Jill Buschert Lehman, Joyce’s daughter and my daughter-in-law
Some one asked if Joyce and I are still friends because I hadn’t mentioned her lately. Yes, Joyce and I are still friends, but she has been very busy lately, so while we talked regularly the conversations were brief.
When I moved to Evergreen I chose Apt 83 because our homes were an easy walking distance apart. But as I age so does she, and she found that the large apartment chosen by her and her husband had become beyond her needs: too large, too lonely and too insecure.
She began to look for an alternative and found it at manor IV – if she were willing to wait six months for it. This set downsizing in motion. First, she sorted boxes of letters and cards that had accumulated over the years. She sent them to family members as gifts.
Joyce’s younger sister and husband
Then there was the long process of sorting through her possessions and deciding whether to trash, recycle, store for her daughters, or treasure them as keepsakes. When the moving day drew near her younger sister came to help her make the transition. I was kept informed of developments, and soon discovered that my help in the total process was not needed.
There Joyce goes on my scooter
Since her move to Manor IV Joyce is much closer to Greencroft’s Community Center and Martins Market and is surrounded by many friends. By my scooter we are only five minutes apart. I will tell you of last Wednesday: That noon we went to College Mennonite Church for the Men’s Fellowship to hear the first of two lectures by former AMBS faculty member, Jacob Elias, on the second coming of Jesus. Elias explained that an editor had inserted the “second” in the title. What he really wanted to do was talk about the coming of Jesus from the perspective of I Thessalonians. Joyce had heard many sermons in her youth about the “second” coming so she was interested in what a scholar had to say on the subject in 2017. She was not disappointed.
That Wednesday evening we went with Don Blosser and his wife to the First Presbyterian Church to attendd the first public session of Michiana Voices for Middle East Peace an interfaith coalition concerned to bring justice and peace between Palestinians and the Jewish people in the Middle East. It began as a response to a resolution “Seeking Peace in Israel & Palestine” passed by the Mennonite Church Meeting in Orlando. So yes, Joyce and I are well for our ages and still friends.
