On Our Way At Last!

Friday, August, 29, 2009, our departure day has finally arrived. The car is packed to the gills; the house is cleaned out; and our goodbyes are said. I (Mark)am suprised by the tears, both mine and others. I feel genuinely sad that we will not see Hickory or our friends for almost a year, but I also feel very excited to be entering a whole new chapter in our lives. Both Thea and I are looking forward to living a simpler, more service-oriented life for the next 10 months. At our last mass at St. Al's, Deacon Hugo summed up his hopes and ours for our trip: he prayed that our experience would deepen our spirituality and our relationship with God, that we would take time to have fun, and that we would return safely. Amen to all of that!

Saying our goodbyes

This weekend was not planned to be a farewell weekend, but it ended up that way. Friday night we hosted dinner for the Cranes and Martinos, 2 couples that we have shared wonderful meals with over the past 5 or 6 years. They gave us a candle holder that showed 6 people arm in arm, and we will have to add that to our list of things to pack.
Saturday Andrea, our oldest daughter who lives with husband Jack in Athens, Ga., and is expecting their first child Nov. 1, came to town for a baby shower. We will probably not be present for the birth of this baby like we were for the birth of our first grandchild, nor will we be seeing her as she gets to the end of her pregnancy. So there were lots of admonitions to call us regularly and assurances we would come down and stay after the baby is born.
Mark has played keyboard for at least 14 years in the contemporary choir on Saturday night at our parish church, St. Aloysius Catholic Church. Saturday night was his final appearance for a while. Our pastor,Fr. Bob, decided he wanted to have the community send us off with a blessing for our work and our safety while we were away. At the end of the service he called us forward and gave us a blessing, as well as presented us with a Jerusalem cross. Then the congregation save us a standing ovation. We both had tears in our eyes when we returned to our seats. It is a good thing Mark plays by ear because he wouldn't have been able to read the music for the final hymn after that. We both felt very humbled by the love and encouragement we felt from the community. Afterwards there was a choir potluck with lots of funny stories about Mark and near disasters that had occurred in various services, and a DVD of pictures from the past.
Finally, our second daughter, Angela and her husband Allen and son Cade, 2 yrs old, came over Saturday and Sunday. Allen helped Mark move our furniture to a small storage unit. We played with Cade at the pool and in the house. We will be seeing them at the end of October at the wedding of Thea's nephew in Atlanta, but the visit will be brief since the main event is the wedding. We gave them all a big hug and kiss, knowing how much Cade will change in the next few months.

The Things We Carry

Some of our friends wanted to know why we had to go to Philadelphia to do volunteer work. After all, with 15% unemployment in our county, there are many needy people right here. That is true. However, we wanted to do more than just go to our local soup kitchen or food pantry a few days a week and then return to our large house with air conditioning. We hope to live a simpler lifestyle, one that helps us identify a little more with the people we will welcome at the Inn. We are budgeting $250 per month for food,gas,personal items and any entertainment costs for the two of us.
We have housing next door to the Inn and there are linens, kitchen equipment and furniture included. We can get canned food and drygoods(rice,pasta) as well. When we were at the apartment in October, there was not a working TV or internet service. So we tried to plan what we would want to have with us to occupy us when we are not workings, as well as appropriate clothes for working in a soup kitchen and periodically going out into the countryside and doing a little birdwatching. We can't go back to Hickory and get something we forgot.
*Mark's electric keyboard-he can't go 10 months without playing music
*Laptop with wireless connection (we will find a place with WI-FI)
*Printer
*Camera
*Radio/CD player
*Shoebox of CD's
*Shoebox of office supplies (pens, paper, tape, ruler,etc)
*Toolbox
*Sewing kit
*Small box of paperback books and DVD's
*MP3 player
*GPS
*Cell phones
*Binoculars, 3 field guides to birds
*Spotting scope and tripod
*Shoebox of over the counter medicine like aspirin, cold meds,bandaids,etc
*Bible
*2 writing journals
*Cards and 2 games
*Umbrella
*Bathroom scale
*Blow dryer
*Pie pan,rolling pin
*Notebook with personal recipes
*1 cookbook
*jar for mixing salad dressing
*6 coffee mugs
*Knitting needles and yarn
*2 pairs jeans
*1 pair khakis
*6 tshirts
*3 collared shirts
*sweatshirt
*heavy coat, gloves, wool cap
*pajamas
*2 pairs shorts
*2 pairs running shorts
*tennis shoes
*dress shoes
*flip flops
*1 shoebox of toiletry articles
*File box with important papers
*Small box with assorted cards and stationery

