Greetings from Silver Lake! 

How are you doing?  Your emails and calls and visits and cards and facebook contacts are keeping us connected.  Thanks for staying in touch!

Here we are in Connecticut in mid September already enjoying some great fall foliage and a slight chill in the air enough to have the furnace on a few times. We are serving as volunteers at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon CT from March 2009 to November 2009.  After a full day of volunteering we sometimes listen to the Red Sox on 1080 WTIC radio or read (we have a great local library) or do puzzles/play games as we have no TV reception or internet at our cottage which is nestled in the woods.  Sometimes we just REST!

SILVER LAKE is a United Church of Christ Outdoor Ministry owned by the Connecticut Conference of UCC churches and we are privileged to volunteer with this outstanding quality program for hundreds of youth, young adults and adults.  It has been our pleasure to be a part of an energetic, welcoming, God-centered facility where the conferees and staff are accepting of each other and growing spiritually.  At Silver Lake we’ve been able to institute a computerized inventory management program and develop their alumni communication and initiate an annual alumni appeal.  We also help with welcoming retreat groups on weekends and often this summer gave presentations to counselors about the UCC volunteer program. Also, Bill did his share of lawn mowing and Mary did some office file organizing and phone answering.  

SUMMER.  For 8 weeks this summer there was lots going on with 180 different campers every week plus 50 summer staff and sometimes up to 50 adult volunteer deans and counselors and artists in residence.  Some days we would leave our cottage at 7 am and not get back until 9:30 pm!  Once a week we volunteered as ‘alternate camp directors’ in the evenings so others could have a night off.  Chaplains gave 9 am presentations, meal times were noisy, Chapel services were at 7:30 pm and usually led by conferees.  In addition to conference programs, the conferees had low ropes and high ropes, swim time, arts and crafts, games, campfires, and night hikes.  

SUNDAYS.  Silver Lake runs a top quality summer program for 4^th – 12^th graders which includes a ‘safe camp’ policy.  Bill was kept very busy every Sunday doing web based background checks for the adult counselors—and is happy to report there was never a problem.  Also on Sundays, Mary ‘worked’ the registration lines and sometimes found up to one third of the parents had come to Silver Lake themselves as children.  What a tribute to a great program!  Campers came for one week only so every Sunday we were doing the same things over and over only with different people. When they all left on Saturday, the camp went into ‘high’ clean up mode to get ready for the next group. 

FURLOUGH.  Silver Lake is owned by the Connecticut Conference UCC and that entity decided to close down for 1 week to reduce annual expenses so we went home to NC.  We were ready for a break and rediscover that we could once again say grace for a meal without standing and singing it!  We were also ready to see more age diversity. All summer long we were absolutely the oldest people on the entire property!  The furlough break let us spend some time with David and family in Charlotte, reconnect with Dean and Betty (our Stoney Creek ‘property managers’), get our car registered, attend an Elon tailgate with Truitts, watch Elon win a football game with Larry and Bonnie Brooks, meet our new neighbors, worship at Elon Church, go out to lunch with Phoebe and Jean and take care of a few other things.  The furlough week was a lot of driving but all went well.

DAVID and Family. When we sent you our last update in June, our granddaughter Ashley, age 5, had just undergone shunt surgery. Thank you for your prayers and emails of support which have helped and sustained us all. Little did we know that Ashley would have 9 surgeries and not get out of the Charlotte NC hospital until Sept 1!  David, Christy and Drew (8 months) are blessed to have many friends from their church and the nursery school who brought meals, prayed, visited and generally helped them out. Needless to say we are all glad to have Ashley home, gaining weight and strength and the really good news is she has started attending kindergarten and doing well there. Mary flew from CT to NC twice this summer to help out while Bill stayed at Silver Lake and volunteered ‘twice as hard’.  

CINDI and Family. We’ll be flying to Texas at the end of October specifically to watch Sawyer (14) play Junior High football and Brynne (10) play soccer and Luke (8) play ‘town’ football.  We’ll also be meeting their new dog named Maggie, Sawyer’s newest goat, Seth, and their horses Zip and Rocket.  Mike continues to have a long commute to work in Ft. Worth and Cindi is active in church and community events in Grandview. 

EXTENDED FAMILY. Bill’s sister, Betty, and husband are retired and living in Florida after many years in NJ.  Mary’s siblings: Carolyn and Ed, with homes in VA and NY, are traveling around the world in retirement. Frank and Cindy have homes in FL and Prince Edward Island; Frank, who is retired, camped the 1500 mile Alaskan highway with two buddies this summer. Cal and Joan, having sold their hotel in St. Croix, work in Winchester VA area; Cal underwent successful carcenoid cancer aggressive surgery in July in New Orleans and is feeling good. Mary’s Uncle Horace, age 85, has had a few health problems this summer in Massachusetts; we’ve been to visit him a few times and are glad we are in the area to do so. On one visit it was good to also catch up with Aunt Doris and Cousin Curt and Kathy.  We look forward to cousins Jan Kirby and Betty Waite coming to visit us in October from MA.

