Summer of Sevice - 363 days...

As summer rolls on we continue to learn and grow from serving the Lord and those around us.  In keeping with our previous theme of helping to fight hunger, we chose a project that would directly affect our own community.  While researching ideas for our Summer of Service, I stumbled upon an organization called 363 Days. 

Each year, various organizations put together programs for Thanksgiving and Christmas to help feed, clothe and take care of those less fortunate. There is a remarkable amount of time, energy and money that goes into these programs. An honest question, pondered by those who participate is, "What happens the other 363 days of the year?"  363 Days was established with the other days in mind. Their starting goal was to help feed 150 homeless people in Minneapolis as many times a year as possible, with the ultimate goal of doing it every day of the year. Today, they are feeding about 2,000 people per day!

Volunteering for this organization is pretty simple, and perfect for children.  All you need is a commitment to purchase the supplies and find the time and place to make sandwiches...as many as you want to assemble.  I loved the idea of being able to do something so easy that could impact someone we might just see regularly near our home in the city.  The whole family was once again able to serve in some capacity for this project...and we even timed this one around a visit we would be having with my 4 yr old niece so we (especially the kids) could begin teaching and sharing with someone else the value of serving others.

We as a family had committed to supply 300 sandwiches to this organization.  I wanted a challenging number so it wasn't so short the kids didn't have time to process what they were doing.  Since my husband would be working the next day, he and I went shopping for the supplies (so he could participate in some capacity).  We bought 15 loaves of bread,  4 big packages of cheese, 12 packages of turkey slices and 2 boxes of ziploc baggies.  In the morning, I moved all the chairs away from the dining room table and set the kids up in an assembly line.  I let them come up with their own rhythm of working together and just helped ease some of the hiccups along the way.

As you can see, they managed just fine!

 

The three younger kids mostly assembled the sandwiches and the older two mostly packed them up and prepared them for delivery.

The kids also had fun trying to keep their little cousin on task.  They learned quickly that she needed to rotate her job often to stay interested, but she did a great job!!  We think her favorite thing to do was to line the sandwiches up in rows and count them!

Once every sandwich was sealed, packed and stacked we bagged them up and took a ride to a delivery location, which for us happened to be a small business that put a chest freezer in their office to store the sandwiches that come in.

363 Days then sends a truck around once a week to all the drop off locations throughout the city to pick up sandwich donations and stores them in their main freezer, which has the capacity to hold 50,000 sandwiches on any given day until they are ready to be taken out into the community to feed those in need.
 
It took us a little over an hour to make 312 sandwiches!!  That's 312 times someone will get a light meal because of our family.  A sandwich doesn't seem like much to most of us but I know many people are incredibly grateful to receive one if they are hungry and have trouble affording a meal.  Not only does the sandwich nourish their body, but I'd also like to believe that some of those people are touched by more than just getting food...maybe they learn about the love of God through others?  Or they receive a boost of self esteem and worth if they notice people take the time to make sure they are fed?  That's my hope.  It's pretty incredible the impact you can make in such a short amount of time...

A Day In The Life Of A Happy Husband...

Last week seemed to be a tough one for my husband.  He came home flippy, stressed, and on some days, down right grumpy.  He was busy during the days and staying up late at night.  When he finally did go to sleep, he was restless, tossing, and turning.  By the time Friday evening rolled around I had a problem on my hands...an overtired, impatient, antsy, overloaded...well, you get the picture...

All week long I was noticing the build up.  I was wishing there was something I could do to help him out and lighten his load.  He works so hard for our family.  He's incredibly ambitious, creative, and selfless.  He takes time out of his day to help his new employees move into their new homes or to talk a friend through a life transition.  He'll coach up-and-coming professionals who look to him for advice, and even makes time for me...filling in the gaps by running and errand, or doing a kid pick-up to lighten the load of my day and responsibilities of running our home, despite his already full schedule.

There are things I can do to ease his day, like making sure he always has clean, pressed clothes in the morning, a comforting, healthy meal on the table when he arrives in the evening, and managing our home flawlessly (that's the goal at least!) so he doesn't have to worry about anything extra while at work during the day, and most importantly, greet him at the door with a smile on my face.  Friday was a different story, though.  None of those things seemed to be helping him, and I knew he needed a time-out away from work, away from the kids, and away from home to reset and recharge his batteries.  I enlisted (aka "bribed") the help of our oldest daughter for babysitting the younger ones, and before we went to bed, planned a "day date" beginning first thing in the morning.

