Welcome to the Village!

If you come to call at our home and stay for any length of time at all, my children will most likely take you down to tour their village. Here in the woods next to our yard they have built an extensive little town with houses made of rocks and pieces of wood. Each one has his or her own house, plus there is a hotel, school, and toy and hardware stores. In the fall pokeberries, mashed in nut shells, provided paint, now long washed away. The children make vases, bowls, pitchers, and plates out of the clay they dig from the little intermittent creek that runs through the woods. They seem to have a never-ending supply of ideas for creating new structures or embellishing their houses with moss, rocks and leaves.

Yesterday we had the immense joy of welcoming back to Indiana Tim’s brother, David, his wife, Terri, and their children, Elizabeth, Mary, John, and Sarah. They are here for a one-year furlough from their work in Zambia. As I write many of my younger ones are in the village with their youngest two cousins. In preparation for their homecoming, my children built houses for Sarah and John, but I suspect that they will end up building their own structures, too.

If you happen to be nearby, please stop in. My children will be thrilled to share the village with you.

(Most of these pictures are not of the house structures themselves, but of the kids playing in the creek following some heavy rains, and were taken months ago.)