We are not called to save the world, solve all problems, and help all people. But we each have our own unique call in our families, in our work, in our world. We have to keep asking God to help us see clearly what our call is and to give us the strength to live out that call with trust. Then we will discover that our faithfulness to a small task is the most healing response to the illnesses of our time. (Henri Nouwen) Six months ago, Lloyd and I said yes to something we didn’t really want to do,...

    “Oh, to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” (John O’Donohue) We never suspected that Lloyd would be working fulltime for the next six months as interim Chief Administrative Officer for a bi-national organization with offices located in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Southern Ontario. We had no clue. He was not looking for or wanting another job. But the invitation came his way, and together, we said yes. So here we are, surprised and abit shell-shocked, looking this organization in the face. Our lives have been turned upside down as we gradually...

  Christmas 2021 This world and everything in it is on loan, entrusted to our care for our time. ~John McQuiston II, Always We Begin Again~   “What do you do all day?” This question comes our way more often since Lloyd’s 2019 retirement from ChildServe and our subsequent relocation from Des Moines to northern Michigan. These two events, along with the 2020 arrival of a global pandemic have shaped what we currently do all day. Sometimes we joke that we just sit on the beach all day (which may or may not be true). And sometimes we try to...

Our 2021 summer guest season has finally come to a close. After the pandemic solitude of 2020, it was great to see a steady stream of loved ones again. Thanks to each and every family member and friend who made their way to nadamore. Salome & Isaiah Nengean and their children, Micah (6) and Rebekah (4), came all the way from Frederick, MD in June. They were our first guests of the summer and stayed for five days. It was overcast with light rain most of the time they were here, so we ventured out between the raindrops whenever we...

Today we celebrate forty-four years of marriage. Forty-four years of traveling this life together as best friends, lovers and co-workers trying to make a positive difference in this world. We were so young on that 1977 August day! We were so confident that we could change the world for the better. This desire to make a difference fueled many of the choices we made and served us well. But it was also naive. We didn’t know then, that being a difference might be just as important or perhaps even more important than trying to make a difference. This shift in...

The tree planting tradition we launched in May 2019 is now complete. Complete in the sense that a tree for each of our fifteen grandchildren has been chosen, purchased and planted in the soil at nadamore. When this tradition was first conceived, we had no idea which trees would be joining us or where exactly they would be planted. Now, as we look around the nadamore landscape we are surprised by the wide variety of newly planted trees. It feels good to be surrounded by their trunks, branches and leaves, all visible reminders of the grandchildren they represent. We are now...

Christmas 2020   Dear Family and Friends, We hope this finds you healthy and well in your heart of hearts despite the challenging external circumstances we are all facing this year. We wish you HOPE this Holiday Season and always: HOPE that transcends understandable wishes and desires for life to be different than it actually is; HOPE that understands joy & sorrow, good & bad, easy & difficult, birth & death are part of every single human life; HOPE that trusts no matter what happens, God’s goodness and love will come through even though we don’t know when, where or...

Oh, to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding. (John O’Donohue) The school property continues to surprise us. First, by unveiling gifts that were hidden on the land when we first began to clear it and then, by shaping our response to these gifts. When Glen Lake Community School Board decided to put the small land triangle up for sale in Dec 2017, we weren’t exactly happy about it. We were in process of building our home on the adjacent 2.5 acres and never imagined the school property would go up for sale and...

“Hiking-I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains-not hike! Do you know the origin of that word, “saunter?” It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, “A la saints terre,” ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as “Sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not “hike” through them.”...

The two barred owls swooped silently into nadamore this past Sunday evening at dusk. The only marker of their arrival was graceful movement of widespread wings as they landed onto nearby tree branches. One of them landed less than ten feet from the deck where I was sitting, and stared straight at me as the other observed from slightly further away. Their presence was powerful. I was aware there were owls in the area because Lloyd and I had often heard them hooting from a distance through the woods. But never before had they chosen to land so close to our...

I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.” (JK Rowling) The idea of creating a bookclub for our grandchildren was sparked sixteen years ago by a specific conversation with The Barnes and Noble Lady in Des Moines IA. I never learned her name, nor she mine, but we knew each other well. She worked at the information desk of the University Ave location, and frequently helped me solve my never ending searches for specific books. As a retired elementary school teacher, she was particularly well-versed in children’s literature. One day, as she and I hunted...

It is by the place we’ve got, and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to heaven. (Wendell Berry) The 1/2 acre school property on W Cheney Rd was covered by at least a half century of debris: large fallen trees uprooted by storms over the years, knarled stumps, dense underbrush, decaying logs, dead branches, big rocks and a variety of dirt-caked items like old tires, plastic children’s toys, empty cans, rusty wire and broken glass. These things had to be removed in order to discover what was hidden on the land.    ...

