Post 4/2025. Our travel to Cornwall UK is coming up. Boarding Passes printed. Scores of preparations completed. A friend humorously shortened my recitation of visits to health care providers to “all the ologists.”

I’m grateful to all medical people, family, and friends here and in Cornwall for their well and travel mercies wishes, and my dentist who repaired a chipped tooth on short notice. Slow healthy speed ahead.

Remembering those who have died

This year we have attended three memorial services. In my last blog I commented on the life of Doris Mast, sister-in-law. Doris passed away in January.

Simon Gingerich, seven weeks shy of 102, was a work colleague in my first job out of college at Mennonite Board of Missions, Elkhart, Indiana. Our interactions over the years included church and congregational assignments and other interactions. He became sexton of Prairie Street Cemetery after I had done that job for about two years. Our big project entailed collaborating on the 76-page booklet, Greencroft Roots, covering the first 30 years of the Greencroft Continuing Care Retirement Community in Goshen, Indiana. Simon was a founding board member, the only one without term limits, serving for 31 years. For Roots he was researcher and consultant and I was the writer. Wonderful collaboration.

Last Saturday we attended the memorial service for Ron Kennel, held at College Mennonite Church. We’re distant cousins and almost the same age. He served in pastorates in Iowa and Indiana, in addition to related conference and church agency assignments. He found his vocational home in the congregation, he once told me.

Ron’s great-grandfather Pierre (Peter) Kennel in 1881 at age 19 emigrated from France to Canada and then to Shickley, Nebraska. Ron was an expert in genealogy and traced Peter’s story in detail, including his stay with my Kennel forebears in Ontario. When time came for Peter to leave for Nebraska, the Ontario relatives gave him $5.00 (about $154.00 today).

At the memorial service someone told of how Ron was quick to help someone who needed financial or other help. He was quick to press a $5.00 bill in their hand. Ron told me the Peter Kennel story last year and with a smile gave me $5.00 as repayment. Charity lives on.

A cousin in Ontario, Arnold Bender, lost his spouse, Barbara, in January 2025. She and Arnie were married in 1970 on Valentine’s Day. Like Ron, Barbara lived through bouts of cancer. Another cousin, Grace Smith, recently lost her husband Don in Alberta.

Other friends have lost loved ones this year. All are missed. We grieve with them. We remember them along with others who have gone before.

A great grandchild of Doris had a forward-looking idea at the committal service at the cemetery after we sang one of Doris’ favorite hymns, Joy to the World. Immediately after the last verse she suggested, “We should come here at Christmas and sing carols.”

From Celtic Prayers from Iona, by J. Philip Newell (Paulist Press, 1997), this morning Opening Prayer and Thanksgiving for Tuesday:

In the beginning O God
You shaped my soul and set its weave
You formed my body and gave it breath.
Renew me this day in the image of your love.
O great God, grant me your light
O great God, grant me your grace
O great God, grant me your joy this day
And let me be made pure in the well of your health. 

The evening Opening Prayer and thanksgiving:

As I utter these prayers from my mouth O God
In my soul may I feel your presence.
The knee that is stiff O healer make pliant
The heart that is hard,
make warm beneath your wing
The wound that is giving me pain,
O best of healers make whole
And may my hopes and my fears
Find a listening place with you.

Not only are the prayers and scripture readings focused on the personal, but on Intercession on the daily themes of Justice and Peace, Prayers for Healing, The Goodness of Creation and Care for the Earth, Commitment to Christ, The Communion of Heaven and Earth, and Welcome and Hospitality. The Intercessions include prayers for the church around the world, the poor, those who suffer, refugees and those without a place of welcome, care for the earth

The evening Intercession for Friday:

Safeguard your faithful people
in the sanctuary of your love O God.
Shelter them this night in the shelter of the saints.
God to enfold them
God to surround them
God in their watching
God in their hoping
God in their sleeping
God in the ever-living souls. 

An enduring agenda

The Cartoon is from The Independent, Monday 14 April 2014. Sorry I do not have a record of the creator. The message is current. The earth is in tears and hope for better, not worse.

Best!

-John