trip north - Sarah's edition

Now it's my turn to talk about my trip north.


The beginning is the same as Eric's version, but on Monday morning, Christie picked me up from Jurisdictional Conference in Harrisburg, and we headed toward NEPa.


We spent a day or so visiting with Gramsy and with our cousin Darcy and her family.



Then we went and spent another day or so at our parents' home.


It was nice to relax with them for a while before heading back to Baltimore, where Christie and Tim live. While I was visiting them, I got to meet some more of Christie's friends, which was great.


We had some good Sister Time, watching girl movies (Enchanted and Mamma Mia) and just being together and hanging out and talking, which was wonderful since we don't get much time to do that.


We went to Artscape, which was fantastic. I'm not sure why, but I didn't take a picture of the car covered with singing fish and lobsters. Maybe it's because you had to be there to fully appreciate it. I don't care who you are--it would've blown your mind. Here's a picture of the bus covered with random stuff.


And here's one of the other interesting sights from Artscape--hahahahahaha!


Eric joined us on Saturday afternoon, and that evening we went to see the Baltimore Orioles play the Detroit Tigers. Christie brought her knitting.


The fans were exceptionally rowdy, and the game was exciting right up until the very end.

On Sunday, after attending Christie and Tim's new church, we headed up to Lancaster to the wedding of one of my friends from Eastern College. It was a beautiful service, and it was so good to see some of my friends from school.


Then we headed back to Baltimore and got some more time to spend with Christie and Tim.


And then on Monday, we headed back to Kentucky and jumped into time with family and friends again!

It was a wonderful trip for me--getting a chance to relax and spend time with people I love. I just wish that someday Christie and I could live down the street from each other.

irrigation:phase 1

Several weeks ago I drove to western Kentucky to pick up parts for an irrigation system here at the settlement. Phase one of this project is for the mums pictured above. When I arrived they were doing all of their watering by hand, this was not only time consuming but it also made it difficult to be accurate with how much fertilizer plants were receiving as well. The mum platform is set up on what used to be a hog barn and is able to hold 2070 mums that can be watered with the turn of a nozzle. We also have an in-line fertilizer system that will accurately give each plant the same amount of fertilizer. Phase two will be setting up irrigation in two greenhouses for hanging baskets.

work camp visitors

The past three weeks have been a little nutty. First there was a group here from Morris UMC, then we went north for Jurisdictional Conference, and then there was a group here from Lehman-Idetown UMC.

Morris UMC is pastored by Sara Baron, a friend from Sky Lake staff. When her church expressed interest in a mission trip, she steered them in the direction of Henderson Settlement. There were four adults and six youth, and their project was spreading gravel at the Lower Farm. Although the work was hard and not very glorious, they went at it with enthusiasm, and the pole barn and Kim's driveway are now happier places to work and drive. It was great to spend time with Sara and her parishioners, and although the week was not without its bumps and bee stings, I think they had a good time, too. Thank you, Morris UMC!

Last week, my parents and my aunt Dotty came down with a group from the Lehman-Idetown UMC. This group was a great mix of people, scattered in age from sixteen to eighty-three! They worked on re-siding and finishing an addition on the trailer of an older woman in the community. Aunt Dotty and Kendy also spent one afternoon in the library, which was a big help to me. It was wonderful to spend time with the group in the evenings, especially with my family. My mom and I even got a chance to visit with Fay, which was a real treat for me--to have two amazing women in my life spend some time together! Eric and I also got to eat with the group at Webb's restaurant in Cumberland Gap, and there were live musicians taking requests, so of course, that was a blast! The group had quite a challenge to finish their project in the space of five days, but they got as much done as they possibly could, and I know that the woman is very grateful for their work. Thank you Lehman-Idetown UMC and friends!

It has been such a blessing to have people from home joining us in our work here at the Settlement. I'm glad that they got to meet some of our people here, and I'm glad that some of our friends here got to meet some of our people from home. Sometimes it's a beautiful thing when worlds collide.

website

Hi all--

Again I'm behind. *sigh* My resolutions never amount to much.

I do have some news, though. A couple of weeks ago, the new website that I've been working on for the Settlement was uploaded. There are still some kinks that need to be worked out, but overall it seems to be working pretty well, so I'm pretty pleased! Click here to see it, and let me know if there's anything missing!

Roadtrip (from Eric)

We have been gone for a week or so and have been here there and everywhere. Saturday the 20th we drove to Beacon NY, about 14 hours in the car, and we didn't go crazy. We were there for our friends Asha and Tamika's engagement party. It was great to see them and be able to help with setting up for the party.

