Furlough schedule 2009

Sunday morning, June 14—9:30 a.m.  Hartwell, GA—Hartwell Mennonite church

Contact person—Sam Kurtz—706-377-4552

Sunday evening, June 14—6:30 p.m.  Pickens, SC—Pickens Mennonite church

Contact person—Nelson Kurtz—706-717-1802

 Sunday evening, June 21—7:00 p.m.  South Boston, VA—Ebenezer Mennonite church

Contact person—Nathan Good—434-572-1156

Monday evening, June 22—7:00 p.m.  Harrisonburg, VA—Berea Christian School

Contact person—Nelson Showalter—540-249-5516

Tuesday evening, June 23—7:30 p.m. Ephrata, PA—Pleasant Valley Mennonite School

Contact person—Warren Zimmerman—717-336-4036

Sunday evening, June 28—Guys Mills, PA—Plainview Amish-Mennonite church (location to be confirmed) Contact person—Vernon Schmucker—814-425-3705

Tuesday evening, June 30—7:30 p.m. Elida, OH—Location not decided.  Call contact person for more details—Contact person—John Brunk—419-339-7313

Sunday evening, July 19—6:00 p.m. Brownsville, OR—Brownsville Mennonite church

Contact person—Paul Smucker—541-995-3773

Friday evening, August 7—7:00 p.m. Brownsville, OR—Brownsville gym

Contact person—Jason Schrock—541-369-2540

Wednesday evening, August 12—7:00 p.m. Chewelah, WA—Place to be announced

Contact person—Tim Stolzfus

Friday evening, August 14—Hubbard, OR—Time and place to be announced later

Contact person—Jake Kropf

Dear family and friends,

Of course, by now all of you probably have heard about John's nephew that was killed in Montana leaving behind his pregnant wife and one small child.

What a difficult decision it was to decide whether John should go to the funeral or not! Only five weeks before furlough made the decision one hundred times harder. But, I think I can say for John that he doesn't regret it one bit even though on return he has been thrust into high speed once again trying desperately to get all his matters in order so Lavern can carry on this summer for him.

John left Tuesday from Poland and in spite of horrible flight connections landed miraculously in Great Falls during a blizzard Tuesday evening in time for the planned funeral Wednesday morning. I'll let his letter home tell about it.

"My flights all went well and I had sufficient time at each airport. When we left Salt Lake City, the weather was kind of chilly and windy. They said the weather at Great Falls was worse and they didn't know if they could land there. We took off and they said they would see if the weather changed in the houoh, r it took to fly there. About 20 minutes before we were to land, the pilot said that they were have a problem with one of their instruments and the weather still wasn't good, but we still had a couple of minutes to wait and see if the weather improved enough to land. 5 minutes later he came on again and said we could land. If we could not have landed, we would have returned to Salt Lake City or flown to Kalispell. I was so thankful we were able to land. Oh, you may wonder what the weather problems are. They are having a regular blizzard here. It started last night and snowed all day today. The forecast is for 15-20 inches of snow and for it to continue to snow until tomorrow (Wed.) evening.

Jeff and Allen Birky met me at the airport. I had noticed several Mennonite ladies in the airport at Salt Lake City and then when they boarded the plane for Great Falls, I assumed they were coming to the funeral. I did not talk to them until we had landed in Great Falls and were going into the terminal.

They were all friends of Starla; all from Indiana. They had reserved a car and were going to go to a town a little past Fairfield for the night. They had a hotel room reserved. Jeff had come in his four-wheel drive pickup to get us. The roads were not very good, even the main roads. The wind was blowing, and there was some serious drifting in some places. It was not a good thought to drive in it in something other than a four-wheel drive. We talked with the ladies about their situation and Jeff and Alan advised them not to try to drive a rental car to where they had a room reserved. They thought about trying to stay in Great Falls, but in the end, we all piled into Jeff's pickup, put the luggage in the back, and came back to Fairfield together. They cancelled all their reservations.

In the meantime, I talked to Paul (John's brother) on the phone. They are in a motel and the other side of a mountain pass through which is the best route here. The pass is closed because of snow. Steves are also stuck on that side. I think Barb is with Steves. Mom is with Pauls. Paul said that James and Orpha (Uncle) are probably also stuck on that side of the pass somewhere. In essence, of my siblings, I am the only one here. (I'm not sure if Philip has arrived yet or not). Paul said that others also didn't get through the pass before it was closed. They are hoping that in the morning the pass will be opened somehow for traffic. I hope so, but the way it is snowing now, it doesn't look to hopeful."

The funeral was postponed until Thursday which gave John an unplanned day in Montana. Everyone was snowed in, but the man that John was staying with agreed to take him to the place where his sister Lois's family was staying.

He spent the day with them which was an unexpected blessing. In the evening, all the rest of the Smuckers arrived and they had a time all together, the first time since John's dad's funeral maybe five years ago. Some people missed the funeral because of not being able to get through because of the snow or flights that couldn't be changed. John thought there were still about 500 people or so at the funeral. Here is what he wrote about that.

