A day in Cooperstown

We started our morning driving and it was a unique contrast from our current living situation in Taiwan.  As we are driving from Fargo to Cooperstown, it went from somewhat busy to extremely quiet. I never truly thought about what we actually did. We went from a rural community to a big bustling city.  We went to barely having an traffic, getting annoyed when it takes you an hour and 40 minutes to get from Fargo to Cooperstown instead of an hour and half.  Then moving to Hsinchu, Taiwan; an area where you can't go 2 seconds without having a car, a scooter, a bike, a bus or a person pass by you.  Where you should be able to get anywhere in the city in less then 20 minutes it just that the traffic at times slows you down and it might take you longer to get places because you have traffic, lights and various forms of transportation that you have to avoid hitting.  

I actually miss this drive and the quietness of not seeing a car for miles.  Being able to see for miles in any which direction and seeing a variety of different clouds float by in the sky. When I was experiencing this for the four years that I lived in Cooperstown I was impatient with how long it took to get places.  I missed the trees, and mountains (which we would see when we drove down the river valley and flow the river) and I missed being able to drive 25 minutes and get to a mall.  Now I miss the quiet, the millions of stars that twinkle in the sky and just the journey when we traveled as a family.  Talking about our dreams and our daily lives as we traveled down to Fargo. 

The kids were SO tired and it didn't take long into our journey before they gave into sleep.  They were very excited to see the cattle and the flowers and grass.  Little N talked about memories he had from Cooperstown and the surrounding area.  Driving around he talked about how he pet a cow, played on the grass and had a water balloon fight in his old backyard. He talked about our old church and the people that we knew in Cooperstown.  For me it was kind of hard listening to him remember because I wonder at times who his friends would have been and think about the things we gave up to come over to Taiwan.  The big backyard, the cousins who only lived an hour and 45 minutes away, the ability to ride a bike and play outside without needing to worry that your kids are going to be run over. 

The beautiful nature that reminds you that God exists and makes his presences know everywhere.  He shares it with us in the beautiful flowers and grain fields, in the animals and in the sky.  But he also shares himself in that empty hole in our hearts that we never quite know how to fill and we fill it with everything - finding our spouse, crafts, hobbies, sports, TV, reading, shopping, friends, and worshiping the various things that we think will fill that God shaped hole.  We never truly can fill that hole in our hearts until we accept the gift that God gave us and tell Him we want God in our lives.

I was SO excited that I was able to get this picture of the train as we driving up to Cooperstown.  It finally came together and I was thrilled that it turned out as great as it did!

Rural life at it's best. 

 The thing that I miss the most about Cooperstown are the wonderful and amazing people that live there.  I had a hard time not bursting into tears as we gathered together at Zion Church and the people from that church opened their hearts and just chatted with us like it hadn't been a year and a half since we last had seen  each other.  We caught up and spent time with one another and it was wonderful.  Zion was a wonderful first church to us and we were very blessed during our four years in Cooperstown.  Yes there were struggles that we experienced while we were there but we had lots of wonderful moments also.  Two amazing blessing occurred whiled we were there - Little N and Little M.  We had our many grandpas and grandmas who would spend time with us and our kids.  We were the young couple in the congregation trying to figure out how to help serve others and they wonderfully and graciously took us under their wings and tried to teach us what they knew and how we could help.

 I was thankful that I could introduce Little H to our former congregation and show her the town where her brothers spent their first little bit of life.  To introduce to an amazing bunch of men and women.  It brought tears to my eyes on how everyone just loved on her and just welcomed her just like they welcomed my boys.

 I can't believe that David is in college now and just how much he has changed since we first arrived in Cooperstown.  My first memory of him was cutting his hair....I'm pretty certain I butchered his hair but he didn't really care and after I cut David's hair that's when John allowed me to start cutting his hair. I have lots of great memories with David and I'm sure that John has even more memories than I do.  I wish we had been able to play a game of Settlers or gave a bonfire just to catch up on what's going on in his life.  I miss him so much!