Oma and Opa Visit

Hear this, you elders;
listen, all who live in the land.
Has anything like this ever happened in your days
or in the days of your ancestors?
Tell it to your children,
and let your children tell it to their children,
and their children to the next generation.

- Joel 1:2-3

My Oma and Opa have been visiting with us for the past few days and we've had a wonderful time together. We've been touring around our town, visiting the local bargain stores, buying lots of cheese and liquor (cheaper to buy it there take back to Canada, you know), and drinking gallons of coffee on the front porch every day. We took a few longer trips and laughed while we listened to the GPS spit out directions in Dutch because "She stutters in English!" (Truly. Good thing my grandparents are bilingual!). But the best part of all has been listening to all the stories.

That's the best thing about grandparents. The stories.

My Oma and Opa immigrated to Canada from the Netherlands after WWII. My Opa grew up in a foster home before determining to become a minister and leaving for the USA to study in seminary. My Oma got married in Canada to a wonderful man, had 3 young children (one of whom was my mom), and then lost her husband to cancer at the young age of 28. After returning to the Netherlands with her little ones for a season, my Oma returned to Canada where she married my Opa. The 5 of them became a family and added two more children in the next few years. I believe they could talk for months on end with all the stories they have. Some filled with so much humor they can barely be told for all the laughing (like the time Opa had to climb down into a grave after a funeral service to retrieve the about-to-be-buried man's watch, which the funeral director had forgotten to remove!); and others more sobering, of hard times and sadness (like struggle to maintain hope during my mom's long illness in 2007), and some that just make you reflect on our lives (like my Oma's comment that her grandmother was illiterate and here 5 generations later both John and I work "so fast on da computer!"). But always laced with optimism, faith, and confidence in God as creator and sustainer of all.

We took evening trips to the beach, to feel the cool water lapping at our toes and the pleasant warmth of the setting summer sun on our faces.





We walked the pier and listened to the powerful sound of waves crashing on the rocks and of Oma repeating in her soft Dutch accent, "Oh dis is sho beautiful!"








sho beautiful, indeed.