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at numerous other activities.
    For me, homeschooling helped keep my priorities in order and allowed me to work on the things that I wanted to accomplish at my own pace and on my own schedule. Later, in high school, if I had an opportunity to go on a recruiting visit to a college, I could take off on Friday and make up for it by doing more of the required work either ahead of time on Thursday or on Monday after I returned from the trip; and I never had to worry about missing a test. I would also schedule my workouts around my class schedule. I always could do everything I wanted to do athletically and academically because I was able to schedule things in accordance with the priorities that were built into me when I was growing up. And the neat thing was that I was able to do most everything I needed and wanted to do along the way, and that really helped me develop a sense of accomplishment.
    It was during those growing-up days, when we were engaged in our games and chores around the farm, that I also had my first experience with the death of someone who was close to me.
    Uncle Dick went to be with Jesus. He had health problems from emphysema and a childhood bout with polio, but I had never anticipated him actually dying. It was a sad occasion. We all loved him, and while we knew that he was now enjoying the rewards of heaven, we missed him and still do.
    As sad as we were, we soon learned that Uncle Dick would continue to live on in a way that paid tribute to the great man that he was. Several years before Uncle Dick died, Dad was on a trip to the Philippines when he learned that an unwanted baby, whose mom died in childbirth, would be thrown in the river if someone did not take her. My dad’s staff members Bert and Ray Gauran took her and named her Queen.
    Dad has always been very sensitive toward widows and orphans, who the Bible says repeatedly we are to care for. So, when Dad heard Queen’s story and realized how many children there were in the Philippines with similar stories, he went to the board of his organization, BTEA, with an idea to address the need of these orphans. He wanted to start an orphanage that would raise them. The board immediately embraced the idea, understanding the biblical mandate to help widows and orphans:
    Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
    J AMES 1:27
    In 1992, BTEA founded the orphanage in the southernmost part of Mindanao, Philippines. It’s a relatively small orphanage, with just under fifty children, but it is making a large impact in those children’s lives, caring for them and teaching them about Jesus’s love for them. By God’s grace we have had seventeen of our orphans graduate from college.
    Much like my father, Uncle Dick understood the importance of helping those who are less fortunate, and when he died, he left a large portion of his estate to support the orphanage in the Philippines, which my parents then renamed “Uncle Dick’s Home.” It is a home of joy, providing unconditional and never-ending love to so many who need it. Renaming it in honor of the man who showed that kind of love to us and to so many others seemed to be the perfect tribute. I thought they’d have those little bottles of Coke and assorted flavors of popsicles for the kids who were living there, but Mom and Dad said they were going to take a different route on the meals and snacks for the children in Uncle Dick’s Home.
    I loved the idea, but I was still sad that he had died. There was certainly a hole left in our family with Uncle Dick’s passing, a hole that was even more pronounced when Thanksgiving and Christmas came around. That hole would never go away, but it didn’t take long for the newly renamed orphanage to become a vital part of our family. Through the wisdom of estate planning, Uncle Dick has had a great legacy of impacting many needy children.
    For much of my