Retreat, mulberries, Mars Hill, and sand dunes...

So, here's a bit of what I've been up to the last few days:

The Hermitage Retreat Centre

I took the 45 minute drive north to The Hermitage after work on Thursday. I spent Thursday evening and Friday morning walking the many trails at the retreat centre while contemplating all things spiritual. I absolutely loved the silence and privacy of walking the trails through the forest. On Friday I met with my spiritual director who lives not very far from the retreat centre.

Mulberry, mulberry, mulberry pie...

There are mulberry trees (not just bushes) on campus so I've gone out twice and picked mulberries. Just lay a sheet on the ground and shake the branches.--it doesn't take long to fill a pail that way. Carrie made some syrup with them and I baked a pie...yum!

Mars Hill

This summer Carrie and I have decided to do an ecumenical church-hop. Thus far we have visited Episcopal (Anglican in Canada), United Methodist, and Lutheran churches in the area. Last night we were trying to decide where to go to church today and we decided to go and check out Mars Hill in Grandville (Grand Rapids, MI). That's the church where Rob Bell (who wrote Velvet Elvis among other books) is the pastor. I really enjoyed the service and would love to go there more often but I think a two hour commute to church each way is a little much, plus the church is a little too big for my liking (it's located in an old shopping mall). I don't have pictures for this one but here's the website.

On our way back from Grand Rapids we decided to stop at the dunes, just to see what all the hype is about.

Warren Dunes State Park, Michigan

About an hour from Elkhart on Lake Michigan

Wow, it's hot...

Today the heat index was 100F (38C) and it crossed my mind that when I hear "It's 100 out there" I think boiling point (100C). It felt like I reached boiling point this afternoon and I was outside in that heat for a full 8 hours--even lunch was served outside today!

I'm told that this was my first true taste of an Indiana summer.

It's official...

Well, it's official...I'm in the Master of Divinity (M.Div.) program. I can now officially say that I am an M.Div. student. Prior to this I've always had to say, "I'm working towards an M.Div." or "I plan on getting an M.Div." In our first year of studies we are required to take a formation seminar and at the end of that seminar we petition to either be admitted to the M.A. or M.Div. degree programs, so until we have submitted that petition and been accepted we are just a run-of-the-mill seminary student.

And I would also like to share with you another proud and exciting moment... I just received my grade report from spring semester and I had a straight A semester despite the overload of 14.5 credit hours! Last semester I think I had one or two A-, but an A is the highest grade possible (they don't give an A+). As my friends from Corner Gas would say, "no brag, just fact." (Okay, maybe a little brag). P.S. I find they grade a lot easier here than they ever did at CMU.

30 degrees Celsius...

What an exhausting week. I would venture to guess that the temperature averaged about 30 degrees Celsius everyday this week, and the humidity out here is something else! I spent Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday on the tractor, then weeded flower beds on Wednesday and Thursday. I wouldn't say that I was working particularly hard (as in, it wasn't strenuous labour), but the heat and humidity sure takes a lot out of you. Thursday evening we had a thunderstorm so part of Friday was spent driving around and picking up fallen branches. Yesterday we had the excitement of a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado watch.

I'm told that spring was really late in coming out here and temperatures have been lower than average this spring with far fewer storms. Apparently July and August are typically very hot, dry (as in little rain). and humid. If that is the case then I'm hoping for an unusually cool summer (I never thought I would be saying that) but I guess we'll see...

Gardening update...

About a month ago I posted an entry about planting my garden and said if I failed to update you on the state of said garden you could probably assume the worst. So I figured I better post an update: the garden is alive and well! It's doing so well, in fact, that a lovely little deer decided to nibble my corn and took a chunk out of the middle of about 5 plants. The plants are recovering well, and thanks to the scarecrow that my plot neighbour erected, the deer hasn't been back (actually, I don't think it has anything to do with the scarecrow, but it's funny none the less). There were also some cucumber beetles eating the leaves of my zucchini and cucumber plants, but a little pesticide (shhhh...) has managed to discourage them from dining on my precious plants. There are also tons of ants in the garden and we've discovered that ants despise either baby powder or cinnamon (I've tried both and they both work). My parsnips never came up so a few more tomato plants have filled in the gap in that row. Other than that, everything else looks great and we've already enjoyed some of the fruits of our labour in lettuce salads. I often spend one or two evenings during the week, and then a few hours on the weekend working in my garden.

