Yuma

We arrived at Yuma and met up with Mom and Dad on the way into our campsite.  The girls were so excited to see them, as were Doug and I.  We initially planned on staying a week, but ended up staying 11 days.  We did a number of day trips. and also spent lots of time just hanging out as a family.  We spent time at an orange orchard and picked a bunch of grapefruits and oranges.... so good!  It was lots of fun! 

We also went on a hike to Palm Canyon.  It is the home of the only Palm Trees native to Arizona.   It was  a half mile hike over some fairly rugged terrain.  I was thrilled that Mom not only attempted the hike, but successfully completed it too and fro.  Yuma weather definitely treats mom well.  Doug, Dad and Erin hiked up the canyon to the trees.  There was some climbing involved and Erin loved it!  Andrea and I stayed behind and kept mom company and took some fun pictures.   Check out flickr for the most recent pictures. 

Andrea and mom worked on a messenger bag together.  Andrea pieced the flap and with help, sewed the bag.  It turned out really well.

Castle Dome is a local landmark and part of a chain of mountains in the area.  Apparently there is a trail up the mountain that we'd love to have climbed, but were uncertain of where the trail head was.  Apparently it's a fairly rigorous hike, but I think we could have handled it.  Instead we went to the castle dome ghost town.  The area we were in was home to over 300 silver and lead mines.  The old cabins and other buildings from the area were gathered and fixed up.  It was a great way of seeing how life was 100 years ago.  We also climbed one of the foot hills and enjoyed seeing the desert from an elevation.

Saturday, we went to an airshow at the local Marine base.  The flying was cool.  Doug had never been to an airshow, so he particularly enjoyed the day. The girls also spent a bunch of time in the pool and enjoyed it.

Carlsbad and beyond

Carlsbad Caverns can be summed up in the words we heard from Andrea and Erin: "Wow, this is so cool!  This is awesome! Can we do that trail again?  I'm not done yet! "  I'd heard that the geology in the caverns was great, but I was blown away.  The size of the caverns is immense and the decorations are grand and mind boggling.  It gives just a little perspective regarding how short human life spans are relative to other natural processes.  A stalactite the size of my pinkie nail was 75years old, and there were columns many many times larger .  It's a place I'd like to go back to.  I'd actually plan ahead and reserve some of the the other ranger-guided hikes that we couldn't do in our limited time.  (once again, pictures are on flickr)

After we left Carlsbad we headed to Alamogordo, NM to White Sands National Monument.  We were surprised when we discovered that there were real mountains to cross.  At an elevation of 8600 feet we saw a few snow remnants.  The truck handled the inclines easily, which was reassuring.  We left the mountain range and camped at their feet for the night.  We spent the later half of the afternoon at White Sands National Monument where the girls enjoyed "Walrusing" down the sand dunes.

We left Alamogordo and headed towards Tucson, where we stopped at Saguaro National Monument.  We went on an eight mile bike ride, non of which was flat.  The girls enjoyed the down-hills, the up-hills weren't as popular.  The Saguaro cactus is very cool.  Unfortunately we left our camera behind, but we saw some cacti that were most likely about 150 years old.  Andrea got to experience cacti cling-ons that deeply embedded themselves in her shoes.  By the time we got back to the RV we were all very hot and very thirsty, so we headed out in search of ice cream.  (the ice cream was also used as a motivator on the half-mile, 6 degree climb at the half way point of our ride).

We spent the next night at the John Wayne Rv Park near Mariposa, Az.  Other than the sent of feedlot cattle it was a nice park.  We then made the short drive to Yuma.

Recent Treks

We knew that when we left Koinonia that we would be heading in a westerly direction, with Yuma Az being our ultimate destination for this leg of our trip.  We made the decision to head to Birmingham, Al. to visit the Civil Rights Museum.  The Civil Rights Museum documented the time line of the civil rights movement from it's beginnings to the end of the Civil Rights Movement.  In Erin and Andrea's words "it was brutal".  The Museum did a very good job of illustrating the injustices and brutality that characterizes the civil rights movement.  It was particularly moving for Erin as one of her good friends is African American.  I asked her to imagine how it would have been for her friend.  She made the astute statement that "We probably couldn't even be friends.  It's so unfair that just because of the color of her skin she'd be treated differently.  She can't control that!" It was a good learning experience. 

We spent the rest of the day taking care of routine stuff, like haircuts and a much needed chiropractic appointment for myself.  We also visited the Sloss blast furnace (see Doug's blog http://finelineroadtest.blogspot.com/) for details of that. 

