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SOUTHBOROUGH L’ABRI PRAYER/NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2010
This will be a little different from our usual letters. In the January newsletter, I wrote about the new year just begun, “We are future-blind about almost everything that will happen in the world in 2010. As we say in our church, ‘Tomorrow is not guaranteed’. The next year will be a mixture for us of order and disorder, predictable experiences and accidents, events wanted and unwanted.” This has in fact turned out to be true already in ways that I did not see then. We have made choices that we had not even thought about in early January and also been affected by circumstances that we did not choose. Although the world remains unpredictable from our perspective, both of these kinds of events are part of God’s story.
Early in January we had a discussion among us about living areas. Mardi and I had the largest living space of all, but there were only two of us. Ben and Nickaela were cramped with their expanding family and it seemed that they should either move to our place at 43 Lovers Lane or that the Morrells should, which would enable Ben and Nickaela to move over to the Morrell’s side of the big house, which has more space. Mardi and I have for years thought that “sometime” we would try to get a house near L’Abri in Southborough, to commute in to L’Abri. This would allow younger workers to live at 43 Lovers Lane and also enable us eventually, gradually, to retire without taking up valuable L’Abri housing while doing it. In this conversation, it dawned on us that maybe that “sometime” was now.
So, the short version of the story is that we spent a great deal of time and energy looking at houses in ten nearby towns and finally settled on one which we both liked and could afford in Hopkinton, the next town over. Mardi and I are not retiring but are living “off campus” and commuting in (note address change below). We are trying to figure out some space to “hang out” in while we are “on campus” without taking up needed bedroom space in either house. (We are praying about building a little cabin in the field).
The Morrells have been holding the fort in the big house. We all felt that their gifts were best suited to that major hospitality and organization responsibility which they have done so well. They are the only ones staying where they are while the rest of us have been playing musical chairs around them. Mardi and I have moved to Hopkinton. Ben and Nickaela have moved in to the 43 Lovers Lane house.
We have also taken on two new workers, Mary Frances Giles and Rebecca Klinck, who just moved in to the upstairs apartment in the big house vacated by Ben and Nickaela. They have both spent time in the European branches of L’Abri, have been helpers with us during this past winter term and will be a wonderful addition to the work. It seems that these changes have “snow-balled” on us without us seeing them all coming, though we have seen the hand of God leading as it has unfolded.
I have to admit though, that things did not go quite as smoothly as the story that I have just told. Joe Morrell and I went to the annual L’Abri members’ meeting, this year held at the Swiss L’Abri in mid-April. While we were there, the volcano in Iceland blew, shutting down all relevant airports and cutting off our means of getting home. This was a new, strange and disconcerting experience for both of us, especially since no prediction was given about how long this shut-down would last – a few days? a week? a month? more? For me, the issue was not only getting stranded in Europe, but that I would miss the closing date for the purchase of our house and the monumental task of moving out of 43 Lovers Lane after having lived there for 25 years. All this was scheduled for 3 days after my booked return flight and it would mean leaving it all for Mardi to do. You can imagine the anxiety, the speculation, the rumors about the ash cloud, the sketchy plans for astronomically expensive tickets home – “Is Madrid open?” “No, what about Lisbon? But how to get there given the railway strike in France?”, “Maybe Athens via Rome?...etc.” Having said this, it was not lost on us that there are few places on earth more beautiful to be stranded than L’Abri in Switzerland, or where one could have more helpful friends and colleagues to provide travel-advice and hospitality.
We finally got home 5 days behind schedule. Mardi had been able to close on the house and organize the move with lots of help from our family, the Morrell family and compassionate friends. Doing musical chairs of house-moving has taken up most of the time for all of us since then.
I have not said anything yet about our winter term. Usually the winter term is as crowded as the others and we have to squeeze students in, so this year it was surprising to us that very few students booked-in to come. Those who did come were wonderful and had fruitful times with us, so for that we were very thankful. We are grateful also for our two helpers, Mary Frances and Rebecca, who made a great contribution to the hospitality of the house. We had a group of students from Middlebury College come on their winter break, but apart from that, our numbers remained low. Because this has been such an anomaly, we are not sure how to understand it.
We are thankful for what looks like a good student group signed up to come this spring and summer. Pray for God’s work in each one. Pray for the unity of the group and the reality of community to be very present.
Please pray for us especially in the reshaping of each workers’ contribution to the branch and for Mary Frances and Rebecca getting established in their new home.
Pray for our finances, which have been very low. First, thank God for some “eleventh hour” answers to our prayers in this area this winter.
Pray for general running expenses as well as affording to repair extensive roof leaks on the big house, a major repair on pipes in the basement, as well as our idea to build a “little cabin in the field”.
Pray for our US L’Abri conference this year. It will be in Sacramento, California on August 5-8. Check our website for details – and join us.
We are thankful to be part of God’s larger plan -- too large for us to see anything but bits and pieces of it, but which we know will bear fruit that matters.
Dick Keyes
Note: Dick and Mardi Keyes now live at 6 Penny Meadow Lane, Hopkinton, MA 01748, Tel. (508) 435-0202.
