kentucky cut

I went to get a haircut yesterday, it is the first time I have been to a barber since I got an Underwood special at 10 or 12. I looked through the Cabela's catalog while waiting like I knew what I was looking at and got up in the chair when it was my turn. I said I wanted an inch or two on top and clipped on the side, he then proceeded to use the clippers that were attached to a flowbee type system on all of my head, no scissors needed. I did want it short, maybe not that short, but I think it makes the beard look that much more impressive. I will give an update when the beard comes off, but for now its still too cold.

in the news

Over a week ago an elderly man in the community, Bill Taylor was robbed and beaten by others in the area. This past Tuesday he passed away from those injuries. He was married to Mabel Taylor, daughter of Bill Henderson, whom the settlement is named after. Apparently the individuals who did this were addicted to drugs as is common in this area as jobs and recreation are hard to find. Its hard to imagine what it may take to break a cycle of poverty and addiction in families in our service area. The response by our pastor Mike Tupper has been to bring together community members to pray, many others feel the need for vengeance as the history of the area has taught them to follow, and can be seen in comments on the articles.

The story by WYMT news includes some family and community reaction as well as a clip of our very own Jerry Lambdin, Work Camp Coordinator. (click on the "community members are in shock" video)

In informal conversation with community members most are aware of who has done the act and can share more information and details than the news can provide. That being said it is tragic and has highlighted the issue of addiction as a need to be addressed in the area.

snow!

Howdy, y'all!

I just need to share this with you--it's snowing in Kentucky!

Fay

The first Sunday that we went to the Hope UMC here in Frakes, one of the people who really caught my attention was Fay. Fay is an older woman, around eighty years old, with white hair pulled back into a sort of bun. She often wears a big maroon sweatshirt and jeans, but to church she usually wears a long dress or skirt, giving her the look (as one volunteer put it) of an old-fashioned schoolmarm.

Fay sat next to us at the potluck dinner that first Sunday. She told us how she wasn't alive when Hiram Frakes arrived here in the Laurel Fork Valley, but she was born shortly after. It was clear to us as soon as we met her that she was a force to be reckoned with. She's a Methodist, even though all of her family (and most of the people around this area) are Baptist and think she's going to hell, and she is a strong, independent woman.

She started a women's Bible study at the church, so of course I wanted to be part of that! We are studying all of the women in the Bible, starting with Eve, and it's really interesting to hear Fay's perspective on women like Tamar (check out Genesis 38 if you don't know the story)--she thinks Tamar was really admirable for taking charge of her situation. (I've had the chance to spend some time with some other really cool women from the church in this study, too.)

We were able to have dinner with her at her home last week, and her house is great. She lives up a steep driveway in a little house with a couple of additions and a purple fence. She has four dogs that she rescued from being strays, and her house is FULL of books. And she paints, too--she has several of her own paintings hung on the wall, and she did a beautiful mural of a countryside scene in her bedroom.

Fay has had so many interesting experiences in her life, and those experiences have made her very strong-willed...and just strong in general. She knows exactly what she thinks about things, and she has so many incredible stories to tell. I know that my description of her doesn't really do her justice. I'm very grateful that I'm getting the chance to know her and talk with her and learn from her.

photos

Hi friends.

This is just a quick post to let you know that I've spent a long time this evening putting up pictures of our Christmas break on our photo website. You can see them by clicking here.

Amazing Find from the Opportunity Store - Part 3

Every so often, the maintenance people take off with a big box truck to pick up food from God's Pantry for the food pantry here at Henderson Settlement. The non-perishable items are unloaded into the food pantry, but things like potatoes and onions and grapefruit are put in or near the Opportunity Store so that community members can pick them up before they spoil.

That's how we ended up with this giant bag of oranges: (Yes, I know that the bag says that they're onions, but they are definitely oranges.)

As soon as I brought them into the apartment, Eric said, "What the heck are we going to do with so many oranges?" I said, " Well, I'll eat a few...." After thinking a little while, Eric came up with the brilliant idea that we should make juice!

