Pastor Roy's Sabbatical

Two landscapes, and Loretta's health

2008-05-06T18:42:00.006-05:00

We've been home one week, as of tonight, from our four month Sabbatical, and our two months of overseas travel. Unfortunately, Loretta only spent the first of those nights at home. Last Wednesday, her labs indicated that she needed medical care, and she has been in Averra McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls since then. I thought I'd get to bring her home today, but the doctor wanted to keep her one more day. Loretta's blood chemistry was quite out of whack after the multiple infections she had on our trip. Thankfully, the doctors' search for other, more serious reasons for her blood abnormalities were all negative, and they too have concluded that it must be due to the infections she had. And her blood tests are becoming more normal daily without major interventions, others than some tweaking of her medications.
So this week I have been making trips to Sioux Falls daily to see Loretta and trying to find my way back into my work here as well. Sunday the church had a nice "welcome home" dinner for us. I'm sorry Loretta missed it. After dinner I was able to share a sketch of our past four months away.
It is so hard to believe that just a week ago we left the beautiful island of Crete. I cherish the opportunities I had to walk in the Cretan countryside this past Spring. The landscape of Crete, especially in this season, is breathtaking, as I've said before, with mountains and sea, olive groves and vineyards, flocks of sheep and goats. Despite being on a scale one can easily see, there is a vastness as well, especially in the vertical dimensions of the landscape. So I will hold in my memory the Spring of 2008, when I could walk the countryside of Crete.
I've written before about the landscape of home, and for the past week, I've also been enjoying the Turkey Ridge Valley, spread out before me even as I write from this computer. As I wrote several years ago, this is the landscape of home. When I see Turkey Ridge, I know that I am home.
It is quite a different landscape than Crete. It is far more vast of course. Here the dimensions are continental, and there is room for the landscape to spread out to the horizon. Yet in this Turkey Ridge Valley there is an intimacy as well. The vally brings into view the farms up and down the country roads. The valley defines a human space, a human community.
This intimacy I feel in both the Cretan and the Turkey Ridge landscapes are to me what make them both so special to me. Both are too big to grasp entirely, and yet living or walking there brings the landscape into human view, and highlights the connection between the people, the land, and their Creator.
I noticed that our congregation in its final Bible Study during my Sabbatical was reading chapters for Kathleen Norris' book, DAKOTA: A SPIRITUAL GEOGRAPHY. It is a book that has been influential in shaping my own view of the connections between land, people, and the Creator. These are connections I hope we can deepen and strengthen in the future.
Roy

We're home!

2008-04-30T22:15:00.003-05:00

Yes, we walked into our house here around 8:00 PM last evening, Tuesday! We left Crete Monday evening on a flight to Athens, had a short night (I stayed in the airport with luggage and Loretta, Joanne, and Kaitlyn had a room at an airport motel for the short night). We flew to Frankfurt at 6:00 AM, and then had our long flight to Chicago, where we left Joanne and Kaitlyn to fly home to Colorado while we flew to Sioux Falls where Craig met us and brought us home. Kaitlyn was a real trooper on the long trip and slept quite a bit, to the relief of her mother!
Our first order of business this morning was to get Loretta to the Freeman Hospital for her blood work and labs. As we suspected from her lack of energy the past weeks, the labs indicated she needed medical attention. So we saw our nephrologist in Sioux Falls today who recommended she spend some days in the hospital, at McKennan. They suspect a residual infection may still be affecting her body chemistry.
We are very relieved to have her in familiar medical care. As you probably picked up in earlier blogs, I was quite worried about Loretta since her hospitalization on Crete earlier in April. She could function, but wasn't really herself and didn't have much energy. When she was released from the Iraklion hospital, I asked the doctor if we should come home early, but he didn't think it was necessary.
In any case, I was able to finish the Sabbatical as planned, and did most of the things I had hoped to do these past two weeks. However, I am keenly aware that a Sabbatical experience is not worth Loretta's health. So we are grateful that she is in medical care now, and trust that nothing serious will be found and that she can be helped back to the health she had before we left.
I will be balancing care and concern for Loretta with getting back into my work here at the church, which I am very eager to do. I may still have some blogs in the next few weeks reflecting on aspects of our experience these past four months. For now, we are grateful to be home and for Loretta to be receiving the care she needs. Thank you for all your prayers and concerns for us these past weeks. It was meant so much to us.
Roy

Easter Sunday

2008-04-27T03:30:00.003-05:00

Easter Sunday!
It is noon here on Easter Sunday. We just came back from a late morning brunch at the Orthodox Academy, where we joined a group of French botanists staying here and studying the plants of Crete.
We haven't been in church since morning broke. Our church began last night at 11:00 PM and lasted (for me) until 2:30 AM, as I stayed for the whole service. The Easter Festival began with prayers at 11:00 last night. Then all the lights in the church were turned off and the priest came out from the altar area with one lit candle, announcing that Christ is truly risen. The light spreads from that candle to all the candles we were holding, and out into the packed courtyard where Loretta, Joanne, and Kaitlyn were also waiting. There are some hymns and prayers in the courtyard as the church is completely emptied of people. When the Easter hymn announcing Christ's resurrection is sung, the bells of the church peal into the night air in a cacophony of sound and light!! Then it is time for the Easter liturgy itself to begin. The priest goes to the door of the church, and reading from Psalm 24 asks who is worthy to enter the gates of the sanctuary. Then the priest and people reenter the church and the service proceeds. Most people leave at this time, wishing one another a "Kalo Pascha" (Good Easter) and "Chronia polla", (many years), and greeting one another with the words, "Christos anesti," "alythos anesti", (Christ is risen! Truly risen). Perhaps 20 to 30 people stayed in the church for the completion of the liturgy sometiime after 2:00 AM. Of course, this is repeated in every Orthodox parish church, as well as monastery churches like the one we attended last night. With some 98% of the population being Greek Orthodox, literally everyone turns out for some of the Holy Week and Easter observances, and this makes for packed churches at these times.
This is our last full day here on Crete, and it dawned rainy and cool. While it isn't as "nice", I am always thankful for rain, and it rained most of the morning here. At 1:00 PM, we will join everyone here at the Academy for a traditional lamb Easter dinner.
This also happens to be our daughter Joanne's birthday, so we are thinking of her birth some years ago when we lived on Crete as a young married couple. We are pleased to be able to celebrate her birthday with her and Kaitlyn here on Crete this year. Actually, we had a family birthday dinner for both Joanne and Susanna (born April 29) while we were still altogether here a week or so ago, Friday, April 18.
The sun is just breaking through the clouds.
We are looking forward to being home and worshipping with our own church next Sunday! This will probably not be my last blog entry, but it may be my last entry till we get home early Tuesday evening! Wish us safe travels! We are traveling with Joanne and Kaitlyn as far as Chicago on Tuesday afternoon.
Roy

Oranges to die for!

2008-04-26T03:02:00.004-05:00

To this South Dakota farm boy, the rugged, stony landscape of Crete hardly seems like a likely agricultural environment! So it must have seemed also to the Mennonite Central Committee PAX men who came to the Agricultural Demonstration Farm here in Kolymbari in the 1960's. They attempted, partly at the request of the local bishop, to recreate a Midwestern American farm, complete with a Holstein dairy herd.
When you've been on Crete for awhile, you begin to perceive the rich agricultural, rural heritage of this place. Most of the Paxmen did as well during their stay here, and probably ended up realizing that they had at least as much to learn as they had to share, in terms of agricultural knowledge and expertise.
Loretta and I remembered with delight the oranges we ate on Crete for 2 years, 1969 to 1972. We had trouble stomaching oranges shipped in from Florida or California for several years after coming home. Once again, Crete has not diasppointed us! We have been enjoying Cretan oranges since our arrival the end of March. One big bag we bought as a family, along with freshly squeezed orange juice, from a roadside stand in a valley west of Iraklion which seemed to be right for citrus. Again when we drove up to the Plain of Omalos from Chania, we drove through miles of citrus groves. We noticed that the orange trees are bearing and blooming at the same time, and the air was fragrant with orange blossoms as we drove along.
In addition to citrus, Cretan agriculture features olives. There are olive trees literally everywhere on the island. I notice that the mountains are terraced with olive trees much more intensively than when we were here 40 years ago. Kolymbari, where we are staying, has a large olive processing plant, as do many villages around here. A few years ago we brought a large tin of olive oil in Minneapolis produced right here in Kolymbari. We've been cooking with olive oil here, as we often do at home, and olives, cheese, and bread make a marvelous breakfast or lunch.
The fruit of the vine is nearly as common on Crete as the olive. Grapes are produced everywhere, many for raisins which used to be dried in the sun, many for wine, and many for table use.
In terms of livestock, sheep and goats are most common, with herds seen everywhere in the countryside as you drive along or walk. Many of them have bells which create a marvelous experience when you are walking in the countryside. Sheep and goats are used for wool for weaving traditional patterns, for meat of course, but also for cheese. Feta and misithra are the names for cheeses made from goat and sheep milk. There are in addition some wheat and small grain fields, usually small. I don't know how much wheat used for bread is produced locally, but I know that freshly baked bread is most common in the local village bakeries.
Last Sunday as I was walking to the village church I passed a freshly mown patch of aromatic alfalfa which triggered memories of South Dakota, except that this patch was probably a quarter acre instead of the 20 to 40 acre fields most often seen on our farms. There are also many greenhouses producing cucumbers and tomatoes especially.
Here in Kolymbari, we daily see small fishing boats heading out to the Mediterranean, and the restaurants here in the village all feature fresh fish and seafoods of all kinds. We especially enjoy "kalamaria" for an appetizer--squid deepfat fried in olive oil!
In addition to all of this, the villages have many small gardens for fresh vegetables. And now in Springtime especially, you see many villagers out on the mountainside picking "chorta", fresh greens used as salads or cooked vegetables. I'm sure there is much nutrition packed into these greens. And of course, step onto any mountainside, and you will be surrounded with herbs used in cooking--thyme, oregano, marjoram, etc. etc.
Perhaps this gives you a small "taste" of Cretan agriculture, and the rich agricultural heritage of the island. Despite appearances, Crete is a most bountiful island, with rich soil and a climate appropriate for growing just about anything. We've met a number of people who though their main income comes from providing services for tourists still maintain an olive grove or a potato field, or have a few animals for their family. Agriculture is alive and well here on Crete!
Roy

Good Friday on Crete!

