Bundling against the cold is the first step. Alaska socks, heavy hiking boots, jeans and fleece, covered with a lined jacket, warm scarf and ski hat, leather gloves stuffed in pockets – April-wear in the north.
The sun rose at seven in a giant red ball, sailing over scudding clouds on the horizon into a clear sky. By mid morning the lake calls, white caps dancing in the sunshine, gulls bobbing up and down amid the now-melting ice floes.
Before I head to the dense populated cities of Asia, I need wilderness. Walking the beach is sheer delight, even bundled against the stiff wind and well below freezing temperatures of the morning. If the gulls can bob in a frigid lake, I can handle the shoreline.
The rocks on the beach range from smaller than my finger to the size of small cars. Navigating between, along, among them is the reason for hiking boots with high ankle support. Ice and snow cling to the marshes in some places while others have melted into swampy puddles, rocks sticking up to tread across.
I think it is the color that calls me back, day after day -- one day blue, another aquamarine, another slate gray; never the same; always changing. The color and the solitude. There are no neighbors, almost no houses, and only a rare great ship on the horizon to remind me that somewhere in the universe other people exist.
A cry overhead brings a V of geese heading north. Theirs is a faith flight because I see no nesting ground that looks warm enough to lay eggs. Spring is breaking through, slowly, painfully letting go of the grip of winter. But come it will. This marsh will turn green and the scruffy bushes will spout leaves. The water will warm a little and the ice will disappear.
But that day is still distant this morning. I will relish the silence, broken only by the call of the gulls. I will wash my soul in the deep blue water of the still frosty great lake. I will listen to the wind roaring through the cedars on the cove, and the brash splashing of the waves hitting the ice along the shore.
In a few short days I’ll be walking crowded city streets halfway around the world, surrounded by thousands of people, enveloped in the din of languages that I do not understand. The friendships will be deep and rich, and the work satisfying, but when it all seems overwhelming, I will remember this day.
In my mind I will hark back to this solitude and rest there, drawing strength from the One who made it all, the din and the silence.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Plain speaking
The Bear bursts in the door, smelling of snow and kindergarten and sees her great-aunt, visiting from Paraguay. “I sure haven’t seen you for a long, long time,” she says. I make introductions, not knowing whether Bear really remembers great-aunt or not.
The Bug giggles and says, “I don’t think I remember you.” Little Jon-boy walks in, gets his booster chair and starts pushing it to the table. A man of few words, he just knows it is lunch time and he’s hungry.
One of the refreshing things about small children is they tell it just like it is. Yes, we get interrupted and told much we maybe didn’t need to know, but there is no guile in these little people. Lunch is a running commentary.
“Why are there nuts in my grapefruit?” No, those are seeds
“There is corn in my chili. Mommy doesn’t put corn in chili.” I like corn in my chili, you like corn, so just eat it.
“ I have to have the blue cup. SHE can have the pink one because she’s little.” Oh really?
Some days the plain talk is about me. Like the day Bug told me I smelled old. When I asked for clarification, she looked puzzled and said I dunno, maybe it is your shampoo.
A checker game with Bear ensues after lunch. Bear believes that she should win, hands down and is a little shocked when her pieces disappear off the board in rapid succession.
“You are taking all my pieces. How can I win if you keep jumping me?”
“How can you learn to play,” I counter, “if I let you just win and don’t teach you strategy?”
Bear looks over at the great-aunt, now playing trucks with Jon-boy. “I bet she’d let me win.”
“You don’t want to play with her,” I say. “She’s more competitive than I am.”
In the end, we play two games, and on the second I do some massaging of her technique. At five, I do not expect checker prowess or great strategy, but I will speak plainly, and not just allow her to break all the rules so she can win. Life doesn’t work that way, and it is a poor orientation to reality.
Plain speaking goes both directions. It comes from the very young, and they need to learn how to be polite. It comes from the older adults and they need to speak with grace. But plain speaking is essential to learning character, and I want these children to have character. Their parents are leading them in godly thinking, and it’s my job to reinforce that with godly mentoring, not sabotage what goes on at home.
As they head out the door, Bear turns to the great-aunt. “Are you going to be here tomorrow? I want to see you again, you know.” Plain speaking. Well spoken. Polite. Gracious.
