We Miss You Grandma Jo

Tonight I have mixed emotions as I share with you the passing of my husband's Grandma Jo (who was pretty much my own Grandma) and the joy of the life that she lived.

Our Grandma, Johanna Zomermaand, 88, of Struble, Iowa died Monday, March 12, 2012 at the Avera McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls.

Johanna was born July 23, 1923 to Henry and Mary (Kuhl) Niessink in Sioux Center, Iowa. She attended country school through the eighth grade.

On April 5, 1943, she was joined in marriage to Gerrit Zomermaand of Sioux Center. The couple exchanged their vows in South Mills, South Carolina while Gerrit was in the US Army. After Gerrit's discharge from the service, the couple moved to a farm one mile east of Sioux Center. In 1963, they moved to a farm near Struble, IA. Johanna was a faithful helper on the farm and loving caregiver when Gerrit became ill in 1969. The couple remained on the farm until 1975 when they moved into Struble. On March 9, 2006, Gerrit went home to be with his Lord when he died peacefully at home in Struble.

While living in the Sioux Center area, Johanna was a member of Bethel Christian Reformed Church and then after moving to Struble she became a devoted member of Calvin Christian Reformed Church of Le Mars.

Johanna was involved with the World Home Bible League and the church prayer chain. She and Gerrit faithfully presented Bibles to the 5th Grade Sunday school class every year. She enjoyed doing crocheting, making afghans, baby hats and blankets. Her love of music was evident when she would sing or play the mandolin.

Johanna is survived by six children and their spouses: Garald and Karen Zomermaand of Polk City, IA, Mary and John Van Hill of Le Mars, Henry and Sharon Zomermaand of Maurice, Jan and Bob Hughes of Struble, Chuck and Elaine Zomermaand of Struble, Bonnie and Ken Hunter of Harris, IA.; 21 grandchildren; 35 great-grandchildren; 2 great great-grandchildren; a step-brother, Derrick Koele of Sioux Center; and numerous nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Gerrit Zomermaand; parents; a daughter, Nelva Jo; son-in-law, Steven Swier; grandson, Kelly Zomermaand; two brothers and sisters-in-law: Louie and Gertrude Niessink, Charles and Wilmina Niessink.

 

Grandma was a wonderful women. She was a true example of Christ.  The night Grandma passed, her pastor came to spend some time with our family and he asked us if we had to descibe Grandma in one word what would it be. Here are a few we came up with pretty quickly:

 

*Loving
*Hospitable
*Welcoming
*Caring, &
*Giving

There are many things I will miss about Grandma. I will love Sunday lunches at her place with the family just about every Sunday, I will miss sharing with her about our singing ministry, I will miss her reaching out and pulling me in for a big hug or to whisper something in my ear, I will miss getting to show her pictures from our Haiti trip that she had asked me about the past couple weeks, I will miss getting to learn how she made the best canned meat, I will miss her getting to meet our children some day and so many other things that I just can't write as this alone brings tears to my eyes.

Although, Jo was my Grandma through marriage, it never felt that way. She felt like a Grandma I had know and loved as my own.

Lord I thank you for the years I was able to get to know and spend with Grandma Jo and I know she's probably talking your ear off right now as I write this sharing with you her love for you and her family. We will miss you dearly Grandma; you were quite the figter, but we know you're in good hands and heaven just has one more wonderful angel in heaven tonight! 