I was determined for this to be a great day for him.  He needed it!  Upon waking, I spiffed myself up...I needed to look my best for him and he needed something sweet to look at...so no jeans or the typical "Saturday uniform."  Nope, it was a "nice summer dress, combed hair, and make-up" kind of day.  While the kids woke up one by one and settled in with pancakes (and doughnuts for a treat...again, bribery!) we sat out in our screened porch in the warm breeze for a chat.  I let him run the conversation, for once, to let him unload a bit, and once everyone was awake, we took off for our own breakfast.  Here's where we ate...

Longfellow Grill

The Longfellow Grill is a small restaurant we discovered last fall right along the Mississippi River near the kids' school.  David loves eating outside when he can so we chose a table out on their patio in the shade.  It was a beautiful morning, with plenty of sunshine and a warm summer breeze, and the area was active with bikers and walkers so the people watching was great!  He was content and began to relax...we were off to a good start.

After breakfast we drove across the river to St. Paul and through some of the neighborhoods to kill some time.  Then we toured the Town and Country Club, an urban golf and country club, as we are looking to find a place for David to be able to entertain and socialize with colleagues and clients and us to have a place to "play" as a family without the crowds and hassles of some of the big city amenities we currently use...like our gym, pool, and places to eat.  These can be "problematic"or "a hike" to get to occasionally, depending on time of day, traffic, or other things going on in the city.  This club is also right across the river from the kids' school so it could work nicely for me as a "landing pad" after school with any combination of kids while the other ones are at activities in the same general area, avoiding driving back and forth across town!  Needless to say, it was gorgeous.  And the golf course was amazing.  And David LOVES to golf.  I would love for him to have a place to go to unwind whenever he wanted to, to play golf, socialize with other professionals, and/or relax!  Here are some of the sights we took in while there...

 

I mean seriously...what guy wouldn't want to spend time in that scenery?  Or this...later in the fall...

Or this pool, to play in with his kids, never having to worry about whether there will be a chair available to sit in the sun or dry off after a swim...

 

The tour was great.  David was in his element and loved talking to the golf pro and the clubhouse manager about all sorts of things.  It definitely beat out some of the other clubs we had viewed and I think he left feeling happy and content about creating a new community for himself and our family there...it definitely gave him something fun and different to think about!

Back home we went for lunch.  I made one of his favorites, Pulled Pork Sandwiches with a homemade BBQ sauce and Cabbage and Carrot slaw, which he raved about...yes!

After lunch, he was a new man.  He played catch outside with one of the boy's while I watered the flowers.  We took a short walk around the neighborhood, he sat with his feet up and watched golf...and the biggest accomplishment I noticed...???  He never once took out his phone to check his email, respond to emails or texts, or get himself sucked into work by even looking at it...huge positive!

After dinner was the best part of the day (for me).  We went here...

Again, what guy doesn't love hanging out in the Apple store?  We looked at computers, phones, iPads, iPods...played with them all...talked about upgrading stuff we've had for awhile, etc...and the best part?  I finally decided to get my new computer.  Which made him smile, because it made me smile, and he got to help me get it all set up before we went to bed.

Days like this are so important.  Everyone should take the time to step away from daily routines and stressors to recharge and relax, to not think about work, and think about caring for and nourishing themselves.  I love my husband A TON.  I am so happy that we were able to have this time together, even if it did mean bribing the kids, setting aside typical Saturday chores, and pushing off running errands for another day.  We don't get to do things like this very often and it was a blessing.  I feel like I got my husband back...the happy, witty, easy going, generous and fun loving man that he is.  I need to remember to plan these kind of days with him more often...days about HIM...with, or sometimes without, me...so he never gets overloaded and stressed like that again.  It's important to not only have balance in our lives as wives, but to help our husbands create balance in their lives as well.

Farm Meals...

I have really been enjoying our CSA this summer.  The variety has been amazing and the flavor of the organic produce we are getting is unbelievable!!  The color is amazing and each week we are introduced to something new grown this season on our farm.  It's been several weeks since I have shown pictures of our weekly bounty so to catch you up, here are some snapshots of what we have been receiving.

