Back at Glen Eyrie

The week after my birthday we celebrated the birthday of my spouse. She is one week younger than I.  Believe it or not, it has been that way our entire life.  The next day we left for Colorado Springs, to attend a Marriage Get-Away at Glen Eyrie.  Our Marriage Get-Away was very good, breakfast in bed on Friday morning; lots of one on one time for each couple in the afternoons.  We were warned that we were not allowed to do any work, or anything that even looked like work, while attending the MGA. (I guess they know us here) Our sessions were excellent and focused on relationships, particularly couple interaction and understanding each others' love language. All our meals were spectacular!  The cooks outdid themselves. 

On Sunday (8-18) we moved into the lower apartment in the Châlet from the Castle Room, where we had been staying for the MGA.

It is warm here during the day, the nights are cool - mid 60s  but afternoon temperatures hit upper 80s and even  a few low 90s. But fortunately we don't have the humidity, which is so prevalent in the Heartland, so it is OK to be, and even work outside. 

We went for a walk (small hike) last Sunday (8-25) during the early afternoon and we appreciated the shade, when we could find it.

The work has been sporadic the first week, but we are really busy this week.  Right now there are but a few guests.  We have had some senior (High School) retreats, so lots of activity and energy.  Corrie has been doing dining room attendant work, and Joh is working for Facilities.  Some other tasks are in the works.  We still love working here!!  Surrounded by the rocks which hide this valley form the business of the city, we get to enjoy the peaceful quiet of Glen Eyrie.  Even in the midst of work, we can greet the turkeys, the big horn sheep, and chase the squirrels.

Winter, Wonder, White

“Winter Wonderland,” a quote from Michigan, - many years ago. Here at Glen Eyrie winter transforms the place wonderfully. E have had another white blessing. Our children from Missouri spend the weekend with us a s guests in the Pink House. We took them to Dorothy Falls at the end of Queen Canyon. Rick, ever the amateur geologist, had a blast looking at all the rocks and the exposed layers of rock formation in the canyon wall, never mind the flowing water.
The weather was in the sixties with sunshine, but on
Sunday we started getting snow. It did not really stick to the roads, but transformed the surroundings with about a two inch accumulation.

Oh yeah, we shared the experience of a mountain lion stalking turkeys in our front yard. The turkeys flew into the trees and the lion bounded off, back into the woods. (He did not look too hungry!) We didn’t get a picture because it all happened fairly quickly.

Monday was a wonderful day to see the snow covered trees and rocky crags. We took a lot of pictures and took even a ride through the Garden of the Gods, to see the clean white covering on the red rocks.

We unexpectedly had overnight guests.
The guests-services did not know that the kitchen was closed this morning; we had gotten a box-breakfast yesterday. Since the overnight guests usually have breakfast included, we cooperatively agreed to cook and serve breakfast at the Pink House and serve it in the gorgeous Pink House dining room. Our guests were delighted, as were we, to have a scrumptious warm breakfast served in style! One more week and we’ll move to the chalet, leaving the Pink House to another couple to manage for a month.

Glen Eyrie (2)

The cold spell gripping the heartland last weekend, also made life at Glen Eyrie difficult. We woke up to snow on Friday and although that melted away, we had freezing drizzle over the weekend. Our hike on Thursday was in sunshine and near seventy degrees; on Saturday we were shivering in a high temperature of 25 degrees.

Almost a fifty degree drop. The roads were icy and slick. Walking was difficult, but we baby-stepped and slid to the dining room at the castle three times on Saturday and once on Sunday. We took the car at night, it was more surefooted than we were. Monday stayed dreary, but the rest of the week was beautiful again.


Sunshine and cool wind, just to remind us that it is the middle of October. We still very much enjoy our stay and work here. We had guest for the entire week, and we are also filled up this weekend with overnight guests. That makes for work each day, to “turn over” the rooms for new guests. Next week we should have a bit of a reprieve from guests for a few days.
This allows us to take some time off.

The weekend again looks full and busy, but we expect some personal company, and that will add to the fun as well.

GLEN EYRIE (1)

Here we are again, at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs. I reviewed my posts from last year; (September 25, and a few in October) and found that not much has changed. The place is still very peaceful and wild-life abounds. Turkeys, deer, bighorn sheep, squirrels and rabbits,
just to name a few. There are snakes, a bob-cat, a bear, and they all claim this valley as their home. The animals tolerate the people, who visit here, pretty well. They do not act afraid, but do keep some distance from the people. The turkeys, deer and bighorns stay in groups usually.

