Life as of Late... - Kristin Sterk

It surely has been a long time since I have last updated this, but I suppose that means a lot has been going on since last time. Since the last update was before Christmas, I will start off by saying our Christmas time was truly blessed. What a blessing family is. We were able to make almost all of our Christmas parties this year, including extended (we had to miss one). Even though holidays require more traveling, it is actually a great blessing because the time that Dan and I have in the car together are times of our deepest conversations.

The week after Christmas brought some trials as Grandpa Geurink fell and broke his leg the Tuesday after. We knew that this would be a tough time because he had been a patient on dialysis for 8 years (yes, you read that correctly…the average is like 2-3 years). A week later, he went home to be with his Father and Maker. Though we knew in our minds that his time would be coming, in our hearts we had a hard time letting him go. We were blessed with many years of having him in our lives, but losing a generation (grandma died 6 1/2 years ago), is harder than what I thought it was going to be. The weekend of his funeral, I spent time looking through pictures and just realized what a humble and Christ-like man he was. I thought I was going to be okay at the funeral, but I think I cried through the whole thing. At the end of the service we sang “When Peace Like A River” and what a testimony that song is. I could barely sing a word of the song, but I knew Grandpa was now singing that song with great delight in heaven. What a glorious day that will be and it surely is well in our souls to have Christ as our Savior! Though Grandpa is gone, though I will not be able to write any more letters to him, we now have the privilege of living out the beautiful legacy he left behind. In his church suitcoat pocket he carried a pen that said, “Men who walk with God never walk alone.” What a testimony Grandpa!

As for the past couple of weeks, we have stayed quite busy with our youth group kids, planning events, going to basketball games, having game nights, and just building relationships. As much as we try to have a positive influence on our kids, they in turn teach us so much. More than they will ever know! This weekend we are on the staff/council retreat for church and we are staying at the same place we did last year (there are pics of this place in a previous blog posting). It’s such a relaxing and refreshing time! OH! Last weekend we went to Columbus to visit our good friends Adam and Lindsey Van Lente. What BLAST we had! It’s always great to see where people live b/c you learn a lot about them, but also just see them in their environment. Adam had us take a country way down there and it was gorgeous! We also did some shopping, went to Dave and Busters (basically an arcade place that makes you feel like you’re 12 again…we LOVED it. Also, we ate at a really neat restaurant called the Mohawk (strongly recommend it if you ever go to Columbus) – it’s in the middle of south Columbus called German Village – words can’t explain it :). Lindsey also did medical imaging on our hearts and Dan could see the actual leak that was going on in my heart – pretty mind-boggling. It was just a great weekend getaway with great friends!

I think those are all the lastest updates as of now…until next time!