Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Friendship Baptist Church

I absolutely loved the decorations when you

came down the stairs to go to the basement.

I especially loved this frame! :-)

Our school rooms this week!  There were enough

rooms so that each girl could get their own :-)

I don't know how much they enjoyed being alone,

not as much excitement, but then they seemed to

get done with their schooling a lot faster because

there were a lot less distractions! :-)

The extra chairs in the room were set up because they

also used a couple of the rooms in the evening for prayer.

 

Ariel & I got to share a room though :-)

 

We stayed with a younger married couple.  I thought

that this saying on their fridge was pretty cute! ;-)

Wes Linville, who graduated from BCM in 2006,

and Jessica, his wife, who graduated in 2007,

attend this church.  Wes is the assistant pastor

and seems to be a great asset to Pastor Hamilton!

They have three adorable kids!  Torrey is pictured above.

Whitney is their oldest.

And Frasier is their youngest.

They have their hands full! :-)

Savannah Barta

The connection - Savannah's mom, Rebekah,

is Joe Mueller's sister :-)  It was very

nice to fellowship with them this week!

 

Savannah playing "peek-a-boo" :-)

Here's Torrey again!  He's quite the cheese :-)

He loved the camera and wanted a picture!

Sound like anyone else you know?! ;-)

 

Ariel & Frasier

We ended up being in the nursery almost the whole week.

It was nice to be able to give nursery workers a break :-)

The girls made such good helpers!  They're so good with kids!

We got to go shopping at some second-hand

stores on Friday.  Stephanie found this adorable

jacket for Janna!  Janna always talks about her

big shoulders, so maybe Steph thought this

would help her?! ;-)  They're crazy fun! :-)

 

The girls found a purse that I'd like... :-)

I was giving the girls their Spelling words & I gave
them the word "web".  I automatically thought of
Jacquelyn Webb (not the same spelling but sounds
the same), my dear friend from North Carolina :-)
I didn't say anything to the girls, but when I got
Janna's words back to grade them, I found that she'd
written Jacquelyn's name in parentheses next to "web" :-)
You're being thought of, Jack! :-)  Miss you!

Okay, I have lots of cute stories from this week, so I'll

just tell some :-) Pastor Hamilton's son, Jordan, is

downsyndrome.  He's so sweet and really so much fun!

One day when I was talking to him, he found out that

I'd been struggling with a cold.  In the middle of our

conversation he says, "I have just the thing for you!"

And he goes to the kitchen.  I followed him, curious

to see what this "thing" would be :-)  He gets a cup,

gets ice out of the freezer, puts it in the cup, tests the

water, and then fills my cup up with cold water and hands

it to me!  It was a really very sweet gesture :-)

Well, it didn't stop there :-)  The next day, as I came out

from the bathroom, he was standing there holding another

cup of ice water for me :-)  

There's more...

I found out from Mrs. Van that Jordan was in the kitchen

making a special brew for "someone who was sick", and,

sure enough, he brings me a cup of a hot drink with

the word echinacea written on a 3x5 card on top of the

plate that sat on top of the cup (to keep it warm).

He even gave me the recipe later in the week...

said it was Dr. J Hamilton's recipe for good health! :-)

Let me know if you want it! :-)

And then the last day he delivered me a cup of tea, too.

He really took great care of me!  It was so cute :-)

On Friday, the lady who was making lunch for us set

off the fire alarm... I think it was the stove's fault! :-)

Well, it was pretty smokey in there so we tried just airing

it out best we could & comforting her that it was all

okay and we were still gonna eat her cookin'! :-)

Well, Stephanie comes in from being outside with a horrified/

comical look on her face and said, "The firemen are here!"

Sure enough!  They'd come!  It was definitely an interesting

part of our day & we enjoyed trying to get pics to remember

this momentous occasion! :-)

Here we are with Merilee and Jordan :-)

Merilee was the sweetest thing as well!  She'd been

hit by a car when she was 11, so she had brain damage,

but the church there just seemed to take her in and really

help her.  Mrs. Hamilton especially sounded like she did a

great deal with her and for her.

 

Here we are with Jordan :-)

He wanted to take a picture with us girls because

we all matched with our purple (he has purple in

his tie.. just kind of hard to see) :-)

When we left on Saturday, Jordan was quite beside himself

with grief!  He even told Mrs. Van that he might as well be

digging his grave!  He was crying and crying.. :-/

As he was talking to Ariel before we left, he went over and got

the salt from the kitchen and started pouring it on his head.

When Ariel asked what he was doing he said, "Dust and ashes!"

Then after we all prayed outside with Pastor Wes before we left,

Jordan poured some salt on Wes' head as well :-)  He was

quite sad to see us go!  It was pretty cute :-)