All of the grandkids and great grandkids singing at Grandma's funeral

Family gathering at Grandma's place the night of the funeral

Bonfire on such a beautiful night

I love my family

Potluck at Grandma's...just like every Sunday

DAY 9 (January 10, 2012) FINAL DAY IN HAITI

This morning we were up early to eat breakfast, loaded up the vehicles with our luggage, sound equipment and instruments.  We thanked the hotel staff for all their hard work while we were there for the week and prayed over them.  We then took some pictures by the pool and in the lobby area with many of the UN officers that we meet at the hotel.  We then took a team photo on some steps just outside the hotel and loaded up.  Once we arrived at the airport we unloaded, said our good-byes to Pastor Luc and our other driver Edward and made our way through checking our baggage, customs, and three different check points (why there were three different check points I have no clue, I have never seen so many).  All of our flights back to the states went well and there were no difficulties.  The last flight was pretty fun as we had a very small plane and pretty much the whole plane was our team plus 4 others or so.  We had some good laughs and shared several stories.  We landed in Sioux Falls at about 10:30 p.m. or so I believe it was, collected all of our checked baggage, loaded it up into the Life Light trailer that came to pick us up and we headed back to the office.  When then sorted our luggage into our vehicles, said our goodbyes and headed back home.

I am very thankful for this amazing opportunity that the Lord presented to us over a year ago and for everything thing leading up to it, during the trip, and the work that is yet to be done.  I thank the Lord for providing our team with safe travels, good health overall (I didn’t feel sick once while in Haiti-only prayers can answer why this was), and for the many lives that we were able to come into contact with and share the gospel with while in Haiti. I pray that the Lord will be pleased with our efforts and that with the seeds we have planted He will continue to water them and help them grow to come and know Him in a new and deep way.

DAY 8 (January 9, 2012)

This morning we got to sleep in until 9:00 a.m.-YEAH!  We were pretty excited about that after a long three days of the festival!  After lunch we went back to our rooms and packed to head home tomorrow.  After packing and getting our room cleaned up, Charlie and I headed down to the end of the driveway of the hotel where there were some vendors.  We looked at some of the items they were selling and I fell in love with this figuring that I tried to bargain for.  I only had $7 left besides larger bills so I tried to bargain for that, but the guy would not budge.  Not too much later, the guy saw me walking in the hotel area and yelled for me to come back down.  So my sister Kasondra and I headed down and she helped me bargain $7+ a granola bar (which the guy was quite excited about).  If I would have known he wanted food that bad I would have offered him several of the snacks I took along plus the cash that I had earlier-Kasondra’s always been a good shopper.  Anyway, I was pretty excited I got this souvenir as our days in Haiti were now counting down and I really wanted to take something back home with me as a memory of the trip.  Later that afternoon we loaded up into the vehicles and drove about an hour away to an Orphanage called “Mission of Hope”.  We arrived at the orphanage and had to wait a bit before we were let inside the gates.  To kill sometime we had chin up competitions on the back of pastor Luc’s truck and also had piggy back, and “fast walk” races.  Good times!J  Once we were allowed into the orphanage several of the men started to set up our sound system and instruments in the church where we performed a concert later that evening and the rest of us started a soccer game with the children and others played with the younger children on the swing sets, played catch and drew with sidewalk calk.  At about 5:00 we had supper at the orphanage.  Tonight was another great “at home” meal which consisted of spaghetti, cheese bread, salad, and confetti cake…yummy!  We then headed down to the church on the grounds of the orphanage and put on a concert for other teams that were in Haiti doing mission work and some of the children from the orphanage.  Josh shared his personal testimony and Jon did several bike tricks including a jump over three individuals that were laying across the floor.  After the concert several of the team individuals had one-on-one conversations with those that were present at the concert.  It was neat to see Christ bringing people together.  We then loaded back up into the vehicles, drove back to the hotel and prayed over the translators that helped us for the week-Oscnar, Michelle, Carlos & Jeff, as well as pastor Luc and his son Luc Junior, said our good-byes and thanked them for all their help and using their gifts to share the gospel.  As usually we finished off the night with team devotions and debriefing and headed to bed.