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. (Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams) There’s something new on the nadamore landscape today: something standing tall and strong in place of yesterday’s dirt. Something that didn’t used to be, yet feels like it always was. As announced by Monday’s hopeful chorus of early spring peepers, the ground was finally thawing. While we walked on the soft and sometimes muddy trails...

“It’s finished, Dad.” The words came as I leaned over the still warm body of my Dad at Chilliwack BC Hospital. He had taken his last breath in room 470 only moments ago. Privately, as I imagine he would have wanted. The nurse had called at 6AM to tell us he was gone. Vicki and I were already awake at brother Mike’s house, only a few miles from the hospital. We had returned there to sleep after spending the two previous days at Dad’s bedside. He was non-responsive during this time, but we talked to him as if he could...

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” (Rumi) While we absolutely LOVE the more of what we’re discovering here in northern Michigan, we’re also acutely aware of all the nada it took to get here. Without letting go of life in Des Moines, we couldn’t have stepped into the more of what we are experiencing now: the more of a spectacular landscape of dunes, orchards, beaches and vineyards surrounded by beautiful Lake Michigan; the more of countless area trails to explore; the more of living closer to most of...

Some invitations are easily discovered and completely irresistible, like the concrete invitation we received during the 2018 annual Vanderkwaak Family Gathering.  Acting upon this invitation was a spontaneous last-minute decision that resulted in a great deal of fun and a permanent record for posterity: well-formed handprints on the floor of our soon-to-be screened-in porch for each of our adult children, grandchildren and for ourselves as well. The individuals who left their mark on August 3, 2018 will be forever present at our new home. Given the geographically dispersed nature of our family and the limited times we can be present...

Our move to northern Michigan provided a wonderful opportunity to start a new tradition with our grandchildren: to plant a tree somewhere on our property for each one of them. We had always loved planting trees and were already interested in diversifying the tree population on our property. Why not combine this natural interest with our love for all the little people in our lives? This tradition, we thought, would be a great way to honor the individuality of each grandchild and to help them establish a connection with the land. It would encourage them to feel part of something...

When we began to plan the construction of our house on Cheney Road, we knew we wanted to work with local contractors and builders. Peter Fisher, our realtor, helped us by providing an initial list of contractors he thought we should talk to.  Since many of them were not available in 2018, they provided names of other contractors who we then contacted. It took a while, but we eventually assembled a wonderful group of construction professionals. We began the process of securing the necessary building permits in the fall of 2017. The various county and township governmental units needed applications,...

When we purchased the W Cheney Road property in April of 2017, it was a piece of land with a pole barn on it. At the time of purchase, our plan was to live in Grand Rapids after Lloyd retired from ChildServe, and to use the property as a campground and potential gathering place for family and friends. We had no idea that within the next two years this initial vision for our property would evolve to what it is today. How did this happen? In essence, it goes something like this: We allowed ourselves to dream of possibilities, and...

Dear Family and Friends, We hope this finds you happy and well! This past year has been filled with change and delightful surprise as we made (and are still making) the transition from Iowa to Michigan. One of our biggest surprises came late at night on Labor Day weekend (yes, we were still awake), when the skies above us lit up with the northern lights. What a beautiful display of moving color against the darkness! The lights were visible that weekend over much of northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. We saw them at Glen Lake, only a mile from...

  It was spring of 2018 and we were playing with words. Lloyd and I had already been introduced to nada, the Spanish word for nothing and todo, the Spanish word for everything or all, and now, in his Chevy Colorado on the way to Texas Roadhouse in Des Moines, we were having fun. Why not create one word that held the meaning of both? We tried the obvious first: nadatodo. It sounded odd though, and todo sounded more like a puppy’s name! Besides,  everything or all,  were finite words with boundaries.  What if there was something beyond all? Or something beyond everything?...

We enjoyed the presence of numerous guests over the summer and fall months. Despite the fact that we were still in the process of unpacking from the late May move and getting settled for most of the summer, we enjoyed every single one of them! They were the ones who helped us figure things out: How many loads of laundry can our septic system handle per day? How do you get all the sand off little people after spending time at the beach? What’s the best way to avoid getting ticks? How do we keep animals from getting at our...

By early 2017 we had already decided we wanted to move to Michigan after Lloyd’s retirement from ChildServe, and that Grand Rapids was the likely location. A good share of our kids and grandkids lived in Grand Rapids or further east, and our family had often used Grand Rapids as a central gathering place. Besides, we already owned a house in Grand Rapids and had been renting it out for years. We had fashioned an apartment in the basement of the house and were used to staying there whenever we came from Iowa to visit. We had already created many...