LOCAL SIGHTS. Living in ‘the woods’ and being rather isolated gives us challenges when we have a day off or need to shop. (the nearest general merchandise department store is 21 miles and that takes 45 minutes; a grocery store is 7 miles). Our days off during the summer were Tuesdays and Saturdays. There are surprising niches of interesting sights tucked away in this Berkshire area and we’ve visited places like Wing’s Castle in NY, Millbrook NY Winery, and the Great Barrington MA River Walk. A visit to the Sharon Historical Society included a film about how the rich iron ore deposits here provided metal for revolutionary and civil war weapons.  There is a Sharon summer stock theater and we enjoyed seeing ‘Music Man’ (Mary remembers seeing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf at that theater in 1965); The Torrington CT historical museum has a great tour and the Mohawk forest and ski area provides good hiking trails. We made an effort to attend the Litchfield County 4H fair at the Goshen fairgrounds; it was perfect ‘fair weather’ to watch the young people show their animals. Our social life included being at a farewell party for Fred and Bev Schott who are moving from CT to AZ.  On one summer’s day, we went to Kinston NY for a Hudson River Cruise on the Rip Van Winkle!  We enjoyed walking part of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail in NY, saw some llamas along the way and happened to meet someone biking the trail that we knew!

LYMES DISEASE. This part of the country has a real problem with tiny deer ticks that spread Lyme’s disease. Mary never saw the tick but it left a ‘bull’s eye’ on her ankle.  Things went quickly from bad to worse and Mary ended up in the local Sharon hospital for 2 days for IVs to treat a nasty ankle infection and then 3 weeks of medication for the disease.  (Mary was one of 14 summer staff who contracted the disease this summer).  A most interesting coincidence was when we discovered the doctor’s daughter is a freshman at Elon!  Thankfully, even thought we are isolated, the medical facilities are very good in this area- probably, in part, due to residents of wealth and stature. Being 70 miles from NYC means people like Meryl Streep and others of fame have estate homes in Sharon.

WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.  We were married in CT in 1966 and honeymooned at Lake George.  We’d never been back to Lake George so took a short trip this summer to revisit the area.  “Blue Water Manor’, the place we stayed, was still there!  One of our bridesmaids, Pat, was once a nurse at Silver Lake (and also Mary’s roommate at Silver Lake in 1965). We successfully recruited her and her husband, Kim Cartwright, to come to Silver Lake this summer for a week so she could be nurse for week 4! 

HEBRON HARVEST FAIR. When we lived in Hebron CT (1971-1990), the Hebron Fair was a fun part of our lives with our children involved in 4H and us involved with the church cider booth and AFS dunking booth.  This year we made a special effort to attend Thursday night of the fair (known as ‘locals’ night) and were not disappointed in seeing some friends from long ago.  After not being there for 19 years, the changes were very noticeable; the animal tents are now ‘fancy’ barns and the fair itself is much bigger.  The weather was perfect, the food choices as good (or bad for cholesterol) as ever; the Hebron Lions Club does an outstanding job putting this fair together.

VICTORIA CROSSING. We are blessed to have dear friends, and former Hebron neighbors, Sara and Jerry Cross, own a B&B in Lebanon CT.  Each time we visit the Hebron area, we are graciously hosted at their home and enjoy so much catching up with each other and our families.  We highly recommend this B&B and hope you’ll spread the word; their B&B phone number is 860-642-6998.

ELON FRATERNITY.  While a student at Elon, Bill belonged to Alpha Pi Delta and was president his senior year. Some of the brothers enjoyed getting together in Chaplin CT at the home of Charlie and Debbie Avila.  Charlie is retired from teaching and they are raising a grandson. Dave Hosmer and Judy, both retired, now live in Woodstock Valley CT.  Joe Cote, from Fall River MA and best man in our wedding, was once Bill’s roommate.  Dave (clarinet) and Joe (baritone horn) each played in the Elon marching band with both of us (Bill on drums, Mary on alto saxophone).

WHAT’S NEXT?  We’ll take a few months off and be at home in NC over the holidays.  We don’t yet know what 2010 will bring as far as a volunteer assignment but we will keep you posted!

Write soon!

Greetings from the foothills of the Connecticut Berkshires! 

Since writing our April general email update, our volunteering at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon CT is keeping us more than busy as well as productive. 

THIS WEEK both of our granddaughters have captured our special attention.

-Our PRAYERS  are for Ashley who is undergoing a second emergency shunt surgery on June 28 (details at www.thestatus.com  Patient=Ruth, Password=Ashley3) in Charlotte. She is resting comfortably and Ashley’s other grandparents have traveled to be with them.  Mary is flying there on July 3. 

-Our CONGRATULATIONS are for Brynne who placed 6^th for ‘under 10 year old’ 3 minute speed at a National Jump Roping event in Galveston.

 NEXT WEEK begins the summer season at Silver Lake!  We’re enjoying the energy and enthusiasm of more than 40 high school and college age recently hired summer staff. Their jobs include kitchen, mowing, waterfront, ropes challenge course, arts and crafts, music, maintenance, cleaning, and photography.  We’re also getting to see year ‘round staff colleagues teaching teamwork, building community and inspiring Christian service.  Summer conferee registrations seem to be as good as ever (the price is right thanks to church support).  Our responsibilities continue to center around inventory and friend-raising.

VOLUNTEERING at Silver Lake gives us opportunities to meet new people interested in knowing more about our calling as volunteers but we also spend a great deal of time using computers for database work for inventory (50 buildings!) and mailings like this just published newsletter (www.silverlakect.org/alum/newsletter).  There is always plenty to do so we help out with tours, family picnic day, retreat groups, a Golf Tournament fund raiser, data entry, camp fairs, meetings, printing reports, filing, and collecting/recording forms. 

LIVING ‘on site’ eliminates any commuting and having a Culinary Institute Chef on staff is a special treat. Our heated cottage also came with a little wood stove and now, with summer upon us, gives us cooling comfort from shade trees.  We are reading local library books faster than ever, using Netflix, playing cards and games and doing some jig saw puzzles as we have no TV reception or internet distractions at the cottage.  This is peaceful living but it’s a definite treat to get 1080 WTIC AM radio reception to listen to the Red Sox! 

