New News: Our Family Promises Expansion!!!

With great joy we learned on Wednesday, November 22, that Ben proposed to Elsa, received an affirmative answer, and is now engaged. Details and photos are forth-coming, but needless to say, he is floating several feet above the ground. We are very pleased to welcome Elsa to our family, and delighted to see Ben choose a young woman who is bright, sweet, and committed to Christ, not to mention that she is not only willing to put up with Ben, but she loves him!! :-)

National Champions!

It was our great pleasure to travel to Ohio over the weekend of November 18 to watch the Calvin Knights (and Tim, of course) compete in the NCAA Div-3 National Cross-Country Championships. Above, the guys gather the day before the race to give the course a try. It had rained 4 inches in the previous two weeks, and in that ohio clay, the course was more like a sodden stockyard than a course. But the Knights are a strength team, and showed their toughness!

Ben drove over from Bloomington, IN, to join us, and our good friend (and second-mom to the guys) Angela Allen, joined us for the festivities.

After a muddy and difficult run (and if you need proof of the horrible conditions of the race, look at more photos here: http://tinyurl.com/ygyred) Tim finished in second place, and Calvin destroyed the competition, scoring 37 points. The Knights were fabulous, and Tim finished off a successful collegiate cross-country career in style, as a member of a National Championship team once again! God has been incredibly good!

Here we are, (Dave at left and Ben at right, Chris hugging the muddy boy) celebrating at the finish line.

Here are Calvin's 9 All-Americans; it was an amazing feat! Tim became one of only 12 men in NCAA Div-3 history to become a 4-time All-American. (Back row, l-r: Harrison Joritsma, Christina Overbeck, Camille Medema, Lydia Singer, Jon Gries. Front row, l-r: Tim, Nate DeHaan, Eric VanKampen, Jed Christensen.) You can see the complete race results here: http://www2.wilmington.edu/ncaa-cc/index.cfm and you can see more photos of the Calvin crew here: http://tinyurl.com/yxsr88.

Here Tim and his girlfriend, Nikki, enjoy the celebration at the banquet for the Calvin team on Saturday night. It was an evening to remember!

Great Lakes Regional Champs!

The Calvin Knights dominated in a terrific performance last Saturday (Nov. 11) at the Great Lakes Regional Meet, at Hanover College in Indiana. This was the course that four years ago, Tim fell on as a freshman, and thanks to the ministrations of an older teammate, came back to score 5th for the team, and give the team a perfect score of 15 points. For more on that race, see the speech teammate Jeff Engbers gave here:
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~j5engbers/2004speech.htm

Tim won this time around, praise God, becoming the Great Lakes MVP for the second consecutive year. The Knights finished with 17 points. The finish photo above shows Tim, followed by teammates Jed Christensen, Jon Gries, and Harrison Jorritsma.

Next week (Nov. 18), the Knights compete at the National Championships, and will attempt to win yet again. It is amazing that four years for Tim have flown by! He will be looking to join the ranks of those who have been 4-time All-Americans: a fairly rare feat! See the listing here:
http://www.pe.pomona.edu/womens/crosscountry/stats/XChistorian/3-4xAAs-Men.pdf

Dave and I will be flying to Ohio tomorrow, where we'll meet up with the Knights and cheer them on. Ben will be driving over from Indiana, Lord willing, to meet us also. And we will enjoy watching the guys and gals run on the course where Tim won Regionals last year, and set the course record. Go Knights!