Goodbye Newton

Where has the time gone???

As I write this, we are in Marble Falls, enjoying the company of folks we have enjoyed working with over our MDS experience – Jake and Verna, Bert and Doreen, Art and Judy, and we had previously met Keith and Carole Workman as well. John spent one day assisting them with painting and thoroughly enjoying the comraderie.

Len and Nettie decided to take the trek with us – John and Len brought our truck and fifth wheel and Nettie drove their Jeep. They have also worked with these people before so hated to leave. They have 3 more weeks at Newton.

John and Len started installing the gyproc on Monday after lunch on the 24th and they finished on the 28th. It is a four bedroom 1230 square foot house. As quickly as they got one room done, Nettie and I were behind taping. Nettie did the closets while I did the rooms. It IS just about as much work to do a closet because it has all the same angles and flats as a big room.

Thursday, November 27th was Thanksgiving in the U.S.A. and we were surprised to learn it is second only to Christmas as an “occasion” here. Our entire crew of 7 had the pleasure of being invited to Walt and Pat’s friends’ home to share in their family Thanksgiving. They have a very typical Texas ranch-style home on rolling acres with a pond and everything was in the grand (but down-to-earth) style which one would expect in Texas, including the hospitality of Debbie and Nate and their family. Their Thanksgiving meal was at noon and the four “mudders” went back to work for a couple of hours afterwards.

After the super-festivities of Thanksgiving came Black Friday, the shopping extravaganza of the year. Total insanity. There were even a couple of deaths in the U.S.A. due to people being run down in a shopping frenzy when the doors opened!!??!!

Len and John decided to work on Friday to get things a little further for Len to finish. John put second coat on the ceilings on his stilts while Len put second coat on some of the wall flats. We women taped the bathroom, which had been the last room completed.

I walked over to my friend, Patty’s house (the cat lady) to say my goodbyes, but was sad to find she was not home. I am sure we will keep in touch via internet. That’s one of the blessings of this experience – to meet special people.

So, our time at Newton is over. It was great to see Pat and Walt again, and to meet his brother and his wife. We sure hope we have the privilege of meeting Alec and Laura Dutt again somewhere along life’s highway.

Newton is a very pretty area of Texas, but there is so much crime and poverty. Despite this, the “city” was having their annual Christmas Parade and light up display in their park the evening of the day we left. I really hated to miss it and am sure it must have been a real site to behold!

One “downer” of our last week was to learn that our dear friends, Paul and Mary, from Pennsylvania, whom we were greatly looking forward to working beside in Marble Falls in January and February, had received and accepted an offer from the MDS co-ordinator to go to Deweyville for a build there, rather than coming to Marble Falls. We had received the same offer, but declined. We also had arrangements made to spend the weekend of February 13th at a time share at New Braunfels near the Alama, taking Paul and Mary with us. This was thanks to Peggy and Steve in Sandpoint. The loss of Paul and Mary being a part of our working assignment in January and February was a great disappointment. Comes under the heading of “flexibility’ with MDS, I guess…

So – in a matter of hours we will be heading off to Austin to fly home for the month of December. I can hardly wait to see the kids and my mutts.

Guess I have to start working on my Christmas letter soon…

Over halfway in our time here at Newton

Weekend of November 21 – I am sorry I haven’t been paying attention to our blog as I intended to – this is really late (finished on December 1st)

Len and Nettie invited us to go on a “southern tour” with them on Friday. We left at 8:00 a.m. Beaumont was our first stop, then we headed for Port Arthur. We could see hurricane damage all along the highway – blue tarps on a lot of roofs, uprooted trees and damaged signs. Although we had been through Johnson Bayou on our trip down here, they wished to see the damage Ike did for themselves, so we headed for Johnson Bayou. Along the Gulf Beach Highway where there used to be beautiful “dream homes’, there were damaged homes and some that were completely gone.

We reached Johnson Bayou and were pleased to find owner Tim Trahan working at the RV Park where we stayed in January and February this year. We had become good friends in the two months we had been there and he was delighted to see us. We heard more stories about the hurricanes, and again we heard “We just didn’t think it was going to be that bad!” Several of his family lost their homes altogether, and his brand new home in Bridge City had 4 feet of water in it. He’s just trying to carry on as if he’s in his right mind… What else can you do?

We then drove up to Sulphur and had lunch and headed home through Merryville. It was a nice way to spend the day.

Saturday, my new friend, Patty (aka cat lady) was having a garage sale and I had seen a “wine table” she was going to sell so I wanted to get there before someone else bought it. It’s a beauty and is just what we needed for the RV! I stayed and visited a while and then went back later to see how it was going. It wasn’t, so I helped pack up her stuff.

Sunday morning we all decided to go to the church of Sandron, the lady who had sung on Thursday night at the Bible Encampment. She was awesome. Her congregation was awesome. There were several from the regular MDS unit who attended as well, about 18 of us in total, and we just about equaled the rest of the people there. Their church service was not “over and above” what we expected, but it was 2 hours and as John said, the preacher did not disappoint his expectation of a traditional Black service. Sandron was SO excited that we all came, and she said the Lord had told her when she got up, “The Mennonites are coming”, so she and her mother got a feast ready for lunch for all of us after church. What a lady! We had a great day.