RELATING to Silver Lake is not difficult. Mary was a conferee here in the late 50’s and then had a paid internship at Silver Lake in the summer of 1965 for her Elon College Religious Education major.  Bill, who was working a college summer job in NJ, was dating Mary at that time and came to visit her at Silver Lake.  Pat, Mary’s Silver Lake roommate and camp nurse, became a bridesmaid in our 1966 wedding and now will return this summer to be the nurse for a week in July—we recruited her!  In the 1980’s our children each attended a Silver Lake conference, Mary was a hiking conference counselor and Bill was a counselor with our minister from Hebron.  Silver Lake, then and now owned by the Connecticut Conference United Church of Christ, is a top notch church camp.    

EXPLORING the area is a favorite pastime of ours. On days off we are visiting places such as:  Hyde Park, Stony Point and Ft Montgomery in NY; Hancock Shaker Village, Norman Rockwell museum and Calvin Coolidge library in MA; and local trips to Sharon Audubon Society, Beckley Furnace, Kent Falls State Park, and the Cornwall Covered Bridge. We are in the middle of nowhere, deep in the woods and our cottage is only six miles from New York State.  The rolling hills and the remoteness certainly has its appeal so the area has many country summer estates owned by people from the New York City area.  We are getting used to 70 miles taking 2 hours no matter which direction we go!        

TRAVELING out of state helps us stay in touch with loved ones.  In April we drove to Baltimore for a week to be with David and family for Ashley’s leg surgery and had some special bonding time with baby Drew.  In June we flew to Texas to be with Cindi and family for a long weekend family visit. Brynne went with us to a local ‘theater in the round’ and we all went to the Motocross races to watch Sawyer, Mike and Luke– who won a 2^nd place trophy. Sometimes it was 100 degrees so we all enjoyed our times in the swimming pool.

VOLUNTEERING at Silver Lake gives us opportunities to meet new people interested in knowing more about our calling as volunteers but we also spend a great deal of time using computers for database work for inventory (50 buildings!) and mailings like this just published newsletter (www.silverlakect.org/alum/newsletter).  There is always plenty to do so we help out with tours, family picnic day, retreat groups, a Golf Tournament fund raiser, data entry, camp fairs, meetings, printing reports, filing, and collecting/recording forms. 

LIVING ‘on site’ eliminates any commuting and having a Culinary Institute Chef on staff is a special treat. Our heated cottage also came with a little wood stove and now, with summer upon us, gives us cooling comfort from shade trees.  We are reading local library books faster than ever, using Netflix, playing cards and games and doing some jig saw puzzles as we have no TV reception or internet distractions at the cottage.  This is peaceful living but it’s a definite treat to get 1080 WTIC AM radio reception to listen to the Red Sox! 

RELATING to Silver Lake is not difficult. Mary was a conferee here in the late 50’s and then had a paid internship at Silver Lake in the summer of 1965 for her Elon College Religious Education major.  Bill, who was working a college summer job in NJ, was dating Mary at that time and came to visit her at Silver Lake.  Pat, Mary’s Silver Lake roommate and camp nurse, became a bridesmaid in our 1966 wedding and now will return this summer to be the nurse for a week in July—we recruited her!  In the 1980’s our children each attended a Silver Lake conference, Mary was a hiking conference counselor and Bill was a counselor with our minister from Hebron.  Silver Lake, then and now owned by the Connecticut Conference United Church of Christ, is a top notch church camp.    

EXPLORING the area is a favorite pastime of ours. On days off we are visiting places such as:  Hyde Park, Stony Point and Ft Montgomery in NY; Hancock Shaker Village, Norman Rockwell museum and Calvin Coolidge library in MA; and local trips to Sharon Audubon Society, Beckley Furnace, Kent Falls State Park, and the Cornwall Covered Bridge. We are in the middle of nowhere, deep in the woods and our cottage is only six miles from New York State.  The rolling hills and the remoteness certainly has its appeal so the area has many country summer estates owned by people from the New York City area.  We are getting used to 70 miles taking 2 hours no matter which direction we go!        

TRAVELING out of state helps us stay in touch with loved ones.  In April we drove to Baltimore for a week to be with David and family for Ashley’s leg surgery and had some special bonding time with baby Drew.  In June we flew to Texas to be with Cindi and family for a long weekend family visit. Brynne went with us to a local ‘theater in the round’ and we all went to the Motocross races to watch Sawyer, Mike and Luke– who won a 2^nd place trophy. Sometimes it was 100 degrees so we all enjoyed our times in the swimming pool.

CELEBRATING recent holidays in New England with family and friends is one of our ‘perks’ for volunteering in CT. 

-Easter weekend we stayed in Lebanon at Victoria’s Crossing B&B, went to the sunrise service on Lebanon Green, and worshipped with old friends (or is that friends from long ago?) at the Gilead Church.

-Memorial Day weekend we drove to Westford cemetery to plant flowers at Mary’s parents’ graves. While there we fondly remembered our last visit a year ago, with Florence, Mary’s dad’s second wife, who passed away in February at age 95.  We continued our journey to stay a few days at “Haven of Peace”, a family cottage in Jamaica, Vermont, owned by our cousin Jan, whose generous hospitality had 13 ‘distant cousins’ gathered for the weekend.

-Father’s Day weekend had us at a Golf Tournament in Greenfield MA meeting Mary’s brother Cal, who undergoes major carcenoid cancer surgery in New Orleans on July 2, (www.thestatus.com  Patient= Coolidge, password= sea-six).  The three of us drove to Athol to visit our 85 year old Uncle and his family and then to Petersham where we have many happy memories of time spent with our grandparents.  