Week 4 - Broccoli, green beans, purple cabbage, snow peas, cauliflower, yellow squash, celery, red leaf lettuce, fennel, red and white scallions, green garlic, dinosaur kale, and mint.

Week 5 - red leaf lettuce, salad greens, broccoli, snow peas, green beans, carrots, golden beets, yellow squash, zucchini, garlic, scallions, cauliflower, parsley, and basil.

Week 6 - corn, cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, broccoli, sweet onion, garlic, carrots, yellow squash, cucumber, salad greens, zucchini, parsley, and cilantro.

Week 7 - green beans, carrots, broccoli, nappa cabbage, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, banana peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, sweet onion, corn, golden tomatoes, and thyme.

I have been able to make some fabulous meals out of this produce!  For the most part, I have been able to come up with uses for everything...except the cabbage...I'm having a hard time keeping up with the cabbage!!

Here's some of the many dishes we have been eating.  Some are basic meals we all make from time to time but are kicked up a notch by adding fresh herbs, like Naan Pizza and Homemade Spaghetti and Meatballs, where I used the basil in the sauce and as a fresh topping!  I love basil.  It is by far my favorite herb. 

I also made Lemon Chicken Pasta and tossed in 1/2 cup of chopped flat leaf parsley.  This was a perfect summer recipe.  It's a very light, refreshing, and flavorful dish for a warm night that can be served hot, at room temperature, or cold the next day for lunch.  For our dinner, we ate it at room temperature.

 

I also made a basic meatloaf for dinner one night a couple weeks ago when it wasn't too terribly hot out.   This is one of the few meals I make, surprisingly (since it's such an "old school" dish), that the entire family will eat and lick their plates clean.  This time, though, I  used A TON of fresh herbs...basically, everything that was left in the fridge...parsley, basil, rosemary, and thyme...all from the farm (except the thyme).  It was by far the best meatloaf I have ever made...and everyone else agreed.  My oldest daughter kept trying to figure out what was different! 

This isn't the most attractive picture of a meatloaf since it isn't cooked...I forgot to take a picture after it was plated...but you can really see the fresh herbs throughout. I served this with purple potatoes and broccoli (also from the farm!)...

Once we got digging into the greens and veggies things really started to get interesting!  One of our favorite "farm meals" yet this summer has been Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps w/ Peanut Sauce and Curried Cauliflower and Snow Peas served over warm basmati rice.  OH. MY. GOODNESS.  This was such a flavorful dish!!  And there were enough components to it that the kids could customize their lettuce wraps to their liking!  In this one meal I used our red leaf lettuce, cauliflower, snow peas, cilantro, garlic, and scallions...and it was so filling...and healthy!

I'm also a huge advocate for cooking once and having enough to change up and use for future meals.  Not only does this save time for future meal preps, it creates creativity when cooking.  I don't always have an idea of what I'll do with extra food, but if I don't want it to go to waste...then I need to come up with something!  Last week I made a HUGE salad out of our remaining spinach, kohlrabi, and purple cabbage.  A couple of nights later, when we still had half a bowl of salad left, I sauteed the whole thing in a little olive oil, added some apples, maple syrup, and a touch of apple cider vinegar and served it as a side with grilled pork tenderloin.  We also used corn and salad greens from the farm for this meal as well!

I still have pork tenderloin and sauteed cabbage leftover, so to give it a third life I am going to make pulled pork sandwiches with homemade BBQ sauce and top them with the remaining purple cabbage slaw tomorrow.  That will be a perfect Saturday lunch for my hubby!

And last but not least, I made a beautiful pasta salad the other day to put a dent into some of the single veggies that have come in over the past couple weeks.  In this salad is zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, golden tomatoes, broccoli, yellow peppers, and fresh mozzarella.  I tossed it w/ a Sunflower Salad Vinaigrette using the sunflower oil produced by our farm as well.  This has been an awesome lunch filler and light late night snack.

So as you can see, it seems like A TON of produce.  But it doesn't take much to create a delicious meal using fresh foods or even transform recipes that our mothers and grandmothers have passed down to us that they used to make!  If any of these meals look good to you, or you would like to try one of the recipes I used, send me an email or leave a comment and I will email it to you right away.  And I would love to be inspired by you and what you've been cooking up in your kitchen this summer.  The best way to be successful in nourishing our families with whole foods is to share our success and encourage one another!