On Sunday afternoon after the party we drove to Harrisburg PA where I was a delegate to the Northeast Jurisdictional Conference of The United Methodist Church (what a mouthful). After Attending General Conference in May I came away frustrated about the church and asked the question of if I wanted to stay in the church. During this week of worship, discernment, and revolution I was reinvigorated and affirmed to continue to work within the church for change. We lifted up to Bishop the Rev. Peggy Johnson, an advocate for the deaf (among others) from the Baltimmore-Washington Conference. I feared that the process of interviewing and voting for candidates would be very political from what I had heard of past conferences. I was pleased to find that while the process was not perfect it felt much more like discernment than an election.

We approved the reorganization of conferences in the Upstate NY area that has been a long time in process. This is bittersweet as this new entity will split the Wyoming conference at the state line and all of upstate NY will become a new conference in 2010 and the PA portion will join with Central PA conference. Had the wyoming conference not existed it is probable that Sarah and I would not have met. We will not see friends in ministry as often and will miss our family style conference, but we will be able to provide better administrative assistance to local churches and (I hope) provide a better conference wide youth program as well as be better suited to inform state politics.

During the week discussion of the excess of being at the Hilton Hotel and being more extravagant than necessary prompted several of us in attendance to make a statement desiring our next quadrennial conference to be more mindful of our stewardship and to be more deliberate about "living simply so others may simply live". I can't help but stir things up.

It was great to meet and get to know folks like Matt, Jen, Dianne, Zachary, Mark, Kurt, Becky, Emily and others. As well as to spend time as the last Jurisdictional Delegation to the from the Wyoming Conference

My Grandmother Stoughton had been in the hospital all week with "mystery illness" and though I had not planned on going home it was easier to go from Harrisburg than from Frakes, it was good to see her and some family, She has moved to rehab and is improving.

Sarah had spent most of the week with her sister going home for a few days and then back to Baltimore. Saturday morning I drove to Baltimore to meet them and we were able to catch an Orioles game, just what I needed to relax. Sunday we were able to go to Beth and Steve's wedding in Lancaster PA, Sarah went to school with Beth. A really nice day and good folks to talk to.

Thats the short version, you will just have to ask if you want the long version.

photos

Hi all--

You can find our new picture website here. It's still a work in progress, but it's got some pictures there that you probably haven't seen before!

This week Eric will be in Harrisburg for the Northeast Jurisdictional Conference of the UMC. They'll be electing at least one new bishop, so that's a pretty exciting thing to be a part of! Other than that, who knows what could happen?

I, on the other hand, have opted out of this conference to spend time with my sister--hooray! We'll travel to NEPa today to spend a couple of days there, and then we'll head back down to Baltimore for the rest of the week.

Next week, when we return to the Settlement, the group from Lehman-Idetown will be there, and that includes my parents and my aunt Dotty. It's a wild time of seeing family--awesome.

fun at the day care

As you may know, Henderson Settlement runs a day care center for the community. It's a good facility with great staff and low cost to the working parents in the community.

For the past few months, I've had the opportunity to go to the day care once a week to do a short music-and-movement-type program. The young kids, for the most part, seem to get a kick out of it, and I get my fix of spending time with funny children.

There's one young boy there, though, whom I'll call C., who never wanted to participate in the program. C. is about three years old, and Pat (one of the staff members) told me that he hates music. I never took it personally--hey, if he hates music, I'm not going to force him to do the program and give him reason to hate it even more!

A few weeks ago, though, I noticed that he came over to the group and watched and participated in some of the songs. I thought that was pretty cool and figured he must've been in a good mood that day.

Last week, though, when I arrived at the day care, C. was the first one who greeted me when I walked in the door. He ran over yelling my name and threw himself at me, wrapping his arms around my legs. I said to Pat that he must be having a really good day!

What surprised me even more, though, is that he went right over to the area where we do the program and got ready to participate. And he did ALL of it! And after each song or rhyme or story, he clapped as hard as he could and yelled, "YAY!" at the top of his lungs!

I guess C. must've learned from watching his small friends at the day care that music can be fun. I hope that when I go to the day care this Wednesday, he'll be happy to see me again!

photo problem

Hi friends.

We have a small problem.

When I went onto our photo site today, I found that the server that held the online versions of our photos had gone kablooie. This means that as of right now, we have no way of sharing those photos with you. I'm working on putting them on another site (Picasa), but it'll take at least a few days before we'll be ready to share that link with you.

Sorry for the inconvenience!