Thursday, August 18, 2022

Wrapping up the fullness of Home Leave

View from Little Stony Man
Here we are on Ethiopian Airlines, back in the air and in the transition back to Addis Ababa after a full 2 months of home leave. It’s time to reflect and be grateful before we land tomorrow morning in a different reality.

When we last wrote, we had just arrived at a vacation home near Luray, Virginia, in the Shenandoah mountains. Paul’s youngest brother Jonathan and wife Emma had done some great research and found this beautiful Victorian house in the woods, with enough space for a nice family gathering. Our two families stayed the whole week together, enjoying the quiet, cool forest, the views up to the mountains and playing lots of games. 

Games with the grandparents
On Sunday, Paul’s parents Bunny and Henry also drove down to stay three nights. His middle brother Mark, with his wife Christine, stayed at a motel nearby and joined all of us for most of the day Sunday and Monday. We were really glad to all be together for those days – it had been maybe four or five years since all of us were able to get together at the same time. We had a lot to catch up on – the kids have really grown, for example! There have been major job changes and health issues. While we may have our differences in some of the ways that so many families find themselves at odds, we really do care about each other and want to be supportive of each other. Sometimes it takes a little courage to take the risk to get together, but I know we were all really glad that we did.
Family appreciation time

While we were having the family reunion part of the week, we mainly ate good food and played lots of games, Besides, it was raining a lot so it wasn’t easy to be outdoors. We even set up the corn hole game in the big garage for lots of fun, trash-talking competition. David worked on several puzzles over the week, listening to his audiobooks. Grammy joined him on one, which was really impressive considering the trouble she has with one eye. We watched a lot of movies in the evening (from Enola Holmes to Home Alone I&II) and just enjoyed talking. And there was time for the early risers to walk and run, or go fishing at a nearby Arrowhead lake.

When the other folks left, (sadly, Emma had to leave early to prepare for teaching) our family with Jonathan and Fletcher did some more exploring of the countryside. On Wednesday, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day to make our way up to Skyline Drive and take a hike in the Shenandoahs. We picked out a loop trail leading us up to the highest point in that area, Stony Man Mountain. Almost immediately we reached a cliff edge with great rock climbing potential and a view looking out over the valley – and we realized that we were able to see our own rental house down on one of the hills. The mountain vegetation was fascinating for me, so different from lower elevations. The kids talked and joked around, and Paul engaged David by challenging him to notice interesting things in nature around him. It was such a perfect day for hiking, with great weather, great clear views, great company.

Paul & Jon on the Porch

The other highlight of the week in Virginia was a developing tradition of sitting on the front porch each evening (Jonathan, Paul, and I), shooting the breeze as the sunset. We realized that we were looking straight up at Stony Man and Little Stony Man peaks. The mountain shifted and got clearer in the evening light and there’s always so much to talk about as these two brothers share and remember and debate what’s going on in the world.

On Thursday morning, we visited Luray Caverns, arguably “the longest and most beautiful caverns in Virginia.” It was fascinating to learn that three men discovered the caverns shortly after the civil war. They were expressly looking for something – anything! – that would draw tourists and provide jobs for their economically decimated community. One day they got lucky, stumbled across a little hole in the ground and discovered this massive cavern system. The company today has made it completely wheelchair accessible, with one long pathway to follow. The wonderful stone formations are beautifully lit for better effect. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a marvelous underground place, and it apparently still provides lots of jobs in Luray.

Our family went on to drive to Harrisonburg to visit our Ethiopia MCC predecessors Rose and Bruce. They are now engaged in a completely different kind of life, as the owners and main workers on a small organic farm, focused on animals. We toured their poultry section, from tiny quail, through heirloom chickens and new young turkeys. They raise some chickens for eggs and others for meat. There were 3 pigs for winter ham. They have about a dozen goats now, because they have discovered a real market for goat meat among the varied immigrant populations of the Washington, D.C. area. They are planning to expand their herd of meat goats into more of their land, but to keep the goats safe, they have gotten a specially bred guard dog who lives with the goats full time. So we also met their dog Luna while we were together. Finally, we settled down to have some time to talk and catch up in their remodeled log house. It’s great to have time with people who have shared many similar experiences. They are sending their youngest son Jacob off to college soon, and so we had lots to talk about there. While we adults talked, Jacob and his brother invited our sons to go to a trampoline park nearby. It was such a fun visit and great to catch up.

Corn hole with Mr. Robe
On Friday, we made sure to play one last round of each of our favorite board games, finished off “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and had some final matches of Corn Hole. It was a great time; we’re glad to share vacations with Jonathan’s family each summer for the past several years.

We finally left early Saturday morning, for the fairly short drive back to my parent’s house. Oren has been requesting to please try out different Asian restaurant options while we’ve been stateside. And so we ventured to take a stop at the Eden Center in Falls Church, a marvelous Vietnamese mall. The kids were not so sure about it all, once they got there, but they had some really good Pho, and Paul and I had various summer rolls. Finally, we arrived back mid-afternoon, just in time to do laundry for Oren and help him make the mental turnaround for his next adventure.

NBMC youth service team


In fact, we had to wake up early on Sunday to drive him to downtown Baltimore to join the other youth from our home church on a service week. One of the coolest things about this week is that Oren’s cousin Miriam was the lead chaperone for the week (at age 18). His other cousin Gabe was also on the team, together with 2 other college-bound kids he knows pretty well. So, it was a really great cousin bonding time for Oren, both working and playing side by side and spending independent time together. Most of their service was outdoor shifts at community gardens and eco-justice projects. They helped weed, prepare shade net shelters for an urban farm in a food desert, and do a lot of other kids of manual labour. They worked til early afternoon and then came back to “the Center,” a dorm owned by the Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. They had downtime, cooked for themselves, and slept there.

