Life continues here at the Buck household. Seven weeks today since the "accident". Funny how we call it an accident. I think of an accident as spilled milk or a sprained ankle. Not quite huh? The past few days have been better with the kids. Noah is starting to get acclimated to going to school and going to sleep in his big boy bed without his mommy or daddy. Zoe continues to ask for Ava but does not seem upset by it. Today she said she was going to go to the store to "buy more Ava". Okay break my heart. What a doll. We're still waiting for life to feel a little bit more normal. Waiting...
The church plant seems to be moving along. Our first official service is October the 9th. It keeps getting closer and closer and there is still so much to be done. Please pray for our sanity!!! Josh is walking a difficult line of needing to be at work a lot and wanting to be home. He is being pulled in many directions and this is hard for him. Pray that he may make wise decisions for our family and for the church.
Life is getting busy again. Lots of weekends coming up with lots of plans. This is nice in some ways and difficult in others. It's nice to have things to stay occupied but being "normal" can be hard. You don't want to completely lose it at a social event. It can create a bit of an uncomfortable situation. :-) We have some friends coming in for a visit from NYC next weekend and it should be fun.
That's all for now. Hopefully everyone is doing well. We love to hear from you all and hear how you all are doing. Love, love, love...
Back Home
Well, it's official. We have moved back into our house in Eastown. Josh and I spent the night here on Friday night and made the decision to give it a go. We brought the kids home yesterday afternoon. They were both excited to be back and surprisingly, hadn't forgotten the place. Being in the place that they remember Ava last, it has brought many questions and comments. Zoe seems to understand that Ava will not be coming back but Noah does not. I found a can of formula today and he was somewhat upset that I told him Ava didn't need it. It has been very difficult to talk to the kids so concretely about the fact that Ava is in heaven with Jesus and won't be coming back. Noah is convinced she is sleeping or with grandma. Pray that we will have wisdom in what and how we explain this to them.
It is surprising to me that we can move back to this house after everything that happened here. I get a real sense of sadness here but I do not feel traumatized by the memories. I truly believe it is because of the power of prayer. All of you praying for us has done incredible things for us. Please continue. It has officially been six weeks today but it feels like about six hours. Everything is so fresh. We still are in dire need of your prayers.
We redid the room where the accident took place. It was in the girls room (I will always think of it that way). We prepared Zoe for a big change in the way things looked and were set up. She was very excited to see her "pink bedroom". When we entered she was yelling "pink bedroom" but then stopped quickly and asked, "Where's Aba's bed?" (Both kids call her Aba as the V sound has not yet come along!) We explained that Ava was gone and sleeps with Jesus. Is there sleeping in heaven? I sure hope so as it is something I love to do.
Noah rode the bus to school today for the first time. He goes to school five days a week for a half day. We were not sure how he would do for his first bus ride. I figured if he got upset I would ride with him but he just looked at Josh and I with big eyes like he wondered what the heck was going on. Which leads me to a specific prayer request. We have been trying to be understanding with the kids when it comes to things they have not wanted to do. For example, Noah is wanting to go to sleep with us at night. We have been allowing him to fall asleep with us and then moving him to his own bed. There are small examples like this everywhere. Many of them do not cause a problem but some of them may be the start of some bad habits. Pray that we will be able to decipher when it is related to everything going on and when they are just trying to manipulate us. They do that? you ask. They both loooove to. Pray that we have wisdom in when to discipline and when to be lenient. When to put our foot down and when to just pick them up and hug them.
That's all for now. Can't think of anything else really exciting to say. Hope all you guys are doing well. Love you all.
Shelly
Progress?
Wow, I can't believe that it has been so long since we posted last. Life is very busy right now, but not too busy... good busy.
We are still healing... duh. The process is so much more complicated than I could have imagined. To be totally honest, things haven't gotten any easier in the past 3 weeks. I am not sure if they will for a while. We are at a place where we can breathe. We don't really feel good, but we could feel worse.
One tiny sliver of the tragedy of August 1st was the timing of it. It was really day one of the church plant. We spent about 3 weeks together as a family (Me, Shelly, Noah, Zoe, Jason, Holly, Elijah, Emmy, Zeke, John, Jean, Mike, Cindy, Geoffrey, and Derek) talking, crying, laughing, trying to eat, swimming, and really focusing on nothing exceptdoing nothing except healing, but at some point, we knew that we really had to hit the ground running with Greenhouse.
That has happened, and we are now in our offices at Common Ground Church. Preview services start this weekend (Sun. @ 6:00), and our official kick-off is October 9th.
We have been intensely focusing on team building and fund raising in the past 2 weeks. Last week we got our first round of letters out, and this week Jason and I visited each of the 5 zone meetings in the West Michigan District. We are also going to have a core team cook out at our house this Friday evening. Shelly and I decided that this would be a good time to stay the night at our house for the ifrst time, so Friday night is it.
Keep us in your prayers. We are not sure what to expect Friday night, but we are anxious to stay a night. We will soon decided wether or not we are going to keep the house.
We will keep you posted, sorry this one took so long.
God bless you
We are still healing... duh. The process is so much more complicated than I could have imagined. To be totally honest, things haven't gotten any easier in the past 3 weeks. I am not sure if they will for a while. We are at a place where we can breathe. We don't really feel good, but we could feel worse.
Dad and Noah Halloween 2003
One tiny sliver of the tragedy of August 1st was the timing of it. It was really day one of the church plant. We spent about 3 weeks together as a family (Me, Shelly, Noah, Zoe, Jason, Holly, Elijah, Emmy, Zeke, John, Jean, Mike, Cindy, Geoffrey, and Derek) talking, crying, laughing, trying to eat, swimming, and really focusing on nothing exceptdoing nothing except healing, but at some point, we knew that we really had to hit the ground running with Greenhouse.
That has happened, and we are now in our offices at Common Ground Church. Preview services start this weekend (Sun. @ 6:00), and our official kick-off is October 9th.
We have been intensely focusing on team building and fund raising in the past 2 weeks. Last week we got our first round of letters out, and this week Jason and I visited each of the 5 zone meetings in the West Michigan District. We are also going to have a core team cook out at our house this Friday evening. Shelly and I decided that this would be a good time to stay the night at our house for the ifrst time, so Friday night is it.
Keep us in your prayers. We are not sure what to expect Friday night, but we are anxious to stay a night. We will soon decided wether or not we are going to keep the house.
We will keep you posted, sorry this one took so long.
God bless you
