Summer fest presented with panache

On By John Bender

POST 25/2025 GOSHEN IN: It was a doozy of a week, hot days followed by a welcome downpour bookending Greencroft Goshen Summerfest 2025. Shade, breeze, sunhats and water kept us tolerably comfortable for Summerfest, July 15. Resident volunteers, in tandem with Greencroft staff and off-campus participants, presented the third Summerfest with, what better word than, panache.

Summerfest started at the picnic pavilion where popup exhibits, golf-cart tours and snacks were on offer.

Why did it come off with panache? Because the three-hour event was staged with dash, energy, élan, flair, polish, pluck, spirit, style, verve. And a dose of the theatrical, giving residents a closer look at where they live.

Residents got a look at where birds and other wildlife on campus make their home. This Finch stayed perched long enough above the greater than usual goings on to be photographed.

Presenters included campus retirees who are master gardeners, a landscape architect, musicians, and an apiarist. Presenters from off-campus included the city forester and other staff specialists, an urban biologist from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, a leader from the Trail Marker Group of the Bodewadmi-Myaamia Trail (the Potawatomi-Miami trail that crosses Greencroft’s 175-acre campus), the resident environmental committee, and Greencroft Goshen Foundation.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of Todd Yoder, vice president of Development for Greencroft Retirement Communities and president of Greencroft Communities Foundation. Todd was fully kitted to play the Bagpipes and could be heard at various intervals, but was not playing when our Guber (Greencroft’s version of Uber) passed by.

Gene Yoder, from the planning committee, informs the early arrivers of the exhibitors and where to catch the golf-carts and Gubers to tour the beehives, wild flowers, butterfly garden, Woodlands area, pontoon boat rides, and resident gardens.

Luke Gascho represents the Potawatomi and Miami Trail Marker Group that crosses Elkhart County between what is now Fort Wayne and Chicago. The group is working to memorialize this historic trail and recognize the Indigenous People by creating a trail marker system along the route it took through Elkhart County.

Karl and Ginny Birky share the story of beekeeping on the Greencroft Goshen Native Grasslands & Wild Flowers acreage.

Karl shares a taste of honey from a honeycomb.

Prayer to Bless New Honey –Orthodox Church of the Holy Protection, translation by the Orthodox Church in America. From 600 Blessings and Prayers from around the world, complied by Geoffrey Duncan, (Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic CT 2002, first published in 2000 by The Canterbury Press Norwich).

While the phrasing belongs to another time and place, the prayer expresses praise and gratitude for God’s timely and timeless provisions.

“O Lord Jesus Christ, Whose mercies cannot be contained and Whose bounties are ineffable; Who is wondrous in glory and Who works miracles, Who by the operation of the Holy Spirit once blessed Israel and nourished them with honey from a rock: As the same Lord, look down now from above on this your work, and with your heavenly blessing bless and consecrate this honeycomb and the honey that comes from it. Grant to it the action of blessing beyond all perfection, so that all tasting of it, receiving it and eating it, may find good health and by this nourishment be satisfied and filled with all good things. For you are He Who bestows all good things, and to you we ascribe glory, together with your Father Who is without beginning, and your Most-holy, Good and Life-creating Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages. Amen.”

Loren Stauffer talked about birds on campus and efforts to promote the presence of Bluebirds, including putting up Bluebird houses.
Loren planted and cares for this annual garden, one of a number of such gardens at the edge of the Native Grasses & Wild Flowers acreage.
Don Yoder talks about native plants and wild flowers, in an area that was planted at his encouragement after he and Marceil, his wife, moved to Greencroft from South Bend, Indiana, where he had been a landscape architect.
From the gentleman seated on the left, Sam Troyer, we heard a number on the harmonica, while some residents approach on a pontoon on Juniper Pond.
Christine Guth talks about the removal of invasive species and planting of native species–an ongoing task to which she and other resident volunteers are giving a hearty hands, heart, and heads up.
Brian Mierau and his sister, Bonnie Bailey, a resident in Greencroft Healthcare, played a recorder duet, their second year in doing so.
Master Gardener Gwen Preheim-Bartel planted and maintains this and other perennial gardens.
Our Guber driver, next to Larry Yoder, takes us five passengers into the resident gardens.
Jim Bare explains how he monitors and reports the rainfall on campus.
Jep Hostetler describes the crops he grows, aided by a green thumb and perhaps a touch of magic.
Residents plant and care for a wide variety of flowers, fruit, vegetables and herbs, with some surplus appearing for sale at the Pavilion one morning a week.

Campus views from walks last week

I was delighted to see a Monarch butterfly. May many more find their temporary home here.
I call this, “Old and Young Swaying Together With the Music”
Sunset after a rain.
Cabin Coffee is a nice gathering place, like Saturday morning where we met Alice and Willard. And where a group of Amish young women had the same idea as we–breakfast and conversation.

Sunday after the church service, we headed 22 miles south to Warsaw for the matinee performance at the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts of the play Steel Magnolias. It was the Wagon Wheel’s first all-female production team, worthy of the standing ovation. The action takes play in a beauty salon set in Chinquapin, Louisiana in 1983 and 1984.

How the cast of six women interact never fails to entertain and inspire. Director Brianna Borger in program notes wrote, “The women of Steel Magnolias offer each other nurturing, empowerment, and support, but they also challenge one another to become better versions of themselves–to grow, to accept, and to love unconditionally. May we all be lucky enough to have people in our lives that do the same for us.” Amen.

In sum

Summerfest 2025, and other events of the week came off with pleasure, reflection and encouragement, fueled with panache and touched by grace.

Summerfest was sponsored by Greencroft Goshen and the resident-driven Greencroft Goshen Environmental Committee. The enthusiasm, cooperation and hard work of residents, staff and the wider community was certainly evident. Beyond that, I felt a renewed recognition for the contributions of those who have gone before, those who live here today and for those who carry on the leadership.

Living at Greencroft Goshen for me means belonging to a community where one can thrive and grow and at the same time find support for one’s diminishments. Where rough patches, life transitions can be met with care and grace. It’s a community where material and spiritual wants and needs come close together, where, in Albert Schweitzer’s term, there’s “reverence for life.” Reverence for all forms of life. From butterflies to wild grasses and flowers. bees, trees and other forms of life. I’m not sure about weeds that grow in gardens, spiders and Japanese beetles, but I’ll treat them without distain.

I conclude with a quote from Helen Waddell, 1889-1965. The prayer appears in a section called “God’s Love and Mercy in Christ,” in The Complete Book of Christian Prayer (Continuum, New York, 1997). The language belongs to another time, the sentiment belongs to followers of Jesus Christ today.

Waddell was born in Japan to a Presbyterian missionary family and died in London, UK. She was a noted Irish scholar of medieval literature and a poet.

“Father, we thank thee for our happiness: for thy great gift of life: for the wonder and bloom of the world. We bless thee that it takes a very little to make us happy, yet so great a thing to satisfy us that only thyself canst do it, for thou alone art greater than our hearts. We bless thee for thy calling which is so high that no man can perfectly attain unto it, and for thy grace which stoops so low that none of us can ever fall too low for it. Above all we bless thee that thou didst send thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, for having seen him we have seen thee, whose truth doth ever warm, and whose grace doth every keep.”

Press on!

-John

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