HOSTING visitors at our Silver Lake cottage is something we particularly enjoy and have already welcomed family from MA, friends from Maine and West Virginia, as well as CT folks from West Haven and Collinsville.  We’re looking forward to getting together with others in the CT area as dates and places to meet are selected.  For the summer we get Tuesdays and Saturdays off and like to ‘get off site’ — let us know when and where to meet you and we’ll be there!

HOME, in North Carolina, will be a late August trip for us.  When this conference center goes on furlough for a week we’ll make the trip to ‘check in’ with friends in NC and take care of a few things like renew our licenses etc.  Then we’ll return to Silver Lake until our assignment here concludes in November.

Thanks for reading this and staying in touch with us.  Our collection of ‘updates’ provides us with impressions of our volunteering and writing them for you helps us focus our thoughts.  We find it especially interesting to read an update written early on during an assignment and then compare it to a final assignment update and see where we’ve grown in understanding the culture and the agency and what changes we see in ourselves.  As always, we are looking forward to hearing from you soon. 

On March 19^th 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 25^th. 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.

our home in Stoney Creek NC

On March 2, 2009, while we were on ‘home leave’ in Stoney Creek, NC, it snowed!  This photo shows our home and the beautiful winter wonderland.

Happy New Year!  Thanks for staying in touch; cards, emails and newsletters received during the holiday season are a real treat.  Your communications help us ‘stay better connected’ and give us a great sense of support as we continue our journey of volunteer ministry. We hope all continues to be well with you and hopefully we will be seeing and/or hearing more from you in 2009.

HOME (Stoney Creek NC) is where we arrived today to settle in once again, unpack the suitcases, put away the Christmas decorations, and go through the mail.  We continue to be blessed with neighbors, Betty and Dean, who keep a watchful eye on our town home while we are away.

AMBITIOUS best describes our holiday travel schedule.  We decided to drive from NC to TX and back.  By leaving NC on Dec 24 and returning Jan 10 it was 17 nights on the road; 8 of those with family or friends and 9 in hotels, through 7 states and over 3500 miles.  We had a great time with everyone and were fortunate to have good weather.

CHRISTMAS EVE we were in Charlotte with David, Christy and Ashley.  Highlights included a fire engine carrying Santa in their neighborhood, a candlelight church service and lobsters for our traditional family dinner.  All it took was a Cinderella princess dress from Santa Claus for Ashley on CHRISTMAS MORNING to make her a wide-eyed, true believer!

BILL did most of the driving and had plenty of ‘Granpa’ duties such as shooting baskets, going to the movies and going bowling, playing Parcheesi, and eating lunch at school. Then there were the ‘dad’ projects like painting a bureau, installing curtain rods, repairing a bed and hanging pictures. 

MARY brought along a portable sewing machine and spent a few days ‘decorating’ Brynne’s room with toile curtains, bed skirt, coverlet edging, pillow shams and decorative pillows.  ‘Granma’ had things to do that included shopping, enjoying the Christmas lights in the park, playing computer scrabble, watching basketball practice and seeing Luke and Sawyer and Mike race Motocross.

CINDI and Mike, now married 16 years, and Sawyer (13), Brynne (9) and Luke (7) live in Grandview, Texas.  We enjoyed taking Sawyer with us for a few days to visit Texas Rangers Museum, LBJ Ranch and Texas Sports Hall of Fame.   

DAVID and Christy, now married 11 years, and Ashley (5) live in Charlotte, NC.  Ashley has a Little Gym ballet/tap recital coming up soon. All of us are looking forward to the arrival of Baby Andrew Christopher Ruth on January 26.  

NEW YEAR’S EVE in Granbury, Texas, was a night to be remembered and great fun with Cindi’s in-laws, Ed and Sherry Abbott.  The evening included dinner out, a gospel sing at the Opera House, and sparklers at midnight on the Granbury square with servings of black eyed peas/cornbread for ‘good luck’.

RHAM High School (Hebron, CT) classmate of Mary’s, Elissa Lederer, met us for New Year’s Day lunch in the Dallas area.  It was a great visit and we enjoyed being together.

WELCOMING us into their homes for B&B treatment on this trip were HEIFER International friends, Betty and Caby Byrne in Clinton MS, and ELON friends, Jerry & Pam Cameron in Lula GA.  Their respective congenial hospitality contributed to the enjoyment of this trip.  

NICARAGUA is where we will be Feb 19-24 to visit with our (‘83-‘84) AFS student, Susy, and her family.  We last saw her in 2001.

FURLOUGH is a welcome treat for us right now and gives us a chance to reconnect with Elon and church friends and also participate in local activities and events. We finished the Cleveland volunteer assignment in November and will be starting our next volunteer assignment in mid March in Sharon CT.

95^th BIRTHDAY Party for Mary’s step-mother, Florence Coolidge, is going on this weekend at her daughter’s home in Guilford, CT.  We’ll be seeing Florence soon to hear all about the big birthday celebration.

Greetings and Merry Christmas 2008. At this time of anticipation of Hope for the World, we send our best wishes for a joyous holiday season. May we all count our blessings and share what we have with those whose blessings are fewer. We cherish our relationship with you and enjoy the times we get together.

We just finished our volunteer assignment in Cleveland, spent Thanksgiving with our son and family, and are glad to be at our home in North Carolina.  Right after Christmas we will travel to Texas to be with our daughter and family for a few weeks, then back to NC for arrival of grandchild number 5, a Baby Ruth boy, on January 26. 

