What a Start!

After a very long day of traveling, which actually went by without a hitch, we arrived in Bogota on a Wednesday evening only to leave the following morning. We attended one of three annual retreats that we will have each year. This one was in the beautiful coffee region in a city called Armenia.
We stayed in a nice, but simple farm/resort from Thur to Sun afternoon. It was an intense time for many reasons: we were exhausted from our travels, the entire retreat was in Spanish, which required extreme concentration and the use of translators, it was fairly hot (thankfully there was a pool), and four of us were sick. Andy and Abby actually spent one of the nights vomiting.
At the same time we had the opportunity to get to know the rest of the Colombia team which is somewhere between 20 and 30 people.






We visited the town of Salentro, where they have the tallest palm trees in the world. This was somewhat bizarre, as they were on top of the mountains. We ate fresh trout (head picture is for you, Ben). We also did some horseback riding into the mountains and played in a waterfall in the rainforest.
Although the start of our time was much more challenging than we would have liked, it has proven that we can survive quite a bit.

Spirit Child (A Story about friendship, resilience, saying goodbye, and being strong)

> Chapter 1
On the top of a small Colorado mountain there was a gigantic thunderstorm. Under the storm cloud there was a small cottage. There was a huge Boom! And a small baby girl was born.

9 years later….

A small, scraggelly girl named Luna was playing in a stream with her best friend, Anni-Jane. Luna lived in the cottage that the storm cloud had hovered over nine years ago. Luna was a strange girl. She had black hair. She wore overall short with red converse with white dots (she only wore shoes when she had to). She had one small braid in her hair. One eye was half green, half purple and the other was green.

Anni-Jane had been her best friend since, well, forever. But Luna had not told Anni-Jane only one thing. She was a spirit child. She had special ways of communicating with her ancestors. One of her favorites was Naomi, her great, great Grandmother gypsy. Luna had inherited her eyes and her hair, which was much unlike her parents. Her parents had brown eyes with light blonde hair. Luna knew that she had been born out of the sky and soon it would be time for her to go back.

“Anni-Jane?” Luna asked.

“Yes?” said Anni-Jane in a sing-song voice

“I have to tell you something.” said Luna “I’ve never told anyone this before, but I am a Spirit Child.”

“What’s that?” asked Anni-Jane.

Luna told Anni-Jane everything to do with a Spirit Child from being born to talking to the sky.

“Wow.” Said Anni-Jane “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Well, because I knew I had time left in this world. But now my time is running out. My parents know that I must go back to the world I came from Will you help me?” asked Luna, a little wary of the question.

“Of course!” said Anni-Jane, “but could I come with you?”

“I don’t know, I will talk to Naomi tonight” said Luna.

Chapter 2: The Return

That night Luna talked to Naomi, and Naomi said that if Anni-Jane really wanted to she could come with her as her offering to the Ancestors. Luna ran with excitement to Anni-Jane to tell her the good news. Anni-Jane’s parents could not pay to keep her anymore, so it was a perfect arrangement.

Luna’s parents decided to adopt a child of their own so that Luna could go back to the Spirit world she loved. That night the two families gathered together on the top of a small mountain. They hugged and kissed goodbye, knowing that the girls would watch over them. Then Luna and Anni-Jane joined hands and said we wish to join Naomi in the Upper World. There was a green and blue flash and then all that was left was a shoe, red, with white polka-dots.

Luna and Anni-Jane got safely to the Upper World and played and played in the streams and forests with Naomi watching with a smile on her face.

The End.

By Lydia Chappell Deckert

Our Life in 10 bags

It will be interesting to look back at what we brought and realize what it was that we really needed. While now these look completely random, we had to do a lot of sorting, repacking, and redistributing weight (including getting rid of 25 pounds of kids clothes). It is a miracle we made it.

Bag 1: 47 pounds
Skateboard, soccer bag, three ziplocks of doll clothes, basketball, hat, tennis shoes, six stuffed animals, flute, cotton sheets, peanut butter and chocolate chips.

Bag 2: 49 pounds
4 ziplocks of playmobil, 4 ziplocks of legos, fleece sheets for Lydia, soccer ball, football, packet of Polly Pockets, 3 school workbooks, belts for Andy and Lydia, knitting supplies and some yarn, three pairs of kid shoes, peanut butter and chocolate chips.

Bag 3: 50 pounds
Jen’s clothes

Bag 4: 50 pounds
Three fitted cotton sheets, hand blender, scrabble, imagineiff, baggie of misc computer and ipod chords, ipod nano, extra ear buds, two laundry baskets, various violin and fiddle books, Mennonite hymnal, scrapbooks from Kansas, external hard drive, craft supplies, Jen extra shoes, glitter glue, baby doll, four guitar song books, package of Luna bars, one beach towel, 2 bike helmets, flip flops more yarn, peanut butter, chocolate chips.

Bag 5: 48 pounds
Aaron’s clothes, Tivoli radio, ipod speakers, aromatherapy diffuser.

Bag 6: 49 pounds
Sunflower seed packets, three more hats, two bathrobes, two sets shin guards, hair dryer, travel sewing kit, candle holders for table, four candles, misc. toys, Spanish dictionary, the Mouse and the Motorcycle book set, one prayer book, pillow cases from home, oil painting of 2417, two kid sweatshirts, dance shoes, one empty scrapbook, Christmas box, two shoulder rests, two warm coats, prayer shawl, prayer stones.

Bag 7: 48 pounds
Two hats and gloves, new sweater for Aaron, hot water bottle, metronome, two more Spanish books, raincoat for Jen, More with less, scrapbook materials, Spanish bible, Recorder, Fife, Small French press, bike tool, five violin books, Lonely Planet Colombia, walkie talkies, essential oils, wooden cross, two calendars, 8 pairs of socks, peanut butter, chocolate chips.

Bag 8: 48 pounds
Kids clothes, more stuffed animals, Jen’s mediation manual, Aaron’s PCM manual.

Bag 9: 48 pounds
More kids clothes, Lydia’s bag of treasures, three journals, Josephina books, small case of CDs, Aaron’s shin guards, two pairs soccer shoes, six mediation books from Julie Hart, beading box, Yolanda photo, Hanna artwork, two extra pairs of shoes, chocolate chips, peanut butter.

Bag 10: 48 pounds
Six months of vitamins, more soccer shoes, all DVDs, one baggie doll clothes, three pocket knifes, bike helmet, baseball hats, kid rain coats, sky ball, water bottles, peanut butter, Dove chocolates.

We all carried on our backpacks (Aaron his man-purse), two dolls, giant stuffed dog, mandolin, and three violins.

Last day in the USA

We were blessed with tremendous food today…sausage rolls and fruit, sour cream donuts and lattes, curried chicken salad, strawberry salad, homemade bread with hummos and roasted squash, roasted Cornish game hen with sausage stuffing, garden green beans, carrot salad, garden lettuce salad, mixed garden veggies, shrimp cocktail, melon with chocolate mint, dark chocolate, and tea. Thank you for physically and emotionally feeding us, Mom, Jan, Jon, Wendy, and Andy. We will savor those foods for a long time.

More Goodbyes...too painful to comment.

Markham

We were blessed to have a few more hours with the Neufeld Epps, as we traveled to Markham for our first (and last) sleepover. We kept asking each other, why have we not done this before?????

(Now that I post this, almost a month later, my stomach aches for these smiles....the comraderie, the hope, the laughter....oh, how I wish for more!)

Camp Friedenswald

“I’m gonna love to remove all sorrow, I’m gonna live like there’s no tomorrow, I’m gonna give to my friends and neighbors in praise to our God.”