Our friends Gaylord and Kay Knepp left late this morning after being here since Sunday afternoon.
They're working with Northern Youth Programs in Ontario and are on a "PR" trip, informing various churches about the work and purpose of NYP.
I was thrilled to learn that not only are they coming to Brownsville Church, but spending an extra day with us.
Kay and I go way back, since her dad is my cousin. (A sad note: Kay's grandma, who is my Aunt Ennie (Anna), passed away the day Knepps arrived. Ennie was in her 90's and my favorite aunt on that side of the clan). Back when we first went to Canada, we lived on one side of a duplex and Gaylord and Kay lived on the other. They had one child then, (Dallas) and we had Matthew.
They now have 8 children and brought 6 of them along. I enjoyed watching theirs and ours get reacquainted, with the requisite crazy-face pictures on their digital cameras.
Yesterday Kay and I went out for the day while Gaylord babysat. We hit a few secondhand stores and went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch, where I talked about Leonard and cried, and she listened and said all the right things. Then, since she didn't know anything about all the espresso shops she kept noticing, I took her to Morning Glory in Harrisburg and introduced her to cappuccino. And then we laughed and reminisced about the time Paul and I were living in the "bush," in Canada, an ice-cream-less wilderness, and when we went out to civilization Kay was determined to treat me to ice cream and we ended up buying a little container of fancy ice cream at Safeway and eating it in the van with pens for spoons.
After we came home from town I cooked up a very simple supper and served it out of the kettles, something you do only with someone who feels like family.
Kay is way more internet-savvy than I am, so we spent a bunch of time on the computer, where she showed me that someone with a link to Amazon is offering a book of mine (autographed!) (collectible!) for $110. I am still flabbergasted.
We also talked a lot.
Good friends are a gift.
Quote of the Day:
Emily: Sorry I was late, guys. I was making up characters in the shower.
Amy: You always have the most interesting reasons for being late and everyone else has these really boring reasons like 'I didn't see what time it was.'
ANYplace without ice cream is wilderness! :)
ReplyDeleteIce cream-less? Wow. Maybe if you could have gotten a cow, you could've gotten ice cream straight from her instead of milk in the wintertime!
ReplyDeleteSorry, folks! If I can only get $110 for my autographed "Ordinary Days" I'm keeping it! Pauline
ReplyDeleteSWEET -- I know them!!! I knew there had to be connections somewhere, hmmmm, okay. It all makes sense. :-)
ReplyDeleteI go to camps and rallies with the Knepp kids. They're great fun.
hey,look who I found, it sure is a small world! A student from the old days!
ReplyDeleteRosa! I can't believe this. Drop me a line at letterfromhburg@juno.com and tell me what you've been up to!
ReplyDeleteTo the Baritone... she had her neighbour's goat she could have used.
ReplyDeletePauline--why don't you sell your autographed copy for $110 and I'll sell you another one for only $10?
ReplyDeleteGokum--choke and sputter. Better to go without ice cream than to milk that goat! You know, that little piece I wrote for the Grapevine about milking your goat was my first experience in putting a story Out There and having everyone laugh. And I thought, hey, maybe I can really do this.
Sorry, Gokum, but Dorcas is right. Goat milk is basically unpalatable, in my experience.
ReplyDeleteThe Knepps are wonderful people. We had the pleasure of having them share the work they are a part of, slideshow and all at our home here in Washington with our church family, before they continued on down to Oregon. I was aware of the ministry, but it took on a whole new meaning, seeing it up close and personal :-)
ReplyDelete- Josh C.