We are Pink House managers for the month of October. This means we keep the guests in the three guest-rooms in clean towels and bedding. We have coffee and tea available and provide for the needs of our guests as may be needed. Many of our guests, just stay for bed and breakfast. The meals are provided in a central dining room, so we are not responsible for meal preparation. During conferences we often have guests who stay for a longer periods, and this makes our daytime schedule easier.
We schedule time off, when we can and take advantage of enjoying the beautiful surroundings. The weather has been fabulous the past week and we were able to repeat some of the hikes we did last year. We also visited Cheyenne Canyon State park and Helen Hunt Falls last Monday. Quite a view over the city and the Colorado plains, as we edged the mountains and traveled in the foothills of the Rockies.
On Wednesday morning on our way to breakfast I noticed a spilled garbage container. I joked, that it might have been a bear, who made the mess. To our surprise, this was true! We saw a well sized brown bear on the Castle lawn. As stated in one of our previous blogs, this is the home of much wild-life. Yet, the bear needed to be shooed away from the Castle area, because of the high density of people here; especially at breakfast time.

After breakfast, cleaning the rooms, and visiting with some of the guests, we hiked to Dorothy Falls. Although it only is about 3/4 mile form the Castle parking lot, it takes about an hour to get there.

The trail is rough and rocky, but the reward is great. The sun was out, the sky deep blue,




the trees displayed their fall colors. An added benefit was, that we were ready for lunch, when we returned from the hike. A very nice morning walk to enjoy and appreciate the glory of creation.

MISSION NAVAJO 2009 (2)

Our week at Rehoboth New Mexico is done. Rehoboth is a settlement just east of Gallup. There is a large Christian School here, founded and supported by the CRC. This were we had our dorm and also our breakfasts and most evening meals.














In my previous blog I mentioned our trip to this place; this time I’ll share some of the week’s activities. After breakfast every morning, we met together in two groups to have morning devotions, this focused primarily on God’s interaction with our lives and thus became sharing of individual faith stories. In the evening we would discuss the days’ accomplishments and the tasks for the next day. One of our evening activities involved making Navajo jewelry for ourselves. We also visited the code-talkers museum and we had a Bible study on Wednesday night; the men at Rehoboth, the women at Churchrock.

Our daily tasks involved some general repair work around some of the homes and churches in the vicinity. If there was a need we tried to help, without any regard to church membership or attendance. Monday was a big day at Verna’s place. She has a dilapidated home in Churchrock. Corrie and I were part of the team working there. We tore out damaged and hanging dry-wall in the ceiling and a wall around a window. This had been wet and was really bad looking. The ceiling pieces were hanging down, the insulation was damaged and had been wet.
The wall piece had large holes and was very brittle. Last year the roof had been replaced but the occupants are totally indigent, and battle alcoholism as well. So they could not get the inside repaired without assistance. Supplies were available and we supplied the labor. We also worked there to finish hanging the last ceiling pieces on Tuesday and did some general clean up. This is very hard if there is no electricity or running water. During the afternoon we worked at the Fort Wingate parsonage. On Wednesday we hung a new door at Verna’s. (When does a 32 inch door not fit a 32 inch frame???) With limited tools and the capable assistance of Corrie and Jeni, we got it done. The women also fixed the entry way, so it had a firm footing. In the afternoon we again went to Fort Wingate to help finish the job at the parsonage.

On Thursday we visited Grandma Pablo. What a contrast her house was to the one we repaired on Monday! She needed some fixing of the roof and replacing some dirt around the base of the house to keep the winter cold at bay.
She prepared some fry-bread for us!
A delicious mid-morning snack.

She was also very pleased to pray with us, both in Navajo and English. For lunch we went to the church at Tohlakai. I had some one on one with Darryl who is really struggling with staying “dry.” He takes care of his 90+ year old grandmother, who speaks no English at all. On Thursday night we had a cookout - potluck barbeque, Navajo style, at Pastor Ted’s hogan. Everyone was invited to try their hand at making fry-bread. From a ball of dough to a tasty treat. After we all shared the bounty and tasted the rich variety of food, we celebrated communion. While we were there we met with a couple having the same last name as us. To our pleasant surprise, we found that we were related. Chris Huizinga’s great-grandfather was my uncle. I stayed with him and his wife when I first came to the United States in 1964. As a matter of fact, Chris’ father played his trumpet at our wedding. We had a really fun time sharing our memories. We might just have to come back to this place in the future, to help with needed maintenance, help on the reservation, and to enjoy the hospitality and beauty of the place.