The Bug giggles and says, “I don’t think I remember you.” Little Jon-boy walks in, gets his booster chair and starts pushing it to the table. A man of few words, he just knows it is lunch time and he’s hungry.
One of the refreshing things about small children is they tell it just like it is. Yes, we get interrupted and told much we maybe didn’t need to know, but there is no guile in these little people. Lunch is a running commentary.
“Why are there nuts in my grapefruit?” No, those are seeds
“There is corn in my chili. Mommy doesn’t put corn in chili.” I like corn in my chili, you like corn, so just eat it.
“ I have to have the blue cup. SHE can have the pink one because she’s little.” Oh really?
Some days the plain talk is about me. Like the day Bug told me I smelled old. When I asked for clarification, she looked puzzled and said I dunno, maybe it is your shampoo.
A checker game with Bear ensues after lunch. Bear believes that she should win, hands down and is a little shocked when her pieces disappear off the board in rapid succession.
“You are taking all my pieces. How can I win if you keep jumping me?”
“How can you learn to play,” I counter, “if I let you just win and don’t teach you strategy?”
Bear looks over at the great-aunt, now playing trucks with Jon-boy. “I bet she’d let me win.”
“You don’t want to play with her,” I say. “She’s more competitive than I am.”
In the end, we play two games, and on the second I do some massaging of her technique. At five, I do not expect checker prowess or great strategy, but I will speak plainly, and not just allow her to break all the rules so she can win. Life doesn’t work that way, and it is a poor orientation to reality.
Plain speaking goes both directions. It comes from the very young, and they need to learn how to be polite. It comes from the older adults and they need to speak with grace. But plain speaking is essential to learning character, and I want these children to have character. Their parents are leading them in godly thinking, and it’s my job to reinforce that with godly mentoring, not sabotage what goes on at home.
As they head out the door, Bear turns to the great-aunt. “Are you going to be here tomorrow? I want to see you again, you know.” Plain speaking. Well spoken. Polite. Gracious.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Just a spoonful of sugar
A fun event for ESL learners over the last few years has been a cookie decorating party at Christmas. Most of these internationals come from Asia or the Middle East and did not grow up with ovens. Thus, they do not know how to bake and Christmas cookies, that essential of American Christmas, are a mystery to them.
We gather at our house on a mid-December evening and turn the kitchen into total chaos. Each of the ESL teachers brings plain cookies and decorating stuff, and the families all gather around the big center island and decorate the cookies to take home. Last night we had 12 adults and 8 children ranging from 10 down to 3. You can imagine the amount of colored sugar and icing that hit the floor!
The kids last about 30 minutes and then spin off to the Lego in the family room or the games in the living/dining room, bouncing back in turns to do another cookie or two. There is much consumption. The husbands, brought along to enjoy the fun, last about as long as the kids. Most are engineers, and they drift off to the dining room for a little more adult conversation. This leaves the women in the kitchen and conversation – the whole goal of the class – ranges far and wide.
Yesterday one of the Chinese women had a minor car accident on the icy roads. A Middle Eastern woman is on her third winter in Michigan and three of the Chinese women listen intently as she describes how to drive on ice and not slide into the ditch. Fascinating to hear this described by someone who has learned winter driving on the fast track. Lots of new vocabulary!
Cooking practices always surface in the conversation, and a lot of parenting discussions. Two of the ESL teachers are moms of younger kids and great mentors to these women struggling to survive, keep house, speak English, and raise children in a totally new world.
The children are a delightful mix of cultures, blond heads alongside dark ones. English is no problem for them, nor is social interaction. They are the next generation of new Americans, and cookies are to be consumed – no matter who made them or decorated them.
By the time the evening ends, I am quite ready for it to end. But as each family walks out the door bearing freshly decorated cookies of their own design, chatting merrily with each other in somewhat fractured English but English none the less, the value of the event takes root. This is not about sugar on the floor or icing on the cupboards – it’s about community.
We gather at our house on a mid-December evening and turn the kitchen into total chaos. Each of the ESL teachers brings plain cookies and decorating stuff, and the families all gather around the big center island and decorate the cookies to take home. Last night we had 12 adults and 8 children ranging from 10 down to 3. You can imagine the amount of colored sugar and icing that hit the floor!