Intentional Living...

One of the challenges I give myself spiritually, and as a wife and mother, is to choose the way I live my life as intentionally as I can.  It's easy to go through your days like a robot.  Or to follow the ways of the world and immerse yourself into what culture, community, or media dictates as "normal" or "ok."  I like to be different. Go against the grain. Challenge myself to be better. To have a reason for everything I do and to be sure that my reasons are in line with what my beliefs are.  I don't often give myself a head check to see how I'm doing with my intentions, though.

I'm a perfectionist.  I hate that about myself.  I crave order, demand it, actually.  And it can be crippling sometimes.  I haven't figured out why I am like this or why it's so hard for me to compromise.  I have some ideas, but I won't get into that.  That could be a whole other conversation.  But the craving, and exhausting clamor,  for perfect, order, glitch free, or whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish is getting in the way of me following through on my intentions.

When I decide to tackle an area of my life, whether it's exercise, healthy eating and cooking, home care, spirituality, serving my spouse or children, cleaning, jumping back into my career, whatever...I do it with amazing force and power.  I knock it out of the park...for a little while...until I, predictably, get burned out and somewhat frustrated that everything else in that list has been completely ignored and left behind.  And I end up with an amazing amount of catching up to do in those other areas in my life that I am responsible for.  And even though I am doing beyond great in one category of life, I end up feeling a little bit like a failure because everything else was left in the dust.  It's a ridiculous cycle I go through over and over that needs to be balanced.  Please tell me that I am not the only person who does this?!!

Yesterday, my husband called me on his way home from work after getting a text from one of our kids asking him to pick something up on his way because we couldn't figure out what to make.  The afternoon had gotten away from me and nothing was prepared.  He started the conversation by saying, "So I guess this isn't one of those days where I come home to an awesome dinner waiting for me on the table?"  Although it was totally lighthearted with no negative intentions, the guilt that welled up inside of me was pretty intense.  He was totally right, although he didn't know it.  That act of service...having an amazing home cooked meal on the table when he gets home...is one of my intentions.  It may sound old fashioned, but the results that come from it relationally within our family, and our marriage, are very sweet.  That statement from my husband let me know that action on that intention is important to him as well, for whatever reason it is for him.  Being an attentive wife and mother is so important.  I know this.  It's one of my most important jobs that God has bestowed upon me.  Getting caught up in other things, our unusual and unpredictable summer schedule, trying to find some semblance of a routine, and spending too much time thinking about how I can be a better person, and planning my perfection, has caused a lacking in my attentiveness. 

Today I am thankful for my husband and his witty remark about a lack of dinner on the table last night.  It unintentionally reopened my eyes to that list of intentions that I have and desire so greatly to balance throughout my life so I can be a blessing to those around me, and, be a reflection of God to others who watch me.  Thanks for the "head check" my love, you make me a better person!

Summer of Service - Kids Against Hunger

It's been a few weeks since I have updated on our summer of service but the lack of writing does not reflect a lack of service!  We are an incredibly blessed family.  We have everything we need and then some.  We never lack food on our table, and always have the ability to eat fresh, local, organic, in season, and variety at every meal.  We all take this for granted and we need to refocus ourselves back to the world around us and remember that not everybody has this.  It's easy to forget about others who may be suffering when you never seem to. 

Consider this…

• One billion people around the world live in chronic poverty and hunger.
• 40,000 children die each day from starvation and illnesses related to malnutrition.
• One-half of all deaths of children under age five are associated with hunger.
• And yet, the world produces enough food to feed every man, woman and child a healthy diet every day.

So with these facts in mind, we have been busy helping fight hunger near us and far away.

Our church sponsors an awesome program called Kids Against Hunger that was founded right here in the Twin Cities area.  The mission of Kids Against Hunger, a humanitarian food-aid organization, is to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the USA and to feed starving children throughout the world.  The organization’s approach to achieving its goal - the eradication of world hunger - includes the packaging of a highly nutritious, vitamin-fortified soy-rice casserole by volunteers at numerous locations within the USA and Canada, and the distribution of those meals to starving children and their families in over 60 countries through partnerships with humanitarian organizations worldwide.  That's where we came in...we participated in a food "pack-a-thon" hosted by our church.