Deciding what to keep/sell/give away

About a year ago we heard a piece on NPR about Dave Bruno, who had devised a 100 Thing Challenge. On his blog (http://www.guynameddave.com/100-thing-challenge.html) he shared his plan to simplify his life and reduce his personal possessions to 100 things. I was inspired by his idea and last summer I did the first sweep of our possessions and had a major yard sale. Anything that didn't sell went to a local charity's thrift store and books went to the library for the Hickory Friends of the Library book sale.
Since someone is going to live in our house for the 10 months we are away, and she has bedroom furniture and kitchen items, we need to totally clear out our bedroom, both bathrooms and our kitchen. I saw this as a great opportunity to eliminate items. Some were clearly destined for the trash or recycling center. I cleared out boxes and boxes of school-related items: files of tests, lecture notes, notebooks from classes I had taken, etc. They were all carted to the mixed paper recycling container. It seemed like every time I had things to dispose of, I found a taker. The Habitat Home Store came and took away a large saltwater aquarium and stand. The Friends of the Library inherited Mark's mug collection to be used for their book and mug fundraiser, as well as books and CD's. The Humane Society could use old towels and blankets for their dogs and cats at the no-kill shelter. The Rape Crisis Center was collecting sweat shirts, sweat pants and pajama bottoms. Extra kitchen utensils went to the Family Care Center Thrift Store.
We are not close to 100 items, but we are counting everything in the house, and would be happy with 1000 things!

How did we get to this point?

A lot of people ask us why we are spending the first 10 months of our retirement working in a soup kitchen in Philadelphia, and how we selected the St. Francis Inn. The answer to the first question is easy. We believe as Catholic Christians that God loves the poor, and asks us to take care of the poor. This task translates to different things for different people. For a number of years we have been talking about taking a year to serve the needy somewhere in the U.S. Family considerations caused us to limit our search to the eastern United States.

We began researching places to work about 2 years ago. At first we just stuck ideas into a file. However, last summer we go serious. I used the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service website

(http://www.cnvs.org/volunteerprograms/workshops.php) to search for organizations that would take married couples over the age of 55 that had housing and that were located east of the Mississippi. We came up with a list of 28 organizations. I made a spreadsheet with all the information I could get about the group, the jobs for volunteers, the locations, the dates to apply, etc. Both of us got a copy, and then we spent a week thinking about the groups and praying that God would show us the places He would want us to go to. We ranked our choices 1-5, then got back together. We were sort of surprised (but not shocked) to see that we had chosen 4 of the same organizations. That's what happens when you've been married 34 years! So then we started to contact the groups. One of the groups was going to stop placements in a year, another only had housing for couples in California and another didn't want to hear from us until January. So we narrowed it down to two groups and visited them both in October and November,2008. Both were great organizations and both had a lot of positives and some negatives. However, we really were attracted to the community at the St. Francis Inn, their mission to serve the poor with dignity, the Franciscan charism of hospitality, and the opportunity to be challenged in our thinking about the poor and homeless. We see these next 10 months as a life-changing experience, mentally and spiritually.

Who are We?

(The contents of this blog are solely my opinions and views and do not necessarily represent the views of the Team and/or volunteers at the St. Francis Inn, Philadelphia)

First of all, let us tell you who we are. Mark,61, is a retired Science Center Director and Thea, 57, is a retired high school science teacher. We just retired this summer. We have been married 35 years, have two married daughters and one grandson. We have lived and worked in Hickory, NC for the past 21 years.

On August 28, we are leaving our home for 10 months and will serve at the St. Francis Inn,(http://www.stfrancisinn.org/) a soup kitchen in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. We will bring what we can fit in our Kia sedan, and leave our house and dog behind. We have sold one of our cars and given away/thrown out lots of our possessions. We have never lived in a big city before, or lived this far "north." We are going to serve the poor and live and work with people we don't know. We feel open, nervous and excited.