Can't you See My Son is Drowning!
Have you ever wanted to shout this to your child's swimming teacher? Just this morning Aidan was treading water seeming to barely keep his little head above the surface. He gasped for air. I'm sure I heard it all the way from the bleachers. Then he gets out of the pool, struts as though he just swam alcatraz, and looks to see if I am watching. Thumbs up, I give with a big mama panda goofy grin.
It's like the time he did his kindergarden screening in a classroom with the three of us watching. The teacher gave him some puzzels and if he didn't get it right away Bob would loudly whisper 'the triangle, THE TRIANGLE' as though the teacher would not also hear the answers that the father was giving his son from ten feet away.
Don't you just want to be there all the time for your kids. Helping them to keep their head above water, pass their tests and make the really tough decisions? Keeping all the bad stuff away from them? Just reminding them over and over that they are loved nomatter what anyone else says or does to them.
I think one of the finest fathers I know, come to think of it one of the finest human beings I know is Andy Mungure, our neighbor for the past 5 years. Ndeoya is his real name but he uses Andy for us gringos who can't pronounce it. Plus, Andy alliterates well with Amanda and Aidan; if we should ever find ourselves with another son, we'd have both a name and a namesake. Oh, to be ten years younger. One time when I was giving a presentation at our church about fair trade coffee -- one that I had given 100 times -- there was a coffee farmer in the audience. It occured to me that I had no idea what I was talking about compared to Andy. He humored me and said I was doing a good job. And then spoke up himself about how fair trade had changed the lives of the people on his mountain, where they've grown coffee for centuries, Mt. Meru (photo above), Arusha, Tanzania. Now that he's almost finished with his Masters degree in Economics, he'll return to the mountain with even more innovation on how to grow and sell good coffee.
This blog doesn't give me enough room to tell you all the reasons why I think Andy could be human being of the year, the century, the millenium. Bob and I are just so glad that we could be neighbors with him and his family during the seminary years. We'll be checking the Mungure's bags before they return to make sure Aidan didn't pack himself.
With love, T
It's like the time he did his kindergarden screening in a classroom with the three of us watching. The teacher gave him some puzzels and if he didn't get it right away Bob would loudly whisper 'the triangle, THE TRIANGLE' as though the teacher would not also hear the answers that the father was giving his son from ten feet away.
Don't you just want to be there all the time for your kids. Helping them to keep their head above water, pass their tests and make the really tough decisions? Keeping all the bad stuff away from them? Just reminding them over and over that they are loved nomatter what anyone else says or does to them.
I think one of the finest fathers I know, come to think of it one of the finest human beings I know is Andy Mungure, our neighbor for the past 5 years. Ndeoya is his real name but he uses Andy for us gringos who can't pronounce it. Plus, Andy alliterates well with Amanda and Aidan; if we should ever find ourselves with another son, we'd have both a name and a namesake. Oh, to be ten years younger. One time when I was giving a presentation at our church about fair trade coffee -- one that I had given 100 times -- there was a coffee farmer in the audience. It occured to me that I had no idea what I was talking about compared to Andy. He humored me and said I was doing a good job. And then spoke up himself about how fair trade had changed the lives of the people on his mountain, where they've grown coffee for centuries, Mt. Meru (photo above), Arusha, Tanzania. Now that he's almost finished with his Masters degree in Economics, he'll return to the mountain with even more innovation on how to grow and sell good coffee.This blog doesn't give me enough room to tell you all the reasons why I think Andy could be human being of the year, the century, the millenium. Bob and I are just so glad that we could be neighbors with him and his family during the seminary years. We'll be checking the Mungure's bags before they return to make sure Aidan didn't pack himself.
With love, T
