Two Weeks Down, One to Go

Today is Oren's Birthday, in case you did not know. But we are going to celebrate it on July 4th as he is currently in Baltimore with Grandma Jean and we are here in Akron, PA doing our 3rd week of training. This week was not particularly different than last week. Our sessions in training focused on conflict management. We also heard about priorities in International Programs for MCC. Peace education and capacity building within our local partnerships is a priority. There are also dedicated resources for AIDS, Water, Food Security, and Peace, Education. We also had a chance to look at a review of the last 5 years of the program we are inheriting in Rwanda / Burundi, with some work in Eastern Congo.

Over the weekend we went and saw Oren in Baltimore. He was having a great time because Grandma Jean has an EXCELLENT train set. He is looking forward to a Polar Express Birthday.

I should mention that on the way back to training on Sunday, we met Sarah Carlson and her partner Steve at the Brandywine Museum in Brandywine PA to see the Wyeth exhibit. (www.brandywinemuseum.org/) It was very cool There were 3 generations of Wyeth painting. N.C Wyeth, who did the illustrations fro Treasure Island, and Kidnapped, Andrew Wyeth, who you might know for his amazing paintings, and James Wyeth, his son. While we were there, Andrew Wyeth's granddaughter gave us a tour. It was very interesting to hear about the paintings from her point of view. Here is a picture of one of his paintings for you to admire.

First Week of Training down, 2 weeks to go

I am committed to getting at least one post per week. We are counting down the weeks to our day of departure. We have been in training for our position at a leadership conference at the MCC headquarters in Akron, PA. We are here in a retreat center setting with about 20 other people learning the ins and outs of the job, the mission of MCC, anabaptist theology (and our commitment to pacifism), structure, budgets, and much more. It is a bit daunting.

Oren seems to be adapting well, although we made a brief visit back to Poughkeepsie over the weekend to say goodbye to the youth at our church and he had a chance to see his house empty. He was quite surprised. In one particularly insightful moment, he asked a little girl at our church if she would come to Africa with him, and when she said she couldn't he began sobbing. I told him it would be OK and he said: "No its not, no one is coming with me!" For a 2 year old to grasp the finality of this visit and our move, seemed wise beyond his years.

We are back in Akron now, and Oren will be going to spend a week and a half with his grandparents in Baltimore. If any of you want to find out more about the organization we are working for, you can read about it at http://www.mcc.org

Here is a picture of Oren at the MCC training facility.

Commisioning and Last Day in Poughkeepsie

I am writing this entry from Akron PA where we will begin our leadership training tomorrow. But I want to backtrack and talk about our last week in Poughkeepsie. I will begin with last Sunday when we went to services at PUMC for the last time. It was quite extraordinary! During the service, I performed a dance to the song When Its All Been Said and Done. I used a section of Psalm 116 to introduce it:

How can I repay the Lord for all He has done for me?
I will lift up the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord
I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

I felt like the dance represented a setting aside of that career in pursuit of a calling He has placed upon me. The act of obedience and sacrifice, undertaken joyfully. It was a blessing to perform it in the service.

After church there was a huge commissioning luncheon for us. All of our friends were there AND our parents, who came up from Baltimore. Rebecca's and my contributions were recognized. We have never felt so loved, cared about and prayed for, in all our life!!!

We officially left Poughkeepsie on Wednesday morning. It was an interesting departure though. The night before we left there was a terrible storm and 2 trees blew down in our backyard. They knocked down the power lines and cable. It was a terrible mess! We had to call a tree service and the electric co. then head out of town. There was little we could do. As we drove down 84 West we hit a huge rock that fell off a truck and popped a tire. We had to exit and spent about 3 hours trying to find a place to get a replacement. It was challenging, but we took it all in stride, imagining how we would cope with these types of trials in Burundi where tree services and service stations would be far more difficult to come by. I am sure they do not have AAA either.

We enjoyed several days of relaxation in Baltimore and arrived in Akron, PA this evening.

Goodbyes and Shots

I did my last day at Vassar this past Friday. I felt good about the way I left things. I wrote a manual for my job. Director of the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre. It was a digital document about 50 pages long with another 100 pages of hyperlinks. It was very interesting to review my work the past 8 years so systematically. I also created a new VRDT website. http://dance.vassar.edu/vrdt/. All links connected to that page (except the VC Dance website) were created by me. I was very pleased with the way it came out. I really felt I left well.

There were several surprise parties in my honor. The best was one the VRDT dancers and Kathy Wildberger threw. I was literally kidnapped from choir practice at my church by 2 dancers and taken blindfolded back to Vassar. There was a huge party with live music in one of the studios. It was wild!

The past week Oren, Rebecca and I have been getting vaccinated for Burundi. I have had, tetanus, diptheria, menegititis, hep A and B, yellow fever, typhoid, some of them are a series. Oren has had all this and a rabies series as well. We also have prescriptions for antimalarials. The warning about possible side affects include psychotic behavior. Hmmm. We will have to be on the lookout for that.

This weekend we do our final packing of our storage pod and send it to Balitmore. Then we are off to Akron, PA for leadership training.

Oh yeah, the great news is that we have an offer on our house!