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Show As you can perhaps see in the picture, with the help of our Navajo children who like to water, we have been able to raise Easter lilies and daffodils in time for the Maundy Thursday Altar of Repose and the high altar on Easter Sunday. May this wonderful season of the church's year be especially blessed for all our good friends who have continued to help and support us in this time of considerable financial stress. We thank you and rejoice with you in the joy of Paschaltide and Pentecost. And now, heeeeeeere's Joan! (guess which is our one TV channel) ..... Hello, there .. ,and just what is all this talk about retirement? So far I haven't seen much sign of it. And this, mark you, is the second time we've retired. It's getting to be a~abit, like actors and opera singers. I've come to the sad conclusion that old missionaries never retire - they simply fade away. Me and my fancy ideas about keeping house, taking care of my husband, writing, studying, clashing my knitting needles and thinking beautiful thoughts! No, kind hearts and gentle people, until a new priest takes over the reins it's strictly business as usual! People come to admire our new quarters, and with them come the requests for aid of one sort or another - use of the wash house for laundry and showers, water, clothing, trips to clinic or hospital, help in getting stranded cars started, and often just listening to domestic problems. And it's good to know that we can still help in these ways. Sunday, of course, is our busiest day. One Sunday, when one of the big cars was o~t of commission, I reckoned up my mileage in bringing people to church and taking them home - 70 miles over rough roads, some of which could hardly justify the word "road". And we all wear a variety of hats on Sunday! For my part, I try to play the pump organ which was given us by a dear couple from upstate. At least I do· what I can to produce sounds on it ... well, I can produce sounds, that's no problem, but such sounds! I man the pump C'scuse me, ladies, I person the pump), and try to hit the right notes, but frequently it's all too obvious that I take only too literally the exhortation never to let my left hand know what my right hand is doing. The~ a quick change of hats, and I'm at the lectern reading the Epistle, which I love to do. After Mass, a run over to the Big House with one of the youngsters to collect some cans of pop - we have E£E hour instead of coffee hour at our church! Wrong count - "Matthew and Anne didn't get any pop" - back to the house for more. Then sometimes a trip to the Adventist Hospital clinic with someone. And then the trip, or trips, to take people back to their homes. At the end of the day we're all falling about in heaps, but it's good, it's very good,that we are able to do it all. Space prohibits more at this time, but I do want you all to know that, as treasurer of Hat Rock Valley Retreat Center, I literally wept in thankfulness for the wonderful response you made to our last request for financial help in our dreadfully expensive move. I just praised the Lord for such loving, caring friends. Also, I am so grateful for the dog collars .... some of them are already round the necks of dogs who otherwise might be wearing a horrible piece of wire instead. If anyone has not yet received a thank-you for the collars, please forgive me. I got pretty far behind in bookkeeping and mailing list corrections during the moving, and in the effort to catch up correspondence has suffered. (I hope I still have a friend or two left!) Keep us in your prayers, as we keep you in ours. We love you. Got your magnifying glass? Okay. The picture is intended to try to convey some idea of the area in which we live, and to show you where we were and where we are. From left to right - the white roof peeking through the trees is the Big House we just left. Further to the right, the red roofed building is the Church of St Mary of the Moonlight - the squat appearance is an optical illusion; it's startlingly high inside. Far to the right the whitish blob is ,-There we are now. If you're' able to see what looks like a building between the Church and our new home, it's the shade where the ECN Convocation was held last year. In Him, Joan. |