The reading and book signing at the Mennonite Heritage Museum in Abbotsford, British Columbia, is now in the past. It was a wonderful event--an attentive audience, great conversation, a beautiful room. I arrived to find everything set up: book display, flowers on the table where I would sign books; power point and screen set up … Continue reading Afterglow: The Book Event
Loretta Willems
How I got to the GTU
"Human inheritance is both blessing and curse. And in religious inheritance this paradox is acute…. What curses do we need to shed, in the process of growing up? What can we hold to as blessing? " Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith The discovery of Mennonite history was exciting and welcome. But … Continue reading How I got to the GTU
Bk 3. 6: Northwest Journal February 1957
The ship in whose depths I have lived for the last two weeks entered the Straights of Juan de Fuca, the deep strip of water that separates Washington’s Olympic Peninsula from Canada’s Vancouver Island. It was a troop ship on its way to Seattle, and I was one of the military dependents who boarded the … Continue reading Bk 3. 6: Northwest Journal February 1957
Bk 3. 5: The House on Melvin, Phoenix 1954-55
This another piece about my senior year, the year of my engagement. There is a different quality to my memories of the house on Melvin than those of times before then. I feel more aware, more myself. I was on the cusp of adult life, and I was eager for it. The long years of … Continue reading Bk 3. 5: The House on Melvin, Phoenix 1954-55
Bk 3. 4: The Wedding
My father insisted that Ben and I get married the day I arrived in Tokyo. The wedding was to take place in the chapel at Yakota Air Force Base where Ben was stationed. Even though the base chaplain and his wife wrote to my parents extending an invitation for me to stay with them the … Continue reading Bk 3. 4: The Wedding
Bk 3. 3: Tokyo Wedding Backstory Part 2
Note: On September 7, 1955, I flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Tokyo Japan. I went there to marry a young airman I had met in the summer of 1954, just before his departure for the Far East. We were both very young. Ben was nineteen at the time of our marriage; I was seventeen.The following … Continue reading Bk 3. 3: Tokyo Wedding Backstory Part 2
Bk 3. 2: Tokyo Wedding Backstory, Part I
When I was sixteen, a junior in high school, my family moved from our home in Stockton, California to Phoenix, Arizona. We were going there because my father had answered a call by the California branch of the International Union of Gospel Missions to start a Rescue Mission in that city. After several trips to … Continue reading Bk 3. 2: Tokyo Wedding Backstory, Part I
Bk 3. 1: Japan 1955
On September 7, 1955, I flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Tokyo Japan. I went there to marry a young airman I had met in the summer of 1954, just before his departure for the Far East. We were both very young. Ben was nineteen at the time of our marriage; I was seventeen. Memories of … Continue reading Bk 3. 1: Japan 1955
Heritage 