It looks like our next volunteer placement will be in Connecticut for several months in 2009 at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon.  http://silverlake.ctucc.org/

Do stay in touch!  Let us know how you and your family are doing.  What holiday plans do you have?

Wishing you a Happy New Year 2009,

Mary and Bill

PS Since we already know you are ‘with us’ in this electronic age, we want you to enjoy this e-card as much as one ‘snail mailed’ to you other years.  This is THE card from us this year and you’ve just read THE newsletter (above) since you’ve already received our updates/newsletters (Feb/Apr/Jul/Oct) throughout the year.  If you missed any of those, you can read them here on this BLOG under updates.

HELLO again from Cleveland!  We are doing fine since we last wrote in July and are looking forward to hearing from you and/or seeing you soon. This particular 9 month volunteer assignment concludes Nov. 21 and then we’ll be heading home to North Carolina for a few months ‘furlough’ before moving on to a 2009 assignment (details later in this letter).

LAKEWOOD, a city bordering Cleveland, is our current housing location provided by the host agency.  (We lived west of the city for 5 months, then house-sat for 6 weeks in Shaker Heights.) Since moving here on August 9, we no longer ride the rapid (train) as we are now driving downtown Cleveland in less than 10 minutes.  This furnished studio apartment is on the 3^rd floor in one of several high rises (16 stories or more) on Lake Erie called the Gold Coast.  We can walk to the local park where we once enjoyed an outdoor concert. In September we went on the Lakewood Historical Society’s annual house tour.

LAKE ERIE we see every day with some sailboats and a few freighters.  It is huge and reminds us of the ocean!  One glorious August Saturday afternoon we took the Goodtime III sightseeing boat and learned much from the tour of the harbor and Cuyahoga River.   

JULY and AUGUST in Cleveland found us at our volunteer site Monday-Friday.  Many fine summer weekends gave us ample opportunity to visit places such as Presque Isle, tour the US Brig Niagara at the Maritime Museum in Erie PA, see the Christmas Story house (movie filmed in Cleveland), explore the Shaker Museum, enjoy the newly renovated Cleveland Museum of Art, climb to the top of the Garfield Monument, attend the Cuyahoga County Fair, and receive a guided tour of the well-known Botanical Gardens.  Thanks to new friends who include us in their social events we’ve been to Blossom Outdoor Music Center and to Gray’s Armory for a Wurlitzer organ concert. We also had fun with co-workers at a staff/volunteer appreciation day event by attending a Captains baseball game (Indians triple A).  And once again, Bill was given tickets to a baseball game at Progressive Field…

FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION in the Little Italy section of Cleveland on August 15 was an especially interesting and pleasant experience for us.  One of our co-workers, Pat, invited us to her home for this special Roman Catholic holy day.  We found the procession and atmosphere certainly reminding us of Europe, the Italian food delicious and Pat’s family members congenial and entertaining following the processional event.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND we spent at home in North Carolina (500 miles). The long weekend trip was planned to see family, touch base with friends, register the car, check on the house, get car maintenance done, accomplish some banking, have a few doctor check ups, play golf, attend Elon’s opening football game and worship at our home church.  It was a whirlwind of activity but the changes in routine and scenery made for a nice break from the volunteer work in Cleveland.      

A WEDDING GOWN ‘pageant’, not soon to be forgotten, was a unique part of Labor Day weekend at home.  Son, David, and family weekended at our house and Mary’s niece, Anne, and her family from Virginia joined us for part of the weekend.  There were 10 of us in all which included 4 girls ages 12, 10, 6, and 4.  Knowing that some of the girls liked to play ‘dress-up’ we found several outfits of great interest.  They included 3 wedding dresses: Mary’s 1966, her mother’s 1940, and her grandmother’s 1918. We also had daughter Cindi’s prom dress, and a bridesmaid’s dress from the 1980’s.  When the ‘pageant’ descended down the staircase (on August 31), we had lots of oohs and aahs and then much astonishment when we all realized that it was exactly 68 years ago that day when one of the wedding dresses was actually worn by the girls’ great grandmother on August 31, 1940. 

POKAGON State Park in Angola IN was a treat for us in September when we attended a staff retreat and planning session with Cleveland colleagues and Indianapolis (Disciples of Christ) counterparts.  The two groups share the management of Global Ministries. (www.globalministries.org) and deal with the challenges of current overseas mission.

SEPTEMBER had us at the IMAX Theater, off to visit the Hale Farm and Village, and then hurricane IKE hit Ohio and some of our co-workers were without power from Sunday night to Thursday.  It was mighty windy at our place with whitecaps on the lake. 

CLEVELAND CLINIC is an amazing medical facility with an outstanding world-wide reputation.  Two friends, Doug Allcock and Pam Moffat, have each had surgery there and we’ve been to visit them.

ENTERTAINMENT of interest lately is the movie, Fireproof.  If you haven’t seen it yet, we hope you will soon.  We also liked the movie Mama Mia – mostly because of the setting in Greece.  We are now reading The Shack and Gilead.  Last week we were given free tickets to the opera ‘Figaro’ and were glad to have the electronic translation in front of us.

CHURCH LIFE at West Park UCC has been good for us and has included Sunday worship, Wednesday Bible Studies, Thursday Choir rehearsals, and after church socials.  Friendships made there caused us to participate in an active Marriage Encounter Community group and also led to invitations to some homes– a special treat when our housing is pretty basic.

DIVERSITY abounds here.  Cleveland is foreign-friendly with various communities retaining language and customs from afar.  Interesting to us is the local NPR station carrying regular programming in Eastern European languages, some families on our floor speak no English and executives in offices next to ours speak another language often on the telephone.  This ‘melting pot’ of Americans enriches the culture and provides great varieties in the availability of international foods.   