Oren in charge of the grill
 A rotation of adults came in for 12-hour shifts to support Miriam and help drive people around. I was privileged to help out on Wednesday. I had to leave at the crack of dawn to be downtown by 6 am but I basically made it, arriving before the kids were awake to let the overnight adult go home to prepare for work. It was really amazing to see Miriam out of bed early, ready to wake up everyone by 7 am. All these teenagers rolled out of bed, made themselves breakfast, packed a lunch, and put on sunscreen… all without nagging or yelling or reminders. It was really impressive to see the kind of independence kids are capable of when supervised by a peer! And I give Miriam a lot of credit for excellent leadership style.

 Another really cool thing: The week connected with Dickey Memorial Presbyterian, a church where our youth group had supported a Kids Club program for two years while I was a youth pastor at our home church. At that point, in 2016 & 2017,  we were helping to facilitate a really fun week for underprivileged kids in the nearby neighborhood. This year, the former “kids” are all also high school students and they were serving side by side as peers with our kids. Our older youth, including Oren, still remembered them. I was super happy to have one of those kids on my team, pulling ivy off of trees.

Youth work team
The Wednesday work site was in a suburban neighborhood, where the church owns a large lot, formerly a farm. They have now turned it into a community native plant garden and green space for walking and prayer. We just helped with lots of manual labour, provided by almost 20 youth volunteers. I was really proud of Oren for stepping up to one of the hardest jobs, shoveling mulch in the full, hot sun, and pushing wheelbarrows to restore the walkways. After the work, we went to a local soft serve place to celebrate the labor and then headed back into town for downtime. I really enjoyed the time to talk and connect with the youth I used to know very well as their pastor – they’ve changed a lot!! – as well as the younger kids who are more David’s age. We decided not to put both our kids on the same service week, hence David was off doing separate things with Paul that day.
Youth peeling potatoes for Pakistani Kima dinner

Other interesting events of the week Oren was away…

Genet, me and my mom
On Sunday evening, we invited our Ethiopian friends and renters to come out for an American dinner at my parents’ house. I was so glad we had a second time to be with them, to be the ones sharing our cultural foods (salmon, sweet corn, and salad), and to catch up with their newlywed son and daughter-in-law, who were in town visiting. They had another relative with them who turned out to be a guitarist and singer. When we were done eating, we all sat in the living room and he led us in Amharic worship songs, many of which we have learned over the past year. It was a very sweet and special moment, to realize how much more we have in common now.


Gathering with Derebs at our house
We enjoyed a very nice evening at Oakcrest with Paul’s parents, playing all the outdoor games of Bocce, minigolf and shuffleboard. David then stayed the night and had a really good time alone with his grandparents – the second opportunity this home leave. We had a bunch of evening trips for fishing on the Gunpowder River – David’s favorite local activity. We did a bunch of shopping, making sure everyone had the shoes they need. One morning, my mom took David and me to Ladew Topiary Gardens. It is always beautiful there and we really enjoyed the butterfly garden. But truthfully it was just too hot to spend very long. We all came back very, very tired!


Digging through the sand
On Friday we had an actual real adventure: We met up with my old friend from high school, Chris Ballard, and his daughter for a trip to go hunt for shark’s teeth. It was a 2-hour drive south to Purse State Park on the Potomac River, south of Washington, D.C. The river is wide and shallow there. It used to be an inland bay and nursery for baby sharks in prehistoric times. Now, there are chalk cliffs along the edge, where erosion gradually washes fossil shark teeth into the sand. We brought colanders to strain the sand and gravel and look for the teeth. They are mostly pretty small, but fascinating. It’s a highly restful activity, just sitting in the cool water on a hot day, breeze blowing, chatting, and sifting through the sand. When we got tired of digging around, Paul got out his Stand-up paddle board and we did a little boating. Our two rising 8th graders get along very well, after many summers of meet-ups and get-togethers like this. I’m glad when kids can be good friends, even if they are not the same gender. 

Paddleboarding
And we have a lot in common with Chris, as a former missionary. Just before 3, we noted that clouds were building up for a storm and so we carted our things out of the woods and headed back home. Within a half hour, the heavens opened and it began to pour. It just never got any better. Rather, we had to drive through blinding rain on the highway for almost 3 and a half hours. Paul was virtually driving on instruments.

Sharks teeth
We were supposed to pick up Oren around 6 pm, which should have been no problem, except that we were driving really slowly. Then we started getting messages from the youth team – There would be delays… and more delays…they had gone to Washington for the day to visit the new African-American history museum. They had missed a commuter train back to Baltimore, and were waiting for the next one, and then lightning struck and the entire rail system shut down for several hours. In the end, our delays were nothing compared to theirs. 

We dropped off Chris and then went to hang out at my brother’s house to wait. And wait. And wait. David stacked M&M's. We made dinner together. We ate and waited more. The poor youth service kids did not even have money for dinner or time or opportunity. It was nearly 11 pm when we all drove downtown to meet them at the Center, and help them pack and clean up. We got Oren home at midnight – what a finish!!