2008-04-25T01:36:00.003-05:00

Today is Good Friday in Greece, referred to in Greek as "the Great Friday," just as every day in Holy Week here is referred to as the "Great Day."
I attended the Maundy Thursday service at the Monastery Church just up the road last night. It consisted of twelve Gospel readings, the first being the entire Last Supper Discourse of Jesus from John 13-17. (Some of the other readings weren't that long, but the service lasted from 7:00 to 11:00 PM, and I stood the whole time, as did some others. I was able to follow the entire service in my Greek prayer book, holding a candle in one hand and the book in the other.)
At the beginning of the service, a candleabra with twelve candles was lit at the front of the church, and as each Gospel was read, a candle was extinguished, just as in our Tenebrae Good Friday service.
At the point where Jesus was crucified in the narrative readings, a wooden cross with candles on it was carried out of the front of the church and processed throughout the sanctuary among the people. Then it was taken to the front of the church and an wooden icon of Jesus crucified was placed on the cross and nailed on it. This cross was then placed at the front of the church. Between every Gospel reading, people came forward to kiss the cross and make the sign of the cross. Many of these people came just for this and didn't stay for all the readings. But when a Gospel was being read, everyone stood quietly and listened carefully. In between Gospel readings, the priest and chanters sang hymns commenting on the Gospel readings. Many of these readings focussed on Judas' betrayal and Peter's denial, and on the roles of the different characters in the story, entreating the congregation not to be like these people who all participated in some way in Jesus' passion.
Tonight the service will again be very dramatic. The wooden image of Jesus placed on the cross last night will be taken down and placed on a bier. This bier is then carried in a funeral procession throughout the courtyard of the church and even down here to the Academy grounds, I understand.
Saturday night features a midnight liturgy beginning at 11:00 PM and continuing past midnight to celebrate Christ's resurrection. The church which all week has been shrouded in darkness will then have every light and candleabra lit and burning brightly! Sunday morning Greeks break the 40 day Lenten fast, and I understand we will have a lamb roast here at the Academy on Sunday evening!
We are all doing pretty well here. The director's wife gave us an octopus the other night to prepare. We have eaten octopus and enjoy it, but cooking it is another matter, so we shall see how we do at this!
So much for this time.
Roy

Thoughts turning toward home!

2008-04-24T02:05:00.004-05:00

This is turning out to be a long week, as Loretta and I are both eager to be back home. Perhaps our time here was just a little long. But the weather has been very nice the last day or so. Tuesday I did my last (12th) spiritual retreat, spending much of the day outdoors. That was a hot windy day, so not as pleasant as I had hoped, but still a good day.
I've been continuing to attend the daily Holy Week liturgies in the local churches, except I missed yesterday. I alternate between the Monastery Church just up the road from the Academy, and the village church down in Kolymbari. Sometimes I am able to follow the service pretty well, and sometimes I seem to be hopelessly lost. With nearly the whole population being Greek Orthodox and therefore knowing what is going on, you typically don't receive a lot of help in being oriented to what is happening in the church. They simply haven't had any experience in that context in knowing how to be helpful, though the Greeks tend in general to be very hospitable people. I expect the tempo of church activity will pick up with this being Maundy Thursday and tomorrow Good Friday. Then there is typically a midnight liturgy on Saturday night leading into Easter Sunday morning. So we will keep you posted on that.
Yesterday we rented a car for the day for a final time so we could make a final shopping trip in Chania, the nearby city. In the afternoon we drove onto a large peninsula, the Akrotiri, where the regional airport is, and saw some old monasteries. We also visited a Center for the Preservation of Cretan Flora and Fauna, a park with many native plants identified. That was a place I had wanted to see, and I was impressed with how well it was done.
Loretta and I are eager to be home, as I said. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, and we are eager to get into a regular routine and work at planting our garden and doing things at home. We hope Spring has finally come to South Dakota!
Roy

It's Holy Week in Greece!

2008-04-20T03:38:00.004-05:00

About a month ago, March 16, Loretta and I participated in the enormous Palm Sunday processional in Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives into the old city of Jerusalem. Today I walked the mile or so from the Orthodox Academy of Crete where we are staying to the village church in Kolymbari, in order to participate in the Palm Sunday services here in Greece. Holy Week begins today here, and next Sunday is Easter Sunday. I was determined to get there for the whole service today, so I arrived at 8:00 AM. The priest and choir were already chanting Psalms and prayers, but the Divine Liturgy itself did not begin until 9:00 AM. The church was fairly empty the first hour, but began to fill up as the service continued, as is customary in Greek Orthdox worship. There is a lot of coming and going through these services. By the end of the service the church was quite full, with lots of families and children.
The service had the same liturgy enacted every Sunday, which I could follow easily with my Greek/English parallel copy of the liturgy. There were some special hymns and prayers for the Palm Sunday observance, and the Gospel reading was from John 12:1-19. The priest gave a short homily in which he talked about how popular Jesus was because of the raising of Lazarus, but that the same people who were marveling at this miracle now would be calling out for Jesus' crucifixion later in the week. Everyone attending received a small palm leaf folded into the shape of a cross, with a carnation tucked into it. Later today, and throughout the week, there will be special services in all the churches following the events of Holy Week. I still have to find out where and when and how to get to these, but I hope to participate as much as possible.
With the amount of walking involved to the churches, I'm letting Loretta here in our apartment with Joanne and Kaitlyn for most of these services. Loretta continues to be OK, but her energy level isn't so good. Last evening was bitter sweet for us as I took Dora and Susanna to the airport and dropped off the Fiat Scudo van we had been driving for the past two weeks. It was hard to break up the family circle again, but I was so thankful the girls managed to get two weeks off work in order to join us for this time. We had a very good time together, and enjoyed the archaeological sites we visited, the nature hikes we took, and all our other activities.
Roy

A minature continent!

2008-04-19T04:32:00.006-05:00

One of the things that makes the island of Crete so intriguing to me over the years is that it is a minature continent. About 200 miles long and from 15 to 50 miles wide, it contains within this relatively small space four major, rugged mountain ranges, and numerous bays and peninsulas. When we drove from Iraklion to Chania on Tuesday, we drove within sight of three mountain ranges in the space of two hours.
Almost always you are within sight of both mountains and sea! This makes any travel on the island endlessly fascinating!
Yesterday our family drove up one of those mountain ranges to the plain of Omalos, a high mountain plateau in the White Mountains. We had hoped at one time to walk the Samaria Gorge which descends to the south shore of the island to the sea from the plain of Omalos. The hike, which is very popular these days, is not open yet. However, we enjoyed the high mountain air (nearly 2,000 meters high), and we all enjoyed seeing the plethora of wild flowers. Because of the ecological isolation, there are many plants endemic to Crete, which means they can only be found on this island. Yesterday we say a rare tulip that blooms only on this high plateau. At places the ground was covered with these magnificent blossoms. Sorry not to have photos, but maybe we can add those later.
We have had a good week. Loretta did get out of the hospital in Iraklion on Tuesday. She is a bit weak, but feels good and is recovering strength as well. Wednesday our family hiked up the Rodopos Peninsula where the Orthodox Academy is. Loretta and I drove up and picked up the family and had a nice picnic high in the olive groves, and goat and sheep pastures. That evening Kaitlyn's Dad, Steve, left for home on the ferry boat, so we took him to the harbor at Chania. He is so good with Kaitlyn, and I know both Kaitlyn and Joanne are missing him. We are so glad he could join us for about ten days.
Today is Dora and Susanna's last day with us. I will take them to the airport in Chania tonight and turn in the Fiat van we have been driving these two weeks. Joanne and Kaitlyn will stay with us here at Kolymbari until we all come home together in just over a week, April 29.
So much for this time.
Roy

The Week that Was!!

2008-04-14T07:17:00.006-05:00

I haven't posted a blog for over a week, for several reasons.
First, Loretta and I joined our three daughters, Joanne, Dora and Susanna, and granddaughter Kaitlyn, in Athens on Sunday, April 5, as they flew in from the States, and we were joined by Kaitlyn's Dad, Steve, on Tuesday. So since that Sunday we have been busy traveling. Our first week with our girls was designed as a kind of tour of classical Greek archaeological sites--Myceneae, Naufplio, Epidauros, Olympia, and Delphi. Then we came to Crete with our rented van on a ferryboat on Thursday night to begin our time here on Crete.
The second reason for a late blog is that I lost my laptop computer in Athens on Monday, April 6, when I misplaced it or had it stolen--not sure what happened. So when I did have some time to work on the computer it wasn't easily available to me. This is also the reason I'm not including any pictures with this and succeeding blogs, at least at this time.
The third reason for a late blog is that our family has been dealing with a fairly agressive intestinal bug of some kind that has laid about all of us low at one time or another this past week. I'll spare you the gory details, but it hasn't been pretty for any of us. We know that Kaitlyn had diarrhea on the trip over from the States, so it's easy to blame her, but it may have been something we all ate as well I suppose.
While the rest of us have been fighting it off fairly successfully without official medical help, Loretta hasn't been so fortunate, since her immune system is already compromised by the anti-rejection drugs she takes for her kidney transplant. Actually, she has been struggling with colds and infections since we left home for Israel, but always managed to recover pretty well. The week before we flew to Athens to meet the girls, she had a bad cough that persisted so much that I sent her to an Athens hospital emergency room on Sunday, April 5. She was treated with a three day flu drug therapy and seemed to respond to that. By Tuesday she was having her first good day in a week. Then she got this intestinal bug, and it has laid her pretty low. We knew on the ferryboat to Crete on Thursday night that we would need to seek medical treatment for her again, so when we arrived in Iraklion on Friday morning we took her to a hospital emergency room here in the city. They have kept her in until now, but the doctors are quite sure she can be dismissed tomorrow (Tuesday).
She has received excellent medical attention from the nephrologists (kidney doctors) on staff here, and we feel very confident about the quality of medical care she is getting and responding to. Of course, the medical system is quite different and strange in many ways as well. It is an experience of Greek culture we would have preferred not learning to know so well, but yet we are learning so much from this experience too. And we are so thankful that they were able to turn around the dehydration that was on the verge of threatening her kidney transplant.
Despite our illnesses, we have been able to do just about everything we had intended to do. The family spent a little more time than we had planned exploring things here in Iraklion where Joanne was born and where we lived for two years, but that hasn't been bad. And today the family took off to see the East Coast of Crete where Susanna worked on an archaeological site in 2004. Loretta and I are sorry to miss that, but we had traveled there when we lived here so we know it is a beautiful part of the island. Tomorrow, with Loretta dismissed from the hospital, we will return to Kolymbari and our "base" at the Orthodox Academy of Crete for the last two weeks here on Crete. At this point we hope to finish out, though at times this weekend we considered coming home early because of Loretta's health. At this point I think it will be safe to stay until our secheduled flights.
So much for our news for now, and the week that our family will remember in a number of remarkable ways for years to come!
Roy

The Pilgrimage of a Sabbatical.

