People

For the next thirty days I am going to change things up a bit.  Instead of the usual posts about my wonderful kids and husband, I am going to write about the random people in my life who make life just a little more sweet.  It seems like so many people have passed in and out of my life, and often I don’t feel like I gave proper credit to the impact that they had on me.  So, without further ado, highlighted person number one: Brother Banz.

Hometeachers are kind of a funny concept.  They come into your home once a month, sit on the uncomfortable sofas in the front room, small talk about who knows what, and always finish with, “well, is there anything that we can do for ya?”  I have never had a hometeacher who has visited more than three consecutive months.  And I have always felt like the visit is only made so that when the awkward phone call comes one a month to report your visit, they could say yep everything’s good.

Well our new hometeacher has blown away all of my preconceived notions.  He tried to have us over for dinner at his house for the first appointment, but we weren’t sure that we could commit to that long of a conversation about the weather and the up and coming Romney campaign, so we had him over to our house.  It was a pretty standard visit, except he seemed very genuine, and Chris and I were both impressed with he and his son. 

This has been a huge summer for us to say the least.  New house, new baby, illnesses, busy, busy!  We have tried to get our yard started, but it has been a rocky road.  Chris had to trench twice because the holes filled in when he had his appendix removed.  Instead of growing pretty flowers, we grew ten foot high weeds. It’s been a bit of a mess to say the least.

At the end of our first visit, Brother Banz didn’t ask the standard question.  Instead he offered to borrow a machine to come and help us with our yard.  I hate to admit it, but I didn’t really expect him to follow through.  But the next Saturday, there he was to help us out.  Milo loved riding on the tractor with him.  He also loved watching his son, who Milo thought was a “cool big boy”. They worked for several hours and said that they would come back some other time with a power rake to help level the ground.

Again I didn’t really expect them to follow through.  I was so grateful that they had come once to help us.  They did so much work on the first day, our yard finally didn’t look like a death trap. 
The very next Saturday Brother Banz was out front with his two boys ready to help us again.  They raked out our yard and helped us prep for planting.  I was blown away.
Sometimes you feel like “thank you,” just isn’t enough.  He and his boys did us a wonderful service.  But what’s more than that, they taught me what it is to be a good neighbor and friend.  They saw a need, followed through, and did so with no personal gain.  I’m sure that there was a million other things they could have been doing on their one day off.  But they acted like this was the only place that they wanted to be.