David & M&Ms

Saturday was another big day. Mid-morning, we went to see friends from Tanzania, the Wensel family who serve in missions there but their home is in the same Maryland county as my parents. They had been running around the country, doing support raising, but finally, we had a time when all of us were in town. Our kids really had a great time seeing old friends, playing pool, and jumping in the swimming pool. It’s very odd to see people in such a different context, but also very refreshing. Again, so many shared experiences as well as shared apprehension for things coming up. They are leaving their oldest in the US this month for a gap year program after high school, and it’s all new territory for them, and coming up for us. It takes prayer and courage for all of us to have our kids on other continents – and we will be facing that next year.

 

Saturday was also my parents’ 56th wedding anniversary, so another good reason for a family get-together. People were tired from the long night before, but it was still a beautiful evening for talking and hanging out together, eating good food (salmon of course!), joking and sharing memories. It was clear how much Oren had bonded with Miriam and Gabe – and I’m really thankful for that because they hadn’t spent much time together over the past 5 years since we moved.

On Sunday, Paul and I presented at his parents’ church, Valley Baptist, at their request. I guess a bunch of people follow our work and the changes in our lives, so they were interested to learn more about the work in our new setting, Ethiopia. I shared the practical parts, focusing on our peacebuilding projects. Paul gave a very good sermon from John 21, seeing the conversation between Jesus and Peter through the lens of reconciliation. We joined them all for potluck lunch, and it was extra nice to spend some time with our family friend Louise Carlson.

Loch Raven hike
My mother is mostly retired but has a lot of energy to be contributing to the many needs around us. In the past year, she has become heavily involved with helping to resettle Afghan refugees in the US. She has used her superpower of hunting down free or used furniture to contribute to “move-ins” – where IRC has volunteers furnish and stock an apartment for a refugee family. In fact, there was a halt in resettlement and her garage has been jam-packed all summer waiting for families in need. On Monday, she got a call to contribute some goods and labour, so I went with her and my boys to load up some furniture and move it into a new place. At least 10 other volunteers (mostly retirement-age church people) showed up with food donations, sheets, and incidentals, and helped to get the apartment completely set up for a small family, with sheets on the bed, flowers on the table, and food in the cupboards, etc. We are not allowed personal contact with the families, for their protection and privacy, but it was nice to be a small part of showing an act of love for people in such a tough situation.

natural bench for journaling
On our last Tuesday, I asked Paul to give me a Sabbath day of solitude and I am so thankful that he understands that need. He took the kids to do other stuff – Oren hung out with the church youth for a few hours actually to keep playing their favorite card game. I took the opportunity for a very long walk at Loch Raven Reservoir. I started in familiar territory – it’s a beautiful, rocky spot right along the water. And then I walked much farther along to a path that’s new to me, all the way out to a spot called Sam’s grave. I never found his grave, but I loved walking along the water and catching the cooler breezes on a blazing hot day. It really just felt so good to walk and walk for four hours and not worry about how long I was taking or where I was (now that I have the AllTrails app!). I am thankful my parents live in such a lush, green area with so many public state parks for walks like that.





And then on Wednesday, the Zoo, with David’s friends Liam and Sarah, and my friend Ashley. Our kids really love revisiting the places that were special to them as little kids and it brings out the kid in them again. We had fun taking them and observing their silliness and joy. We had some great times observing lions and baby chimps and penguins. Oren’s favorite was the collection of life-sized Dinosaurs (animatronics) in the Maryland forest. They even blinked and breathed and roared and lashed their tails. It was great!


In the evening, we helped my brother host a gathering of the Baltimore-based Sack family cousins, which include the two of us, Colette, Dan, and Jon. My aunt Jo came too. We don’t see each other very often, but it’s always nice to see each of them and have a chance to catch up. Interestingly, Jo’s family and my husband Paul’s family were part of the same small group “Family Singers” that welcomed my family to Baltimore in the 70s. (That’s how Paul and I met, as kids) So, Paul was good friends with Dan and Jon when they were teens and have a lot of history too. And now there is a new generation of Sack cousins that had fun together, but in another room (that being our offspring).

Sack cousins' reunion

Wow, the last week was so full! There were a bunch of planned and less planned doctor visits that we had to fit in. The kids helped with chores around the yard, mowing the lawn, and washing the car. Thursday included another nice dinner with Paul’s parents. The weather was spectacularly perfect. I sat outside at the bocce court talking with Bunny for quite a long time while the males played games. And then Oren stayed on for his second sleepover with the grandparents. On Friday, we needed to do some packing and finish up with errands of various kinds. But we decided we needed a special night with my mom and dad. At 6 pm we stopped working and went outside to enjoy one last round of croquet. And then everyone pitched in to prepare one final dinner of salmon and sweet corn – we just can’t get enough of it!

Miriam's birthday

The highlight of Saturday was Miriam’s birthday – they turned 19! All four families who were present are people we’ve known for a long time from North Baltimore Mennonite – and it was wonderful to talk with all the adults and the kids who were there. Again, it was a perfect evening to sit outdoors, enjoy the firepit, and tell stories about Miriam with people who have known them since birth. It was a night of all happiness. And by the way, Oren was able to complete 10 hours of driving practice in the week.