SUMMER OVER ?

So, here we are on the other side of Labor Day.
Summer is over... yet there are many more nice days for outside activities until the chill of fall.
Days to ride, wether bicycle or motor cycle. Corrie and I ride together now, since I have passed my skills test (don’t ask - I won’t tell). So now I am legally a biker, and Corrie a “biker-chick.” The cycle we bought, with mutual consent, is a (large) scooter. I did not know that there were powerful scooters on the market until we started looking for something which would suit us.
So, we now own a Suzuki Burgman 650. It has the power to go, yet is very easy to handle.

On Labor Day weekend Tony came down with his two boys, our grandchildren, and we had a great time together. We went for bicycle rides and stopped at the ice cream place, we also helped as a small team with packaging “Meals from the Heartland.” This is a non-profit organization which assembles and distributes simple nutritious meals for the third world, like Haiti. Over 4 million meals were packaged.

Summer fun (4)

dad and daughter on the scooter

Corrie & Rick on the road (crossing I-80/35)



Our birthdays came and went. Although we are now almost old, yet we still have lots of fun enjoying life, and this summer. For Corrie’s birthday our kids surprised us with a great motor cycle ride and dinner at a close friend’s house.









The summer has been absolutely great; we had little rain and many warm sunny days. Not too much heat and humidity, just great. We have gone on many trail rides on our bicycles and enjoyed seeing the local wild life. Cotton tail rabbits galore, and the ubiquitous ground squirrels of course, but we have also feasted our eyes on deer.






One morning we saw an adult doe with five fawn. They still had their spots. The were not afraid of us at all. Three crossed the trail ahead of us but two decided to give us a closer look. The reason I don’t have a picture is that I did not want to disturb this beautiful moment.

I am still “practicing” for my motor cycle licence, but plan to stop practicing in the near future - should be able to pass the test. Summer is winding down and we look forward to the planned mission trips coming up at the end of September.

Vacation (3)

So, we are home from Alaska!

Two weeks without any computer. We just took pictures. (As long as the storage room is adequate, you can just keep on clicking) Here are just a few to whet your appetite. We had a real vacation! No worries at all. Our kids had taken care of it all, we did some collective planning, but the execution was theirs! It is not easy for a "controller" to let go; but I did and the experience was richer for it! Click on the pix to enlarge them, if you wish.

Our work at CEF.

(the pictures are clickable for larger views)



Although most of the volunteers here work at the Mailbox Club, some of us work in different areas, like maintenance and grounds for many of the able bodied men. Corrie and I usually work in the production department. We are involved with collating, punching and comb-binding books of “flash-cards.” Some of these books also contain text and songs, for use in clubs. The CEF press here also publishes Spanish versions; some of the international books contain just the flash cards. Also we have been helping pack kits for the various Gospel Clubs, like the Five Day Clubs, or Good News Clubs. The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that Good News Clubs can be conducted in public elementary schools, so many kits are prepared for use in Good News Clubs held at these schools.

Corrie is the one volunteer who is trained and trusted to make “Wordless Books.” These booklets use color to tell the salvation - gospel story. Green is for Salvation and is the outside cover. Black signifies our sin, Red the blood of Christ, White is the washing away - purity, Gold is heaven, the presence if God. Many of the club leaders like to use these little books. They are made in strips, which produce 6 booklets. In a day a person can make about 200 strips, or 1200 booklets. CEF press also still makes flocked pictures, which can be used on flannel boards; again, there continues to be quite a demand for these as well.
Most of this work is labor intensive, therefore the use of volunteers is very beneficial.

For relaxation we have a country band sing along, called “Picking and Grinning” once a week, usually on Thursday night. We do a lot of old “homecoming” songs, and some fancy guitar picking goes on as well. All good clean fun. Many evenings we go for a walk on the grounds, but this time, the weather has not been cooperative. It has been cold and rainy, most days. So we have been relegated to watching some DVD movies on our computer in the room.