During our packing session we packaged Kids Against Hunger’s specially formulated rice-soy casserole into serving size portions to send to schools in Haiti.  The story behind why our church helps these schools was just heartbreaking.  Can you imagine having to choose to give your child up just so they can survive?  Neither can I.  There are so many families in Haiti that are so poor they cannot adequately feed their children.  When the children are old enough to attend school many parents are faced with a very difficult choice.  Send them to school to learn for their future, but likely end up malnourished or starved, or sell them off as slaves so they can work for food and adequate shelter and survive.  The meals we packed allow these children to be fed while they are at school...and the parents no longer have to choose to give them up for their survival.  Sometimes it is their only meal for the day, but it is enough to sustain them.

I particularly liked this day because the pack-a-thon was on a Saturday afternoon and we were able to serve together as an entire family.  My husband is a busy guy.  It's hard to nail him down sometimes, so he doesn't always get to serve with us because of his schedule!  But he was a trooper for sure on this particular day as his flight home, after being gone for 7 days, literally landed 25 minutes before we started packing food!  It was fun to walk into church and see him waiting for us with a big smile on his face, see the kids jump all over him, and then hop right in to something meaningful together as a family.  Loved it!

The kids thought this was a great activity.  The organizers did a great job making it a fun, casual environment.  They played music for the volunteers and intermittently educated us with facts about hunger and the children in Haiti that we were packing for.  This was also another great teamwork activity where everyone had to work together in a certain way to be efficient, fast, but also careful!

We talked a lot about the food we were packaging while we were working.  Of course being the label reader I am, and teaching the kids to do the same, we were all reading the nutrition labels of the food package.  For the most part we were OK with what we were packing, although, we might have been known to add an extra large scoop of the dehydrated veggies as well...see my partners in crime below...who me??!

We also talked a lot about how blessed we are to be able to eat fresh fruits and vegetables all day long and how that would be hard to only have grains and dehydrated foods as our only meal.  Although, Sarah thought the grains we were packing still smelled good and continued to sniff everything all afternoon.

Having such a large family, we took over an entire packing station as well, which allowed everyone to rotate jobs which helped keep them from getting bored but also learn the entire process of food packaging as well.

 

There were about 60 volunteers there packing together, including us.  Together we were able to scoop, sort, seal, box, and prepare for shipment just over 20,000 meals in 2 hrs!! 

The kids had so much fun on this service day.  It was a great project to teach them that not every type of service has to be hard, challenging, or physically difficult.  Yes, we were all exhausted, had sticky hands, food dust in our eyes and tired feet, but seeing the pictures of the children we were helping and participating in the process of making such a huge difference with just the sacrifice of two hours time was pretty impactful on all of them.  They all wanted the event to last longer.  We decided as a family we could do a repeat of this one on a regular basis as our church schedules this event about every 4 weeks!

Farm Meals...

As I promised, I am sharing some of the meals I will be making this week from our box of fresh produce from our CSA farm Driftless Organics. Last night was a winner for the meal and for maximizing what's in the fridge!  There were only a few ingredients in the entire dinner that were not a part of our CSA box.  I used the salad greens, broccoli, 3 weeks worth of radishes, red leaf lettuce, and strawberries.  That's five different vegetables and greens in just one meal!!  Plus I added some organic yellow onion so we ate 6 different varieties. Awesome!

For me, one of the hardest veggies to use in cooking from our box is radishes, and we get a lot of them!  Usually, a new bunch for several weeks in a row.  They have a wonderful color and crunch to them, but often come with a serious spicy kick that can linger for quite awhile in your mouth, especially organic ones, because organic anything always has loads more flavor than conventional varieties.  I do not know very many people that love mad amounts of radish in anything.  My kids won't eat them raw, the flavor is a little too much for their tender tongues.  So I decided to try something new and slice them up and saute them with caramelized onions...which everyone in this house will eat if I do them "just right."

