GRAY D. WIEBE of Papillion

Nominated by Erin Wiebe of Papillion, who wrote:

I would like to nominate my father for the Nebraska Father of the Year Award. My father is very involved and committed to his family. He always comes to my soccer games and my brother's football games. He always comes to our programs at school. He attends and asks lots of questions during Parent Teacher conferences. He encourages us and helps us with homework.

When we were attending a Christian School, he helped and volunteered to help clean up the school and the playground. This year my brother and I switched to public school. My father felt we were very sheltered from the outside world, and to help us in our faith walk we needed to learn how to deal with outside influences. My parents prayed about the change and felt that God was leading them to send us to public school. I was nervous about the change but my dad encouraged me to pray to God for strength.

The change to public school has been fine. I made friends soon and my father helped my through the change. Our Church runs the AWANA program for children. My dad is the leader for the boys group 3rd grade to 6th grade. This takes up his time but he wants to help boys get to know Christ. He has also gone on 2 mission trips to Russia. He went to Orphanages and met with new Christians in Russia. He still keeps in contact with the friends he made there. Every night we have family devotions and he prays with us at bed time.

He tries really hard to be home in the evenings to have dinner with his family. He tells us he loves us every day too. When problems arise during his day he prays for strength. He prays every morning before he goes to work and has his own daily devotions. When Church needs volunteers he always makes himself available. We love our father very much. He takes great care of us and helps out our extended family too.

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