UPS & DOWNS
November, 2000

WAYFARERS' NEWS

Welcome to new residents Donna, Terry and Tiffany. Farewell and good wishes to Lori and Christian, Cheryl, Emma, Ethel, Brianna and Quinton, Sherry and Dona.

Happy November Birthdays to Barbara and Pat!

A Community Thanksgiving Dinner was hosted by the Cecil County Men's Shelter, Meeting Ground and the Elkton United Methodist Church at the church from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. This annual event, open to all without reservation and without charge, is the model for the Community Kitchen which is held once a week at the Presbyterian Church on Main Street.

CHILDREN'S HOUR

A weekly Children's Hour of activities (reading, puzzles, puppets, games) is to be held in the Wayfarers' House library. Call Raven Keane (410-620-6913) to set up a weekly time for your child. The purpose is to give one-to-one attention for each child in order to increase self-esteem and self-worth.

PARTNERING WITH THE CHESAPEAKE CENTER

Meeting Ground is to be a partner with the Presbyterian camp called The Chesapeake Center in a venture to offer a program for victims of domestic violence. The three-day retreat for twelve women and their children is designed to build community, strengthen self-esteem and present coping skills to deal with disruptive situations. Meeting Ground women residents would not be charged for the program.

HOMELESS MEMORIAL DAY

National Homeless Memorial Day will take place in Wilmington on December 21. The march begins at 5:30 p.m. and a candlelight service, music and speakers will follow in Rodney Square in Wilmington, Delaware. It is a time to remember homeless persons who have died and reflect on what we can do to end homelessness. Call 410-275-2936 for more information.

FROM GERMANY TO MARYLAND

Ursula ("Ulla") Heelein is a current volunteer from the Church of the Brethren to Meeting Ground. She came from Zehnhausen, Germany, a village near Frankfurt of about 20 houses, where she retired on September 1 from her post as a secretary in health insurance. Her daughters, Barbara (42) and Jutta (40) remain in Germany, and a friend in her village is looking after her house and sending her reports from home.

This is not Ulla's first experience as an overseas volunteer. In 1978 she volunteered for eight months on an Israeli kibbutz, a communal farm (Sarid) close to the Lebanese border. It took some getting used to, she said, those bombers on missions to Lebanon flying directly over our heads. Yet she recalls those months as the best time of her life: "I was never young until then;" freed from the responsibility of rearing two children, homemaking and her regular job, she could experience people from another country, another religion, another part of the world, new labors and viewpoints, all of which she relished. She says that even as a child she did not have much "free" time; chore after chore was assigned her before she was allowed to play with her doll.

In Israel she had six days a week of work. The first three months there she worked in the common room of the commune, a gathering place that was open from 7 to 10 p.m. She cleaned it and bought supplies for it. The second stint there was varied work: kitchen duties, tending chickens and cows, and work in the field where oranges, avocados and cotton were raised.

For her final three months she had a work shift from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. where diamond-polishing discs were made. The process of laminating the surfaces of the discs, of burning them and of cooling them to a hardened state in the open air took hours. She was the only woman on that shift, and she was able to listen to classical music on her radio while she worked. Listening to music she finds as necessary as food or sleep. "It is what gives me strength," she says. Just mention the composer Pachelbel and see her smile.

At first at the kibbutz she shared a room with another woman, but she had her own room when she was on the night shift. Each Friday the workers received 25 shekels and coffee, a piece of cake, stamps, writing paper and tea.

While she was in Israel she had to give up her job (and her salary) for 8 months while paying rent for her vacant dwelling in Germany. We wondered what motivated her to do this. Ulla said that the weight of her country's role in World war II had influenced her thinking. She recalled the passage in Exodus in which God told Moses he 'visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him.' She wanted to see if she could "make it work the other way," do something good and see it perpetuated. "And, too," she said, "I wanted to see where Jesus lived and taught, see if the Bible was really true." This, she said, did happen for her; she came away with a strong sense of the reality of the New Testament reports.

It was the reentry into life in Germany that was hard for her, she said. "I gave energy (in Israel) and experienced a life of tolerance, openness, and trust," she said. "I missed the climate of community at home."

"I was the first German in that Kibbutz, and I was like an adopted daughter to a couple there. I visited them many times a week, but it was not until the end of my stay that I learned the wife had been a prisoner in Auschwitz."

"Meeting Ground is a community, too," she said. Another place in the world to experience tolerance, openness and trust.