Gabe, Paul, Miriam, Gwendolyn
Our last full day was Sunday and it was about as perfect as it could be. I preached at North Baltimore – it was a tough passage and a tough sermon, but I was still glad to share the good news of the divisive nature of Jesus’ mission. And share more about our work in Ethiopia. We shared one last delicious Indian lunch with all our parents and then went back to the house to sit and share final prayers for each other. There was still some packing to do, but we made sure to leave time for a final trip to the Gunpowder. I took my last “forest bathing” run in the woods; Paul and the boys did some fishing and caught sunfish, trout, and even bass – many bites! My parents brought their camp chairs and contemplated the forest scene. We all ended up enjoying a little swim in the creek. We can’t take this kind of beauty for granted anymore.




Some home leaves have been extremely stressful for me – it’s not easy to fit in everything important when time is short and the feeling of scarcity (relational time, stuff, experiences) dogs me every step of the way. This time, somehow, it was all much more relaxed. Just about everything important fit in somehow. I know we didn’t get to have a meal with everyone we would have wanted, but we did as much as we could manage in the time we had without being frantic. I am going back, feeling very full of rest and goodness and gratitude for such a loving supportive family and home community.

And challenges await! We get back on Tuesday at 7 am. On Wednesday at 7 am, we need to be driving off to the first day of school for the kids. Poor kids! Our accountant had her baby a month early, on Sunday, The baby seems to be doing OK, praise God. We hope that her new assistant has had enough time to learn the job. We shall see! There is a lot of work to catch up on after two months away (We have been working, but it’s not the same as being in person). And I will need a lot of prayer to manage volunteer responsibilities at church. Our Pastoral team is down to 2 members, and the other man needs to go for his home leave in September. I am praying that someone else in the community will be able to say yes to joining the team. So, that’s a wrap on Home Leave 2022!


Bonus Photos

On Stony Man Mountain

Stony Man

Luray Cavern

Good catch


Senior youth on service week

At the butterfly house

Wensels and Mosleys

Rebecca and Lena

Gabe Sack

Miriam Sack

Flowers for my parents

Gunpowder hike

Forest bathing

Kids at the arcade

Rebecca preaching at NBMC

Another good catch




 

Monday, July 25, 2022

Emptying out and filling up on home leave

Extended family gathered on my 50th birthday
 Five weeks have passed since we started our Home Leave in mid-June. It’s a lot to write about -- I was almost afraid to start!! I will definitely forget to mention something important. And yet it feels important to me to try to keep some record of this remarkable summer. In many ways, I feel like this time is helping somehow integrate all the many disruptions and transitions that have come our way since 2020.

Airport arrival
Let me start by saying that it was honestly very difficult for me to settle down to rest, to break out of our very rigorous work routine of keeping our heads down, doing all we can to keep up with professional demands. Then there is the added element of being on home leave: so much self-imposed pressure to see and catch up with everyone, to take care of a lot of necessary business, to remember to buy things (for our kids, ourselves, our colleagues), to spend quality time with family members, to make every moment count. Many of the first days back in the US, I was dealing with some of the most severe anxiety I’ve had in a long time. 

Alone in the forest
Finally, at the end of the week, I determined that I needed to take a whole morning for a solitary walk in the woods at one of my favorite Sabbath spots, Cromwell Valley Park. After walking in the woods alone, I realized that I had not truly been alone for at least six months. In Addis, we are always just a few steps away from a guard, a neighbor, and always in earshot of traffic sounds, prayer calls and other city sounds. The solitary silence of the forest was like medicine – I remembered again something I had learned about resilience – that emotional energy is like a combustion engine: you take in fuel, you burn it up in productivity, but then you need to release the exhaust of the expired fumes before you can take in any more fuel. I tried to get into the forest as many times as possible that week and the next – and by God’s grace, my parents live very close to some great county parks.

Catching up with loved ones

Visit with Dereb family
On the other hand, we woke up early and well-rested the morning after we landed in Baltimore, and were all ready to attend our home church, North Baltimore Mennonite the next morning. It has been such a sweet opportunity to attend our church for a number of weeks in a row. We were even able to attend the re-naming ceremony of a friend from our Baltimore Bible Study and then see lots of friends all at one time at a picnic celebration on the Bay.

We were very happy and thankful to meet up with Melkamu and Genet, Ethiopian friends from our Burundi Bible study, and current renters of our house. They have been through major health challenges and lots of other hard times this year. It was wonderful to be back in their (our) home, to enjoy Genet’s delicious Ethiopian cooking, and to share thanksgivings for how God has seen them through. It is even more special that we know so much more about their home country and language, and have new things in common.

Getting refreshed at the Gunpowder
One afternoon, my friend Ashley came to visit with her oldest son Liam. Both our boys really love the outdoors and played for a long time in the Gunpowder Falls River, fishing and swimming, and tubing. Ashley and I also enjoyed cooling off in the river and then had a good long chance to share what has been going on this year. Lots of challenges, again, and so I was glad to talk with her more personally.

We were able to also spend some time with my brother’s family on a few different occasions. It’s always great to hang out with them in their newly remodeled house in our old neighborhood, play games and talk. One afternoon my parents took all of us and cousins Miriam and Gabriel to the Aquarium for an evening of fish-watching. They are cool kids and we have a lot to hear from Miriam about how the first year of college has been.

On top of those unique visits, we have enjoyed quite a few low-key meals with each set of our parents, and some with our parents together. We've visited Paul's parents at their beautiful retirement community and even got to attend a choral presentation and hear our old family friend, Louise Carlson, play the piano.

