I want to thank you for your gift, the pictures, the banners, the kind words, and everything else that went everyone did this past week.  It means an awful lot to me, probably more than any of you realize.  I’m not sure I can put the reasons why into words, but I’ll try.

I grew up on a farm in rural South Dakota.  We had no neighbors we were close to.  My early elementary years were in a one-room country school in which I was the only kid in my grade.  There were no such things as “play dates” back then, and my parents didn’t go to town very often.  Our church was the smallest church in town, so there were no kids my age there, either.  As a result, I grew up as a lonely, shy kid who had no idea how to relate to people.

As I grew up and eventually went to “town school”, that’s pretty much who I stayed.  I was pretty much the definition of a geek—shy, unathletic, the class brain, a loner with no real friends and no clue how to make them.  It took me a long time to overcome that, a period extending well into my adult years.

I’ve come a long way since then, of course.  I have quite a few friends now.  I feel like I am serving God and making a positive impact on all three of my communities.  I have a very happy and fulfilling life.  Still, somewhere inside me, there will always be that awkward teenage boy who just wishes other people would like him and accept him for who he is.  So, when you guys do something like this for me, well, it’s a pretty awesome feeling.

It’s an amazing world we live in, where a group of people I’ve never met can come to mean so much to me.  There are many of you with whom I have very little in common except for a love of baseball and the Twins.  Yet, somehow, that’s enough for us to share our lives, our triumphs, our tragedies, and everything else that makes up life.  I consider each and every one of you a friend.  And right now, I feel like the richest man in town.  Because it really is a wonderful life.