"It was a touching funeral. Neil is leaving a big hole in the community. He had a strong testimony for God and that is a comfort. I did talk to Starla a bit. It was kind of neat that when I was talking to her, she was holding her little girl. When her little girl saw me, she put her arms out and wanted to come to me. I was surprised, but readily held her for a little bit. Starla said immediately that she thinks Jessica is missing her father.

Maybe she thought I was Neil, I don't know. Jessi is sure a little cutie pie.

At the place where they served the meal, they had tables with pictures and things connected to Neil. It was well-done and interesting to see him with Starla and then with his little girl. There were pictures when he was young and growing up.

Neil was in the process of starting up his own mechanic shop. He did a lot of mechanical work in the area. He had bought some shop equipment that he had only used several times. There are cars at his shop that he was in the process of fixing. I'm not sure what will become of all of that. I think the family was going to talk about that tonight or tomorrow.

I'm so glad I could be here. It is still kind of hard to believe that he is gone. Yes, I didn't know him very well, but still it just seems he should be here. It seems the hole he has left in the community; in his family, will be hard to fill. Keep praying for Starla when you think about it."

Because of the price difference, John had to stay over the weekend. He drove to Oregon with his family and spent some time there with various of them.

We missed him so much here, but anytime I started feeling sorry for myself, I reminded myself that I still have a wonderful husband who will be coming home to me. The week wasn't without its struggles. We so much wanted to be with the family as well, and many times found ourselves thinking about what was going on over the ocean. We had a lot of matters here to deal with though. The first day John was gone, pellets were delivered, three Polish speaking phone calls on his phone and various other things made me panic and wonder what the week would be like.

Now, I know all these things would be a piece of cake in America, but in Poland, not so. Take the pellet delivery, for instance. We had ordered 80 bags of pellets and they came the day John left. The driver refuses to bring them in our lane for two reasons. He has a big truck and our lane isn't wide and it is too sandy for him not to get stuck and the phone wire hangs a bit low over our driveway and he didn't want to catch it on his truck. So, he unloaded all of those 4000 lbs. on pallets beside the road and we had to carry or haul them in the lane with our van!!! Quite a feat without John here. But the boys, with the help of Leroy, our vser, proved their manhood and it was done in short order. Derek and Alli even hauled som up in the wagon. It reminded me of all the lumber we hauled in by hand when we were building our house for the same reason. And you may ask, Why don't you guys just fix your driveway? We would love to, but we share it with our neighbors and they are set against doing it right! Their solution is pile on more sand and lay clumps of grass in the potholes. So it is one sandy mess and will only get worse when it rains.

I need to give credit to Leroy. He was a lifesaver for me and the children the whole week. He helped out when we needed him, he finished up some wiring that John left undone, he cleaned out the furnace for John, he took Derek to the dentist for us, etc, etc. I really felt his care of us a lot and I was so thankful since I was having trouble thinking clearly that whole week.

And to top it off, we had planned a special school day on Friday, Kid's Klub was on Saturday, and it was first Sunday which meant a church potluck (since we are on every committee over here and cook all the food for every event, the whole weekend was a lot of work). It was also a holiday weekend and so we had earlier invited some friends for a grill Friday evening. With John gone, I had no desire to do it and so I tried unsuccessfully to cancel it.

But the guests said they really wanted to come. I was distressed about it and didn't know what to do. It looked really big to me. After many tears and prayers, I decided that I should ask Leroy if he would be willing to grill for us before he headed off to do his normal tutoring that evening. I told him a bit how I was feeling, and he said he thought we should just go ahead with it and he would be glad to help. And in the end, he didn't have to leave, so we enjoyed our evening with our guests and again, I was thankful for others around me to help out. Others on the team called me, chatted with me, came and had iced coffee with me and cared for us in other ways.

Sunday evening, Lavern's invited us over for games. The boys enjoyed playing Oxford Dilemma with Lavern and I enjoyed chatting with the ladies. I stayed late since I didn't feel a need to go home.

And John arrived home safe and sound and we are in the ending weeks of school for the children and trying to get our minds in gear thinking about being gone for two and one half months. Please pray for us that we can have wisdom to do the important things and be able to leave things undone that aren't so important.

Looking forward to seeing everyone soon.

Laura for all of us.

Some things in life we can be sure of...spring follows winter, day follows night, sunshine follows rain...but other things we can never be sure of...like how many days God has given us to live on this earth. Life is a such a mixture of grief and happiness.

John's 26-year-old nephew was killed last weekend in a machinery accident. We can't understand why God takes those he does, and especially a young married man with a child and one on the ay. We pray for you, Starla and Jessica, may God hold you tightly in His arms...and Kenneths, Kevins, Keiths, Lisa, and Eric...May God give you abundant grace for the road ahead...and the rest of the family I don't know...we pray for your sorrow as well.

Pray for John. He's flying today to the funeral. He has three plane changes and not much time for error. Please pray that he will make his flights and that everything will go smoothly.