An Art Linkletter Moment

On Friday while I was at the hangar working on receipting I was happy to take part in the celebration with the guys as David passed the senior apprentice wrench to Gertjan. David's wife, Amy, came with their 3 children to celebrate as well. While all the excitement of cake and ice cream was happening around us I had a little chat with David's two oldest children Isaiah and Lily.

Johan, Isaiah, Lily & Marielle

I was telling Lily how pretty her shirt was. She had painted a pretty pink flower on it. It really was a nice accomplishment for a 5 year old. As she shared with me about the shirt, her little mind wandered to further conversation. She told me how much she liked those little flowers with the things that stick out all over them and you can blow on them and they go all over (I'm paraphrasing as best I can without hand motions, facial expressions and additional sounds!).

When I acknowledged her statement by saying "ah, yes, aren't dandelions pretty!" She gave me that look that made me realize that in her mind dandelions were little yellow flowers and not at all what she was talking about. So, I quickly turned the conversation back to the 'little flowers with the things that stick out all over them and you can blow on them and they go all over the place'.

I said, "Isn't it fun to blow on them and then watch the seeds fly all over!" Again her look said more than words and I could tell that "seeds" seemed wrong to her. By this time Isaiah (8 years old) had perked up his ears and had gained interest in the conversation. I thought this would be a fun teaching moment so I proceeded to explain that all those little things that fly off are seeds and that God made them that way so we could have lots and lots of pretty yellow flowers (keep your adult thoughts of those "pretty yellow flowers" to yourself now!).

I don't think I've recently had two children that were so focused on what I was saying. They asked a couple of questions to make sure they had understood me properly and that I wasn't pulling their leg. Here is where the story gets funny. Let me try and reconstruct it:

Isaiah and Lily: "You mean those are seeds?"
Me: "Yes!"
Isaiah: "I've never known that. How did you learn that?"
Me: "I learned it so long ago that I don't remember where I learned it."
Lily: "When you were a girl?"
Me: "Yes ."
Isaiah: "Maybe on Google?"
Me, laughing a bit: "No, not on Google. Probably my Mother told me or something."
Isaiah: "Oh, they probably didn't have Google then."
Me: "No, they didn't."
Lily: "You mean way back when you were just a LITTLE girl?"
Me: "Yep."
Isaiah: "So, you mean a really long, LONG time ago."
Me (wishing every adult in the room was listening to this conversation just now): Yes, a really, REALLY long time ago." ;o)

The conversation ended on that note. They had learned something new about God's creation and I had gotten really, REALLY old!

Now come on. Could Art Linkletter really have done any better than that??? The only thing better would have been a video but I hope my memory has served me well enough to give you a smile as big as mine was at that special moment.

By the way, you may remember us talking about David and Amy coming home recently with their newly adopted Ethiopian son, Asher. Here is a photo of the rest of the family.

Amy, Asher & David

He's a delightful little boy and is adjusting so well to his new home. I don't know where he could have found a more loving family.

The other two children in the first photo are Gertjan and Glenda's children. As a note of interest,the members of these two MMS families represent the countries of Holland, Philippines, Peru, USA and Ethiopia! How's that for international!