DAY 7 (January 8, 2012)

This morning we attended Church at Pastor Luc’s home church.  Our group and Rachelle Hope’s group shared a few songs this morning during the service and we once again joined together and sang the song, “Come Now Is The Time To Worship”.  Allan then shared a message with the congregation through translation of Pastor Luc.  At the end of the service, Allan invited those in the church who had needs that they wished to be prayed over to come to the front and our team laid hands on them and prayed for them.  They were so thankful for the specific prayers that we said for each of them even though they couldn’t understand the language we were speaking.  After church we headed back to the hotel, had lunch there and had some time to rest and relax for a few hours.  Some of the guys and Jamaica decided to cool off in the pool that we were so lucky to have at our place.  I helped Sara for a little while put together bracelets that we are going to distribute to the children at the orphanage tomorrow.  We then headed to the festival grounds about the same time as we did last night to make sure we would miss the crazy rush hour.  We got there, set-up, and once again had a decent amount of time for each group to sound check.  The festival tonight was AMAZING!  I told Charlie last night that my hope for the final night of the festival (tonight), was for the entire field to be completely covered with people so that no dirt on the stadium grounds could be seen.  At first there were spots throughout the field and towards the back that were open, but by about half way through the evening the field was entirely covered with people.  It is estimated that about 8,000 people were present at the festival tonight, not including those on the streets that may have been listening and those in their homes on the mountains that overlooked the field.  GOD IS GOOD or as they say in Creole…Bonj Bon!  Tonight there was a large Haitian choir that started out the night, both of our bands shared, and minus a brief power outage during Rachelle’s set things went great.  Allan once again shared a message and Jon did several bike tricks.  Tonight as Jon first shared a few of his simple tricks with the audience, we quickly realized that the crowd was out of control and “crowd control” was not going to be possible.  Several of our team members were on the field trying to keep the crowds back so that Jon had room to build up speed and land safely, but eventually they were told to just head back up on to the stage as the people were not listening.  Josh told the people over and over again from that stage that as much as they would like to see Jon do his tricks and back flip on the ramp, he would not be performing tonight unless they MOVED BACK….all the way back behind the rope and moved from underneath the stage.  It took quite a while and a lot of convincing from Josh on stage and many translators to get some of the people to move back.  The people never moved completely back as we needed, but Jon was convinced that he was going to make it work.  Following the festival, some individuals hopped into the back of Pastor Luc’s truck that we had parked on the field, and they began to distribute or should I say “throw out” the “Books of Hope” that we had brought.  The Books of Hope are magazines in Creole that share the gospel through bible passages and short stories.  Immediately riots broke out and people were crazily grabbing for a book.  You could tell that these people were just desperate to receive anything.  We hope and pray that the people who did received one of these magazines that night took it  home and actually read through it and shared with others.  To be honest, tonight I was a little worried that the stage might collapse as there were a TON of people on the stage between the choir, our whole team, pastors of the city, and several others that hoped up to watch Jon as he performed his bike tricks.  Us ladies on the team were quickly escorted off the stage and the men tore down the sound systems and equipment as fast as they could-but the stage held out and actually felt pretty solid yet at the end of the night.  Also, before I left the festival tonight, the young man I met a couple days ago that I told you about-Stanley, gave me a letter and told me it was nice to meet me.  Our team then managed to escape the mobs of people and we headed to a local Domino's to pick up some pizza’s to take back to the hotel and eat while we had devotions and debriefed for the night.  Tonight was the only night I felt it sprinkle lightly as we sat outside the hotel for our debriefing.  I was pretty exhausted tonight after the festival and more than ready to hit the sack.

DAY 6 (January 7, 2012)