Flowers...

I was looking through my pictures to decide which ones to get printed, and noticed how many flower pictures I have. Here are a few of my recent favorites:

Moments I wished I'd had a camera...

1. The other day I was outside barbecuing ("grilling", as they say out here) and I saw a squirrel chasing a rabbit around on the lawn. The squirrel looked exactly like a cat at play, swishing it's tail back and forth, crouching in the grass before pouncing, and then jumping straight up in the air before running off. They played for quite a while before going their separate ways, although I think the squirrel was having more fun than the rabbit.

2. The squirrel mascot (we have a lot of squirrels around here). Yesterday the power went off in the apartments across from ours. They couldn't figure it out until they found the squirrel - I guess you could say he was "well done." Apparently he had stepped across the terminals and fried himself, stiff as a board. Blake, a fellow student and finder of the culprit, picked him up and stood him up outside his door. (Maybe I'm glad I didn't have my camera there for this one!)

3. Driving home from Shipshewana a few weeks ago we saw the most bizarre thing - a horse and buggy pulling a motor boat down the highway! Carrie and I laughed so hard. When I told my friends who are from this area about what we saw they agreed that it's funny and said it's actually quite common. It's even funnier, they said, when you see them backing up the whole train to put the boat in the lake! My friend also told me about how late at night she used to hear the clip-clop of the horses along with some serious bass coming from the buggies. Apparently, these Amish buggies often have generators in them to run heaters in the winter and power their lights, but late at night the young people would hook up some serious stereo systems to them and crank up the tunes.

4. Two of the summer students were assigned to help one of the maintenance guys change a toilet in an apartment. They headed across the yard in the golf cart, only to come back a couple hours later with Kalbessa perched atop his throne on the back of the golf cart! I guess you could say they got right down to business?!

...and then there are moments when you're at the right place at the right time and you manage to capture something like this:

What a week...

Well, it's been a busy week. I thought summer was supposed to be far more relaxing than studying full-time, and it has been a break but busy none-the-less. I've noticed that balancing the two jobs, summer maintenance crew and admissions administrative assistant, has felt a little incongruent, particularly in terms of task and dress. I typically work from 7:30-3:00, mowing and weed-wacking on the summer crew, go home, shower and put on office-appropriate clothing, and head to my office for an hour of meeting minutes, correspondence and data-entry. That's on a regular day. This week seemed to hold all of the exceptions.

Our regular Monday morning admissions meeting was changed to Tuesday.

Then on Wednesday the Soul and Voice class that I was a part of this past semester was in charge of chapel. The three of us and our professor met on Tuesday and shared in chapel on Wednesday so it was a bit rushed but came together amazingly. We've all had really encouraging feedback (and no, we did not sing for them).

On Wednesday evening we had one of our friends over for supper, finally, after a whole year of saying we were going to get together.

Thursday I was in a workshop all day on pastoral care of unmarried couples living together, led by one of my former CMU professors.

Thursday evening was the first of our weekly campus community potlucks for the summer. A few of us have been talking about how we should do something together this summer, such as potlucks, so I decided to do something about it instead of us just continuing to talk about how we should get together. So, I've ended up taking on that initiative. We had a good sized-group of on-campus student out on Thursday and I think we're all looking forward to getting to know the people we've been living next to all year a little better.

Friday evening I went to Goshen with three of my friends. The first Friday of every month all the shops in Goshen stay open late and there are bands playing on the street and neighbourhood games in the park. It's a really neat experience.

Saturday was a day of errands and cleaning, and I bought myself a new/used bike! It's an old 3-speed bike that's been completely refurbished and I love it. I looked at the new bikes in the shop but I decided on a used one for two reasons: (1) price and (2) Carrie's opinion was that if I bought an ugly bike it would be less likely to be stolen!

This morning Carrie and I went to Belmont Mennonite Church with one of our friends. Carrie will be doing her practicum there next year so we thought we'd go and scope it out. We've already said good-bye to the church we attended this past year and this summer the two of us have decided to church-hop ecumenically. Last week we started off our experience with a visit to a local Episcopal church which was absolutely fascinating.

So that's a brief overview of my week. Though it was a good week, I'm hoping that the weeks to come will be a little more relaxing. So far I only have one thing on my schedule for this week.