Father's Day lunch after church at our old meeting spot, Kathmandu Kitchen

Driver’s Education

Learner's permit in hand
One of our goals for this extended home leave has been to help Oren through a few of the teenage rites of passage that are harder to pull off when you live overseas. He was finally able to attend the 30-hour, 2-week Driver’s Ed course required by the state of Maryland. And just before he turned 17, he passed the legal test and finally got his official learners’ permit. It was pretty painless!

Now he needs 60 hours of practice on the road before he can apply for his provisional license. We probably won’t finish all those hours during this vacation, but we are gradually working with him to get more experience behind the wheel. It will be nearly impossible to do very much on this when we are back in Ethiopia, so there is some amount of pressure to help him keep practicing as much as possible here.

Oren with Grammy and our appetizers
Turning 17

And yes, Oren turned 17 on June 29. We happened to be traveling on that day (a college visit and visit to MCC headquarters) and just had a low-key dinner out with him on our way home. His birthday celebration had to be postponed to the weekend after so that family members could celebrate with us. Oren had a very clear plan that he wanted to have a feast of many different kinds of meats. Accordingly, we went together to the grocery store and he picked out a selection of chicken, steak, pork sausage, pork loin, and lamp chops. He himself took a lot of responsibility to grill the meats and serve them up to all his grandparents and my brother’s family. We had a very funny evening together, with a highly competitive game of croquet on the front lawn – something that has become a major summer tradition. My dad is usually the croquet pro, but this time Gabriel came from behind to beat us all. As we enjoyed our ice cream birthday cake, Oren offered a pretty hilarious speech. It was a great way to celebrate his growth in maturity.

Oren and Papa Dave visited Hopkins

College visits vs. Camp

So, yes, college visits. It’s hard to believe that we will be sending our oldest out on his own for higher education in just one year. How did we all get so old? That’s another rite of passage we are trying to squeeze in this summer – helping Oren think through some of the directions he could choose, not just a particular school, but what career path to follow. He’s quite gifted in chemistry and math, and yet also has a real interest in foreign service, maybe working with the UN or going into politics. It’s hard to know how to advise him!

While he had his solo week in Baltimore before we arrived, my Dad took him to tour Johns Hopkins University and my mom took him to another local school, Goucher College. We will be on another continent, so it seems wise for him to go to a university where he could get to relatives within an hour or two, using public transportation.

Planet Word in DC

These kinds of college visits would be hard to take David on, so we had to be creative and find other options for him. He had one overnight with Paul’s parents at their retirement community – and David really loves playing bocce ball and hanging out in their comfortable apartment. The next week, we arranged for David to attend a week of Christian summer camp at Camp Hebron. He ended up in a cabin with 3 other kids from our home church, including his friend Liam.

So, with time alone with our oldest, Paul and I took Oren to see Messiah University – a small Christian college in rural Pennsylvania. Honestly, they were really recruiting him as a potential student, set up a meeting with the Chemistry Professor, gave us a campus tour and gave us a meeting with an admissions counselor, and then a free dinner in the dining hall. 

Messiah College library
It was very exciting to think about the possibilities of pursuing a chemistry degree in a small, supportive college environment, with a department head who is a big Tolkein geek, hosts weekly board game nights for the students, and has a very strong but discerning sense of how Christian faith and rigorous science complement each other. We then continued on to stay the night in Akron, MCC’s headquarters, where we had a long day of very fruitful in-person meetings with colleagues. Akron – and the Welcoming Place in particular – hold a lot of great memories for our family, but especially Oren. He still remembers starting out his career as an MCC kid there in 2008 at just 3 years old. We love to have the opportunity to go back there for work but also to just stay in their simple, calm, and gracious guest rooms.

Giant sloth
The next week, the three of us did a real college tour and visited three big name schools a bit further away. It was a very different experience, sharing admissions briefings with groups of 100 or more people, rather than the individual visit we had at Messiah. Our first stop was American University in Washington, D.C. – a place where Oren would probably want to focus more on government and politics. He really appreciated the visit and it’s high on his list of places to apply, with so many opportunities for internships and experience. In the afternoon, we had time to go down to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History – Oren has always dreamed of going to DC and actually staying the night so that we could visit more than one museum at a time, and so we gave him that gift, staying in the cheapest hotel I could find! Pretty close to American University, too. I was really happy to see the newly refurbished Fossil Hall for the first time – so much to see and so much more interactive detail in the exhibits now, even though some of the bones are the same. We had a delicious Thai dinner at a restaurant across from our hotel – another advantage of DC.

Georgetown Univeristy

In the morning, we made our way to Georgetown University (half of it by a vigorous walk!). What an imposing campus! Oren was definitely impressed there, too, but not sure if he would want to apply or not – it is also highly competitive. After lunch, we tried out Planet Word, a totally new museum to us. It was a highly imaginative series of exhibits on language – its development and use, from jokes to curses, through conquest and adaptation. There was a beautiful library exhibit, a secret room where you could just sit and listen to poetry being read, a place to practice and record speeches, and much more. We left DC around 5 pm and got in the car to drive on south to Williamsburg for a visit to William and Mary, my own Alma Mater.

We got there at night, to a very humble motel (the cheapest I could find) – but it had beds, so what else do you need? I woke up early and took the opportunity to indulge my nostalgia and take a morning jog into Historical Williamsburg. As a student, I used to go for runs beside those old colonial buildings, favoring the back lanes, and often cutting through the various herb and flower gardens. So many good memories came back to me as I had time alone there, enjoying the quiet and the history. 