This morning/afternoon we took some time to site see the city.  We first drove to the Capital building where the President (a/k/a “Seet Mickey”) used to reside before the destruction from the earthquake took place.  It was crazy to see what a beautiful building it was and how much damage occurred from the earthquake.  We asked Pastor Luc about how long the earthquake lasted and he stated that it lasted for maybe only 10 seconds.  Really, ten seconds and so much damage was done to this entire city?  It was just so hard to fathom the magnitude.  Just down the street from the capital building we also saw a monument that was built in 2004 (I believe) that signified their 200 years of Independence.  We then hopped back into the vehicles and drove down the road away and past what used to be a beautiful huge catholic church that used to have all kinds of stained glass windows.  Parts of the physical structure still remain today, but as you can imagine all of the stained glass was destroyed as a result of the earthquake.  We then headed to a local market where several vendors had handcrafted items lined up to buy.  We took some time to do some shopping for souvenirs and then headed back to the hotel.  We ate some lunch, got cleaned up and headed to the grounds early tonight to avoid the crazy traffic we ran into last night.  We got there pretty quickly, got everything set up and organized and were able to get a nice sound check in before the Haitian Band arrived and started the festival out.  The Haitian band began to play and sing and kid you not, their first song lasted 22 minutes…yes 22 minutes.  I don’t know that I have ever heard a song that long before-wow.  They were great singers but boy did it feel like it went on forever.  Our set went well tonight, Rachelle Hope’s set went well, and after Rachelle Hope’s set both bands joined together and we shared the song “Come Now Is the Time To Worship”.   Tonight Josh also shared his personal testimony and Allan spoke on “Faith”.   As an analogy for faith, Allan had Jon Greer (the BMX biker that came along with our team) jump over 15 feet in the air over him as he stood on the ramp.  He wanted to explain how we need to have faith even though sometimes we may be afraid.  The crowd was pretty excited.  Tonight I’d say the crowd about doubled to tripled in size, and during the Altar call MANY raised their hands to receive Christ.  It just gave me chills as I stood on stage and saw the thousands of hands raised and waving in the air to accept Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.  Jon then finished off the night by doing several bike tricks-one of which included the finale, a back flip.  Crowd control was pretty difficult tonight, even more so than last night.  We needed more security officers to keep the crowd back and out of the path as Jon needed to enough room to build up his speed for jumping the ramp and the rope we had tied up was not long enough to keep the sides of the crowd from pushing in.  Jon managed to make work of the room he had and just missed running into a group of people as he landed the tricks at the other side of the ramp.  Tonight a Haitian biker-Gino also joined Jon in doing bike tricks.  It was neat to see different races come together by means of what their hobby was-biking.  Just to see a connection and relationship form between these two was cool.  We were pretty tired after a busy night, but we headed back to the hotel, had devotions and debriefed as a group before heading to bed. 

DAY 5 (January 6, 2012)

This morning we drove over to the soccer stadium.   Half of our team walked the streets nearby and promoted the festival that was going to take place tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.  While walking the streets we met a young gentleman by the name of Ricardo, a local of Port-au-Prince whose birthday just happened to be today.  He was so excited to meet us and help show us around the town.  He had learned English on his own, so he was also willing to help us translate as best as he could.  He was the most kind man-and once again we know only God could have brought Ricardo into our lives that day at that specific time as our regular translators were running later and we wouldn’t be able to promote the festival very well without someone to help us translate.  Meanwhile, as several of us walked the streets, many of the men headed over to the lumber store, which just so happened to be straight across from the soccer field-another God thing.  The men ordered the lumber supplies to build Jon’s bike ramp and they began to measure, cut and build the ramp.  While the men continued to build the ramp, Edward (the driver of our van) took several others of us into town to grab lunch for everyone to take back and eat at the stadium.  As we are eating, all of a sudden we heard a young boy crying loudly.  Some members from our team went over to the group of boys that were playing under the stage and we came to figure out that this young boy that was crying just had one of his sandals stolen by an older child who took off running.   We tried to comfort him and told him in would be ok and that we would get him some shoes.  A couple team members of ours walked up and down the street trying to find some sandals or shoes to buy from one of the vendors.  And sure enough not too much later, they had found a pair for him…they fit perfectly and he was so happy.  The majority of us then headed back to the hotel to freshen up before heading back for the first night of the festival.  We were about an hour and a half late to the festival tonight due to the CRAZY traffic, but all was well-we just jumped on stage set up our last minute sound pieces and instruments as the Haitian band was finishing up and we skipped sound checking and began our set.  The concert went well tonight.  There was a good turnout of people I felt and they seemed to really enjoy the music, Allan’s message and Jon’s bike tricks.  Although, Rachelle Hope had to cut her set a little short as 8:30 hit and the people left in flocks.  From what we understand it is not safe for the people to be out past 8:30.  So we game planned what we would do differently the next two nights.  Tonight at the festival we also had the opportunity to meet a young man named Zach and his wife Dede who Josh & Rachelle (our Life Light team leaders) met I believe it was a year ago.  When they were in Haiti previously, Zach attended one of their events, and while Josh was sharing, Zach stood up and asked what the purpose of the meeting was.  Josh was kind of taken by that, but Zach explained that he had traveled hours to the meeting as he was led by an “invisible hand”.  That night Josh asked Zach if he would like to accept the Lord as his personal Lord and Savior.  Surprisingly Zach said no.  Zach said he wanted to take the time to think about it and really commit to accepting Christ as a lifelong commitment.  That same night, Zach walked back to his home hours away and took his girlfriend at the time-now wife Dede to the meeting where they also shared the gospel with her.  Today Zach and Dede are both strong Christians and have accepted Christ into their lives and are ministering to the people of Haiti.  It was such a privilege to hear Zach’s testimony as he shared with the people at tonight’s festival.  We witnessed over a couple hundred Haitians give their lives to Christ tonight!  We then headed back to Coconut Village, shared devotions and debriefed before heading to bed.