VOLUNTEER WORK, full-time at Church House, United Church of Christ National Setting, has us fully occupied.  The best practices manual we are writing will be done by the time we conclude our assignment and the data clean-up and email communications are coming along nicely. We are involved with supporting staff-led events; just recently we transported a former missionary in the area, helped with registration at ‘Missionworks’ where current mission service personnel from China, East Germany and Lebanon/France shared their experiences.

PARTNERS in SERVICE, the long term UCC domestic volunteer program in which we participate, remains remarkable for more than 50 years in its ability to reach out to non-profit, church-related, agencies to offer helping hands.  We are privileged to have served, learned, and met some most interesting people, during our volunteer assignments at:

2003-2004    Menaul School, Albuquerque NM

2004-2005    Blowing Rock Conference Center, Blowing Rock NC

2005-2006 Heifer International Ranch, Perryville AR 

2006-2007 Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta GA

2007           Montreat Conference Center, Montreat NC

2008           United Church of Christ National Setting, Cleveland OH        

OUR 7^th ASSIGNMENT will most likely be at Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon, CT.  Final details are being worked out but we think we will be there March-Nov 2009.

VOTE!  We already have– via absentee ballots.

In 1995 Mary wrote a 15 Chapter book called “I Believe in Angels”.  The writing of the book was her ‘therapy’ after stepping down from being Executive Director (1991-1995) of Allied Churches of Alamance County in North Carolina. Some of the stories were those she shared when speaking at church and civic groups about the Emergency Night Shelter, Good Shepherd Community Kitchen, and Christian Assistance Network.  The book is copyrighted, was printed in 1995 but not published.  The hard copies are now scarce.  Today the entire book is now posted to this BLOG.  You can go to ‘pages’ in the right column and click on IBA (I Believe in Angels) and see one chapter at a time.

GREETINGS from Cleveland!  Thanks for staying in touch and helping us feel better connected.  Your support of our volunteer journey is an important part of this ministry and we are grateful for you and for our many blessings.

BABY RUTH, grandchild #5, will be arriving Feb1 in Charlotte NC!  We are delighted to learn that Ashley takes tap, ballet, and gymnastics lessons at a local Little Gym.  She seems to like the ballet better and we hear that she follows her instructor very well. Ashley (to be 5 in December) also can’t wait to become a ‘big sister’. We are praying for an especially healthy baby this time for our son, David, and Christy.

VOLUNTEERING is a full time job.  This particular assignment has no shortage of computer data entry/clean-up projects.   After 2 difficult months of us sharing the same office space, we now have adjoining offices and like it this way much better!   Our office colleagues are good about keeping us included in a variety of activities and events.

HOUSING for us in Cleveland continues to be challenging.  Wayne and Jane Brass generously hosted us for 5 months and we are grateful for their hospitality.  Right now we are house-sitting in Shaker Heights for 6 weeks. Arrangements have just been completed for us to stay at a condo unit in Lakewood from Aug 8 to Nov 21.  Our various moves have given us a unique opportunity to get to know various parts of Cleveland quite well.

CLEVELAND and its many good, unique qualities is ‘growing on us’.  The summer weather is quite glorious. Once again seeing ‘lightening bugs’ and also hearing the leaves rustle in the wind are treats. Flower gardens are outstandingly beautiful and we are getting to experience some of Cleveland’s rich heritage of culture, theater, and recreation.  Since April we’ve been to the Cleveland Zoo, toured the William Mather Cargo ship, visited the Federal Reserve building, took the Lolly Trolley historical tour, and thoroughly enjoyed a “Jersey Boys” (Frankie Valli story and music) production at the Ohio Theater which is restored to its original 1920’s splendor.

OHIO is a big state and we are doing our best to explore much of it!  Since our April update letter to you we rode an historic Merry-Go-Round in Sandusky, spent a delightful weekend in Mentor with Elon friends, were very impressed with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, watched mules pull a barge at an historic site of the Erie Canal, lunched at a quaint spot in Chagrin Falls and shopped at the Shaker Square Farmer’s Market.   We now have a GPS and find it an amazing tool for traveling near and far—especially since we always seem to be in ‘new’ territory!

OUT OF STATE travel since April has been unusual for us.  In May we flew to Connecticut for a long Memorial Day weekend primarily to attend Mary’s hometown’s 300^th anniversary celebration in Hebron. Hebron is also where we lived until 1990 so we enjoyed reuniting with many old friends and also spent time with Mary’s 94 year old step mother. Coinciding with that trip we spoke about volunteerism in New Hampshire and spent time with dear friends there.   In June we made our ‘first’ visit to the state of Indiana for a weekend to visit a special Heifer Ranch friend who lives in the small town where Manchester College is located.  We also went to Florida (see next paragraph regarding  www.usajumprope.org) and also managed to visit Bill’s sister and husband who are now living in the Tampa area.

NATIONAL JUMP ROPE EVENT held in Orlando in June was attended by us to especially see our 8 year old granddaughter, Brynne, compete in the 3 minute speed event.  Her mom, daughter Cindi, came along with the team so we spent a lot of time together at the arena and watched lots of jump-roping!  Meanwhile, back in Texas, Mike took care of the ‘boys’, Luke (age 6) and Sawyer (12) whose broken leg is healing from a May motor-cross accident. 

SMALL WORLD stories continue to provide enjoyment and great entertainment.  