The historic Christopher Wren building 

There were so many changes to the William and Mary Campus that sometimes I didn’t even know where I was during our campus tour. The remodeled library was unrecognizable inside and the science building was totally new. Even Lake Matoaka has a fairly new, beautiful amphitheater facing the water and new sculptures acknowledge the problematic history of the college’s involvement in slavery, racism and sexism. To be honest, Oren seemed a little overwhelmed with the choices he is going to have to make and so after the tour, he was pretty much done with exploring. We headed back to Fallston to get a little more rest that night.


The next day, Paul and I were scheduled to pick up David from camp. We left a few hours early because we really wanted to do a longer hike together on one of the trails leading up from Camp Hebron. We’d stayed there a few times as a couple for some pretty critical retreats, considering life changes. Again, it was very meaningful to return to another place that had been part of turning points in our lives. We hiked up Peter’s Mountain, enjoyed the overlook, hiked for a few hours on the Appalachian trail, and then came back down.

On Peter's Mountain
With Hummingbird Cabin group at Hebron

Even before we were officially allowed to pick up the kids, we saw David’s cabin group approaching. David flopped down under a tree while all the other kids played gaga ball. What was up? Was he having such a bad time that he didn’t even want to play anymore? We were quite alarmed until we got to talk with him and learned he just had a bad headache. With a little ibuprofen, he made it through the closing program and then got in the car with Liam for the ride back to Baltimore. It was a gift to have them both together to reflect back on a very fun week and to hear both their perspectives. Liam seems to be a lot more verbal, so we got more detail than we otherwise might have. For instance, we learned that they all spoke in Russian accents for the entire week, paddled on the Susquehanna river, took a long hike on the Appalachian trail also, swam almost every day, and finished off the week by sleeping in hammocks around the campfire. We were so glad that David was able to experience a summer camp for once, like so many of his friends in the States.

Charter Hall Church Center
Place and Memory

And now I need to say a little bit about turning 50 this year. Some days I feel like I can’t remember my own life – I meet up with old friends who have vivid memories of shared experiences. I feel like I am scrabbling around in the back filing cabinet of my mind, struggling to pull out the drawer, open the file and get that time back into the front of my mind. For the present moment, I have a memory like a trap, but for things further back, it’s a struggle. But I just have to accept that I am very finite and there is a limit to how much any human brain can retain. For example, how can I keep mental maps of all these places (where I have lived for a year or more) frontloaded at the same time? Dhaka, Baltimore, Almaty, Williamsburg, Harford County, all of Botswana, Vancouver, Poughkeepsie, Bujumbura, Kigali, Arusha and now Addis Ababa? Each place holds precious memories of dear friends, my cup of memory literally overflows and I can’t contain it. (One good reason to keep up on this blog, regardless of who else reads it)

Canoeing with my mom

But one place has been something of a constant in my life since 1980 when I turned 8 years old. My parents joined a group of other people from their Church of the Brethren and bought a big old hunting lodge at the end of a peninsula on the north end of the Chesapeake. They saved the land from being turned into a massive Condo development and converted the place into a church retreat center. Family groups and church groups have been meeting regularly there for the same week each year for more than three decades. Buildings have been renovated, trees have come down, and bamboo has grown thick. The Bay gets full of weeds some years and isn’t so nice to swim in. It has always been crawling with spiders, but these days it’s also full of bald eagles and osprey. But it’s the same place I have spent time at least once (usually more) every single year since I was a child. I first learned something about bird-watching there. Every year, we take canoes and paddle up past the marsh and into the Principio creek to the old railroad bridge – this year I think we made 4 trips up to the bridge, for fishing, and collecting the shiny slag from an iron furnace that stopped working almost 3 centuries ago. A deep connection with the natural environment of this place is part of what makes it feel so much like home.

Firepit by the front dock with Jenn
We have had regular reunions with friends in different periods of life. Great friends from Bangladesh days gathered every Labor Day weekend for at least 10 years.  My 16th birthday was celebrated there with high school friends. We had my bridal shower there with friends from college and seminary. When I turned 40, Paul planned a big surprise party for me during our home leave from Burundi. We had dear friends turn up at Charter Hall from Toronto, Florida, and New York, along with family from the Baltimore area. For the years we lived in New York or Baltimore, we joined my brother for his big friends’ get-togethers around New Years’ Eve. At the very beginning of the pandemic, we took refuge at Charter Hall for two whole months and daily watched the intricate transformation of winter into spring. It was a quiet place, near our parents, where we could meet with them outdoors and not risk exposing them. Neutral eyes might see Charter Hall as kind of run-down, hot, and buggy. For me, it is a place of peace and home, where my memories finally have physical ground to play over.

Don & Rosaura's family, with Jenn

Turning 50 at Charter Hall

So, this year, in the week before my birthday, we were able to rent the Charter Hall Lodge and sent out invitations to at least some of the many good friends we’ve made along the way. On Sunday evening, we welcomed Don & Rosaura from Poughkeepsie, NY with their three kids. Everyone is so much older, and we really had not seen each other since they made a quick surprise appearance at my ordination in 2017. We had shared many close moments as newlyweds in the same small group bible study back in Poughkeepsie, and they even visited us for 3 weeks in Burundi. They are definitely friends with whom we could pick up where we left off, hear of each other’s struggles and pray for each other.