DAY 4 (January 5, 2012)

Today we woke up and ate breakfast, had team devotions, loaded up into the vehicles and headed out to a village in the country about an hour and a half outside of Port-au-Prince.  Just before we arrived into the village we stopped and ate some PB&J sandwiches and chips for lunch real quick and used the “outdoor restrooms” behind the biggest bush we could find before driving into the village.  The drive into the village was very bumpy and in some spots very wet.  I am surprise Kansas was able to keep that baby in after all those bumps, and I think Charlie felt at home as we drove through those big mud puddles.  As we drove into the village children would turn and start running to the road as they were waving with big smiles on their face and yelling-Blanc (white people).  It was as if they never saw anyone outside of their village, especially white people, and probably very rarely did they have visitors.  Most of the children were fully clothed, but there were a few that were half clothed or completely naked.  There was so much to see as we drove…homes that didn’t look like anything compared to ours, streams where the people bathed, donkeys, goats, turkeys, chickens, rosters, and dogs just roaming around, men in the fields working entirely by hand-which we would now consider old fashioned, and children running around playing.  As we got quite away into the village we eventually stopped at a church that pastor Luc explained God called him to plant in this village 20 years ago.  Pastor Luc did not know where God was calling him right away or what He wanted Him to do, but once he was lead there, God revealed to him His plan and he was faithful.  He then explained to us that he also helped put a well in the village 18 years ago.  You could see a smile on his face as he explained these things to us.  What a man of God!  Once we unloaded the vehicles, we stepped inside the church where there were rows and rows of children singing.  We were invited to the front where we shared our name, age and where we are from.  Next our leaders asked who would be willing to share the “Wordless Books” with the children.  I quickly offered, but little did I know she meant stand up in front of everyone and share, not just split up into little groups and explain.  Who knew what I was volunteering for?  Charlie & I shared with the children what these “Wordless Books” were all about.  These books are small felt colored pages that were sewn into a book.  They do not have any pictures or words, it is just the colored felt pages.  These books were used to explain the gospel in simple terms.  The pages are yellow-to explain God’s glory and the streets in heaven, black-to explain that we are sinful by nature and because of that we cannot live with Christ, red-to explain that Christ died for our sins so that we can someday live with him eternally, white-to explain that in Christ we are pure and white as the clouds, and green to represent everlasting life and our growth in Christ when we accept Him.  Charlie explained the different colors and what they meant and I shared a bible passage to go with each page.  He did a great job of putting things in simple terms for the children.  After sharing the story and distributing a book to each child, we then helped distribute bowls of what looked like rice and some type of pasta to the children.  Pastor Luc explained to us that he comes to this church in the village twice a week to feed the children.  I was pretty impressed that the children were as well behaved as they were waiting for their food to come being that they only ate possibly those two times a week.  They would all grab for the bowl and somewhat fight over who got it first, but it wasn’t too bad and can be expected.  We got about half the bowls distributed and then the ladies dishing up just quit and didn’t give us anymore bowls to pass out.  We suddenly got this crappy feeling in our stomachs as we thought only half of the children were going to be fed.  Then as soon as several of the children were finished they told us to collect the bowls and silverware and bring them back.  Phew…they just didn’t have enough bowls and spoons for everyone, so they had to feed the children in shifts.  It was just crazy to see that too though, as soon as gathered  the bowls and spoons that the children were finished with we just brought them back and food was dished right back in.  Nothing was washed before passing it on to the next child.  Anyway, children as little as 3 years old sat there and quickly downed every grain of rice in that bowl.  