2008-04-05T02:42:00.008-05:00

The picture on the left is the view we have from our apartment of the bay of the Mediterranean Sea with the snow-capped White Mountains of Crete beyond. (You can see it is a real hardship being here.) The picture on the right is the Orthodox Academy of Crete, the conference/retreat center where we are staying. We are in an apartment just to the left of the picture, where you see me walking.
Just as we remember, the island of Crete is one of the most beautiful (and rugged) places on earth (though of course we haven't been in that many places!) And Springtime is the best time to be here. Yes, it is a little rainy some days and quite cool, especially in these concrete/stone buildings with no heating. But the flowers!! Everything is blooming and there is vegetation everywhere.
Yesterday (Friday) I made my 11th (second to last) spiritual retreat. I began at daybreak down by the sea below the Academy and watched the sun rise over the Akrotiri Peninsula across the bay. After breakfast and taking care of some tasks, I left about 10:00 AM for a long hike up onto the Rodopou Peninsula. If you look at a map of Crete you see on the west end two peninsulas jutting into the Mediterranean. Kolymbari, where the Academy is, is at the base of the eastern peninsula. My hike took me up onto the peninsula several hundred meters high. It was absolutely gorgeous, with birds singing, flocks of sheep and goats, clouds, mountains, sea, olive groves and vineyards, sleepy little villages, and virtual fields of wild flowers.
One of my regrets from our years in Crete years ago is that I never had (or took) the opportunity to walk in the countryside. Walking puts a person in touch with the landscape in a way that driving never can. You see everything so much clearer (including the litter which is like our rural roads in South Dakota.) I can't imagine what people think littering God's back yard with all their junk, except that when you drive you don't see it! Anyway, I am so pleased to be able to do these spiritual retreats in this setting. A week ago I also hiked up along the same road and spent most of the day in a country chapel watching the rain falling on the mountain.
This morning I finished reading one of the few books I brought along, The Way is Made by Walking, by AMBS professor Arthur Paul Boers. In the book Arthur describes his 500 mile long pilgrimage for one month in Spain following the Camino de Santiago. What he says about pilgrimages applies in many ways to my own experience on this Sabbatical, particularly our travels in Israel/Palestine, and now Greece. A pilgrimage involves travel to an unfamiliar place, suspension of regular responsibilities, a disconnecting from media, taking on disciplines that help us focus on God, being willing to make sacrifices, enduring psychological and spiritual trials, being inconvenienced in terms of travel and amenities, and having a spirit of openness toward the encounters we may have each day. (p, 184-185)
I must say that Loretta and I have experienced nearly every day all of these elements of pilgrimage during our Sabbatical, and especially during our travels these two months of March and April. It would have been so much easier to stay home, and we often long for the comforts of home. However, we know that we are gaining experiences that will stay with us the rest of our lives and shape the way we live from now on as well.
In particular, I am learning how much I have neglected necessary spiritual disciplines in my life. I have made excuses for myself, pleading busyness and family responsibilities. In the process I have greatly impoverished my life, and likely my ministry as well. I hope I am learning this lesson well, and I hope that you, my family, friends, and church community, will hold me accountable to continue with the spiritual disciplines I have found to be so healing and so empowering in these weeks.
Tomorrow, (Sunday), Loretta and I fly to Athens to meet our three daughters, who are even now beginning their journeys here. We are very excited to have this opportunity to spend two weeks with Joanne, Dora, and Susanna, and granddaughter Kaitlyn as well. Steve, Kaitlyn's Dad, will also be joining our family travels about midweek.
Roy

The climax of an ecclesiastical career!

2008-04-03T11:39:00.007-05:00

Today was a quiet day at the Orthodox Academy of Crete, our base and headquarters for these weeks of our Sabbatical on Crete. I spent a couple of hours studying and identifying wild flowers blooming profusely on the hillsides here, using a wild flower guide we purchased a few days ago. This after a very hectic and busy two days on Tuesday and Wednesday. For those two days we rented a small KIA and drove to Iraklion, the largest city of Crete (150,000), and the city where we lived from 1969 to 1971. We wanted to reconnect with the place and the people where we first lived as a married couple as part of an international team of workers, and where our oldest daughter Joanne was born.
It was also an occasion to visit with the Archbishop of Crete, Irenaios, whom we have known since 1970. (He is pictured above, along with the church where he presides, the metropolitan church of Aghios Minas in Iraklion.) We were pleased to learn that this old friend of ours was now the Archbishop of Crete, serving in the place where we worked for Archbishop Evgenios nearly 40 years ago. The Church of Crete has eight (I guess now nine) dioceses, each headed by a bishop, and the Archbishop is the presiding chair of this church led by these 9 bishops.
Our own relationship with Irenaios began in 1970 when he was the assistant to then Bishop Irenaios (it is a common name here in Greece which means "peace")of the western most diocese of Crete, the bishop who had invited the Mennonites to come to Crete to establish an agricultural demonstration farm. Father Irenaios, as we knew him then, was a churchman in residence at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in 1970, and I remember how at Christmas, 1970, we discussed with him his experiences in Elkhart, Indiana. In those years he worked closely with the Mennonite agricultural volunteers here at Kolymbari, helping to coordinate their work for the Church of Crete. He had studied in France so knows French, but also speaks some English. And I know some Greek, so we manage to converse.
We met him again on our first Sabbatical back to Greece in 1984, when he was already the Bishop of Chania, the second city of Crete. He then hosted us and made arrangements for a number of our visits at that time. So it was very special to us to be able to meet him in the Archbishop's residence in Iraklion next to the church pictured above, and spend some time discussing with him concerns for the church and society. We met him first in his office, presenting him with an oil lamp Mennonite Church USA uses to communicate our prayers for peace around the world (like the one I used in our church during the Advent season). Then he invited us to his private dining room for a simple Lenten meal of bread, vegetables, octopus, wild onions, and various other dishes, all served by his sister Victoria, whom we remembered as his hostess also in 1984.
Archbishop Irenaios is one of the most kind and gentle persons I have known, and I'm sure the church here is well-served by his leadership. His is a most demanding office, having both religious and political implications, as the Orthodox Church here is a state church. Throughout our conversations, his assistants were bringing him documents to sign and phone calls to answer.
Archbishop Irenaios is a what I would consider a fairly conservative bishop. He is quite distressed by the increasing secularism of Greek society and culture. His response is to go back to the roots of the Orthodox faith, expressed particularly in the liturgy of the Greek Orthodox Church, the service of worship performed in every Orthodox Church every Sunday. This liturgical, ritualistic worship service, chanted and sung by priest and choir and carried out with ritual processions and incense, all surrounded by the ornate iconography in the churches and colorful vestments by the clergy, has great power to shape the communal life of the people. It is this, I am realizing, which has given the Orthodox Church the power to integrate faith into the communal life of the people, whether in village or city.
Our family hopes to worship in the church of Aghios Minas pictured above on April 13, and perhaps then we can have some more pictures to show and more description of the liturgical life of this ancient church dating back to the time of St. Paul's visit to Crete, and his commission in the letter to Titus to "establish the church in every city of the island."
In any case, Loretta and I had an exhausting two days visiting in Iraklion and reconnecting with some other friends as well before coming back here late last night. In fact, I think I about wore Loretta out, so we want to "lay low" here until Sunday when we meet our daughters in Athens!
So much for now,
Roy

Old friends!

2008-03-30T06:52:00.020-05:00

Friends, just now it is early Sunday morning back home, and I see that its in the 30's and cold. (I'm listening to MPR online as I write this--a touch of home!) Here it has been cool and wet, but today it is sunny and warming up. Temps haven't been that cold, but we remember now how cold and damp these concrete houses feel when it is rainy!
So it is Schmeckfest season back home, and typical Schmeckfest weather! We wish all those involved the best in this time--thinking especially of Kaye and Jim and all the other "Sound of Music" cast and crew members, as well as all the kitchen and serving crews.
We went to the Gonia Monastery church this morning, but I confess are a bit lonesome this morning for home, despite the incredible beauty that surrounds us here. We are eager to be joined next Sunday by our three daughters and our granddaughter!
Nevertheless, we are mindful about how this trip is allowing us to reconnect with life-long friends. In particular, I want to reflect a little more about our time last weekend in northern Greece with our friends there.
We first met Tini in 1969 when we went to Iraklion, Crete, to serve with the Inter-Church Service team of the World Council of Churches. Tini was a home economist from the Netherlands, and one of our 5 member international team of workers working for the Greek Orthodox Church of Crete. By then she had done summer service with an international youth camp and had met Thanssi, her future husband, and they were courting when we first knew her. Thanassi was doing his service in the Greek armed forces at the time, and when he had leave he would come to Iraklion to see Tini and so we learned to know him as well. Thanassi is a Greek from north of Trikala, Greece, but actually his ethnic identity and mother language is Vlachian--a traditionally nomadic people who settled in the incredibly beautiful Pindus mountains of northern Greece.
Tiny and Thanassi had their engagement party in our Iraklion Team House in the summer of 1970, and later married and moved back to Holland. They had a daughter and 2 sons. Thanassi was a social worker and later went into politics, serving for some 12 years in the Dutch parliament. In more recent years Thanassi has been working with an international social organization dealing with the problems of illicit drugs around the world.
In more recent years, Tini and Thanassi on their visits to see his aging parents in his home village of Trigona began building a house of their own so they could come more often to help his parents. It was here that it happened we could meet them, as they are in Greece for several weeks now in Spring. It was a special treat also to have their daughter Bouwina and her friend Alexander there at the time.
We went to church with Thanassi in his home village last Sunday, across the street from where his parents live. Then we were honored to be invited to his parents' simple home for a chicken and rice dinner, which Tini and Thanassi both helped his mother prepare. (His parents are both in their 90's and spend the winter in Athens with a daughter's family.)
Our time was filled with sharing memories of our time together nearly 40 years ago, catching up on our lives and families since then (though we have stayed in touch through the years), and also discussing religious, cultural, and political concerns. Though we have diverse religious traditions, nationalities and ethnicities, we have always held many values in common with these dear people. It was amazing to see how we could pick up after all these years and still encourage and support one another in our lives and our desire to serve God.
While this visit with the Apostolous was not planned in advance (we only learned they would be here this past winter), the opportunity of seeing these dear friends and renewing our relationship with them is one of the things that has made our trip so precious to us. It was difficult to say goodby to them on Monday morning, as it is likely we will never see them again in this life.
It was especially significant to me to be in Thanassi's home village and to see how he, with rural roots similar to my own, was able to go on to lead a life of international service, including political involvment. It is often people with these kinds of deep roots in the land who are most able to make strong and positive contributions in the world.
Roy
P.S. As you can see, I again mastered the art of posting photos on my blog. The pictures on this blog are (in more or less reverse order): Tini and Thanassi's new house, a view across the valley from their house, a group picture of their family and Loretta, Thanassi with his mother and daughter Bouwina, Sunday dinner with Thanssi's parents (Stavros and Paraskevi), Thanssi's home village (Trigona) with his parent's house in the center, and a tree planting in Tini and Thanassi's yard. (Tini and Thanassi have a tradition of inviting guests to their new home to buy and plant a tree in their yard, so we bought an almond tree, and their daughter and friend a pear tree, and we had just planted these two trees in their yard!)