David and Raphael paddling

Jennifer Price, our MCC colleague and neighbor from Burundi days came on Monday afternoon to stay for the whole rest of the week. We got to know her really well as we did life together in Burundi, and sort of consider her to be our honorary niece/cousin, who is always welcome to crash. She was transitioning between a challenging end of her assignment in DR Congo and a new assignment coordinating humanitarian relief in Ukraine. She needed a few days to rest by the water and contemplate life and we were so glad ot have her. My parents also stayed two nights with us, enjoying catching up with our old friends whom they also knew. And Paul’s parents came for the afternoon of their 67th (!!!) anniversary.

Altogether we played games, paddled, cooled off in the pool, took a walk along the beach. Rosaura made amazing Puerto Rican beans and bacon rice one night. David and their son Raphael built a fire and we roasted marshmallows and told stories. It was all you could want of a summer visit together. They had to leave on Tuesday afternoon, but we really enjoyed our time together.

Funnel cloud coming towards Charter Hall

After a few hours of quiet, a friend from college, Margaret Walsh, drove out to see me after work. We sat in the gazebo by the dock on a hot afternoon with the wind cooling us, and did our best to catch up on parenting, teaching our kids faith, work, and our thoughts on the recent death of a good mutual friend. At a certain point, Paul headed out to the store, just as the wind really started to pick up. A little later Margaret (who was facing south), inidicated that it would really be time to go in the house – the storm was almost upon us. We gathered up a few loose swimsuits on our way in, and were just about to settle in at a window to watch the storm roll in. I turned to look out the most exposed window of the lodge and was shocked to see an opaque white curtain of violent wind and water sweeping across the Bay, nearly upon us. A metal lawn chair suddenly cartwheeled across the front yard, and I yelled for everyone to get downstairs into the bathroom. Upstairs, Jenn had been watching a movie on her computer by an open window, and suddenly her laptop scooted across the bed with the force of wind and would have fallen on the floor. We reached the bathroom in time to look out the back window and see huge limbs crashing down around the gazebo where we had just been peacefully sitting 5 minutes before. We lost power almost immediately. Paul was apparently caught right under the edge of the front on his way to town, but he was pretty sure he saw a funnel cloud. A photo from a neighbor the next day showed a huge white funnel cloud touching down and forming a waterspout. 

Gazebo surrounded by wreckage

It was quite an adventure for Margaret to get involved in on such a short visit – soon the wind got down to just mildly severe so we went out to try to rescue things that had been blown about. All the lawn furniture had been parted with cushions and dumped in the Bay in either direction. Later we found the pool also full of all the sun beds and metal chairs. Paul’s inflatable stand-up paddle board landed 100 feet away under the dock. Most shocking, a solid wood picnic table, weighing at least 300 pounds was lifted off the dock and flung upside down into the water. But miraculously, no actual buildings were damaged. Even the gazebo was completely surrounded by huge fallen limbs but not hit. Margaret stayed a little longer but then decided it was better to see how her family had done through the same storm further south.

Eli, Carolyn and dog Gordon

At Charter Hall, when you lose power, the pump stops working also, so then there’s no running water. Luckily we anticipated that and stored up 10 gallons of drinking water before the tank ran out. Jennifer figured out how to make us a delicious dinner while we still tried to sort out problems around the property. Also luckily, we are all seasoned international workers, so we are not devastated by loss of power – it’s just that normally in our contexts we are better prepared with solar lamps and stored water. Anyway, we did get power back by the next afternoon—much sooner than many people.

We received our next visiting friends on Wednesday evening – Eli and Carolyn Gingerich, who drove down from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario with their three kids. We shared a very wonderful six months with them in our Bible study group in Arusha, when they took a year off from teaching to do something really different and special with their family. Our boys are quite similar in age and so it was great for them to get together and find that they still have lots in common. It was quite humbling to us that they were willing to make the long drive to come down and see us. They are really into canoe trips and board games, so we fit in both of those early in the day. 

Eli and kids with Oren

Eli is also an expert pool cleaner and helped get the Charter Hall pool pump working again. We manually cleared a huge quantity of leaves and branches out of the bottom of the pool (the kids and I had fished out the furniture the day before, which was a pretty creepy experience, but one way to get cleaned up without showers). The Hoard family from our Baltimore church joined us later in the afternoon for time in the pool, and even helped with preparing taco salad for dinner. And our good friend Heidi Mills (also from our Poughkeepsie bible study) also drove down for just one night. It was really amazing to see people get along well, from four very different parts of our lives, and in a sense helping me to hold together so many separate parts of my life. These good friends are my sense of home, and the place is like home. It was a really sweet way to have an early birthday party.

with the Gingerich family

On Friday morning, we had to see the Gingerich’s off on their long drive home. I had a little more time with Heidi to paddle in kayaks and talk, while distantly keeping an eye on Jenn while she did a two hour open swim across the Bay. She’s made of strong stuff, dealing with all those weeds tickling her tummy!


Cake with friends












Gingerich and Mosley boys

One of many croquet games
Celebrating with family

Just after lunch, we had to seriously clear out of Charter Hall and make our way a half mile down the road to the Rittenhouse place, where we had spent an additional 2 months from May to July 2020. It’s a really fun and well-appointed home with owners who almost never use it. We’ve sort of worked out a deal where we do stuff to keep up the house and yard once a year, and they let us use the house for free for a week. Not sure how long that will last, but it has been a real blessing!

