Thank you for your prayers! So far, so good. Tomorrow we drive to Newberg. Today was A LOT of fun. We took a tour (led by yours truly) of George Fox Evangelical Seminary, visited the Tulip Festival outside of Woodburn (which everyone loved- especially the cutouts you could stick your face into and the large wooden shoes), and then we went to Silver Creek Falls to hike the five mile loop. John was absolutely hillarious as he mimicked the sounds of foxes and birds. He also hid and jumped out at Harriet twice. The second time doubled me over in laughter. If the ferns in his hat wasn’t funny enough, his poses for pictures certainly were! It was really nice not to have the camera most of the time. As Harriet loved taking pictures with it, she kept it and used it so between her and Angelina, I was free to simply enjoy the view. Emma enjoyed seeing the waterfalls and we had a great picnic lunch. Dinner for most of us was with Marge Abbot back in Portland. Harriet was particularly amused by the Irish pub in America that advertised English beer.
So Far, So Good!
For myself, I am happy to have two more days with the four of them after having some time at home to rest and dance. It’s also been good to talk with them about some of the intense talks we had and I am feeling quite a bit better about things.
So now I am absolutely exhausted and am going to curl up with a book before heading to bed. I don’t think that book is going to last long though, I am really tired. Tomorrow we are touring George Fox University, having lunch with some Friends, seeing Newberg Friends Church, President Hoover’s house, and then the Portland gathering of Friends. As someone who loves to break through walls, it delights me to no end that because of the board, there will be a gathering of Friends tomorrow from both area Yearly Meetings. These are the kinds of things we should be doing. Yes, we are from different structures, but we are all Friends so why do we let names divide us? Think of all the things we could do and be if we stood together. Yeah, that picture excites me too.
365-09 #114
Glad all is going well Sarah. One of the main reasons I’m involved in QUIP is the way it brings Friends from different traditions together. At the moment I’m feeling called to find a way to do more work persuading UK Qs of the benefits of this as we need more of a balance between different sides of the pond as well as internationally. Thanks for reminding of all the good work (and play) the youth book and the editorial board is already doing.
The Irish Pub anecdote reminded me that my daughter was in France during the US elections. They went to an Irish Pub in Strasbourg to watch the results on the telly and the chalk sign out front spelled Obama…O’bama. Too cute.