The kids last about 30 minutes and then spin off to the Lego in the family room or the games in the living/dining room, bouncing back in turns to do another cookie or two. There is much consumption. The husbands, brought along to enjoy the fun, last about as long as the kids. Most are engineers, and they drift off to the dining room for a little more adult conversation. This leaves the women in the kitchen and conversation – the whole goal of the class – ranges far and wide.
Yesterday one of the Chinese women had a minor car accident on the icy roads. A Middle Eastern woman is on her third winter in Michigan and three of the Chinese women listen intently as she describes how to drive on ice and not slide into the ditch. Fascinating to hear this described by someone who has learned winter driving on the fast track. Lots of new vocabulary!
Cooking practices always surface in the conversation, and a lot of parenting discussions. Two of the ESL teachers are moms of younger kids and great mentors to these women struggling to survive, keep house, speak English, and raise children in a totally new world.
The children are a delightful mix of cultures, blond heads alongside dark ones. English is no problem for them, nor is social interaction. They are the next generation of new Americans, and cookies are to be consumed – no matter who made them or decorated them.
By the time the evening ends, I am quite ready for it to end. But as each family walks out the door bearing freshly decorated cookies of their own design, chatting merrily with each other in somewhat fractured English but English none the less, the value of the event takes root. This is not about sugar on the floor or icing on the cupboards – it’s about community.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Push back the darkness
It is December, the darkest month of the year. And the most celebrated. I wake in darkness and start the day. The afternoon is dark before it is over, and we settled into darkness long before supper. We light candles and put up twinkle lights and push back the darkness.
We celebrate the birth of the Savior with joy, but always in the corners of our hearts lingers sadness at those who are not with us this Christmas. Even in the delight of the coming of Light, we know that He came to a dark world, and we know why.
We know why because we live in it.
Yesterday the Dreamer and I stood in line at a funeral to speak to a young couple who lost their stillborn daughter last week. Entering the church I was transported back decades to a simple funeral at a barrio church in the Philippines. I can still clearly see the grieving mother, veiled, throwing dirt on the little coffin.
Yesterday’s mother is American born, but she is also Filipino, and the obligatory funeral black was worn by all her family and friends.
Beside us in line was a friend who lost his daughter just two years ago this month, a young mom snatched with sudden cancer. “It never gets easier, does it?” he said. “I will never be the same.” Then he looked at the Dreamer and said, “You know.” The same words the grandmother of the little one who didn’t live had said a few minutes before. “You know.”
Yes, we know. The Dreamer knows especially. On the way she handed me a book written by a mom who carried a child she knew would not live. Delivered and buried a child who survived just a few short hours. Poignant, powerful book. She readily admits that she does not have answers. She shares her struggle and grief. And she believes that God also shares our struggle and grief.
When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, Mary and Martha were also weeping. But theirs was the wail of loss, while his was the weeping of pain for the hurt hearts of his dear friends. He knew in a few minutes he would call Lazarus out of the grave, but he also knew Lazarus would die again and there would again be pain and tears.
This week another little one, another grand of mine, will have doctors open her heart to repair what is not what it should be. I enter the week with deep fear because I know that what is considered routine is never routine when it is your own child. I enter the week with trust because, without speaking flippantly, I know that God understands our fear, her heart, and holds the hands of the doctors.
This is a dark world. Not just in December, though somehow at Christmas all the darkness comes rushing back to haunt us and whispers fear into the deep recesses of our hearts. Yet it was into this world that God sent Light, and the darkness did, and still does not comprehend it.
In this dark month, I choose to stand in the light.
We celebrate the birth of the Savior with joy, but always in the corners of our hearts lingers sadness at those who are not with us this Christmas. Even in the delight of the coming of Light, we know that He came to a dark world, and we know why.
We know why because we live in it.
Yesterday the Dreamer and I stood in line at a funeral to speak to a young couple who lost their stillborn daughter last week. Entering the church I was transported back decades to a simple funeral at a barrio church in the Philippines. I can still clearly see the grieving mother, veiled, throwing dirt on the little coffin.
Yesterday’s mother is American born, but she is also Filipino, and the obligatory funeral black was worn by all her family and friends.
Beside us in line was a friend who lost his daughter just two years ago this month, a young mom snatched with sudden cancer. “It never gets easier, does it?” he said. “I will never be the same.” Then he looked at the Dreamer and said, “You know.” The same words the grandmother of the little one who didn’t live had said a few minutes before. “You know.”