Paul’s brother Jonathan arrived with Emma and Fletcher (their son) that evening and we got right into playing games and enjoying each other’s company. Paul’s best image of summer vacation is grilling salmon while sharing an IPA with his brother Jon and watching the kids play croquet on the back lawn with the superb Brookstone croquet set at the Rittenhouse place. He was immediately able to enjoy several days in a row of these delightful activities. It was also too hot and windy to canoe for a few days, so we did a lot more indoor game playing. David has also gotten into an incredible rhythm where he can do a 1000-piece puzzle in a day, while listening to an audiobook. He’s done at least 5 puzzles in the past week and listened to several Artemis Fowl books repeatedly! We had to get him some new listening material from the library.

Relaxing Sack family

On Sunday afternoon, we were joined by all four of our parents as well as the family of my brother Paul. It’s such a treat to have parents and family members who get along so well. And we remain deeply grateful that our parents are all relatively healthy for their age, loving and interested in supporting us, and ready to be involved in games and cooking and things – this is nothing to be taken for granted. We had such a wonderful grilled salmon dinner with fresh Maryland sweet corn – after that corn, no one hardly needed any cake! But we had it anyway because it was officially my actual 50th birthday. I really love my family and am thankful for them and any times we can spend with them.

The rest of the week was mostly low-key. Everyone still needed to get some work done, and wifi was only available at the incredibly beautiful Perryville Public library. So we would make a morning trip, answer emails, come back for lunch and then do some afternoon adventures. Fletcher was eager to take canoes up to the bridge, and so we made an expedition at high tide on Tuesday. It was windy and tough paddle on the way back, but all the boys made it. It’s great to see him get into being in the outdoors. He and David also had a great time challenging each other in rock-skipping along the shore a few times. We had Bunny and Henry out for a visit on Tuesday afternoon, and then my parents came out for our last afternoon on Friday.

Bonfire, guitar and corn hole by the Bay
In between, we took a day at Hershey Park together with Miriam and Gabriel. The cousins actually came out Tuesday evening for dinner. The house owner had piled up an enormous bonfire from the storm fallen sticks and branches, so we burned that – maybe it was a little on the scary side at first! But as it burned down, we relaxed, got out the corn hole and Jon’s guitar and had a sing-along for a while. Of course there had to be s’mores and a game later on.

And Hershey Park was just great! We made a buddy system, depending on people’s keenness to ride on roller coasters. David is not keen, so he was my buddy! There are more coasters in that park than one can actually ride in a single day, physically or depending on time. David and I did one right in the beginning of the day, and then we chose some of the smaller rides, visited the zoo, and got a very late lunch at 5 pm.

Starting at Hershy Park

He was more enamored by the arcades and playing some of the games where you lose all your money and never win a prize – except he actually did win a basketball at one point. Paul and Jon rode a bunch of coasters together. Miriam and Gabe were amusement park pros and managed to do more rides than I thought possible. Fletcher got Oren to finally try out a few coasters, and this year, he decided that he wasn’t so freaked out by them. In fact, he found a kind of inner peace, saying, you just get on the ride and the ride does all the rest! Fletcher joined M&G for a while and Oren was with us. It was a very fun mix and match kind of day.

At one point, M & G met up with me and David and got me to join them on one of the newest rides – the highest roller coaster in the park. David decided at the last minute that he couldn’t do it – and that was the right decision for him! It was unbelievably terrifying, going up that high, and then basically falling right back into the valley below. Still, there were no loops, and it was really smooth, so in some weird way, I would have gone on it again if there had been time. We drove back at 9 pm and overheard some really interesting conversations between the teens in the car. It was a very fun day of bonding together and I’m so glad that we could enjoy a park like that after 3 years of staying away.

cousins fishing by the bridge

Thursday was a workday back at the Rittenhouse place. We borrowed a power washer and cleaned up the greenish mold on the back of the house, continued with the endless raking of fallen sticks and cleaned some windows. Still, that kind of work is satisfying in a sense. And we are glad to keep up the place, for it’s own sake, but also to honor the generosity of the owners in letting us stay there. Oren even mowed before we left.

As the week came to a close, I found myself thinking about how to savor the days. For most of the year, I cannot wake up at sunrise and sit and pray, contemplating this beautiful view of the Bay, hearing the Great Blue Heron’s heavy wingbeats as the startle and pass by low. But for this week, I could take my time of prayer in a kayak, and not write or say or listen to much but just be in this place. One of my sisters-in-law agreed to get a tattoo with her daughter, saying "Be where your feet are." That's a pretty good saying to take to heart, since none of us knows how long we will be on our feet anyway. It has been a very wonderful five weeks so far, and I feel like I’ve been able to empty out what was burned and fill my heart with time in these places that will give energy for the months to come.




MANY MANY BONUS PHOTOS!!!!!

third puzzle in a week

Excellent use of taxpayer $ at public library

Roof cleaning

Powerwashing


On Candymonium

Candymonium downhill

In the ZooAmerica

Swings

Bonfire

canoeing again

Rock skipping


Cornhole as the storm rolls in

Paul paddling

First puzzle that week

Jenn in open swim

Heidi paddling

Carolyn Gingerich

David fishing with Toby

Sphere puzzle

Heidi and Carolyn pitching in

Games at Charter Hall

Cleaned up pool



Messed up pool

Rittenhouse place after funnel cloud

David questioning the heavens



Oren showing me cool rocks

Cousins pready for meat feast

Aquarium visit with cousins

Aquarium

Outside my freshman dorm

Tour of Crim Dell Bridge

Historic Williamsburg

Can you guess?