The Gurley Family: June 2025

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Hannah's Week at Camp

This year Hannah decided to do "Crew" at camp, which is designed to be a leadership experience. They helped with setting up and cleaning after most of the meals, as well as taking on a few other service projects at camp. Hannah enjoyed having more freedom and responsibilities, and they still got to do several of the traditional camp activities. They had a very hot week, so the air conditioning in the dining hall was also a bonus.

Gwen was also on the Yucatan trip, so she had about 14 hours to get some sleep, do laundry, and repack!

We usually volunteer as a family to help with check-in on Sunday afternoons.

Year 3 in Yucatan

Micah is home safely from Mexico!

Carter and Jackson drove to our house a little before midnight on Friday, and I drove all three boys to the church.

It's pretty cool that 11 of the 24 students go to Tallmadge High School (or just graduated).

They took a charter bus to Cleveland to catch their 5:00am flight. They had a layover in Charlotte, flew to Cancun, then had a four hour bus ride to get to Ichmul.

Like other years, their days consisted of door-to-door visits, VBS, manual labor, teaching ESL, and leading lessons. Micah was one of the students who gave a sermon at the evening service.

I can't look at this picture without getting teary. Words can't express how grateful I am to have these people in our lives.

Micah and the interpreter

Micah's little buddy Lupita was very excited to see him again.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Matthew's Week at Camp

Last week Matthew was at Camp Carl, Micah was in Mexico, and Hannah was home.

When Matthew injured his knee, we feared that he wouldn't be able to go to camp at all. Praise God that the injury was not as bad as we originally thought! Two days before camp started, the doctor gave him clearance to return to activity gradually without his immobilizer on. He was able to participate in almost everything and said he only had some pain on one of the days.

Matthew has had a friend in his cabin each year, but this was the first time he got to go to camp with some of his best buddies.

They had a few thunderstorms and had to take shelter for tornado warnings one night. But they still got to do most of their activities.

Matthew chose fishing as his elective, partly to be with his friend and partly to take it easy on his knee. He learned that he does not enjoy fishing.

Camp video link

The last day of camp was Matthew's birthday! I made him a cake, and he opened some family presents. We'll do a family dinner and a friend outing a little later this summer.

The night before Matthew left for camp, we kept K overnight.

Hannah and I had a good time while the boys were gone (Scott was also gone two of the days for a golf trip). We went shopping, went to sports practices, did some baking, and played cards in the basement during tornado warnings. On Thursday night she had her posse over for an outdoor movie.

The day after Matthew got home we went to K's birthday party and went out boating with the Oysters and Wagners.

Matthew and McKinley jumped off the "cliff". Hannah opted out, partly because she fell at cross country that morning and scraped up her leg pretty good.

Both coaches were impressed with her toughness to finish her run with blood dripping down her leg. One coach saw her fall and said something about her doing it well. She quickly responded, "I've had lots of practice". 😂

Thursday, June 12, 2025

One More Sentimental Post

With Hannah entering high school in the fall, she will have to choose between soccer and cross country (or maybe tennis??). When Hannah joined her first competitive soccer team in second grade, I would have never guessed that she'd even be considering playing soccer in high school! I remember observing the better players in those first few seasons. They were high-energy, confident, and strong. Hannah was timid, quiet, and often a little unsure.

But, to my great surprise, season after season she kept wanting to play! She had such a hard road. She had to come back from a broken arm, have covid masks on the sidelines, and deal with unkind coaches and teammates. She had many seasons where they didn't have any subs and many seasons where they had few (or no) wins. Hannah almost never got to play in her actual age group. Due to various circumstances, she was almost always playing against girls (and boys) that were at least a year or two older than her. (She had to move up to the full-size U13 field when she was only 10!) She played on teams where she knew no one, co-ed teams, teams above her skill level, and teams where many teammates had never played before. For most seasons, she was also running either cross country or track at the same time.

And though I often wish that I could make things easier for my kids, it's the difficult things that produce the most growth. Hannah is now a confident, strong, aggressive soccer player. She is sure of herself on and off the field and leads her teammates well. She progressed from a girl who barely touched the ball, to a girl who would get the ball and pass it off as soon as possible, to a girl who chases every ball, elbows bigger boys out of the way, and isn't scared to dribble through traffic.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say that she's some all-star soccer player (she's not) or that an improvement in soccer skills was our end goal (it's definitely not). My excitement comes from her growth as a person. She learned that she could do hard things and work through pain. She found ways to interact with challenging people. She put in great effort over a long period of time at something that did not come easily to her. She really stretched herself socially and put herself in positions where she felt uncomfortable. She learned how to set goals for herself and work to achieve them. She found joy in playing, not just in winning. I'm incredibly proud of the person she's becoming, and I'm eagerly watching to see what God has in store for her.