This really kind of put things into perspective when we in American so often order too much food or put too much on our plates that we end up throwing half of our food away; or to go beyond that…we often complain about what we are given to eat or complain that we are starving.  I don’t think there was quite enough food to go around for every child that day, but it got awfully close if it didn’t.    It was fun to be able to praise our Savior together in the same language.  After singing we passed out a couple pieces of candy to each child that we took along.   Boy were they excited.   It was kind of a mad house passing out candy as everyone wanted the whole handful, but it worked.  We then split the children up into groups and had sections of arts and crafts outside the church for the children to do.  Charlie, Kelsie and I had a group of young children that we did “scratch boards” with and also helped a few put together salvation bracelets that had the “wordless book” colors on it that allowed us the opportunity to share the gospel at the same time.  The children did pretty well with the crafts, but really they didn’t even care too much about actually doing the crafts as they did just receiving something.  We quickly found out that it would probably have been best to put away the watches that we wore into the village as well as sunglasses and baseball caps.  Many of the children would point to these items that we were wearing and say, “Sir Blanc…give me.”  As much as we would have loved to give them these items, we were instructed not to as they would fight and not every child would receive something.  After crafts and each child getting to participate in making something, our team split up into groups and each group was paired up with a translator.  We then ventured off into the village going home to home speaking with the parents in the homes.  Our group consisted of myself, Charlie, our brother Jeff, sister Kasondra, and another team member-Sara.  Our wonderful translators-Carols & Michelle would ask them for us what their greatest need was, if they knew Christ, if they had accepted Him as their Lord and Savior and if they hadn’t if they would like to do so.  We made it to several homes that day and prayed over many individuals.  Two of the homes we prayed in, the individuals stated that they did know Jesus but that they hadn’t accepted Him yet and would like to do so.  I had the honor of walking one young expecting mother through the gospel and led her through a prayer to accept Christ into her life that day.  This was very much a God moment for me and as we left her home, Charlie & I both hugged her and she kissed me on the cheek.  Kasondra also had the privilege of doing the same with another mother that we spoke with.  In addition to these women, an older woman in the village invited us into her home and was more than excited about us praying with her and over her home.  She seemed very proud as she invited us in and immediately kneeled on the cement floor in the middle or her home and began to pour out her heart.  She explained that her husband had passed away and that her son had just recently lost his job.  She asked that we pray for her daily strength and that God would provide for their needs in and through everything.  Once again I almost felt shame as I saw this old women drop to her knees before the Lord on the cement floor of her home as we prayed with her.  How often do I drop to my knees and pray humbly before the Lord I thought?  I have to say a huge thank you to the translators in our group that lead us from home to home today and assisted us in sharing the message with the people.  Michelle and Carlos you did an amazing job and truly are being the hands and feet of Jesus.  After each group had some time to go from home to home praying with the people in the village, we loaded back up into our vehicles and headed out of the village.  Children would run after us as we headed out of the village and would jump onto the truck to try and follow us out.  It was hard, but we literally had to peel some of them off the truck to keep them there.  Once out of the village we headed back into Port-au-Prince to our hotel, showed, relaxed a bit, had supper and debriefed.  Tonight we stayed up for awhile longer and sang some praise and worship songs by the pool as Danny and Art played acoustic guitar and we also took some time to let Charlie’s family back at home know that we made it safely and were have an amazing time.  I was pretty shot after today as I remember falling asleep several times in the truck on the way back to the hotel and hitting my head on the cage in front of me, so I was pretty ready for bed tonight.  So far this was my favorite day of the trip!