever seen, complete with espalier. It was a great place to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Johannes is 7 years old. He was very sweet and gentle. Anna has been talking about him since we left. She claims that she is going to marry him and she even picked flowers out of my garden and described how she wants a ribbon tied around them so that she can save them for her wedding. Wow!

When we got home I downloaded the pictures from our trip... notice the angle on this one... yep. I did not take it! Anna snuck in a picture of Johannes before she left.

Joke's Over

Hey Maggie. The joke's over now. Yep, really funny. You can come home now and stop pretending that you live in Eastern Michigan and attend Southfield. Truth is that you live in Grand Rapids and go to the church here. Yep. Funny. Come home, please?

Sing Us A Song You're the Piano Man

Here is Anna and Owen the morning the new addition to our home arrived. This baby grand piano now being loved and cared for by the Eshelman family. Anna already wants to learn to play it; and Owen has to be told to leave it alone! It is not a drum!

Klompen Dancing through Tulip Time

The Eshelman's proper, came up from Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. One of the things that they wanted to do was to go to Holland and visit Tulip Time. They had never done this, and frankly, Pella Iowa's Tulip Time is much more ethnocentric. Holland had NO Dutch food that we could try and most of the stores displayed racist signs on the doors that read, "NO WOODEN SHOES". When will the racism end against the humble Dutch?
Here Anna was helping to weed their gardens. I informed her that they wanted those tulips there. She was wanting to replace them with edelweiss, but I reminded her that our Reformed heritage honors the TULIP and we should be nice to the Dutch for their silly ways of remembering the doctrines of Grace. Owen was showing me all of the various parts of the tulip. "Papa, that is the stamen", "that is the ovary", "that is the anther and filament", "that is the receptacle and pedicel"!

Ummm... okay Owen... whatever.

And here we have the famous Holland Klompen Dancers. 1400 women dressed as men and women on Saturday and on the Sabbath day dressed as the gender that God intended them to be.

We had a great time!

Mulcha! Mulcha! Mulcha!

This past week I began the never-ending ritual of summer called gardening. I love it! My precious neighbor, Mr. Birn, asked me why I bother... it is dominion. The Lord has said to take dominion, and I am doing it.
This is what 10 yards of mulch looks like. Generally it takes all day to lay this much mulch. This year it took from 9-5. Not all day in gardening terms. My other neighbor, Jeff, helped me out a lot. I was so happy because it really is a lot of work to do.

Here is the backyard and my trusting garden chariot. It is not a wheel barrow. It is quite different because it has two wheels instead of one. Owen has one like it that is his size. He was busy working away as well. We also planted 10-15 more Hostas this year. I traded them with Emily Vedra for some pink phlox. I think I won- phlox and I are sick of seeing each other. I have removed quite a bit of it from the gardens this year. Steve and Janna have some, Mrs. Jurries has some, randoms from around Alger Heights stopped and got some. I was pleased to share the pinkness.

Here is Owen showing off his new Hibiscus. We just repotted this one for his mother. It is blooming like mad with very nice pink blooms. We gave Oma one when she visited this weekend. I am sure that the summer will be filled with gardening pics, so if you like it, stay tuned!