tribute to our dad

Our dad was the recipient of the 100th anniversary Boy Scouts of America Distinguished Citizen award for the region we live in, and last night was the dinner and awards ceremony. A few weeks ago my sisters and I decided to touch base with the event organizers to see if we could surprise our dad by giving a short tribute during the ceremony. We were so grateful that they allowed us to do that. It was a really memorable time. There were so many more things we could have said about him, but they told us we had 3 minutes and (shhhhh) I knew this was at least 4. so we had to stop somewhere. enjoy reading about our wonderful dad!

Good evening, my name is Adrianne Thompson and I am the very proud daughter of Ron Vodenichar. I am number three of four daughters in our family. So in several ways, it is no small feat that, of all the organizations out there-- after raising only girls--our dad is being honored by the Boy Scouts.

It is an enormous privilege to get to honor and thank our father publicly. Not many of us have the chance to do that, so thank you to the organizers of tonight’s event for making space for me to say a few words. My three sisters and I worked on this together over email, and I have the tough job of trying to speak our thoughts without crying.

There are actually two sayings that I'd like to highlight tonight as I talk about our dad. They center around two things that we all know he loves deeply: God and sports. The first comes from the Bible and goes like this "to whom much is given, much is to be expected." We believe that God has richly blessed our father in many ways, and those blessings have made him the man he is today.

The first gift our father received was the nuclear family into which he was born. The wonderful mother who raised him from the age of 12 is here tonight, his father and mother are surely proud of him in heaven, and his 11 brothers and sisters have been so loyal and a source of great support and joy to our family through the years.

Secondly, God gave our dad our mother as his wife, helper and partner in life. She is the kind of woman who sees the LORD in the most broken of people and places, and she treats everyone--someone with a position of power and the least of these among us--with dignity, trust, respect, and, of course, a little bit of sass.

Finally, God gave our dad his fair share-- perhaps more than his fair share-- of gifts and skills that make him the man he is: a sharp mind, determination, faith, and a beautiful story from growing up that make him compassionate, generous, hard working, humble and hopeful.

So again, as we think about those wonderful, numerous gifts our dad received, there is a sort of flipside: To whom much is given, much is to be expected. I don’t know if many of you know this, but our dad was actually pretty sheepish about receiving this award, and part of that is because he feels like he’s only lived appropriately based on the cards he was dealt. And of course he isn’t satisfied with how much he’s served. He is overwhelmed with emotion every year at Christmastime, wondering how to share more of the blessings that we have. And that kind of humility and dissatisfaction-- longing to serve more-- are two of the things we love and respect most about him.

The second expression is a sports saying that goes like this "champions are made when no one else is around." The same can be said of servants or distinguished citizens. In the verse "to whom much is given, much is expected," the critical word tonight, I think, is expected. You see, though so many of us have been given so much, not as many of us have followed through. Not many have tried to live up to that expectation.

And there's a reason for that. Like I already said, servants are made when no one else is around. The life of a servant is hard and often thankless. While many of us will be inspired and moved tonight, hearing about a life well lived, few of us will be inspired enough to do the sometimes monotonous, slow, thankless, humble work that is at the heart of a true servant. That is at the heart of our dad.

A few examples: for many years, our dad taught the boys Sunday school class at church. They weren't all the same age, but the thing that united them was that they were tough, restless, bored with the Bible, and not very teachable. Oh, and driving all the female Sunday school teachers crazy. But our dad faithfully served them every week. And he loved it. He brought them brownies, made the conversation relevant and tried his best to point them to the God he serves.

Secondly, at our father’s initiation, our family hosted many people from international exchange programs, ranging anywhere from 2 weeks to an entire year. Many people are willing to serve if it is in a way that is compartmentalized and not too sacrificial; not many serve when the hospitality is that lengthy and invasive of space. Especially not when, at one point, it meant hosting another 2 females, when he was already so outnumbered.

While there are many much larger scale acts of service that are notable about my dad, that have already been listed tonight, those oftentimes carry with them their own reward (like thoughtful awards and recognition like this.) But it is the things like teaching boys Sunday school, week in and week out, bringing his family along with him to serve pancakes at Rotary election day breakfasts, providing warm, generous hospitality to folks through international exchange programs, serving dinner at Katie’s kitchen, regularly bringing the family to sing together at assisted living facilities, ringing the bell for the salvation army, making dinner for our dear 90-year old friends, the Parvises, those kinds of smaller, mustard-seed-like, anonymous or prolonged acts of service are what really make up the heart of a servant. And those are the kinds of things that make us most proud of our father.

My time is short so let me end by repeating: Daddy, to whom much is given, much is to be expected. And my sisters and I have no idea how we can live in a faithful manner anywhere close to proportional to the gift you have been to us. We are so thankful and so proud. Congratulations daddy.