CPT and our family

2008-03-27T05:47:00.005-05:00

Friends, today I'd like to reflect a little on our family's history with Christian Peacemaker Teams, and our experience with the CPT delegation to Israel and Palestine this past month.
Our history with CPT goes back before CPT began, during my "first" Sabbatical to Europe in 1984. During that summer Sabbatical, our family attended the Mennonite World Conference in Strassbourg, France. One of the speakers at the conference was Ron Sider. He spoke about the need for a deeper committment to peace on the part of the global Mennonite family. He called in his sermon for a cadre of peacemakers who are dedicated to peacemaking and as willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of peace a soldiers are to sacrifice their lives for their countries. Sider's sermon had a deep impression on all of us, including our then 13 year old daughter Joanne.
Ron Sider's sermon at the 1984 Mennonite World Conference is often seen as the inspiration for the subsequent formation of Christian Peacemaker Teams. As CPT developed in the 1980's and 1990's, I was pastoring in Illinois, not far from the CPT headquarters in Chicago. Occasionally we would see and visit with Gene Stoltzfus, the first director of CPT (also a friend of Gordon Brockmueller). In the mid 1990's our family together attended several CPT Peace Congresses in Chicago with our then mostly teenage daughters. On one such occasion we took part in an action protesting war toys at a toy store in Chicago.
Our daughter Joanne, partly because of hearing Ron Sider's sermon, chose to volunteer with Christian Peacemaker Teams after her graduation from college and a term with Mennonite Voluntary Service in Colorado. She spent time in Haiti, in Hebron, Palestine, and at Pierre, South Dakota. During that time, Loretta and I followed the work of CPT closely, of course. Since 2000, we have received regular internet postings from the CPT web service. (I currently have an article on this website on our experience in Palestine--go to www.CPT.org, to the March 22 posting.)
All this is to explain our decision to make a CPT delegation to Israel/Palestine a part of my Sabbatical experience. It is something Loretta and I had often talked about doing at some time.
At the same time, from Joanne's experiences, we knew that such a delgation would be very demanding and very difficult. We wondered whether Loretta in particular would have the physical stamina to do this delegation. Yet we did step out in faith to sign up, even when the CPT delegation administator in Chicago seemed to discourage us a little.
So on March 5 we met our other delegation members in Jerusalem. We were 12 in all, with our leader, Sarah McDonald, a full-time CPT volunteer from First Mennonite Church in Iowa City. (She is a friend of Noreen Gingerich.) There were four couples in this delegation and we were together for 12 days. Two couples were Catholic neighbors from rural Minnesota interested in peace issues, and they were all a little older than Loretta and I. The other couple was young, newly married. He is a Mennonite from Ohio, a graduate of Hesston's aviation program. Serving in Africa he met a Finnish young woman there also in service and they married not too long ago. Then there were four single people, an Episcopalian man from Chicago, a young Mennonite woman from Kansas City, another man from California, and our leader.
Our time together was intense. We almost always lived in dormitory type settings, men in one place and women in the other. There were often Turkish toilets. When we were in the CPT house in Hebron, there was no hot water, and indeed water itself was very scarce and we were advised to be as sparing as possible. We slept often on mats on the floors. We often cooked for ourselves, usually always vegetarian fare and very simple, taking turns with meal preparation and clean up. All of this is in keeping with the CPT program philosophy. So as you can imagine it was hardly a vacation environment.
Ours was primarily a learning tour, so our days were filled with visiting Israeli and Palestinian partners of CPT's work in this country. In 12 days we had 30 more or less formal activities or presentations as a group. Again you can see that we were kept very busy. Some of the Israeli organizations we visited were: Rabbis for Human Rights, B'tsleem (an Israeli human rights organization), and Breaking the Silence (an organization of former Israeli soldiers who tell the stories of what they did in enforcing the Palestinian occupation and how this has affected them). Palestinian organizations included: Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem, the Hebron Rehbilitation Committee, The Wi'am Reconciliation Center and the Badil Refugee Center in Bethlehem, and the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center.
We visited both an Israeli settlement, Efrat, and a Palestinian Refugee Camp, as well as Israeli and Palestinian homes. We went to the Yad Vashem Memorial to the Holocaust in West Jerusalem, and we had a tour of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem for the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICHAD). We heard from Israeli and a Palestinian fathers who had each lost a child in the wars, through an organization called Parents Bereaved. We participated with CPT team members in school patrols and in the Palm Sunday action I previously wrote about. And we attended a silent vigil for peace of Israeli women in West Jerusalem at noon, a group called Women in Black.
This is only a smattering of our activity during the twelve days of the tour. In addition to the group living and the hectic schedule, we often heard in these settings and visits very painful stories of pain and loss by both Israelis and Palestinians. It was this, perhaps more than the physical demands, that made this a very tiring experience for us.
Loretta and I are only now processing all these experiences. While the time was very difficult and hard, it was extremely rewarding. I feel in particular that so many of the things we heard are relevant to the theme of my Sabbatical--the renewal of a vision for rural ministry. On a number of occasions we were with very rural people stuggling to survive in very adverse situations, and this made the time so valuable for us.
So much for now. Roy

A Palestinian Refugee Camp in Bethlehem

2008-03-26T06:28:00.002-05:00

Friends:
We've finally come to a breathing place in our travels abroad--the Orthodox Academy of Crete, on the island of Crete. We arrived here on Monday evening after spending the weekend with old friends in north central Greece (more about that on another blog). We had rented a car on arrival from Israel in Athens and drove up to Trikala, Greece, last Friday.
Now we are finally at a place where we can unpack our suitcases and feel like we can catch our breath. The Orthodox Academy of Crete is a conference/retreat center of the Greek Orthodox Church of Crete. They are giving us a 3 bedroom apartment (very simply furnished) so that when our girls come later in April, they too can stay with us. So yesterday Loretta and I were able to unwind and unpack and settle in a little. It was the Greek national holiday of indepence from the Turks dating back to March 25, 1821, and of course March 25 is also the religious feast of the Annunciation of Christ's birth to Mary. So we attended the church liturgy yesterday morning, and then the parades and speechs following that, here in the village of Kolymbari.
For several blogs, I want to go back and pick up some of our experiences in Israel/Palestine that I didn't have time to write about when we were there. Today the subject is our visit to the Palestinian Refugee Camp at Bethlehem on Wednesday, March 12. Our CPT delegation was privileged to visit this camp on the south edge of Bethlehem and to be guests in the camp for the night.
The Duheisha Refugee Camp was established in 1948 for Palestinian refugees from the villages of East Jerusalem, driven out by the newly established state of Israel. Originally, there were 3,000 refugees in this camp, who lived in tents. Today the camp houses 12,000 refugees on the same piece of land that housed the 3,000 placed there 60 years ago! Now the people live in houses and apartments that look much like the rest of the city of Bethlehem, but since there is so little room, they can only add another floor where this is possible on this rough terrain.
Our host at the camp was a young man in his 30's with a wife and two children. He works at the Badil Refugee Center in Bethlehem. Their family lives with his large extended family in a jumble of apartments. We were served a delicious supper of chicken, rice, cauliflower, and salad, sitting around the room on mats spread out on the floor. Then our host took us on a walking tour of the camp, up and down the very narrow lanes, many of them far too narrow to accomodate vehicles.
When we came back to our lodging, our host told us his story in good English. His father was born the night his grandparents fled their ancestral village some 20 miles north of the camp, outside Jerusalem. His grandparents were driven from their village by an Israeli artillery attack, and his father was born to his grandmother "on the run." For 60 years, this family has lived in this camp. One of his brothers was killed in March, 2002, by the Israeli military, and a younger brother was deported to Gaza by the Israelis at the age of 18 at about the same time. This brother still has to live in Gaza. His mother went once to visit this son in the past 6 years. She had to travel for 45 days through 3 or 4 countries in order to see her son.
We had a long conversation with our host. He and all of these refugees are of course Muslim. He stressed how close knit their community is, and how important education is to maintain their culture and their identity as a people. I asked whether the children and youth, exposed to TV and the internet as they are, do not want to leave the difficult life of this refugee camp and immigrate somewhere else, as young people in our rural communities leave for life in the city. He said that on the contrary, children have a stronger sense of identity than ever. When asked where they are from, they will tell you they are from their native village in East Jerusalem, not from this refugee camp!
Our host told us his family used to visit the site of his ancestral village, a rural farming community, demolished and abandoned by the Israelis after his family fled. He told how once as a child he was feeling sick before a visit to this demolished village, but as they came to the place he became well again. Now it is impossible for anyone from this camp to enter Israel proper or visit the place they came from, though it is only a few miles away. The people in this camp are virtually prisoners in this small, highly populated place. They stay because if they leave, they lose all claim to the place from which they were taken.
These are a beautiful, peaceful, hospitable people. They live in large, close, extended family units. (The apartments we stayed in were new apartments designed for family members soon to be married. We were men in one apartment and women in the other.) In the evening, a young woman who works for a handicraft cooperative came and showed us the handwork of the women in the camp and offered items for us to buy. And there are children everywhere! It seems to me that having children is one of the acts of resistance by an oppressed people. It is their statement that they are not going away, and that they will outlast the oppression. The world, and the Israeli government, will need to find a place for these people, now refugees for 60 long years! They surely have a place in my heart!!
Roy

Happy Easter from Greece!