Yes, we know. The Dreamer knows especially. On the way she handed me a book written by a mom who carried a child she knew would not live. Delivered and buried a child who survived just a few short hours. Poignant, powerful book. She readily admits that she does not have answers. She shares her struggle and grief. And she believes that God also shares our struggle and grief.
When Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus, Mary and Martha were also weeping. But theirs was the wail of loss, while his was the weeping of pain for the hurt hearts of his dear friends. He knew in a few minutes he would call Lazarus out of the grave, but he also knew Lazarus would die again and there would again be pain and tears.
This week another little one, another grand of mine, will have doctors open her heart to repair what is not what it should be. I enter the week with deep fear because I know that what is considered routine is never routine when it is your own child. I enter the week with trust because, without speaking flippantly, I know that God understands our fear, her heart, and holds the hands of the doctors.
This is a dark world. Not just in December, though somehow at Christmas all the darkness comes rushing back to haunt us and whispers fear into the deep recesses of our hearts. Yet it was into this world that God sent Light, and the darkness did, and still does not comprehend it.
In this dark month, I choose to stand in the light.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Rescue centers
Recent Sundays have found me in rescue centers. The people who go there call them church, but they are, in fact, places where those people have been rescued.
The first sits atop a rocky hill in northern Massachusetts, close to the ocean. The town is as rocky as the hillside, full of rough and tumble families who either have known the hardship of the sea for generations, or who are new immigrants looking for a place to call home.
The anniversary of the church – the rescue center – was occasion for testimonies. After a meal where far more people came than anticipated but all were fed, we gathered in the upstairs meeting room. Pine timbers line the walls, wide windows opening onto the woods and rocky hillside. Member after member, some still there, some who have moved away, stood to tell how they came to this place. Their lives were a saga of alcohol, abuse, bad marriages, unwanted pregnancies, despair. Again and again I heard, “I came and I was welcomed, and I found the Lord here. Jesus has changed my life completely.” Everyone wanted to be there and share the victories.
The highest corner of the church building is a replica of a lighthouse. It is symbolic of the rocky coastal town, but it is far more. It represents why this is a rescue center.
This past weekend it was a much older church on the coast of New Jersey. The city is hard, gritty, and sinful. Yet the old stone church stands in the midst of casinos and on the roof are the words, “Christ died for our sins.”
The folk who come are a rainbow of colors and a babble of languages.
Saturday night the woman beside me told me, unasked, about her abusive, drug-dealing husband, how in desperation one afternoon she knocked on her landlady’s door when he locked her out, and how she was invited in to a warm meal, taken to church, and led to Christ. Sunday noon another woman told me that she comes because it is a safe haven in her pain-ridden life. “I went to the pastor when I first came and said I needed a safe-house. He told me I had found it.”
Sunday morning we sang an old hymn about keeping the lower lights burning. Sending a beam across the wave. The pastor reminded us that we are the lower lights, gleaming for people who are struggling in the dark.
Rescue center churches are messy. People often don’t dress well, and they may smell of smoke and booze and other substances. Their teeth tend to be missing, and they are brutally honest about their lives. Downright uncomfortable at times but rescue center churches are good for me.
Jesus is in the rescue center business. Am I?
The first sits atop a rocky hill in northern Massachusetts, close to the ocean. The town is as rocky as the hillside, full of rough and tumble families who either have known the hardship of the sea for generations, or who are new immigrants looking for a place to call home.
The anniversary of the church – the rescue center – was occasion for testimonies. After a meal where far more people came than anticipated but all were fed, we gathered in the upstairs meeting room. Pine timbers line the walls, wide windows opening onto the woods and rocky hillside. Member after member, some still there, some who have moved away, stood to tell how they came to this place. Their lives were a saga of alcohol, abuse, bad marriages, unwanted pregnancies, despair. Again and again I heard, “I came and I was welcomed, and I found the Lord here. Jesus has changed my life completely.” Everyone wanted to be there and share the victories.
The highest corner of the church building is a replica of a lighthouse. It is symbolic of the rocky coastal town, but it is far more. It represents why this is a rescue center.
This past weekend it was a much older church on the coast of New Jersey. The city is hard, gritty, and sinful. Yet the old stone church stands in the midst of casinos and on the roof are the words, “Christ died for our sins.”
The folk who come are a rainbow of colors and a babble of languages.
