Well, we cooked up a lot of pancakes this evening! We had about 15 folks in our home over the evening and had a rich variety of toppings.... mmmmmm! I think I've had enough sugar to last me till Easter! We had a chicken-broccoli cream sauce, applesauce, peaches, strawberries, real maple syrup and more...

It was also Lucca's 2nd birthday. Happy Birthday, Lucca!

It was a lot of fun spending the evening with friends, even in the midst of a busy student schedule. Celebrations keep me going. I wonder who we'll spend Pancake Tuesday with next year?

Winter Fun

Yesterday was a school holiday. President's Day, I think. Faculty, staff and students were invited to bring their families to Camp Friedenswald for a Winter Fun afternoon. We went tubing and tobogganing, and Kendall and I went cross country skiing for an hour. Ah, life is good.

The snow is starting to melt, so we probably squeezed the Winter Fun day on the perfect day. :)

Janeen took these pictures of the tubing... doesn't it look fun?

A Wintery Weekend

Ah, winter has arrived in northern Indiana. I am so happy about that!

Saturday night we were invited to go skating with some friends in South Bend at an outdoor rink in Howard Park. I haven't been skating for two years, since I left Toronto. It was fun. The snow really started to come down while we were skating. Big fluffy flakes. At one point, they emptied the rink and put on the zamboni to clear the ice. The zamboni went down the middle of the rink and once around the ice, and had to leave because it was already full. Once again, down around and through - and the zamboni was full. After a little while of this it was impossible to even locate the first ring around the ice - so much new snow had fallen. Thankfully, they let us back on the ice and we skated through about 4-5 inches of the fluffy stuff. We had a great time, and it was a beautiful night out.

Sunday after church, Kendall and I went for a tromp in the woods at Ox Bow Conservation Area (between Elkhart and Goshen). Here are some of our photos.

New Year's Letter

2006 with kendall and charleen

Well, we’ve decided to try this New Year’s Letter thing. Keeping in touch is a good idea. J We love all of you and would love to hear from you. Here’s our news:

Highlights of ’06

As most of you probably know, we’re both in seminary right now at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart Indiana. We’re doing our M.Div. degrees in hopes of pastoring in a church together. We miss being in Ontario, close to family and friends. We miss being in Toronto, with the community of people we had surrounding us there. But – life takes us in new directions, and it seems that there are a lot of interesting turns yet to come.

In January we spent 2 weeks exploring urban ministry in Chicago through a seminary consortium program: SCUPE. We stayed with a good friend in the city and traveled the city by transit, discovering some inspiring ministries within difficult situations. Ask us for stories about B. Herbert Martin, Bethel New Life Centre and Father Pflager at St. Sabina’s Catholic Church…

Kendall completed his internship at Sunnyside Mennonite Church in Elkhart, with Pastor Terry Zehr, in the spring semester. We both had a full course load, and did well in our studies. We each grew in our sense of ‘rightness’ about entering into ministry, and started discussing pastoring together in the future. Our plans had been less clear when we entered seminary. We feel richly blessed to be here, and are growing in relationship with God and with each other.

This summer we had a wonderful opportunity to pastor together in a really cool small country church in Harrow, Ontario. The picture above is us sharing the pulpit at Harrow Mennonite Church. Greg Yantzi, the pastor, was on sabbatical. We preached, led worship and music, and visited pretty much everyone. We loved the experience and the people. Our accommodations were also stellar – a golf course on the beach, anyone? We had plenty of visitors, and went to Toronto twice to see family and friends. Ah, God is good. The summer went by so quickly, but won’t be quickly forgotten.

This fall it’s been another whirlwind of studies, both of us taking heavy course loads. Charleen started her internship at Kern Road Mennonite Church, under Janice Yordy Sutter. We’re in our ‘senior’ year and starting the process of applying for churches. We’ll be ready to start already next fall! Sounds crazy, no? But it’s true… watch out, world! Ready or not, here we come….