I love the beautiful color in radishes...the deep pinks are so stunning and vibrant!  This radish preparation was a huge success!  All I did was slice the onions and radishes thinly and sauteed them in 1 tbs olive oil and 1 tbs butter (from grass fed cows), until caramelized.  My sweet husband grilled a beautiful barbecued pork tenderloin to pair with this.  However, the barbecue sauce he chose was super spicy so I improvised quickly and we turned this into a lettuce wrap meal, using the red leaf lettuce to cool down our mouths as we ate the pork!  Here it is...

Pork tenderloin lettuce wraps w/ caramelized onion and radish, steamed broccoli, and salad greens.

To round off this beautiful summer supper and to welcome both my husband and oldest daughter home from their 7 day absence I also made a gorgeous strawberry pie as a special treat using the strawberries from our farm box.  I am trying very hard to eliminate all packaged, pre-made foods from our diet and attempted a made-from-scratch pie crust instead of a store bought one.  The kitchen was too warm yesterday so it ended up being a flop but I had an extra one in the fridge waiting to be used up.  I will definitely try this again, though.  The pie recipe I used is a new one for me that does not use any Jello or boxed gelatin, which contain food dyes and extra sugar, as the pie base.  This recipe, from my favorite cookbook, Simply in Season, uses fresh strawberries mashed and cooked with sugar and cornstarch, which is used as the base thickener.  I LOVED it!  So much more flavorful and sweet...and healthier!

And of course, what is a homemade pie without homemade whipped cream flavored with a touch of vanilla??

So there you have it!  This is by far one of my favorite meals we have had in awhile.  It was so fresh, filling and healthy!  And it made my husband smile and sigh with contentment, which melts my heart!

Strawberry Pie
 From Simply in Season Cookbook 

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Blend in a saucepan

1 cup strawberries, mashed
1/2 orange juice or water
Add and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat.

2 tablespoons lemon juice
Stir in and cool.

4-6 cups of whole strawberries (I halved some the of giant ones)
9 inch baked pastry shell, graham cracker crust, or shortbread tart crust
When cooked fruit is cool, gently fold in additional strawberries and pour into crust. Chill for 3 hours. 

Summer of Service - Special Olympics...

Last night the four younger kids and I went to the campus of the University of Minnesota to volunteer at the Special Olympics - Minnesota Summer Games.  I chose this activity for us for a very specific reason.  We have a few families in our life that have children with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities and I have noticed when our kids are exposed to these children, and also out in public, there is apprehension to get close and engage.  This is especially the case with our two youngest.  I get that.  Different is hard...and sometimes scary.  And even though I did have plenty of exposure with this growing up I learned to not stare or ask questions about other people's challenges and just turn and look away if I was bothered or unsure.  I want to be very intentional with my children when teaching them to accept all walks of life and want them to learn that God creates each one of us in our own perfect way and that even though it might be hard or scary sometimes, we need to accept, love and support everyone.

My goal for this service project was to make it fun and show our children that these kids and adults are just like us in many respects.  They like to have fun and have feelings too.  They can play, sing, dance, run, compete in sports, cry, laugh...just like us.  They just sometimes look, sound, and act it out differently...and sometimes not so differently!

Our job at this event was super simple.  Show up, have fun, and be a cheerleader.  We were there to support the athletes and make them feel strong, special, and equally as exciting as any other athlete out there.  It was the perfect job for the kids because it allowed them to sit and "stare" at these kids from afar and observe and absorb the differences without being offensive or rude.  It allowed us time to talk as a family about why it might be hard to be accepting of someone who is different, what about it makes us uncomfortable or afraid, and what we could try to do to get over that and honor God and His design for these individuals.  The questions and comments that the kids came up with while we were doing this were so intuitive and innocent. I loved it.  I could tell they were really thinking and processing a lot.  They were also rewarded with many waves and huge smiles from the competing kids as they heard and saw them cheering them on.  It was so precious.

I think the kids gained a lot from this evening.  Some of them still had a hard time getting close but I know it will take practice, time, and continued support from us as parents to keep them involved in the process.  They all enjoyed the atmosphere, being rewarded with smiles and waves of appreciation from the athletes, and to me, the conversations were priceless.  I showed the kids my pictures this morning and they were excited to see themselves in action.  I think Cameron summed it up quite nicely for all of us...

"I guess, in reality, there really isn't a whole lot of difference." 

Special Olympic Athlete...

My athlete...

Clearly, there is not.

“Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.” 

-Romans 15:7