Saturday night the woman beside me told me, unasked, about her abusive, drug-dealing husband, how in desperation one afternoon she knocked on her landlady’s door when he locked her out, and how she was invited in to a warm meal, taken to church, and led to Christ. Sunday noon another woman told me that she comes because it is a safe haven in her pain-ridden life. “I went to the pastor when I first came and said I needed a safe-house. He told me I had found it.”
Sunday morning we sang an old hymn about keeping the lower lights burning. Sending a beam across the wave. The pastor reminded us that we are the lower lights, gleaming for people who are struggling in the dark.
Rescue center churches are messy. People often don’t dress well, and they may smell of smoke and booze and other substances. Their teeth tend to be missing, and they are brutally honest about their lives. Downright uncomfortable at times but rescue center churches are good for me.
Jesus is in the rescue center business. Am I?
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
The orchard
Like a siren the orchard calls me this afternoon. The day is as crisp and clean as the first bite of a Granny Smith, and I need to be outside. I load boxes into the trunk and head north. This orchard is relatively small and family owned. On a weekday we have permission to simply arrive, park, and pick up any apples on the ground. The windfalls can’t be used for anything, so they are there to be gleaned. I find the owner sorting pumpkins and check in.
Then I see that road I usually take back beside the barn is blocked.
“It was muddy so we had a load of crushed ashphalt dumped,” she tells me in good Michiganese. Does anywhere else put an extra h in asphalt? We ponder how to get my car into the orchard since, unlike the tractor and wagon, I can’t just drive over the newly dumped piles. At her suggestion I take down one of the split rail fences, drive across the lawn, between massive pines, back around the cider press building, down between a row of apple trees and onto the road that leads across the hill and the orchard.
I drive to the back, knowing from experience that the trees in the back drop later than the trees in the front. Applesauce is best if made from a mix of apples, so I make no attempt to pick and choose specific breeds. My goal is to glean, fill boxes, and head home.
The seductive sunshine, the faint smell of fallen leaves mixed with apples, and memories slow me down. The siren has called again. In the distance I hear a highway, a dog barks faintly, but for all that I am alone in the world with just a few yellow jackets for companions. Many times I’ve come to this orchard. Hot September days with Keren in a stroller, a sunny morning with just the Bear – so small she could hardly get her boots through the long grass. Two years ago we had a gaggle of little cousins ranging from Boy Blue on a blanket on up. Little hands helping gather, then joining the applesauce process with glee. Some years it has been pouring rain and we come home soaked to the skin and covered with mud. Always an adventure. But time is flying and I need to get the apples home.
I take a bucket and head up a hill, down a long row of trees. Toward the back I find a treasure trove of bright red dotting the ground under two trees. One by one my bucket fills, gets emptied into boxes, and fills again. Soon the trunk is loaded with red and gold.
I head back the lines of trees, past the cider press, wave to the pumpkin sorter, weave under the pines and through the split rail fence. Then, relishing the final moments, I choose the gravel roads wherever possible so I can drive under canopies of gold and red. Autumn will pass and this glory will fade into winter, but before I start making applesauce, I want to revel in the color a little longer.
Then I see that road I usually take back beside the barn is blocked.
“It was muddy so we had a load of crushed ashphalt dumped,” she tells me in good Michiganese. Does anywhere else put an extra h in asphalt? We ponder how to get my car into the orchard since, unlike the tractor and wagon, I can’t just drive over the newly dumped piles. At her suggestion I take down one of the split rail fences, drive across the lawn, between massive pines, back around the cider press building, down between a row of apple trees and onto the road that leads across the hill and the orchard.
I drive to the back, knowing from experience that the trees in the back drop later than the trees in the front. Applesauce is best if made from a mix of apples, so I make no attempt to pick and choose specific breeds. My goal is to glean, fill boxes, and head home.
The seductive sunshine, the faint smell of fallen leaves mixed with apples, and memories slow me down. The siren has called again. In the distance I hear a highway, a dog barks faintly, but for all that I am alone in the world with just a few yellow jackets for companions. Many times I’ve come to this orchard. Hot September days with Keren in a stroller, a sunny morning with just the Bear – so small she could hardly get her boots through the long grass. Two years ago we had a gaggle of little cousins ranging from Boy Blue on a blanket on up. Little hands helping gather, then joining the applesauce process with glee. Some years it has been pouring rain and we come home soaked to the skin and covered with mud. Always an adventure. But time is flying and I need to get the apples home.
