nightfall

DREAMS in the dusk,

Only dreams closing the day

And with the day’s close going back

To the gray things, the dark things,

The far, deep things of dreamland.

Dreams, only dreams in the dusk,

Only the old remembered pictures

Of lost days when the day’s loss

Wrote in tears the heart’s loss.

Tears and loss and broken dreams

May find your heart at dusk.

[Dreams in the Dusk by Carl Sandburg , Twilight shots of Brisbane City Hall, and foreshore at Sandgate and Suttons Beach, November 2010]

goodbye greensboro

We are currently 2800 miles away and yet, we haven’t stopped talking about you.  You have been our home for the last three years and we have gone through the good and crazy times together.  Here are the top 10 things we will miss about you (not in any particular order):

• Watching  (and feeling in our skins) the stark but pleasant changing of the seasons.  Where else can  you get Snow Days for a light dusting?   And being surrounded by the riot of colours in autumn is just lovely.
• Newcomers School - an incubator of changed lives and wonderful memories.  This place and the people who come here are very dear to our hearts.
• VIF teachers – meeting the world through you and “seeing” other parts of Greensboro through your eyes.  We also miss the Aussie VIF teachers and hope to catch up in Oz somewhere, sometime
• 1st Friday of the month – both with work colleagues (boy, a bunch of loquacious teachers are hard to kick out of a restaurant!) and fun evenings downtown
• Westover Church – where we have grown and stretched personally and in faith through fellowship and discipleship
• Dinner parties – always fun with friends
• Singing with the choir – On our US bucket list, we wanted to attend concerts of Christian recording artists.  We didn’t expect we would get  to sing with the likes of Point of Grace, Kurt Carr, Travis Cottrell and Cindy Morgan!  We traded our “G’days” with the choir’s “Y’alls” and struck friendships.   We livened many of our long road trips by singing along to choir CDs!
• Friendly Center – this one is on the list, just because we’ve dined, drank, met with friends, shopped,hung out or gone for walkabouts in this area so many times, we love it!
• Starbucks at Quaker Village – so we’ve converted to Starbucks, but that’s after the baristas finally got our drinks right.  A nice cool drink, or a warm cup of coffee or chocolate after a short walk  is always welcome
• e-friendly – the Lees have been an incredible blessing in [Craig's] life.  Thank you for giving Craig a chance to work with you.

When “he determined the times set for [us] and the exact places where [we] should live”, we never would have picked Greensboro… but it turned out to be an unforgettable place.

[Scripture quote - Acts 17.26, NIV; Photo from a Grasshopper game in Greensboro, NC, back in April 2010]