• Last week when grocery shopping in Shaker Square, Bill was wearing his ‘Heifer Ranch Volunteer” t-shirt. That shirt prompted a woman in the check-out lane to approach us about Heifer because her brother, from Michigan, sometimes volunteers there.  It turns out that her brother, Ken Drenth, was once our housemate at the ranch!
• It turns out that the current pastor at our home church in Elon, NC, grew up in the neighborhood where we are now house-sitting.  Daily we see the church where he was ordained while we wait for our commuter train at the Avalon stop here in Shaker Heights, OH!
• Market Street Grill in Wabash, Indiana, is where we took our friend, Joan, to dinner.  It so happens that the restaurant owner is the brother of Jane Brass, at that time provider of our Cleveland living quarters!

PERSONAL reading (especially while riding the commuter trains) that we’d recommend includes Three Cups of Tea and The Kite Runner.  The movie ‘Nanking’, about Missionaries in China, is heavy but enlightening.  Our local church involvement continues to enrich our lives with regular Wednesday night study groups and Sunday worship services.  Renewing our participation in a Marriage Encounter community group is refreshing and we’ve made some great new friends.  Although sometimes challenging, we are glad when things work out when far away from our primary North Carolina health care services.  Recently Mary was able to find a dentist in Cleveland who removed a problem and when Bill’s eye glasses broke, he found a good deal on replacing them.

FUTURE events, trips and opportunities to explore and grow are, God Willing, on the horizon.  We hope to get a visit from 12 year old grandson, Sawyer, and take him to Niagara Falls.  We’ve yet to fully explore the art museum and botanical gardens in the Cleveland University Circle area and plan to hear the famous Cleveland Orchestra.  Bill’s hoping to attend one day at the Firestone golf tournament in Akron.  We’re planning a trip home to North Carolina around Labor Day weekend.  Hopefully we’ll get a trip in to Texas in November or December.  In January we expect to visit Managua, Nicaragua, to visit with our AFS student (1983-4) and her family. Then a new grandbaby in February and off to a new volunteer assignment in March.

OUR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY is to be celebrated this week.  And “what a beautiful day” it was on July 16, 1966, at First Congregational Church, Hebron, Connecticut.  We’ve shared many special moments and are looking forward to fulfilling even more dreams.  You are among our special joys and we are blessed to have you in our lives. 

We look forward to hearing from you  soon!

April 2008

Bill and Mary’s Volunteer Update from Cleveland

Greetings! 

We sure do enjoy hearing from you—your support was especially nice around the time when Cleveland (and us!)  received 20 inches of snow on March 8.  It was a very stormy few days that brought back to us some memories of big snows from our childhoods in CT and NJ.  This time we didn’t make any snowmen or igloos but Bill got to do some serious snow shoveling and Mary worked on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  After the storm our neighborhood in Cleveland was one lovely ‘winter wonderland’ with bright sun, blue skies, and also very quiet.

After being at this volunteer assignment in Cleveland now since Feb 4, we may be about as ‘adjusted’ as we are going to be.  At national volunteer retreats we often discuss helpful attributes for long term volunteers. Always mentioned is ‘flexibility’.  This particular assignment stretches us the most of any we’ve had so far. The unusual combination of different living arrangements, the train commute, the dreary weather, the only volunteers, as well as a unique office set up and job tasks offer about all the challenges we think we can handle.  Not only do we live together (hosted in a pleasant home by a local non-volunteer couple, Jane and Wayne) but we also work together in the same office.  This 24/7 arrangement has its ups and downs so we are working on making a few adjustments.  Our volunteer commitment in Cleveland is for 9 months (Feb – Nov). 

Our volunteer work at the United Church of Christ (UCC) National Setting can be as intense (or not!) as we want to make it.  Our colleagues are interesting people; some with much experience and some not.  We feel at ease with the staff and recently participated in painting a “Tent of Hope” for Darfur-Sudan awareness.  Our projects revolve around computer database work, friend-raising emails and phone calls, numerous staff interviews and writing a best practices computer manual.  Some job satisfaction is in the form of email and phone feedback from former missionaries and retired/current conference level staff.  There is no lack of things that could be done or need attention. We stay very busy and often say at 4:30 pm “where did this day go?”

Unusual for us has been our tendency to ‘pick up’ germs and viruses since we arrived in Cleveland.  For over a month either one or the other of us has been sick.  Mary started with a cold (that was probably a virus) and then got a very bad case of ‘pink eye’.  Urgent Care gave her eye medicine but then she had a virus cough for another week.  Then Bill came down with the virus cough for 2 weeks.  It is quite possible that our natural immunities were not strong enough for riding the commuter trains and our close quarters cause the ‘passing of the germs’.  We’ve become even more serious hand-washers.

With so many other things to adapt to, we are glad to have found a church nearby that reminds us very much of our home church in Elon.  Since our volunteering began in 2003, we’ve sometimes had short term affiliations with churches quite different than ECC. This time we’ve intentionally decided to participate at West Park United Church of Christ because we especially like the comfortable familiarity.  On April 20 we are becoming associate members at West Park as we prefer not to be a ‘visitor’ every week.  

We continue to pursue our hobby of exploring each area where we volunteer and liked very much both The Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Western Reserve Museum.  On March 15^th we went to Hinckley OH where the turkey buzzards return each year amid much local ado. We are just as glad not to see a single buzzard–their attractiveness remains illusive to us.

Thanks to the efforts of some of our office colleagues we’ve recently experienced dining at a new Vietnamese restaurant, attended an outstanding public theater performance, and presented a simple Heifer International program to a youth group experiencing a weekend ‘famine’ project.