2008-03-22T16:37:00.002-05:00

It's getting late here, nearly midnight on Saturday night, but I wanted to write a bit about our week and where we are now since I have internet access tonight. And I wanted to wish you all a Happy Easter tomorrow morning. Christos anesti! Alythos anesti! Christ is risen, truly risen! That is the Easter morning greeting here in Greece. Of course, here in Greece that greeting will not be heard until April 27, which is the Greek Orthodox Easter date this year, the last day of our stay in Greece!
We has a marvelous week in the Holy Land. Monday we rented a car and drove down to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, and then up the Jordan River to Nazareth. Tuesday we visited Nazareth Village, the recreation of a First Century Palestinian village in the middle of the busy city of Nazareth. Nazareth is unique in being a predominantly Arab city with Israel, composed of about 30% Arab Christians and 70@ Arab Muslims.
Wednesday we traveled to the Sea of Galilee and visited a number of archaelogical sites on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the center of Jesus' ministry. Wednesday night we stayed in a YMCA Hotel south of Tiberias on the coast of the Sea of Galilee, a most beautiful setting. That evening we ate fish from the Sea of Galilee in a local restaurant. Thursday morning I got up early and watched the sun rise over the Sea of Galilee as a part of my spiritual retreat. After breakfast we went to the Church of the Beatitudes on the north coast of the sea and I continued my retreat by walking down through the country side through wheat fields from the church to the sea shore! It was such a moving experience to walk in that setting, listening to the birds and watching the boats of the lake.
Thursday night we took a bus back to Nazareth and stayed at the home of Nazareth Village personnel, preparing for our departure from Israel A taxi picked us up there at 2:00 AM and took us to the airport in Tel Aviv to catch our 6:00 AM flight to Athens. In Athens we rented a car and drove some 200 or 300 miles north to the mountain area around Trikala, Greece. Here we are in the home of our friends, Tini and Thanassi Apostolou. Tini was a Dutch member of our team in Iraklion almost 40 years ago. She married a Greek man, Thanassi, and they lived in Holland most of their lives, but now have a home also here in Thanassi's home village, high in the Pindus mountains of Central Greece. Thanassi was a member of the Dutch parliament for 12 years. So here we are having a marvelous time reminiscing about our years of service in Greece 40 years ago. And it is such a beautiful scene in the mountains, with the trees just beginning to leaf out. Today Thansssi took us to Meteora, a very famous place where monks built monasteries very high on some rock formations that resemble huge ships. How to explain it all! We will try to post pictures later.
We will be here yet tomorrow and go to Greek Orthodox services with Thanassi in his village in the morning. Monday we will go back to Athens with our rented car and then fly to Crete where we will be for most of the rest of our time in Greece and for the rest of our Sabbatical time.
May the news of Christ's resurrection and triumph over sin and death bring you all great joy and happiness in the next few days. We have thought often of you all as you have gone through the Holy Week during this past week. Wishing you the joy and peace of the risen Christ, Roy

CPT Delegation completed!

2008-03-17T13:42:00.004-05:00

Sorry to be out of touch for a few days. I have immensely much to write about,but the hostel we stayed in at Jerusalem didn't have wireless internet access, and I didn't have time to go to an internet cafe.
Loretta and I have had a most amazing and tiring last 12 days on our CPT delegation. The last four days or so we were in Jerusalem, and I'll just tell you a bit about our final day on Sunday, which was Palm Sunday.
Our delegation joined the CPT team and their Palestinian partners in an action at Bethany, the place from which Jesus began his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. We had to take a bus way out into the country to get there, as Palestinians do every day. Why? Because the Israeli government has built a wall separating Bethany, where Palestinians live, from Jerusalem. If Jesus were here today, he would not be able to walk from Bethany to Jerusalem as he did during the first Holy Week. So our action was named, "Where could Jesus walk?" We held banners with this message and had leaflets to give people explaining our action. In the morning we walked up past the tomb of Lazarus, where Jesus raised Lazarus, to the top of the hill where the wall is. We came up to the wall and then began a prayer service. An Israeli officer came out from the check point and told us to leave, but the Palestinians in our group bravely said that we were on Palestinian land and had a right to pray there. So we continued our readings and prayers. At one point, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, retired Roman Catholic bishop from Detroit who has been a tireless worker for peace and justice, went up to the officer and spoke with him. When we finished our prayers there, we went down a little ways into the garden of a convent to have more prayers, but the Israeli soldiers followed us there and again told us to leave. We finished our prayers there and left. On the way down we had a lunch of Palestinian bread and spinach pockets at a Palestinian home across from Lazarus' tomb. Then we took buses back to the Old City of Jerusalem on the Israeli side and up to the Mount of Olives where the traditional Palm Sunday procession begins at the Church of the Pater Nostre (Lord's Prayer). Again we stood with our banners at a place where many of the thousands of pilgrims were passing by on their way down the Mount of Olives. Many of them stopped to take pictures of our banners and to take a leaflet. Then we joined the procession ourselves with our banners and went into the Old City of Jerusalem. It was very moving to observe the thousands of pilgrims singing and chanting Palm Sunday hymns in all the many languages of the world.
Later that evening, our twelve member delegation went out for our final dinner together, only the second restaurant meal we had in these days together. (We often made our own simple meals.) And so we came to the end of our CPT delegation.
Yesterday,(Monday), Loretta and I got a rented car, drove down to the Dead Sea, and then up the Jordan River Valley to Galilee. We got into Nazareth and were able to find Nazareth Village in this crowded confusing city. Nazareth Village is the recreation of a First Century Palestinian village. We had a tour of the village today, and then a meal that Nazareth Village serves for guests, reflecting First Century foods.
Tomorrow we will go to the Sea of Galilee and we plan to do a spiritual retreat by the lake on Thursday if we can. Friday we will fly to Athens! We are grateful to all of you for your thoughts and prayers during this past week. I have many more blogs to write about our intense CPT experience, and when I have time along the way I will try to share more of our experiences. I also hope to add a few pictures to these posts when I have a more stable situation, but I think this is all I have time for today.
Roy

One week in the Holy Land!

2008-03-11T14:43:00.003-05:00

Tonight marks one week since Loretta and I arrived in the Holy Land. I can't begin to give you a chronology of all that we have done and seen in this week. To date we have seen virtually none of the typical "pilgrim" destinations of Holy Land tourists, and that is fine with us. We have visited more than a dozen Israeli and Palestinian people and organizations and sites working for peace and justice in this troubled land. It has been deeply moving to hear story after story of the suffering caused by war on each side.
We have spent most of the past week in Hebron or the Hebron district. Hebron is a city of some 150,000 Palestinians and 300 Israeli settlers "protected" by some 1500 Israeli Defense Force soldiers. We stayed in the old city of Hebron several nights at the CPT Hebron Team apartment. Strangely, we felt very safe within the Palestinian city, and very anxious when near one of Israeli settlements in the city.
(On our first tour of the old city, one of our delegates, a 70 year old man, was pushed to the ground when a young settler boy rushed out of the settlement we were passing, filled with hate, and rather blindly struck out at the person nearest him. It rather took us all aback. This occurred in the presence of an Israeli soldier standing nearby.)
I would like to share just two days or events of particular signifcance to me thus far. Last Saturday our team went to the very rural and remote village of At-Tuwani south of Hebron and most of us stayed the night in that rural village. They have a generator providing a little electricity for a few hours in the evening. The 150 or 200 residents are all subsistence farmers and shepherds. They all live very simply in homes which they have lived in for centuries and which fit neatly within the landscape. Next to them are two Israeli settlements (illegal settlements of Israeli people on Palestinian land). In those settings there is much irrigation and industrialized agriculture (large chicken barns and a diary), and modern suburban style houses and apartment buildings. Our host in this village was one of the leaders who is committed to non-violent responses to the frequent attacks they suffer from the Israeli settlers. Indeed, this man's mother had been beaten by several settlers while tending the sheep a few months ago. He repeatedly says that he and his fellow villagers just want to live in peace with their new neighbors, but they also express determination to remain where they have lived for centuries rather than to allow the Israeli settler harrassment to drive them from their land. In this village, two CPTers live to accompany villagers on their tasks. One of the CPTer's assignments is to observe that children from small outlying villages who attend school in At-Tuwani are escorted to school on their several mile walk each day by the Israeli soldiers assigned to protect them as they walk between the two Israeli settlers most close to At-Tuwani.
Life in the village seems bucolic and idyllic and Biblical in its form. You see shepherds tending their long-haired sheep and goats on the rocky hillside, olive trees beginning to leaf out, spring flowers blooming (including bright red poppies), and women in traditional dress carrying five gallon buckets of water up steep rocky paths to their homes on their heads. Sadly, these people who only want to maintain their way of life in their simple way are daily in danger of being dispossessed and attacked. Our host showed us the ruins of his brother's house which the Israeli military had demolished.
Today was a different kind of day. Perhaps some of you saw that last Thursday eight Jewish seminary students, young teenagers, had been killed, and several dozen wounded, by a Palestinian gunman in West Jerusalem. That was the night before we left Jerusalem last week, and it made security very tight as we left the city. Today we were scheduled to visit an Israeli settlement here in the West Bank not far from Hebron. It happens that the woman who was to meet with us was the mother of one of these eight young men who had been killed. She called our leader yesterday to inform us that she was going through the seven day mourning period Jewish people observe at the death of a loved one. Yet she wanted us still to come and to grieve with her, if we would. So we went to her home in the settlement of Efrat, entered the crowded house, and sat down. She took the opportunity to address us in English as a group of twelve delegates surrounded by Israeli mourners, to tell us about her son and how special he was as a student of the Torah, the Hebrew Bible (Old Testmant). She talked about how she grieved that her 16 year old son would not give the grandchildren she longed for. And she grieved the lack of spiritual leadership that her country would endure because of the death of these youth who had devoted themselves to the study of God's law. She also indicated that she did not want the death of her son to result in more suffering and reprisals against the Palestinian people. It was an extremely moving time for us, and we felt very privileged to share in this intimate sharing of a grieving mother.
After that, we continued with our schedule for the day. That was to visit several communities of Bedouin farmers around Beersheba in the south of Israel, in the Negeb. These farmers and nomadic tribesmen, though Israeli citizens since Israel's founding, have been systmatically oppressed and confined on reservations, much like Native Americans in our land. The land in this area is very desert like. The Bedouin plant wheat which was now green and growing. Someimes it may make a crop, but when it is too dry for that, these farmers still use the young wheat crop as grazing for their flocks of sheep and goats. Again it was very moving to hear the stories of these people, and their longing for justice and peace.
Tonight we are in Bethlehem, in a guest house run by an evangelical Protestant church just off Manger Square, where Jesus was born. Tomorrow morning we will have our daily worship in the Church of the Nativity. Would that we all might follow in the ways of the Prince of Peace born here in this place.
Loretta and I are doing well. Loretta is often quite tired and has had a cold, and the pace of our delegation and the continual presence of living communally with twelve others we did not know a week ago is stressful. Yet we are both feeling how good it is to be here. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers, especially in the next week or two until we arrive in Greece. The rest of our delegation time with CPT will be mostly in Jerusalem, and we will have some spare time to visit some holy sites in Jerusalem.
Hoping that all is well for you all back home. Roy

Jerusalem

2008-03-07T09:54:00.006-06:00

We arrived in Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after leaving our home in South Dakota. It was an overwhelming experience for me to drive from the airport in Tel Aviv up into the hill country where Jerusalem is located. I had no idea about the ruggedness of the countryside here in Palestine! I had always imagined it to be a more gentle landscape. We joined our Christian Peacemaker Team delegation and found our rooms at Al Hashimi Hostel in Old Jerusalem. The picture, if I can get it on, was taken from the roof of our hotel with the Dome of the Rock in the center of the picture and the Mount of Olives on the horizon. (So far, my attempts to download this picture from my computer onto this blog aren't working.)