We then continued West and spent the weekend at the Triple Creek RV and music camp.  We were greeted by a friendly group of musicians, who invited us to their potluck and jam session.  Doug pulled out his guitar and Erin and I did some singing.  We ended up staying for the full weekend as the next day was raining and we didn't want to traverse the three miles of very muddy road to get to the highway.  It was a fun weekend.

San Antonio was our next stop.  We met us with Erin Herschberger and she showed us the sights.  We went to The Alamo.  I was somewhat disappointed, mostly because of how many people were there.  Much of the historic mission has been lost to the city of San Antonio.  We went to some of the other historic missions in the area and really enjoyed seeing them.  Taco Haven provided us with a great meal and we really enjoyed our visit with Erin. 

(I'm having trouble adding photos for some reason.  If you want to see them check them out on flickrhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/60375761@N00/  They're all friends and family so if you want to see them and you're not one of my friends/family on flickr you'll have to send me a request to approve you)

Reflecting on Koinonia

I’ve been thinking about what I want to say about our two weeks at Koinonia Partners for a while.  It’s difficult to put into words what our/my experience was like.  On one hand it was a typical service experience.  We did some work, some exploring and got to know some great people.  On the other hand we were introduced to a way of living Christianity that I have not experienced before.  The faith of most of the people we encountered was so present, so real, that it is literally a part of every breath.  That’s not to say that they don’t get frustrated and irritated at life’s daily challenges, they do.  But in the same breath as frustration there is forgiveness, irritation is remedied with grace, anger with prayer and joy is celebrated with praise.

Koinonia is Greek for community.  Koinonia Partners was founded in 1942 by Clarence Jordan, the son of a white plantation owner, in Sumter County Georgia.  Sumter County was as segregated as any place could be in the 1940’s.   Clarence had a vision of a shared community where everyone, regardless of race, was welcome.  He invited his neighbors, poor black share-cropper families to join him at his table, to work with him (not for him) on the Koinonia farm.  For this, he and all of the Koinonia community was ostracized and persecuted by the Klu-Klux-Klan, as well as other local white businesses.   In order to help the farm survive Clarence began a mail-order business selling pecans.  His moto was “Shipping the nuts out of Georgia”.  The farm and community survived through the civil rights movement and subsequent retaliations by the local community.

In the 1970’s the Fullers joined the Koinonia community.  Linda and Millard Fuller gave away their millions and entered into the community.  Millard had a vision of showing Gods love in the building of homes.  He saw the need of his neighbors, living in shacks, for a solid decent home, and so Koinonia built the first houses of what was later to become Habitat for Humanity.   The first villages are still present and in use.  The Fullers ended up moving Habitat into Americus, Ga, but remained supporters of Koinonia.  Millard is buried on the Koinonia grounds, his hammer hanging from a tree near his gravesite. 

The 1990’s where tough for Koinonia, trying to survive without a clear vision of who they were.  They tried a number of different models of community, none of which worked well.  In 2007 Bren came in as the director and together the community has redefined their vision of who they are. "We are Christians called to live together in intentional community sharing a life of prayer, work, study, service and fellowship. We seek to embody peacemaking, sustainability, and radical sharing. While honoring people of all backgrounds and faiths, we strive to demonstrate the way of Jesus as an alternative to materialism, militarism and racism".  We were treated as family and immediately made welcome at their table.  We enjoyed a daily morning chapel during the weekdays.  Weekday lunches were eaten communally, as well as suppers on tue-thur.  At 10, 3 and 8 the bell would ring encouraging all to stop and pray for a moment, to be centered once again.  Sunday evenings saw a time of worship together.  This time included the opportunity to name those people and events that people were grateful for. 

I spent my work time in a few different projects.  The first week I spent mornings in the library.  The library had a new roof put on recently and was in disarray.  I dusted and reshelved books.  Andrea, with the help of another guest, Delinda, got the children’s books dusted and reorganized.  We also spent lots of time in the gardens, weeding and prepping beds for planting.  Doug was integral in putting up a steel building (check out his blog for the details on that).  Erin helped in the kitchen as well as the garden.  I also had the opportunity to utilize a commercial oven that baked 18 loaves of bread as well as 7 dozen rolls at one time and it was only half full!   

Leaving was bittersweet.  We are/were ready to move on to the next part of the trip, which is heading towards Arizona to see my parents.  The other part of me will really miss Koinonia and wonder whether my path will lead me back and in what manner.

Update

So it's been a little while since I've last updated here.  Let's see if I can remember what's happened.  We left the everglades and headed to Florida City for a night.  The resort had a heated pool, which the girls were thrilled to play in for the afternoon.  We caught up on laundry, restocked the fridge and planned our next steps. 

