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PAGES 08/07
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Service Locations 2007
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The Fall 2007 "Aging With Spirit" Retreat, Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center in western PA, was the place my husband Dwight and I decided we wanted to go in celebration of our 45th wedding anniversary this year. What a good decision!
What I learned at "Sailing With Spirit":
- "Seniors" are fun and interesting people to be with. And I like being one of them!
- Ralph Alderfer can make a group of old folks sound just as good as any high school choir!
- Since you can't have all the adventures you'd love to have in one lifetime, it's important to hang around with people who can share their adventures with you in a way that makes you feel like you've been there and done that too.
- Linford and Janet Stutzman took me along in their little sailboat "Sailing Acts" as we relived the journeys of Paul. I felt the stress and anxiety of the planning. I experienced the ups and downs of the good and the bad days, the terror and adrenaline and a queasy stomach in the storms, peace and awe on the calm open seas, the thrill of finding some of the (now) remote places where we know Paul had been. It was an unforgettable trip we took together.
- I'll probably never make my own boat. But I left Lynn Miller's "Build Your Own Boat" workshop, fully believing that I could do that if I wanted to! What fun! The possibilities are endless.
- During mealtime conversation, I learned from some adventurous seniors about a way to see the world which I had never heard of before. I need to check out the Web site they told me about — http://www.freightercruises.com/
- SOOP is a good program that I hope to participate in some day! Testimonies from former SOOPers were convincing.
- MARP Retreat is a great place to meet kindred spirits from all over the US and Canada — even old high school classmates I hadn't seen for 50 years.
- It was nice to witness the smooth transition as MARP leadership was passed from Helen Lapp's to Jay Roth's hands, along with a symbolic gift from Helen to Jay.
- MARP is an interesting and "interested-in-learning-more" group. If you want to get a good seat for a MARP Retreat presentation, you have to get to the meeting room early. Just being "on time" limits your seating choices to the back rows.
- It's impossible to refrain from saying "weekend" at a retired persons' Sunday through Tuesday event.
- Popcorn tastes lots better when it's popped by moonlight in a huge cast iron kettle hanging over a crackling fire pit in the woods!
- Slowly and silently walking the Prayer Labyrinth on the top of Sunset Hill is a wonderful way to converse with God.
- Laurelville, with its woodsy, mountainy, close-to-nature feel, is a good place to be refreshed.
- I think I'll suggest to Dwight that we make the annual MARP Retreat at Laurelville our traditional weekday Anniversary Weekend celebration.
— Edna Hershberger
Jay L. Roth, Mennonite Association for Retired Persons
23 Homestead Drive, Lancaster, PA 17602
717-201-8391 ~ E-mail
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