I take a bucket and head up a hill, down a long row of trees. Toward the back I find a treasure trove of bright red dotting the ground under two trees. One by one my bucket fills, gets emptied into boxes, and fills again. Soon the trunk is loaded with red and gold.
I head back the lines of trees, past the cider press, wave to the pumpkin sorter, weave under the pines and through the split rail fence. Then, relishing the final moments, I choose the gravel roads wherever possible so I can drive under canopies of gold and red. Autumn will pass and this glory will fade into winter, but before I start making applesauce, I want to revel in the color a little longer.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
A home on the hill
We start up the hill a sense of anticipation, turn after turn, and finally pull into the driveway at the very top. Initially it seemed impossible to find this house, but now it is second nature. We park, look out over the valley, smell the fresh country air, grab our bags, and head inside. Through the garage, into the little back room, through the long room that is living, dining, and kitchen all in one. Around the corner and up the stairs, and down the hall to our suite of rooms.
A certain scent belongs to this home away from home. It could be the continuous supply of fresh fruit on the butcher block in the kitchen, but more likely it is the scent of fabric. This is a quilter’s home and there are quilts for wounded military and homeless kids always in progress. Interesting country crafts are tucked in the corners, baskets on the rafters, vintage country furniture that looks and feels comfortable.
When the host family is home we enjoy their company, go out for sushi, play Settlers, talk long into the night. But the house is ours when needed, whether or not they are home.
Home, a word that evokes deep visceral emotions. Home -- and this is just one of many.
Another home away from home is near a college campus. The routine there similar. We know where our beds are, where to set up our computers, where the coffee will be brewing in the dark of early morning. The hosts are friends of decades, and their home has been ours on three continents.
A third is a suite north of Boston. A full apartment set off a house where the grandmother lived for a time. Now it hosts visitors, ministry people like us who need a place to land that offers sleep, respite, quiet, and no people. Here the relationship stretches back even further.
Yet another is a wide windowed home facing out on a great lake. No neighbors ever intrude the solitude except for deer, turkeys, fox, and other creatures of the wild. The silence is deafening.
In all these places, and many more, we are at home. The generosity of these host families offers us more than a clean bed. In each place we have the freedom to come, to go, to live, to think, to be – with no strings attached.
I’m heading out the door of the house on the hill in the early morning when my phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and hear a friend’s voice, “Hey, I’m looking for the car keys.” I tell her where to find them and realize that, while I am at the house on the hill, another of our home-away-from-home hostesses is at my house, ready to drive off in my car.
Home away from home is a lifestyle.
A certain scent belongs to this home away from home. It could be the continuous supply of fresh fruit on the butcher block in the kitchen, but more likely it is the scent of fabric. This is a quilter’s home and there are quilts for wounded military and homeless kids always in progress. Interesting country crafts are tucked in the corners, baskets on the rafters, vintage country furniture that looks and feels comfortable.
When the host family is home we enjoy their company, go out for sushi, play Settlers, talk long into the night. But the house is ours when needed, whether or not they are home.
Home, a word that evokes deep visceral emotions. Home -- and this is just one of many.
Another home away from home is near a college campus. The routine there similar. We know where our beds are, where to set up our computers, where the coffee will be brewing in the dark of early morning. The hosts are friends of decades, and their home has been ours on three continents.
A third is a suite north of Boston. A full apartment set off a house where the grandmother lived for a time. Now it hosts visitors, ministry people like us who need a place to land that offers sleep, respite, quiet, and no people. Here the relationship stretches back even further.
Yet another is a wide windowed home facing out on a great lake. No neighbors ever intrude the solitude except for deer, turkeys, fox, and other creatures of the wild. The silence is deafening.
In all these places, and many more, we are at home. The generosity of these host families offers us more than a clean bed. In each place we have the freedom to come, to go, to live, to think, to be – with no strings attached.
I’m heading out the door of the house on the hill in the early morning when my phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and hear a friend’s voice, “Hey, I’m looking for the car keys.” I tell her where to find them and realize that, while I am at the house on the hill, another of our home-away-from-home hostesses is at my house, ready to drive off in my car.
Home away from home is a lifestyle.
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