We missed you tonight, man. We missed you a lot. I wish you could have been there. Of course, it wasn't the first time that these feelings have cropped up throughout the last five years or so. But it was a particularly poignant evening in Amsterdam that became a particularly painful reminder of your absence.

Your name came up quite a few times throughout the course of our time together. Not with the venom and animosity that you probably suspect, but with affection and honor. For a lot of the people assembled, you were just a name, a second-hand memory... But for me -- and for the rest of us who knew you -- you are (not were) a beloved friend, whose presence is deeply missed.

If it were not for you, Steve, I would not be in Amsterdam. Zolder50 would not be in Amsterdam. I can still hear the sound of your voice on my answering machine, echoing through the white, white kitchen of our Bowling Green home -- the Conneaut house -- in the sunny summer dawn. 6:30 in the morning. Yet it was your cool, casual voice -- calling from Amsterdam to playfully pester me, to pull me through the final months toward the far side of the Atlantic. Breathless from my run down the stairs, I snatched the telephone from the receiver, and I heard your smile through the line. I tried to scold you for forgetting the time zone differential, but you diffused it immediately and effortlessly, like you always could do: "When're you gonna get here, man?" I told you I was doing my best. You said, "Good -- get your butt over here, OK?" I said OK. And then I did.

I don't know how the whole thing ever would've unfolded without you, Steve. I'm sure it would have somehow; I am, after the last five years, a firm believer in the sovereignty of God. Indeed, God has sustained us in ways you never could have, Steve. But at the same time, I have to believe that God used you in the early days of the "Amsterdam Project" in an extremely unique way. I mean, seriously, three-dozen people transplanted from the heartlands of America (Colorado, Kansas, and Ohio, for goodness sake!) -- to Amsterdam, of all places?!?! Taking on real-estate development projects to subsidize ministry costs? Developing an international resource center with people posessing plenty of talent and ambition, but just a handful of stamps in our passports, to start things off?!? You were (and probably still are) a genius, Steve. Some of your ideas were absolutely brilliant. Others were, perhaps, delusional -- even crash-and-burn material (which is to say that I've got some of the bruises and blisters to show for it). I can't deny that there have been nights when I've cursed your name, Steve... And yet, in the grander scheme of things, when I step back and get a sense of perspectve -- like this weekend -- I have to give you credit, Steve. You accomplished a great deal. The fruit of your work is still ripening, still developing, and even carrying seeds to the far corners of the earth...

I wish you could've been there, Steve. I wish you could've heard Sunita talk. . And Jeroen. And Gerard. And Jurren. But you weren't. For what it's worth, everything is going all right, here. Probably not as well as if you could've stuck around a bit longer. But we're doing all right. You'd be proud. You'd be glad.

Thanks, at any rate, for everything you did -- everything you gave -- to make this weekend possible. The cost has been high, but so have the dividends... I almost wrote, "but it's been worth it" there, yet I don't know if I can really make that value judgment. Especially not on your life, your sacrifices, your pain. I can scarcely make such a claim for my own life! All I know is that God has managed to salvage some good things from our efforts. So for whatever it's worth, I just want to say "Thank you."

We sure have missed you this weekend, Steve. You, and Ali, and Chris, and Marcey, and Bret, and Jayla, and all the rest... I wish we could have heard some of your masterful storytelling. I wish we could have heard Chris play "Hallelujah." I wish you were all here.

God bless you, Steve. I hope you're doing all right. Give us a call sometime, if you ever feel like it... even if it's at 6:30 in the morning.

Love,

Eric