Fast-forward to Saturday afternoon. With only half an hour left of Opportunity Store open hours, we headed up the hill, hopeful (but not terribly optimistic) that we'd find a juicer. As we looked at the shelf of kitchen wares, we found a plastic man-powered juicer--mission accomplished! But since we had time to spare, we started wandering around. Eric ended up near the small appliances, and, lo and behold, he found an electric juicer named "Juicit"! We tested it out, it worked, and we gave up on the man-powered one.

After paying our 99 cents (plus tax) for the Juicit, we headed down the hill to try it out! Here's an action shot:

Suffice it to say that we were more than pleased with the results. We had fresh-squeezed orange juice to drink both days this weekend. Amazing.

small disaster on Christmas morning

Ok, friends, as promised, here is the blog entry about our Christmas morning experience. The story is most easily conveyed by this very small documentary film that we made:

furlough

Our apartment is starting to look rather normal again, and we're still hanging up Christmas cards. It's time to blog about our two-week jaunt in the northeast.

Please forgive the bullets--it just seemed the easiest way to include everything. Also, the links included below will take you to pictures, but the pictures are NOT from this trip. They're just to remind you/let you know what everyone looks like.

Here we go!

• We left Frakes the morning of Saturday, December 22, and we drove to Baltimore to spend the night with Christie and Tim. We had a delicious dinner with them and Brian--it was great to see my sister for the first time since she got married!
• Sunday, we drove back to NEPA and experienced some very horrendous fog, which made Eric's eyes want to fall out of his head.
• We stopped at the Reid parents' home for the afternoon, and then we headed up to the Kazinskis' in Binghamton to hang out with a few of our YAR friends.
• Monday was Christmas Eve. We had lunch with Abby and braved the mall...yeah, we're crazies. We joined Doug and Linda for a delicious dinner at Doug's place and went to the Christmas Eve service in Cortland.
• Christmas Day we battled treacherous roads (more on that in another blog) to get to the Yetter Christmas breakfast and to enjoy some time with family and received a cow (!!!) as a Christmas present from Dad Yetter.
• We travelled then back to NEPA, where we spent the rest of Christmas and the next couple of days. We saw family (both Reids and Nanstiels, ahem) and friends (Sky Lakers and Liz and Matthew) and relaxed, all of which was wonderful. Oh yeah--and Eric and Tim cooked deer legs.
• Friday we travelled back to Lisle for dinner and visiting at Mom Yetter's.
• Saturday we picked up Doug and headed to Oxford to spend time with friends at the Martins' house.
• Sunday we went to the New Milford UMC and got to see some of our youth group....we miss them a lot!
• Monday was New Year's Eve. Eric spent time with Ike and Tim, working at the Stoughton Farm, and Sarah hung out with Kristen and Ben. Then we headed to the Shelps' for a rowdy New Year's Eve party, complete with about 13 separate countdowns to the New Year.
• New Year's Day was Stoughton Christmas at the Smiths'. We had good food and good company, as usual! We spent the evening hanging out with Kevin and Ryan, who were our gracious hosts for several days.
• Wednesday Eric went with his dad to work, and Sarah....well, she went shopping. Then Grandma Yetter cooked us an amazing dinner so that we'd get another chance to hang out with the Yetter Clan.
• Thursday we stopped in at Achieve to visit Eric's co-workers and other friends he made there--we had fun saying hi to everyone! Then we headed south, stopping in Lenox so that Eric could meet with the General Conference delegation and then heading to Mom and Dad Reid's.
• Friday was Scranton day. We headed to the Albright and the Children's Libraries, having the obligatory lunch at Pappas. It was great to see everyone there...it almost made me want to come back to SPL...
• Saturday we took a few moments to breathe and do laundry and pack, and Sunday we drove back.

It was a whirlwind tour, but it was wonderful. Thank you to everyone who housed us and fed us. We missed seeing a few people, but we were so grateful to see the ones we did. It was so wonderful to spend time with y'all! We love you!

home again, home again, jiggety jog

We're back from our whirlwind tour of the northeast. We'll be posting sometime in the next couple of days all about our trip. While we miss everyone up there, it's nice to be back in our own apartment, where we can leave our stuff all over the place and not feel guilty about it.

It was great to see y'all.