SOUTHBOROUGH L’ABRI PRAYER/NEWSLETTER SUMMER 2010
This will be a little different from our usual letters. In the January newsletter, I wrote about the new year just begun, “We are future-blind about almost everything that will happen in the world in 2010. As we say in our church, ‘Tomorrow is not guaranteed’. The next year will be a mixture for us of order and disorder, predictable experiences and accidents, events wanted and unwanted.” This has in fact turned out to be true already in ways that I did not see then. We have made choices that we had not even thought about in early January and also been affected by circumstances that we did not choose. Although the world remains unpredictable from our perspective, both of these kinds of events are part of God’s story.
Early in January we had a discussion among us about living areas. Mardi and I had the largest living space of all, but there were only two of us. Ben and Nickaela were cramped with their expanding family and it seemed that they should either move to our place at 43 Lovers Lane or that the Morrells should, which would enable Ben and Nickaela to move over to the Morrell’s side of the big house, which has more space. Mardi and I have for years thought that “sometime” we would try to get a house near L’Abri in Southborough, to commute in to L’Abri. This would allow younger workers to live at 43 Lovers Lane and also enable us eventually, gradually, to retire without taking up valuable L’Abri housing while doing it. In this conversation, it dawned on us that maybe that “sometime” was now.
So, the short version of the story is that we spent a great deal of time and energy looking at houses in ten nearby towns and finally settled on one which we both liked and could afford in Hopkinton, the next town over. Mardi and I are not retiring but are living “off campus” and commuting in (note address change below). We are trying to figure out some space to “hang out” in while we are “on campus” without taking up needed bedroom space in either house. (We are praying about building a little cabin in the field).
The Morrells have been holding the fort in the big house. We all felt that their gifts were best suited to that major hospitality and organization responsibility which they have done so well. They are the only ones staying where they are while the rest of us have been playing musical chairs around them. Mardi and I have moved to Hopkinton. Ben and Nickaela have moved in to the 43 Lovers Lane house.
We have also taken on two new workers, Mary Frances Giles and Rebecca Klinck, who just moved in to the upstairs apartment in the big house vacated by Ben and Nickaela. They have both spent time in the European branches of L’Abri, have been helpers with us during this past winter term and will be a wonderful addition to the work. It seems that these changes have “snow-balled” on us without us seeing them all coming, though we have seen the hand of God leading as it has unfolded.
I have to admit though, that things did not go quite as smoothly as the story that I have just told. Joe Morrell and I went to the annual L’Abri members’ meeting, this year held at the Swiss L’Abri in mid-April. While we were there, the volcano in Iceland blew, shutting down all relevant airports and cutting off our means of getting home. This was a new, strange and disconcerting experience for both of us, especially since no prediction was given about how long this shut-down would last – a few days? a week? a month? more? For me, the issue was not only getting stranded in Europe, but that I would miss the closing date for the purchase of our house and the monumental task of moving out of 43 Lovers Lane after having lived there for 25 years. All this was scheduled for 3 days after my booked return flight and it would mean leaving it all for Mardi to do. You can imagine the anxiety, the speculation, the rumors about the ash cloud, the sketchy plans for astronomically expensive tickets home – “Is Madrid open?” “No, what about Lisbon? But how to get there given the railway strike in France?”, “Maybe Athens via Rome?...etc.” Having said this, it was not lost on us that there are few places on earth more beautiful to be stranded than L’Abri in Switzerland, or where one could have more helpful friends and colleagues to provide travel-advice and hospitality.
We finally got home 5 days behind schedule. Mardi had been able to close on the house and organize the move with lots of help from our family, the Morrell family and compassionate friends. Doing musical chairs of house-moving has taken up most of the time for all of us since then.
I have not said anything yet about our winter term. Usually the winter term is as crowded as the others and we have to squeeze students in, so this year it was surprising to us that very few students booked-in to come. Those who did come were wonderful and had fruitful times with us, so for that we were very thankful. We are grateful also for our two helpers, Mary Frances and Rebecca, who made a great contribution to the hospitality of the house. We had a group of students from Middlebury College come on their winter break, but apart from that, our numbers remained low. Because this has been such an anomaly, we are not sure how to understand it.
We are thankful for what looks like a good student group signed up to come this spring and summer. Pray for God’s work in each one. Pray for the unity of the group and the reality of community to be very present.
Please pray for us especially in the reshaping of each workers’ contribution to the branch and for Mary Frances and Rebecca getting established in their new home.
Pray for our finances, which have been very low. First, thank God for some “eleventh hour” answers to our prayers in this area this winter.
Pray for general running expenses as well as affording to repair extensive roof leaks on the big house, a major repair on pipes in the basement, as well as our idea to build a “little cabin in the field”.
Pray for our US L’Abri conference this year. It will be in Sacramento, California on August 5-8. Check our website for details – and join us.
We are thankful to be part of God’s larger plan -- too large for us to see anything but bits and pieces of it, but which we know will bear fruit that matters.
Dick Keyes
Note: Dick and Mardi Keyes now live at 6 Penny Meadow Lane, Hopkinton, MA 01748, Tel. (508) 435-0202.
