moving...

A few weeks ago, I announced to my church that I am moving away this spring. My last day at church will be at the end of April, and then at the end of May I'm taking a one-way flight to Scotland! I'm transferring to the Church of Scotland, which of course could also be called The Original Presbyterians (tm).

from my first time living on Iona...almost half my life ago!

I've loved Scotland from the first minute I set foot there in June of 2000. This is not the first time I've nearly moved, nor the first time I've considered it. I have friends in Scotland who began asking me in 2012 if I was ever going to actually move, or just talk about wanting to. The timing has never been right before, but this time I think the Spirit has finally lined things up. :-)

I've had this porcelain doll probably 30 years
and I only just noticed that it's a little creepy.
I apologize to everyone who has slept under
its gaze in my guest room.

So...this weekend, I held a living estate sale, and sold a large chunk of my belongings. I still have a bunch left to sell, of course, because it turns out that living in the same place for 10 years means I have somehow managed to accumulate All The Things. I've dropped off a car load of clothes at the thrift shop that supports the women's shelter, and I'll drop off a carload of housewares tomorrow. My condo went on the market today. Things are in motion.

how many picture frames can one person accumulate? a lot. with no pictures in them, of course, because why would I do that?

Lots of people have asked how I decided to do this, and where I'll be going, and if I can take the kitties, and what my dad thinks of my moving so far away, etc. I'm planning to put up a page with answers to all this and more, I promise. Then it'll just be there, in a tab at the top of the page, so it's easy to find.

In the meantime:
*The process for transferring my credentials to the CoS is long, and I've been considering it for a while. I declined the first time I was invited to an interview weekend, but went last year. It feels right and I've loved Scotland and the model of the CoS (geographic parishes) for a long time.
*Yes, I'll take the kitties, and no, they don't have to be quarantined, as long as everything is in order before we go. It will be very expensive to take them, though, so I've set up a GoFundMe page because I'd prefer not to be anxious about going into debt to bring them. They pick up anxiety and I don't want them to be unhappy either!
*My dad seems excited for me, and I've lived at least 2000 miles away for my entire adult life (and some of those years were a lot more than 2000 miles) so I don't get the sense it's a big change, other than in the number of time zones.
*No, I'm not taking my car, because it'll be backwards. Yes, I am taking a few things from my house, but not many. I even managed to cull about half my library, which was like cutting off an arm. I definitely put more than half of my panda collection into the "keep" box though.

Now that the news is out, I'll hopefully be able to blog more. It's hard to write when there's something big brewing that isn't public knowledge yet, so my blog has been neglected. Sorry about that! More to come, I promise.

is there a program for this?

Hello, my name is Teri, and I am addicted to Kiva.

I can't help myself--I see an interesting person in my own sidebar and soon I'm off and running through the pages and pages of interesting people and projects around the world who can be helped out of poverty by microfinance. And then, before I know it, it's been half an hour and I've loaned another $25 to a bunch of other people.

Right now I have four loans out--which I think I am going to make my limit. I have lent to a woman in Tanzania, a woman in Peru, and a woman in Tajikistan, and to a man in Lebanon. So I have the major regions of the world covered....and $100 out there...

I'm Teri and I'm addicted to Kiva.

30 Hour Famine

Our senior high youth are participating in WorldVisions 30-Hour-Famine at the end of April. Between now and then, we are collecting sponsors to help feed hungry people. Last year the youth and their leaders--600,000 of them in 21 countries--raised enough money to feed 29,000 children (the number who die each day from hunger and hunger-related preventable disease) for a WHOLE YEAR. That's pretty awesome, and we're excited to be part of it.

If you would like to help our youth group meet our goal of feeding 10 kids (one for each of us participating in the famine) for a year, you can sponsor me by clicking here! All the money goes straight to WorldVision, and most of it then goes to feed people. None of the money stays here or goes to us. We'll be fasting 30 hours on April 27-28, and the money we save on snacks/food for the lock in will be added to our total as well.

Please help us help others by donating! Here's the link again, in case you need to copy and paste: http://www.firstgiving.com/rclpc.

Thanks!