23 years ago I met a 12 year-old kid named Robert who helped me move from Winona Lake to Osceola. He told me about his life on the hour long ride back to Osceola, and I was like… uhhhh is this true? It was a wild story, but very true. As I got to know him (his family moved across the hall from me at The Camp) and then I ended up living with them; so we became very close. His grandparents adopted him at age 13, and one thing Denny wanted was for him to work around the ministry. So he started helping me out, doing grounds work, mowing, and cleaning. Of course, during those years we also went on many adventures on the backroads of Michigan in my 4Runner and did lots of jet skiing on many lakes. He helped run media, and then started to run sound in the House of Prayer as well as playing his trumpet and djembe on teams. Eventually, he attended Bible school, and was ordained as pastor. He met a lovely woman named Brittany and they got married. Honeymoon baby Ezekiel arrived 9 months later, followed by Hezekiah. He works in the IT field and is also a soundguy.
Life with Robert was always interesting. He had a way of butchering quotes and messing up words that absolutely made me laugh. One time a large combine was coming down a country road and he said, “That’s one of those big concubines coming at us!” So many of those “blonde” moments made me shake my head. Robert hated doing homework, and let me tell you, the teen years were a little rough on occasion. Denny had heart issues and a transplant, so I did a lot with Robert in those days as far as helping to keep him on track academically, as well as keeping up the grounds at the house while Denny couldn’t. We certainly had some battles mostly because he has a stubborn streak a mile long — as anyone who knows him will testify. Speaking of a mile long… that’s how long our driveway was for a few years at our house off SR 19. I taught him to drive my 4Runner on that driveway (stick shift) and in the winter we would hook up a sled to the back of the old green truck and pull it down the driveway while attempting to stand up. It was epic! We climbed all over the big post and beam Farmer’s Market while it was being built, and he got me to try snowboarding for the first time. The novice (me) did a lot of falling and rolling down the hills, but “Mr. Experienced” was the one who broke his collarbone that day. Then a couple weeks later, we went to the dunes to go hiking and he decided to run down the big dune and re-broke it after doing a headlong fall in the sand. Life was never dull but our adventures were pretty amazing. I will say this, we spent lots of time going to many Starbucks locations as well as various coffeeshops in Michiana (remember BellaVita and Lulas?) and today he is quite the coffee connoisseur. We drove to NY to go camping at my sister’s house, and he was there for my Dad’s funeral and drummed in the circle to honor Dad. We spent hours cleaning cars and then went to car shows in Chicago to look at all the amazing ones. And he was definitely obsessed with his hair as a teen…. I have a million pics of the various styles and stages over those years. It’s hilarious.
He took his driving test on my BMW (also a stick shift — it is important for people to know how to do this… it’s becoming a lost art!) and passed (good teacher, hello!) but there were some moments when I was letting him drive that scared the crap out of me, like the time he drove straight through a red light at an intersection down in Indianapolis. He definitely got plenty of experience driving all over the streets of Kansas City as a pizza delivery guy. And in those days GPS was just coming out and he didn’t have one yet, so I would get phone calls asking me to jump on Google maps to help him get to a certain house. I made many trips to KC to hang out and go to the prayer room there and the large conferences after Christmas. We went to the KC Zoo, the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and various cool restaurants on the plaza in KC. Lots of good memories of those days.
I watched him grow up from a kid who was dealing with a lot of heartbreak and personal trauma from the loss of everything he had — his father, his home, and most of his possessions — to a man with a wife and kids (and a dog) of their own, having a job and all that comes the stuff of life; and in the middle of that he is still seeking the Divine, trying to reconcile faith and trust with the struggles of hardship and trials, yet pressing forward and looking upward. He has a gift for the prophetic — encouraging people and giving them words that speak hope and life. It’s also good that he has Brittany. She keeps him grounded and (and tries to) help him react a little bit more empathetically. It was wild to see him take his boys on the same old SeaDoo that he would ride on when he was young, or them wearing an old shirt that I gave him years ago. It’s like a continuation of the journey, you know?
Robert is a loyal friend (I mean, who else would I call to take me to my colonoscopy?!) and my life is better for having him a part of it. When he was younger, he was like my little brother and a son all in one, and now as an adult, he is one of my closest friends. His boys call me Uncle Josh and I think the world of them. It’s an honor to have that trust.
So today we celebrate 35 trips around the sun for you, Robert. Praying that this season will bring financial blessing, will be filled with much love and hope; and even on the hard days — that those momentarily light afflictions will work in you a greater weight of glory and that they will give you the opportunity to grow in patience, to choose peace, and to remember to laugh and relax and know … that it is ok for your boys to get dirty sometimes.