Friday, January 7, 2011

The Siefka Family

The Siefka family left yesterday to head home in Michigan. The have been so much help
and have accomplished so much during their stay here. I spent a lot of time with them
while they were here, I worked with them, played with them, and spent time talking about
our spiritual views. There are several things that we did not see eye to eye about when it
came to spiritual beliefs, but it did not stop us from being brothers, it did not divide us,
in fact, we have agreed to look into each others differences and try understanding their
views. There are 10 kids in the family and the 5 oldest did most of the work, but the
younger ones did help at times too. Daniel is the oldest, and is only a month and a half older
than I am, then Michael, Benjamin, then comes the first girl, Joanna, then Joshua. I will
have to post a picture and introduce them that way to get the last 5. I mostly spent time
with the oldest.
One thing that we all did have in common but never got around to doing due to a lack of
a net, was play Volley Ball. They have played in a league of several other churches and
they love it. Daniel, Michael, Benjamin and I spent a lot of time talking about it, and we
did volley around in a circle a little. We also played soccer out in the field on the airport,
next to the runway.
On their last day here, they attempted to play a trick on me, but I caught it before walking
headlong into it. I woke up later than I was suppose to and was slightly in a hurry to get
down to Life University to finish taking shingles off the roof and get it dried in before
the rain got here. While I was grabbing some breakfast, I was informed by Kelly (the
mom) that Dan was going to give me a hard time because it hadn’t rained that night. I
had insisted that we dry in the part of the roof that we had already stripped, and he and
his boys were trying to tell me that it was a waste of time because the little spot on the
radar would probably pass over or not rain enough to worry about. As I said already, we
covered the roof and it was dark by the time we finished, and I was late for a meeting in
Ocala. Then Joanna told me that Daniel called and wanted me to get some more tarps
before heading down so we cold cover the rest of the roof if it started to rain before we
were ready. This was a big mistake on their part.
I met Dan (the dad) outside and wasn’t disappointed in being given a hard time about
it not raining. He in turn was not disappointed in me pointing out that it had sprinkled
only moments before, which he informed me that the sprinkling was chicken spit, and
it wasn’t enough to worry about. He helped me get some tarps out of the storage trailer
all the while the verbal sparring continued, and while I was climbing out of the trailer
I happened to look at my car which was facing me about 50 yards away. It looked like
there was something under it, I thought that I must have hit something last night on my
way home, and it was dragging under my car, though I couldn’t remember doing so. So
after putting the tarps in the truck, I walked over and saw that it was a car jack. This also
confused me cause I was planning on changing my oil, and I even got that very jack out
before realizing that I didn’t have time to. So I was trying to figure out how I could be so
irresponsible, then noticed that there was more under the car than just the jack there were
two stacks of 2x4 blocks, then I saw that my two front tires were about an inch off the
ground. Those little rascals!!
Smug with my catching this potentially embarrassing trap, I jacked up the car, removed
the blocks and put everything away. I then felt no guilt at being late, I went in and
buttered two muffins for breakfast, which I was going to forego, and got a glass of milk.
I almost made coffee, but Kelly was working in the kitchen and I didn’t want to be in her
way. Then Nathan called me during my one minute drive over to Life University. And
when I pulled up, I didn’t bother hanging up for several minutes while I sat parked out
front, where I was treated to several people walking up from the other side of the roof,
or “casually” walking past the opened roll up door.
When I finally made my entrance into the building, I explained that my car wasn’t
working so that was why I was late:) then I told them the truth. I told them that if Daniel
hadn’t told me to get tarps, I wouldn’t have caught it.
We had fun talking about it that day, and I told them that I was going to get them back,
even if I had to go to Michigan to do it, which I would really like to do this summer, Lord
willing.
Thursday morning before they left, Jesse’s family and I went to Ihop with them for
breakfast, and to mine and the other guy’s delight, there was a wonderful special. All
you can eat pancakes!! You buy a combo (2 eggs, hashbrowns, and either sausage,
bacon, or ham, and 2 pancakes) and after eating that, they will bring you a plate of 3
more pancakes, and you finish that, they bring you another plate… you get the idea.
Well that may just sound ridiculous to most people, but the problem that I frequently
run into, and by the aftermath of this adventure, these poor boys do to, the problem of not
getting enough food when you go out to eat. So this was like Christmas coming slightly
late.
So we all got the combo, and pretty much all of us had the first course down in less
then two minutes, we then proceeded to devour our endless supply of pancakes. The
youngest boy, Stephen, dropped out at 6, Benjamin dropped out after only 8 pancakes,
Joshua, Daniel and I dropped out after 14, and Michael upon hearing that the record
was 21 proceeded to shatter the record by eating 23. Throughout our pancake feast, we
continually made jokes of us putting the store out of business, and how funny it would
be if we came every week, the special probably wouldn’t last long, or we at least would
cause fear every time they saw our car pull up. In the end our table ate 79 pancakes in
all. Michael said upon finishing his last pancake, “Ihop in, and roll out”.
When we finally said our good bye’s I told Michael that I would call him when I broke
his record, it could take a little while, I will have to attempt it after running or working
out so I am really hungry.
I think it was after 4 of us ordered for the third time, people from the back started to come
out and see who was eating so much, the poor waitress thought we were joking. We
made an impression anyway, even if it was just the dent we put in their pantry of pancake
ingredients, they will remember us.

Austin

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