We decided to head West, across the northern boundary of Everglades National Park.  We spent a night at Collier-Seminal State Park.  The park was actually full, but we were allowed to boondock overnight.  Being without electricity reinforced the fact that we needed a generator if we were to spend more than a few hours on battery.  So the next day we headed toward Naples, purchased a generator and tried to spend the afternoon on Marcos Island.  We discovered that RV's are not allowed to park anywhere on Marcos Island, so we were ultimately denied the chance to spend the afternoon on the beach.  The girls were very disappointed.  We soothed our disappointment with doughnuts and a scathing letter to the Collier county parks department.  We moved on to Palmetto Florida.  We stayed at Fiesta Grove RV resort, where there were orange trees on every campsite.  We filled our fruit bowl... so good!  We spent the next afternoon at Anna Maria Island beach and had a great time even if it was a little cool.

The next day we headed across Florida to Titusvill on the Atlantic side.  We conspired with our friends, the Spotts, to surprise the kids with a visit.  We met at Canaveral National Seashore.   It was cold and windy, but the surprise was worth it.  We spent the day together, including a meal at the trailer. 

From Titusville we went up to St. Augustine, the only city to be continuously inhabited since 1572.  We visited the Castillo de San Marco, an old fort.  It was cool to see and hear people passionate about history tell the story of the Castillo.  It inspired Andrea to be more excited about her Kansas History assignments. 

We left St. Augustine and spent a night at Eagles Roost Rv campground.  The spanish moss on the trees was incredible! 

We are now at Koinonia Partners near Americus Georgia.  It's a cool place and worthy of a post of it's own.

The Everglades

If you have an opportunity to go to the Everglades take it!  What an amazing place!  When we drove into the park towards our campground I said to Doug "I need someone to help me interpret what I'm seeing.  It doesn't look like anything but grass."  It is grass.  Sawgrass.  Miles upon miles of sawgrass, sitting in a few inches of water as it flows from south central Florida to the Florida bay.  The area is called a river of grass because it literally is a river of grass.  The highest elevation the park is 4 feet above sea level.  The water flows so slowly that it's almost imperceptible.  This slow moving water is the home to thousand of migratory birds, alligators (lot's of alligators), crocodiles, mosquitoes (not so bad in Feb, but terrible in summer), some deer, panthers, bobcats and snakes. 

The park provides lots of ranger-lead activities that help you understand what you're seeing.  My favorite was a slough slog.  We entered into the sawgrass and stepped into a few inches of water and more inches of mud.  There is a layer of nutritive algae, called periphyton, that is on the top of the water.  The saw grass is named aptly, as it has very sharp "teeth" along the edge.  These teeth gather dew and funnel it down to the center of the plant which is how it survives the dry season when there is no water.  We worked our way into a cyprus dome.   The water is deeper here.  The cyprus loose their needles in the dry season to protect them.  As they decompose they acidify the water, which then erodes the limestone bedrock.  The deeper the water, the better the trees grow.  Very cool.

There is one area of the park that has a preponderance of  wildlife.  Here are a few pictures of my favorites

Anhinga.  Spears fish with it's beak.  AKA the snake bird because of it's long sinewy neck

  the tri-colored Heron

 The wood stork

 The little blue heron

 alligators

 silly birds

 the green heron

Also very prevalent were ibis, great blue herons, great white herons and snowy egrets as well as many that I didn't identify.

We're working our way North towards Americus Ga, where we have tentatively set up another service assignment.  Hopefully the weather on the main land will have warmed up a bit by the time we get there.

Next steps

Well, our time at Camp Ithiel is coming to an end.  It's been a great experience.  We've gotten to know some wonderful people, learned more about the Brethern church and did a bit of work.  I'd highly recommend anyone considering doing some service to consider coming here.
We're going to Universal Studios tomorrow for a day of touristing.  I'm expecting it to be good, if not somewhat painful in the budget.  We did have the opportunity to go to Animal Kingdom and Epcot for a quarter of the price because of the generosity of some of the other volunteers here.  One couple works for Disney as needed and they had three comp tickets which they gave to us.  It was a good day.
We're going to head down to the Everglades National Park on Tuesday and plan on spending three days or so there.  I've no idea if we'll have internet access there or not.  We were planning on spending some time in the Keys, but are having trouble finding affordable RV sites, so we just may do some day trips instead.  After that we'll start heading north and west.  Our next service site is yet to be determined.  We'll see what Arloa comes up with.