What’s the best part of seminary life? Greek and Hebrew. Well, maybe not the very best thing, but we have both enjoyed learning the biblical languages and putting them to use in our biblical study and preaching. Kendall loves Ultimate Frisbee. We have a lovely games-playing community here (Settlers of Catan, especially) and good friendships developing. Living in proximity with like-minded passionate people is always a good thing. It’s good to be here. We are enjoying community events and the positive spirit at the school. We also have some wonderful professors to inspire us.

Another big event in the year was Charleen’s parents’ 35th anniversary celebration. As a special bonus, Charleen’s niece Madeline traveled down from Colorado with her Grandma and Grandpa, and camped at the Pinery with us before the big event. We were excited about that, and so was she. The rest of the family (Phil and Kim, Annika and Elise) came down from Colorado with their daughters. In lieu of gifts, donations were encouraged for Christian Reformed World Missions- Haiti. Approximately $1000 was raised. The catering was also a fundraising affair, raising another $1000 for Worldwide Christian Schools. What a cool thing. We are proud of Mom and Dad Jongejan and hope for many happy years of marriage for them.

We are so grateful for the way God continues to walk with us. We feel richly blessed in so many ways. We’d LOVE to hear from you. Do check our blog often - and leave comments. :)

We wish you joy in the Christmas season of ’06 and peace throughout 2007.

Affectionately,

Charleen and Kendall

First Advent celebrations

It was a lovely Sabbathed day of celebration for Kendall and I. We had a choir (Bethany Christian High) in for the morning service, and that's always fun. Kendall also led the congregational singing, which he enjoys.

Then this afternoon we rolled and baked peppernuts with our friends, each with our own styles. It's fun to see them all make one huge pile at the end. I'd love to see this become an annual tradition for us - getting together with friends to make peppernuts, in time for Saint Nick.




We stopped in quickly at our friend Samantha's birthday party - they were making Danish paper stars - but we had to go before we learned how to make them ourselves. :(

We were heading out to Kern Road Mennonite Church for the annual 'Hanging of the Greens' service. They have a chili supper, then we made Christmas ornaments, and there was a service surrounding the decoration of the sanctuary with caroling. What fun.

So it's been a day of celebration. It's so important, I think, to find time to joyfully mark the different moments of our lives and the seasons of the year. Celebration is foundational to our ability to make sense of living, and to be rooted in joy and love. Celebration also helps us carve out space for wonder, and even, perhaps, room in our imagination for God.

My friend Mary Ruth Kamp is the Acting Director of Wilderness Wind camp in Ely, MN. In the newsletter this fall she wrote about celebration, saying, "In choosing celebration we do not push away the hard times and the pain that we experience; rather in choosing to celebrate more of life, we are drawn into a more palpable awareness and experience of God's compassionate presence." This same friend quoted a children's book by Byrd Taylor recently, titled I'm in Charge of Celebrations: "Last year I gave myself one hundred and eight celebrations - besides the ones they close school for". How delightful.

Why not celebrate? Happy first Advent, all of you.

Peppernuts / Pepernoten

Depending on your tradition, you may know these tasty little treats as Peppernutes (English, Russian Mennonite) or Pepernoten (Dutch). It's fun to discover a shared Christmas tradition between our two ethnic traditions. Of course, many the Russian Mennonites were Dutch a while back, so this 'shared' tradition has a common heritage. Whatever the history, they are delicious.

Tonight we invited some friends over to participate in the first step of the peppernut making process, according to Kendall's recipe. We mixed the dough. Now it's cooling and waiting to dry. Here's Rachel and myself enjoying the first step of the batter-making. LOOK at all that sugar and butter!





And here's the a lovely sculpted dough that Sandra made. It seems a shame that we'll have to deconstruct that lovely face to make cookies. But the cookies will be tasty...

We're letting them cool all day Saturday while we write papers and stuff like that, and then Sunday they'll be ready to roll, shape and bake.

We hope to have the pepernoten / peppernuts ready in time to celebrate St. Nicolas day this week, on the eve of December 6. They may be accompanied by some boterkoek (Dutch butter-cake), some chocolate coins, and some really fine poetic verses penned by St. Nick himself. :)