Thursday we spent the day visiting different groups working for peace in Israel and Palestine: Rabbis for Human Rights in the morning, and Israeli Campaign Against Home Demolitions in the afternoon. In the afternoon visit, we were taken throughout East Jerusalem to see the expansion of Israeli settlements which are being built, like so many American suburban communities, throughout these desert hills. Quite apart from being quite unsustainable in this desert land, and quite apart from the water being taken from Palestinians to sustain the lush landscaped greenery of these "suburbs," the Israeli settlements are effectively cutting off the possibility of a viable Palestinian nation in the West Bank by dividing it in two, and removing it from its logical capital in East Jerusalem.

It was so significant for me to experience this setting. It is more different than I could possibly have imagined. The Old City where we stayed is all Palestinian, with narrow winding streets that reminded us a lot of Greece. I had the contradictory impression of everything being very very big and many on what at the same time is such a small country. In East Jerusalem the horizon was Jordan across the Jordan River, and Jerusalem is just 40 minute drive from Tel Aviv on the Meditarranean coast. Such a small land, so many diverse people, such high hills and deep valleys! What a lovely place, and what a crossroads of the world through all these centuries. The contrast between old and new is so striking.

Today we went to Hebron through Bethlehem and are staying with the CPT team in Hebron. The drive again reminded Loretta and me so much of Crete, with vineyards on all the steep hillsides, olive groves, sheep and donkeys and small tractors all over. I have a whole number of new impressions today from our walk through Hebron led by the CPTers here, but I'll stop with these initial reflections on our first day in this land where God invited His people to live and model a different way of life together here on earth.

Roy

We're off!!

2008-03-03T14:47:00.002-06:00

Ready or not, our flight leaves tomorrow morning for Tel Aviv, Israel, via Sioux Falls, Chicago, and Frankfurt, Germany. Loretta and I are still working to get things down to size, traveling with a suitcase, a large and small backpack, and some carry one items for the next two months. Though we still have anxieties, we are eager to meet our ten companions for the next two weeks or so who will be joining us on our Christian Peacemaker Team delegation. We have felt very busy the past ten days getting ready for this experience.
I was so encouraged last evening when I attended Will Ortman and Tim Eisenbeis' program at the North Church on "Who will feed the future?", the challenges and opportunities facing rural communities like ours in the light of the peak in petroleum production and global climate change. I toohave been realizing in recent months the extent to which these two realities are going to impact our own lives as well as the global community of life. What it means for communities like ours, as Tim and Will pointed out, is that we will have a major role to play in helping our society transition to a post-petroleum age, and that will mean growth for communities like ours!
I also feel keenly our own culpability in these two realities by our trip overseas. I have long sensed that this trip may well be the last major trip of our lives, simply because of our own limited resources. Indeed, it is only thanks to the Salem Mennonite Church and the grant from Lilly Endowment that I and my family can make this trip!! However, I am troubled also by the way in which resources are consumed by international travel, and the impacts of such travel on the poor of the world as it contributes to global warming.
I don't think this spells the end of human journeying. Humans, as individuals and as groups, have been wandering to and fro upon the earth for millenia, long before the era of cheap fossil fuel, and humans will continue to journey here and there. But the days of cheap and easy travel are about over, and future travel will need to be much more intentional and careful. In that spirit, we want to be as intentional as we can about this trip. We hope we have planned stays long enough in Israel/Palestine and in Greece that relationships can be formed, and that we can come to good understandings about how life is for people in these places. We are more than tourists with this trip. We intend to travel with the purpose of extending God's reign of justice and peace, of building bridges of understanding and reconciliation among diverse people, and of learning how the experience of other people might enlighten and enrich our own setting.
Never having visited Israel/Palestine or even having had much of a desire to do so in the past, I am now very eager to see this land that plays such a crucial role in our salvation history, as the crossroads place between the great civilizations of the world where God called people of faith to sojourn as light to the nations. I am intrigued by the realization in recent reading that the people who live in this land, the Israelis and the Palestinians, are both a very mixed people ethnically, religiously, and racially. The blood of countless invasions and countless emigrations flows through the veins of these two nationalities, so that it seems that in some way these two peoples have come to represent the whole of humanity in our struggle to live peaceably together in a sustainable way here upon God's good earth.
So, now it is time to see this land for ourselves! Please pray for us, and for all the people we encounter in these next weeks, that what we and they experience will contribute to a peaceful and sustainable life together here on earth, and that it will justify the negative effects of such a convenient global voyage.
We wish ourselves (since most of you don't know Greek), kalo taxidhi, a good journey! See you in two months! Roy

We're home!

2008-02-26T09:32:00.003-06:00

Yes, we are back home from the first leg of our four month Sabbatical! It is good to be in this familiar environment, but strange to be here without our usual schedules and activities. We are quite busy with appointments and arrangements for the overseas leg of our Sabbatical. Still, I haven't forgotten that I am on Sabbatical, so tomorrow I will do one of my weekly spiritual retreats, this one at Broom Tree Retreat Center, a Catholic retreat center near Irene, about 20 miles south of us. (Loretta will stay home this time.)
Our trip home from Elkhart went well. Our first stop was at the Center for Theology and Land in Dubuque, Iowa, part of Wartburg Theological Seminary, a Lutheran school. This is perhaps the leading training center in the country for preparing pastors for service in rural parishes. We stayed at the seminary, attended chapel on Tuesday, bought some books, and I visited with Dr. Paul Baglyos, the director of the center. Our visit to Dubuque came on the heels of a major winter storm, so the hilly city streets were quite treacherous, as was the trip froom Dubuque to Washington, Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon.
We did get to Washington, Iowa, safely, and went to Crooked Creek Christian Camp for one of my spiritual retreats. We stayed (all alone) in the retreat center at this Central Plains camp, and had a good retreat day on Wednesday. Wednesday evening we visited our old friends, Bob and Phyllis Hartzler at Wayland.
Thursday we drove to Des Moines, Iowa, and made a stop at the offices of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference. There we visited with Tim Kautza, the director, and Bob Gronsky, another staff member. It was interesting to hear what the Catholic church is doing in the area of rural ministry, and we picked up some very helpful and practical resources.
Friday morning we made one last stop in Lyons, Nebraska, south of Sioux City, at the Center for Rural Affairs. There we met for an hour with four staff members to hear what the center is doing in the area of rural revitalization. Again it was good to visit and also to pick up many helpful and practical resources. Friday afternoon we got home!
This week of travel was not easy and not the kind of thing either of us find easy to do. However, there is value in meeting people face to face, developing a network of contacts, and exploring what people in other denominational settings are doing in the area of rural ministry.
We covet your prayers for us particularly in the next weeks as we pack and leave for our Christian Peacemaker Team delegation to Israel/Palestine. We fly a week from today, Tuesday, March 4. We have lots of loose ends to tie up before leaving, and we continue to be anxious about this experience. We are not so anxious about the danger part, but perhaps more about all the arrangements and in general the intensity of this experience. Yet we continue to believe and trust that this may also be the richest and most rewarding part of our Sabbatical experience, and we trust God will give us strength and courage for each day.
Roy

Time to move on again!

2008-02-17T07:37:00.010-06:00

This Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary campus on the right, the

view we had from our apartment,

has been our home for the past six

weeks. (Note the new AMBS lighted

we were here.) Yes, it was actually

sunny here yesterday (Saturday) when I took this picture, but

today it is raining, with snow predicted tonight and tomorrow.

During these weeks I spend a lot of my time in the new AMBS library pictured above (the building to the right on the campus picture). I remembered these weeks how much I do enjoy the academic, scholarly world, and how much at home I feel in such en environment. (No, I am not about to leave the ministry for an academic career at this point in my life, but it is a reminder of what my life might have been had I chosen differently in my youth). Anyway, I did enjoy these weeks of study and research related to rural ministry and the mission of the church in rural areas. Most of my study focused as it always has in my life on what the Bible has to say about this subject. So much of my "research" had to do with getting up to date on recent Biblical studies in the Old and New Testaments. (And yes, I have spent the money I had budgeted for books in this place, so I have enough reading to last me the rest of my life!)

Tomorrow morning, weather permitting or not, we leave to begin our journey home. We'll take several days, stopping at the Center for Theology and Land at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, doing a spiritual retreat at our CPMC camp in Iowa, Crooked Creek Christian Camp, and visiting several other places before arriving home. We will be home for about ten days getting ready for the overseas part of my Sabbatical, but as I've told our leadership back home, I expect to keep a low profile at home and we have lots of appointments and things to do while we are home. Our flight to Israel is on March 4.

This last week here was a good one. I spoke at a Colloquim (class) on Missions and Peace on Tuesday and visited another class. I did my sixth day of spiritual retreat, returning to The Hermitage where I began five weeks ago, and it was a good day. Last night we were able to attend the Winter Choral Concert at Goshen College and saw three Freeman student singing--Josh Hofer, Kate Friesen, and Karen Graber. We were also able to see my nephew and family, Mark, Elaine, Ryan, and Matt Suderman, whose son Ryan is a student at Goshen and singing in the choirs. (Mark is choral director at Bluffton University, Bluffton, Ohio, and it was a good opportunity to check in which them.)