Other social engagements include being treated to lunch at the nostalgic Chagrin Valley Hunt Club by new friends who happen to be parents of current Elon senior basketball player, Katie Whidden.  We welcomed our first visitor to Cleveland, Willie Verhoff, a soon to graduate seminary student, whom we first met in Albuquerque.  And we also spent a delightful evening with a family wanting to enlist our assistance this summer in housesitting for six weeks to tend 3 cats and care for their lawn and flower beds.

Cleveland is blessed to have an ‘Emerald Necklace’ of public parks and recreation areas.  We are near the Rocky River Reservation and sometimes on weekends go there to ‘be outside’ and take walks on their very well maintained paths.  We look forward to Spring as we feel the confinement of always being indoors and looking at daily gray skies reminds us of why we moved from CT to NC in 1990. It is not difficult to feel the pain of the people in the Cleveland area who struggle with economic depression and population decline.

Our long Easter weekend was quite special this year. Thanks to Mary’s brother Cal, and his wife Joan, we enjoyed an Easter Sunday Coolidge family reunion.  They hosted 22 of us at their Lake Frederick VA home for Easter dinner and a customized family trivia jeopardy game.  This was the first time since 2004 that we gathered and quite a gathering it was of 3 generations!  We drove from OH to VA for the 3 day weekend. Mary’s sister came from Williamsburg VA.  Her other brother from Tampa FL was visiting in the DC area so also came out.  Then 6 of the 9 ‘cousins’ (including our son) and their families came from NC, DC, VA, Vancouver, and Kenya.  And 4 of the 7 ‘grandchildren’ (including our granddaughter, Ashley) were there for our own special Easter egg hunt and games.

Our son, David, continues employment at In the Game Athletics in Matthews NC.  The business was recently sold but David has the most longevity.  He is also coaching a golf team for a small Charlotte private Christian School.  Christy was recently promoted at Coca Cola Bottling in their financial services area.  She is a valued employee and we know why!  Christy’s Grandma Chappell (93) passed away peacefully on March 1 (also David and Christy’s 11^th wedding anniversary).   Ashley’s (4) leg is amazing.  She really gets around now and without any assistance.  They still fly to Baltimore for check ups about every other month.  Everyone is glad the leg-lengthening ordeal is over.  Her pre school progress at Easter Seals day care is very good. It was especially nice for us to spend time with Ashley (4) when they drove up for the Easter reunion; we miss seeing her while we are in Ohio!   We colored eggs together, took her to Cal’s indoor club pool and she carefully held the leash when walking Cal’s big dog.

Our daughter, Cindi, and family are pretty well settled in Grandview, TX.  We last saw them in December and are now figuring out how and when we will see them in 2008. Sawyer(12) is finishing up 6th grade and will start a weight and exercise program this summer to get ready for football. Brynne (8) is competing in jump roping and has been practicing 4 times a week as her regional competition is coming up this month. Luke is doing great in Kindergarten and loves his teacher.  Sawyer and Luke ride motocross almost every day on the track that Mike built on their property. Luke is now riding in the 50 class and doing quite well while Sawyer continues to ride in the 80 class. Mike has a lengthy commute to Fort Worth but avoids traffic by opting to go in early; his company (DFW Camper Corral) is soon to build a new facility in Arlington. Cindi writes a column for the local newspaper and volunteers for PTO and church and more.  Her Mitchell College roommate, Rene, is being married in June.  The wedding is to be at Mike and Cindi’s ranch/residence.

When we accepted the Cleveland assignment – so far away from our family and preferred NC climate– we especially asked that we have planned opportunities every few months to travel and take vacation. So, April 4^th we went to Gatlinburg TN (500 miles) for several days to have a much-needed break, see lots of ‘red bud’ in blossom, and practically watch the leaves come out!  We had a good time with Mary’s RHAM High School classmate, Gaile, and her husband. Also took in a Dixie Stampede dinner/show with Heifer Ranch volunteer friends, Olive and Joan. Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Clingman’s Dome, highest point in TN, are interesting places to visit; we took along picnic lunches and amazed ourselves to be grateful to be swatting ‘black flies’ because they signified spring weather!  We are open to other travel suggestions; we hope to hear from you some ideas of what and where to visit during this Cleveland assignment.

On April 9  we went from TN to NC to our town home to exchange out some clothes, bring back a few unneeded items in OH, pick up golf clubs, take care of eyeglasses and hearing device appointments, have lunch with our minister, Dan, and socialize with our neighbors, Betty and Dean, who keep their watchful eyes on our home.  Not having been in NC in April since 2002, we are delighted to be around blue skies, warm temps and spring flowers and trees trying very hard to be beautiful even though the recent drought has made its mark. 

This trip is also a perfect opportunity for us to concentrate on being reflective about our current assignment and to come up with ways to improve the experience.  You are probably wondering why we are even doing this.  We are sure that it is because long term volunteering really does suit us at this time in our lives and we truly believe this is where God wants us and how He wants us to be good stewards of our time and talents.  Living and working in various situations around the USA helps us relate to, better understand, and have compassion for those whose entire lives are less than ideal. We are reminded that our blessings are many and, with good health and adequate energy, we hope to continue volunteering several more years.  We are already recruited for 2009 in yet another, familiar (to us) state—more on that in a future update.

We are looking forward to being in Charlotte this weekend (Apr 12/13) to be with David and Christy and Ashley.  Bill and David will enjoy watching The Masters and maybe get some golf in themselves.  Early Monday morning 14^th we right drive up Interstate 77 from Charlotte to Cleveland.  Tuesday we return to the office and, that evening, Bill will accompany a season ticket holder, Dante (husband of our office colleague Pat) to see the Boston Red Sox play the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field.

Take care and write soon!

 Mary and Bill