Death of a Whistle

When I was in 9th grade, I was still in jr. high (in Wichita the grouping was 7th-9th), and I was a girl's gym leader. I, in no way, wanted this job, but the p.e. teachers made me do it. We were supposed to help out in gym class, and also to "monitor" the showers. (I don't think they still make jr. high kids shower after p.e, which is good, because that borders on torture.)

One of the "perks" of being a gym leader was that we got to wear white camp shirts and bloomers instead of pea green camp shirts and bloomers. Really. 

One of the other "perks" was that we were given whistles. Until today, I have carried my whistle on my keychain, and perhaps I have used it a handful of times in the past (aaahhhmmm) years. Today, the whistle totally fell into two pieces, and that is the end of that.

Slideshow on Youtube

I made a little slideshow video of last Sunday's service at Bergthal Mennonite Church. You can view it here. Please note that when I was recording the singing, I did not realize how loud my voice would be, and I was shocked ;-) that sometimes my singing was not *ahem* pristine. However, I decided that with all the flaws, the remembrance of the service outweighed the perfection of the music.

Photographing Kansas

One of the things I was looking forward to on my Kansas sojourn was to take landscape photos. The forecast was for scattered showers, so I was hoping for some great clouds. I did not get any of the clouds that I imagined, but I did manage to find a few shots that I like. Here they are, in no particular order.

The wheat is about 1-2 feet high and still green.

This is the barn at my cousins' farm

Sunset at the farm

Sunset with mailboxes

Pawnee Rock Memorial - Read more about it here.

View from the top of the Pawnee Rock Memorial

Shot through the car window - several of many, many wind turbines seen along I-70

Bergthal Mennonite Church - Pawnee Rock, Kansas

The primary reason for my trip to Kansas over Memorial Day weekend was to attend the Memorial Celebration Sunday at Bergthal Mennonite Church in Pawnee Rock. In the 1950s, my maternal grandfather pastored this church, and my mother graduated from high school during this time. At its height, the congregation boasted about 250 members in this rural community, but today only about 15 people make up the church. Couple this with the fact that the building has a black mold problem that is cost prohibitive to take care of, and after several years and heart-breaking discussions, the congregation has decided to tear down the building later this summer. 

Street Sign Kitty-Corner to the Church

In preparation for this sad event, the people decided to hold one final big church service and invite people who have a connection to the church to return. My parents planned on going and asked if I wanted to attend with them. Since I had never seen the church (except as an infant), and I am interested in my mom's heritage, I jumped at the chance to visit Kansas in May. It seemed that I was not the only one who wanted to come. The sanctuary was overflowing with about 350 people, including descendants of the founding families and a handful who had never even been to the church, but had some kind of reason to travel there.

We were in for an entire day of activities starting with breakfast. After the worship service and the noon potluck we had the chance to bid on a silent auction of various items from the church building. People shared memories of their time at the church during an afternoon service and the official day ended with more food - dessert and coffee.

On the dedication day of the church building (the third building for this congregation), people stood outside in front of the church for a group photo. (You can see this photo on a blog post about Bergthal on another blog post here.) On Sunday we all came outside for a final group photo with the photographer on the top of a tall, tall ladder on the other side of the street with four people holding the legs so it would not blow over in the wind.

Table decoration in the basement

Breakfast buffet

Gathering for church

Rules for the silent auction

Offering Plate up for auction

Taking a group photo can be dangerous

But this is the end result!

Faith Alive

Last night I returned home from a whirlwind weekend trip to Kansas (with literal winds out on the prairie and thankfully no tornadoes) for a family-intensive visit.

On Saturday my sister spoke to a group of our relatives about her recently-published book Faith Alive: Stories of Hope and Healing From an African Doctor and His Hospital. Lately I have been thinking about how important stories are for us, as human beings. (Excuse the quick detour here.) One of my guilty pleasures is watching Project Runway, and this season when I saw one of the final episodes where we take a peek into the lives of the finalists where Tim Gunn visits each person in their home and meets their families, my attitude about each designer changes. Their stories make them real and complete, three-dimensional. They are no longer just a designer under heaps of pressure to produce an outfit, but a person with a past and hopes and dreams.

Faith Alive is a collection of connected stories of many people who come together in the Faith Alive Hospital in Jos, Nigeria. These people are courageous, fallible, funny, kind, and, in short, human. I finished the book before I landed in California, and I would recommend it to you if 1) you like to be inspired 2) you have a connection with HIV/AIDS 3) you like to read.

You can order the book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. As the photo indicated, all proceeds from the sale of the book benefit the hospital. You can also visit the website here.

Spirit of Women - As Exhibited in the Arts

Celebrating women at church yesterday included the morning service with litany derived from the poetry written at the women's retreat, an anthem sung by Joyful Voices (the women's choir) and a hymn composed by one of our members.

In the evening, the Spirit of Women dinner featured a presentation by one of Claremont's artists, Eleanor Scott Meyers.  She showed us a number of her paintings, some of which can be seen at her beautiful website. Her art style of Plein Air comes from the French "in the open air" as the French impressionists who paid particular attention to the effects of light in their paintings.

Eleanor Scott (the name Scott is part of her first name, not last) is another example of the tremendous talent at Pilgrim Place, and another reason why it would be great to retire there. I would not mind owning one of her works.

Forever Stamps

When I went to the PO the other day, I decided to pick up stamps, and I love to choose commemorative varieties.  This time I chose Kansas and Gregory Peck stamps.  After I got home and looked at them more closely, I didn't see the 44-cent denomination on them, but the "forever" designation.  I'm guessing that all first class stamps are going this way so that when the prices change, you won't have to go buy 2 cent stamps, and then commemorative stamps will have a longer printing life.

Facebook Strikes Again

In the last week, I have found three of my best friends from elementary through high school on Facebook.  All three are recent newcomers to social networking, and I had occasionally looked for them to no avail.  Now they are on, and we have exchanged brief life updates.  This is our fourth grade class photo with Mrs. Brosius.  One of the friends moved to Wichita in fifth grade, so she is not in this photo.

Remembrances

I came home from Kansas with some mementos from my grandparents.  From Grandma's jewelry box, my eye caught this pin which I wore to the memorial service.  Grandma always liked to look nice and she had quite a collection of jewelry in her box.

My Grandfather, who passed on in 1999, was not only a Mennonite preacher, but he was also a wood carver.  This is a plaster cast of a carving he did for the Kansas Wheat Centennial in 1974.

Final Passage

Today my family said our final good-byes to Grandma Sawatzky here in Newton, Kansas.  We gathered at the gravesite out on the windy prairie to place her at rest next to her beloved husband before celebrating her life at First Mennonite Church.  My mother read her life story, my sister shared her remembrances, I played Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring on the violin with my second cousin accompanying on the piano.  The church bells tolled 96 times at the end of the service to commemorate her 96 years of life.

My sister has blogged about the passage of both of our grandmas at her site here.