A Very Important Visitor!

Yesterday Tim's Mom arrived from Florida!  We are so excited to have her visiting us.  She is 93 (she'll be 94 in October).  Tonight after Sarah's piano lesson we talked her into playing a bit for us.  She is a wonderful pianist - but she says since her stroke two years ago that her hands don't play as well as they used to.  She says, "I'll blame the stroke for that!"  

Sorry for the loud background noise.  Our family is not the quiet sort!

Grammy loves all the noise and activity that goes on around here!  She is having sort term memory issues, so we are thankful for the opportunity to have her with us and to enjoy her.

She is a woman who dedicated her whole life to serving the Lord.  She lived with her bachelor pastor brother in their 20's, and kept house for him and played piano at his church.  She was a missionary and she and Tim's dad served in West Africa for 23 years, before coming home for medical issues.  They then served still in the mission.  After becoming widowed, she continued to serve and after remarrying they served as associate missionaries.  They retired in the 1990's and began to serve with a food bank ministry and my mother in law did prison ministry for years.  That is just the formal things.  She often had people staying with her, sometimes for years at a time.  They housed medical students from Germany, also.  She and her husband traveled the world, as he was retired from the Air Force.

She still reads her Bible everyday, and loves to speak of His faithfulness to her.

Tim's sister Esther oversees her care in Florida and is a blessing to the whole family.  We are thankful that Grammy (as we refer to her most of the time) is able to live in her own home, as she has a wonderful caregiver that lives with her.  She told me tonight she hopes to stay in her home for as long as possible.

I've learned a lot from her life over the years.  To choose to rejoice even in hard circumstances (she buried two sons in Africa), to joyfully offer hospitality, to serve other people.

I may be scarce here for the next few weeks, but I hope to pop in now and then.

I appreciate you all and your friendship to me.  I am thankful for all of you whom I have learned so much from as well.  

Have a wonderful holiday weekend for my American readers, and a lovely weekend for the rest of you!