So today after church we will be packing up and preparing to leave. We'll probably go back to Hively Avenue this morning.

Roy

More engagments, and more winter!

2008-02-08T20:18:00.000-06:00

This week began with a visit to my brother and his wife, Maynard and Barbara, in Bangor, Michigan. There was some light snow, but we made the trip fine, about an hour north of Elkhart. Maynard was my "home away from home" during my college and seminary years here at Elkhart and Goshen. It was good to be in their snug home "off the grid," powered by two small windmills and some solar panels.

On Tuesday, I had another opportunity to share my thoughts about the mission of the church in rural communities. Dean Heisey from Mennonite Mission Network heard that I was in the area and asked me to speak to a noon luncheon for MMN staff people. So I went to West Beardsley Avenue where Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Mission Network have temporary offices until their new office complex is built here on the south edge of the AMBS campus. (I would guess that our Mennonite Church USA moderator, Sharon Waltner, has been at these offices several times during her responsibilities.)

I confess I am surprised by the interest in hearing from me about the mission of the church in a rural context. And I confess that I feel ambivalent about these opportunities to speak. They are an interruption and "work" at a time when I am wanting to study. But on the other hand, every opportunity I have to speak helps me learn the language I need to speak about this topic. I am still struggling to learn this language, and it is a good thing I can "practise" here while I am on Sabbatical, so that when I come home and try using this language it may not be too jarring and may be helpful. Every time I do a presentation like this I get good feedback that helps me learn the language a little better.

I also had time this week to get back to writing some of the chapter "focal statements" for the writing project I hope to do eventually, and that felt good.

This week was not all "work". Yesterday, Loretta and I went to Amigo Centre at Sturgis, Michigan, the camp for Indiana Michigan Conference of Mennonite Church USA. I had gone to this camp once before in the winter of 1995 for a retreat when I was dealing with the pain of leaving the church at Sterling, Illinois.

It happened we had an absolutely magical day to be in this setting. We had had some wet snow earlier in the day that clung to every tree and bush, and it made the woods absolutely gorgeous. It was totally still Thursday afternoon when we took these pictures, and remained that way until afternoon today when it finally began melting off the trees. So I had a marvelous day in the woods, making the Tree House (pictured) my base. Loretta joined me for a lovely walk through the woods as well.

We are down to just one more week or so here at AMBS, and then will begin our journey home, stopping at a number of insititutions that work with rural revitalization efforts.

Roy

AMBS Pastor's Week

2008-02-03T07:09:00.000-06:00

This was Pastor's Week at AMBS, an event Loretta and I have attended fairly often, though not in the past 3 or 4 years. So this week, I was just another pastor among about 150 or so attending. The theme of the week was "testimony", whether and how we give testimony to the working of God in our lives and our world. In response to the morning sermon each day, participants were encouraged to volunteer to give their testimony. On Friday, Loretta had an opportunity to share her testimony about receiving a kidney from her donor, Rose. She told a powerful story of God's working through Rose in receiving this gift of new life after her kidneys failed in 2004. I was so pleased Loretta was able to do that. Here is a picture of Loretta next to the banner that was up that day. The theme was pilgrimage, with a trail with footsteps that led down to pairs of shoes down on the floor when this banner was in the service.

We were grieved to hear this week of Ervin Waltner's death, and remember his family this weekend as they say farewell. We rejoice in a life well-lived!

We are off to Yellow Creek Mennonite Church this morning, a large rural congregation somewhat similar to ours between Goshen and Elkhart. Then we plan to go to Bangor, Michigan, today, to see my brother Maynard and his wife, Barbara.

Roy

An intense week and Indiana winter!

2008-01-27T13:50:00.000-06:00

It is a sunny, quiet Sunday afternoon, and time for an update on our Sabbatical news here in
Elkhart. The six pastor's here on Sabbatical (the others are all from Canada) were all honored by a tea held for them with seminary faculty and staff on Tuesday.

Thursday was a big day for me, when I presented some of my thoughts about rural community to a forum for the seminary community during a noon luncheon at the Lambright Center, where lunches are served every day. I was disappointed that a major snowfall the night before kept my brother Maynard from coming down from Bangor to hear my presentation. (We plan to go visit he and his wife in a week or so.) During this forum, I shared my vision for rural, local, sustainable communities of faith as being the setting in which humans can best fulfill God's intention for particpating with God in the unfolding of creation and history. I put my "thesis" in pretty provocative language, claiming that the primary mission of the whole church should be the formation and revitalization of rural, sustainable communities. Predictably, that thesis was perceived to be quite controversial here in this setting where most people think of mission primarily in terms of the city. But that was the reason for my being as provocative as possible, so that I would get useful feedback on my "thesis", which I think I did. (See picture above, left.)

Now I'm "done" with my formal "duties" here at seminary. I anticipate spending more time reading and researching my "thesis" here at the seminary, and visiting with several professors. Actually, this next week will be a "transitional week" in our stay here, being Pastor's Week, when some 150-200 pastors from across North American will gather here from Monday through Thursday. Loretta and I will be participating in most of the Pastor's Week activities.

I continued my weekly "spiritual retreat" day on Friday. This time Loretta and I went to Camp Friedenswald, the Central District Conference camp just north of Elkhart in Michigan. It was quite a bitter cold day, and had snowed 4-6 inches the day before, but it was sunny, and gorgeous with the fresh fallen snow in the "peaceful woods" (Friedenswald). I made my place for reading and journaling in "The Meeting Place" (pictured above), and still spent one or two hours on the camp trails throughout the day. I observed a gorgeous sunrise through the trees and across an open field with a farm beyond.

I did cut my retreat day short by an hour so that Loretta and I could attend a presentation in Goshen by two women who had been on a CPT delegation to Israel/Palestine last November, both women in their 70's. It was good to hear about their experiences. We also received a large packet from CPT this week about our March delegation, including the other ten or so participants. So we are busily reading that and trying to get to anxious and scared about the next stages of our four month sojourn!

Today we went to Eighth Street Church where Herb Fretz pastored after leaving the South Church and where several Freemanites worship, including Geraldine and Bob Peters. They actually invited us to join them and others from their SS class for dinner!

There is lots more I could say, but this is enough for an update. Roy

Retreat at Merry Lea

2008-01-19T19:15:00.000-06:00

Yesterday (Friday) I did my second day of spiritual retreat (trying to do one per week). This one I did at Goshen College's Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center. (I know our daughter Dora did a spring biology course at Merry Lea some years ago.) This is a fairly large (nearly 1200 acre) nature preserve composed of many wetlands, bogs, marshes, prairies, and forests, many of them in process of being restored to native condition. Merry Lea is about 35 miles southeast of Goshen. Goshen has recently built three new buildings, all of them with "green" features, for offices and student housing, called "Reith Village." I stayed in one of these new buildings Thursday night. (Loretta opted to "stay home" this time.) Goshen College students use this facility for study, of course, but over 5,000 K-12 students also visit the Center each year in environmental education programs. Merry Lea's motto is "Come and see a wonderful place where earth and people meet."
My time of retreat went well, and it was a beautiful day, with sunshine from sunrise to sunset! But it was cold, only in the 20's, so while I did the "required" readings, I spent most of my day "on the move" on the 5 miles of trails within the preserve in an attempt to keep warm. What I find so rewarding about these days (now after the second one) is the time of uninterrupted solitude, 10 hours to just be alone as one of God's creatures within God's creation. I realize how seldom I have allowed myself to have such times. At my first day of retreat at The Hermitage, I remember how I kept looking up, expecting to be interrupted by something (a phone call, a different duty, meal time, etc.). So I know these days are one of the most valuable features of my Sabbatical, that time for "rest and renewal", which is what a Sabbatical means Biblically.

I still get to preach!

2008-01-15T20:19:00.001-06:00

Sabbatical guests here at the seminary are invited to participate in community life in a number of ways. One of those for me was an invitation to preach at the AMBS chapel service this morning, Tuesday. Chapels are held on Tuesday and Friday here at the seminary. I chose to use the first of the sermons I had prepared last summer on "The Spirituality of Food." The worship leader for this service, Frances Ringenberger, asked if I had a visual in mind. I said Loretta and I could bring some of the garden produce we had brought along to eat, and she was so excited! She came to lay out the cloth on the table and to set up all the things we had brought--potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, carrots, and canned beans, tomatoes, beets, apple sauce, pickles, and some preserves. So even though I'm on Sabbatical, I still got to do what I tend to enjoy most about being a pastor!

My next (and only other official) participation in seminary life will come next Thursday noon, when I have been invited to speak at the AMBS Forum, a luncheon discussion time. I'll venture to share some of my thoughts about the mission of the church in a rural community. It's a pretty big deal for me, so I'm working pretty hard these days on that presentation. When it is over, I will do more things I want to do for myself.

We are still well and happy here! It's typical northern Indiana weather now--in the 20's with light snow just about all the time!

Till next time!
Roy

Some pictures--a trial run!

2008-01-12T20:34:00.000-06:00

This is the apartment where Loretta and Roy are staying while at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. It is a complex of apartments that used to be the headquarters for African Inter Mennonite Mission, so our guess is the Dr. Dennis and Shirley Ries spent time at or in these buildings when they served with AIMM in Congo. The apartment we are in is little used and very simple and plain, but after all, we are only here for a couple of weeks!

This is a picture of "The Hermitage", a retreat center owned by the Indiana Michigan Mennonite Conference near Three Rivers, Michigan, about 45 miles northeast of Elkhart. This is the old barn converted into guest rooms and retreat facilities, where Loretta and I stayed on Thursday night.
This is a picture of the new library building at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminar in Elkhart. It was just opened within the last year. The main books stacks are in the wing to the left, and the main entrance is under the tower in the foreground.

This on the right is the study carrel assigned to Roy where he can work. It of course has computer hook up right there, and the library books are just behind the camera.

Sorry for the poor layout and design for this blog. We are experimenting with how to put pictures on our blog, so as we learn, things may improve. Or at least so you can hope!

