On March 19th we arrived at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon CT
www.silverlakect.org and have settled in enough to collect our thoughts. Our 4 months at home gave us opportunities to visit with family and friends, be spiritually nourished at our home church, pay attention to household maintenance issues, attend Elon University events, and take care of routine medical appointments.
We are now located 650 miles from our NC home for an 8 month volunteer placement. With the car packed, along with our usual eagerness to begin a new adventure, we enjoyed visiting family and friends in VA, PA and NY along the way.
Our housing is a cottage near Mudge Pond (No it’s not Silver Lake – that’s just the name of the conference center). It’s at the end of a long dirt road which is now somewhat muddy. We’re able to take a short uphill path through the woods to the camp and are glad it is downhill on the return. However, the exercise does us no harm.
The conference center is currently hosting Spring weekend retreats. The real excitement will start at the end of June when about 180 campers and counselors will arrive each week through the middle of August. Our jobs don’t involve the camp program but we’ll eat in the main dining room so will hear all the familiar camp songs and enjoy the laughter of excited children.
At Silver Lake we’ve been warmly welcomed and well oriented and are now helping the center prepare for a first ever annual alumni fundraising appeal in September. A lot of work needs to go into getting the database ready. In addition, Bill is working with the site manager to create a database that will have a complete inventory and maintenance schedule for all the vehicles, equipment etc.
In February we visited our 1983-4 AFS exchange student, Susy, in Managua, Nicaragua, for 5 days. We had a good time, enjoyed being with her children ages 8 and 5, and especially appreciated her family’s efforts to show us around the country. Oddly enough, one week we were with friends at Holden Beach NC (Atlantic Ocean) and the next week we were at the Pacific Ocean.
Our families are all doing well. Cindi and Mike stay busy at their Texas ranch. Sawyer, Brynne and Luke are well into school activities. The big news of course is the arrival of David and Christy’s son, Andrew Christopher Ruth on Jan 25th. He’s a handsome young man and his sister Ashley thinks it’s great having a little brother.
Speaking of Ashley, she will be having another operation (knee and ankle this time) in Baltimore on April 16. We plan on being with them in Baltimore for several days to help with Drew. This operation is not as extensive as the leg-lengthening in 2007 but will still require time and effort on her parents’ part to help with rehabilitation etc.
Although Connecticut is drab in March, we know that the bloom of Spring is not far away. Mudge Pond just this week became ice free and is waiting for the first camper to take the plunge in June.
Visits with family and friends in New England will give us interesting times on our days off. We’ll continue to travel around to see the sights and visit familiar landmarks.
We always look forward to hearing from you so please keep in touch and let us know what’s happening in your lives.