Spiritual Retreat & Prayer

2008-01-11T19:48:00.002-06:00

My discipline, such as it is, is to spend an uninterrupted day from dawn to dusk in God's creation, to be, in that way and for that time, just one of God's creatures. The aim is to find a rough outdoor shelter (The Hermitage has several such shelters on its grounds) with access to trails for walking. The shelter is my base for reading and journaling, but much of the day is spent "on the trail." We arrive the night before (Thursday), take stock of the setting, get a good night's rest, and then I intend to be at my "base" before sunrise and remain there or on the trails without interruption until after sunset. (Loretta does her own thing during this time.) Of course, I'm "cheating" since these first retreats take place during the shortest days of the year, but my retreats will get longer as we move toward and into Spring. I'm not sure about doing this retreat in full summer with 15 plus hours of daylight to fill!
This was a marvelous "first day" retreat, cloudy and cool, with occasional drizzle or light sleet, temps in the 30's. I could even spurn the heater in my base shelter here at the Hermitage! A wonderful day for walking in the woods and hearing what the silence and solitude might have to say to me.
The structure of the day is a time of quiet listening, a reading of several suggested Scriptures, a reading of several printed reflections on the theme, and then a time of personal reflection, prayer, and journaling. This pattern is repeated twice in the day, morning and afternoon, using the same resources. The theme for this day's reflections was an Advent/Christmas theme--God's greatest gift.
I've known, and it was confirmed for me again last evening in talking with David Wenger, the spiritual director here at The Hermitage, and in my experience today, that my best praying is done by the movement of my body. When I sit down to pray verbally alone, I struggle to concentrate and it feels very contrived and artificial. (Not that I don't do some praying like this, or shouldn't.) But it is when I am walking that I hear God speaking to me in the things I see and hear and observe. Perhaps another time I can share some thing's I've hear God "say" to me, but I'm not prepared to do that now.
A part of my walking took me also through a prayer labyrinth laid out in a grassy valley here at The Hermitage. It struck me again how moving it is to enter the labyrinth and to follow its circular paths to the center. At the center, one can pray to each of the four cardinal directions--East, the direction of morning and spring; South, the direction of noon and summer; West, the direction of evening and autumn; and North, the direction of night and winter.
Today I resolved to mark out a prayer labyrinth in the church yard lawn this summer before our centennial. While it may not be significant or meaningful for everyone, there are surely some others like myself at church who pray best "on our feet, on the way!!"
--Written at The Hermitage "Lean to", overlooking a pond, 3:30 PM, 01-11-08.
--PS: Please add any reflections on what you have learned about prayer and spiritual disciplines!

AMBS Library

2008-01-10T08:13:00.001-06:00

Wednesday, January 9, Loretta and I were given an orientation to the new AMBS library. A recently completed "green" building, it is an extraordinary addition to the seminary campus where I studied 40 years ago. Most of the seminary building lie low to the ground, except for the unique Chapel of the Sermon on the Mount. But the new library overshadows the other campus buildings. Eileen Saner, the libararian showed me my personal study carrell where I can work on my computer. And I was introduced to dealing with finding resources in the library electronically on the computer. Rather daunting, but I was able to find and locate a number of books very interesting to me. Particularly interesting is a book titled Crossing Galilee, which describes life in First Century Galilee when Jesus lived. It is a particularly helpful book in view of our plans to visit Galilee in a few weeks!
Today (Thursday), we are off to The Hermitage for the first of my 12 days of spiritual retreat tomorrow.
Roy

I'm on Sabbatical!!

2008-01-08T12:48:00.000-06:00

Here we are in Elkhart! And my long-awaited Sabbatical has begun! We left home about 3:00 AM Monday morning and had a good drive to Elkhart, with some rain in Iowa, arriving here abou 4:30 PM. Our apartment here at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary is right off Benham Avenue, across the street from Dr. Erland & Winifred Waltner, and Leroy and Winifred Saner. Winifred (my cousin) had supper for us last night, so we felt like we were at home.
The last weeks seem a bit like a blur to us, with Christmas and family activities, church activities, and preparations for the Sabbatical. It seemed like we would never get ready, and yet surprisingly, we seem to have gotten everything at the house ready to leave in good time, and all our packing done as well, so the last weekend wasn't too bad.
Of course, Sunday was a very full day, with the communion service in the morning, the dinner and sharing time at noon, and Mary Waltner's CPT Colombia program in the evening. It was very touching for us to receive all the hugs and farewells wishing us a good time away, and to feel that we were leaving with the church's blessing. We thank the church people for their support and prayers for us in this time. It was also exciting to begin sharing about our congregation's centennial year on Sunday noon! Thinking about our centennial celebration in July gives us something special to look forward to come home to!
I continue to struggle emotionally with leaving all the folks at church for whom I was providing pastoral care. It's not that I think people won't get good care in my absence, but its hard to leave the close emotional connections that are formed in relating with people going through such struggles.
Today (Tuesday), Loretta and I are resting up and getting settled in our apartment. We did go to the Tuesday chapel at AMBS, a Taize service with an Epiphany theme, and talked to a number of people at that time. It is good for me to do that as my inclination is to hide away, and I often find myself reluctant to "show up." Loretta is a good help for me in that way.
So much for today! I'll probably check in a little later again this week!
Roy

Making progress with plans

2007-11-24T11:41:00.001-06:00

Here it is, Thanksgiving Day weekend, and plans are progressing for the Sabbatical. We applied with Christian Peacemaker Teams for the delegation to Israel/Palestine from March 4-17. That was a bit of a scary experience. Though we know CPT policy about working in dangerous areas of the world, it was driven home for us when we put our names on the line, making it clear we did not want violence to be used to "save" us if we were apprehended in some way, and did not want retribution if we were injured or were killed. It was also a wake up call for us in terms of physical demands. We wrote CPT as we applied that Loretta, while healthy, did not have a lot of stamina, and CPT encouraged us strongly to work on that, so Loretta and I have been walking a lot more the last weeks, and I see her continue to gain strength.
We have also applied for passports, and pretty much finalized a daily schedule for the four months we will be gone. So these days I am in the process of contacting a travel agency for checking out flights for all our air travel. This last week I also contacted Nazareth Village, a recreation of First Century Nazareth in which Mennonite Mission Network personnel are involved in Israel, to see about visiting there and making Nazareth Village our center for a couple of days in Galilee.
Of course, good wrinkles still reshape our plans continually. This week we heard quite serendipitously from good friends of ours in the Netherlands--she a Dutch teammate of ours from our years in Iraklion, Crete, and he her Greek husband. She had heard about our trip to Greece this winter, and since she and her husband spend some time in Greece with his aged parents, she wanted to be sure we would come to their village in Central Greece for a visit. We hadn't planned to travel that direction, but now we are trying to revise plans to include that also, as these relationships from the past are still very vital for us and indeed a part of the reason we want to travel to Greece.
We covet prayers as we continue to formulate our plans these days. Many of you at church are expressing your pleasure that we have this opportunity, and that is encouraging for us.
Roy

AMBS plans taking shape

2007-10-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

Loretta and I now have confirmed plans to be at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana, January 7 to February 12, 2008. During this time I will do research on rural
ministry, talk to professors, engage the seminary community, visit surrounding agencies that deal with rural issues, and perhaps continue to develop a book idea I have on rural ministry.

I was excited to hear from AMBS that there will be six pastors on campus this winter as a part of their Sabbatical, including two pastoral couples. One of these couples, Gary and Margaret Peters, from Hanley, Saskatchewan, were peers of ours when we lived in Saskatchewan, and it will be special to reconnect with them. All of these Sabbatical pastors except me are from Canada!

A major committment for my Sabbatical is to spend a day a week in spiritual retreat, using the retreat models found in The Upper Room, A Guide to Prayer. For this day, Loretta and I plan to visit each week a retreat center or camp in the Michiana area, so we are planning which day of the week to do this and beginning to contact these retreat centers. Currently, we are thinking of Thursdays as a time for this.

Loretta and I have also been working on our application to Christian Peacemaker Teams for a delegation to Israel/Palestine from March 4-17. I will write more about that process on my next posting.

Getting news you've waited for!

2007-10-04T20:40:00.000-05:00

On May 10 I went to the post office with an envelope containing the Sabbatical proposal from the Salem Mennonite Church for the National Clergy Renewal Program of Lilly Endowment. (It happened to be the day before my mother, Adeline Kaufman, came to her last day, which I spent with her at the Tieszen Home. How grateful I was to have this proposal in the mail before that busy time with my Mom's funeral.) A lot of work had gone into that document, to say nothing of hopes and dreams. We'd been working on the Sabbatical proposal since January. Lilly Endowment made it clear they did not want inquiries from applicants about how their application was faring. They just said they would let applicants know "by October." I didn't know if that meant before October, or during October.
So I settled in to wait. Obviously a lot was riding on this grant proposal of $42,000. And though I knew we had a good proposal, I knew the competition for these grants was great, with more than 700 applications, and less than 150 accepted. So I tried not to be too optimistic, and I tried to prepare myself for news that our proposal was not accepted. I explored a number of "Plan B" options, applying to Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary for a Sabbatical grant they offer pastors, and even to another Sabbatical program.
I think I probably blocked out thinking about receiving the news during most of September, not wanting to be too anxious and preoccupied about it. So I didn't even notice the two large envelopes that came on September 26 in the mail. Then I noticed one was addressed to the moderator, and one to me. Glancing at the return address I saw that they were from Lilly Endowment, and I knew the moment of truth was at hand. Loretta happened to be there, so I had her "hold my hand" as I opened the envelope addressed to me. And believe it or not, it said that Salem Mennonite Church had received the Lilly Endowment grant!
In addition to being suprised, I guess my main feeling was one of relief! Now our and the church's plans could proceed! And for me personally, the main relief was probably for the part of the Sabbatical involving our daughters--a two week trip to meet us in Greece in April. The girls were all looking forward to that very much, and if I hadn't received this grant, I doubted if I could fulill my promise to have them join us there for two weeks, even if we had proceeded with some or all of my Sabbatical plans otherwise. I was glad that I could tell them that the trip was likely a go!
I'm also relieved that the news came as soon as it did. It means we have a full three months to flesh out all our plans and make all the many contacts and arrangements we need to make now that our Sabbatical can unfold as planned.
So I wonder what your experiences are with waiting for something you really want. It reminds me a little of how it was when Loretta was pregnant, except that in this case we didn't really know if we'd have the "baby!" A lot of people worked with us in making this application and my Sabbatical plans. A lot of people have already been put on notice that something may happen! So what a joy it is now to actually be able to let people know that we'll be able to follow through with these plans!
Also, I'd be grateful for your thoughts about what this Sabbatical will mean for you and for the church. I know there's lots of people who are a little envious that I should have this opportunity, when their own work won't allow this "luxury." And I surely understand why people should feel that way. A lot of people are also wishing they could go with us, especially in our foreign travel. But what are your expectations for me in this experience? What do you wish or hope that I might do for you or for our church? Will it make any difference for us here? I'd be grateful for your thoughts!
Pastor Roy