Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

So, you may be wondering what in the world happened to the Mietzke family for the last couple of weeks. And I will tell you. Summer happened and happened big in the village. We went from having 150 people in the village to having just over 400 people. It has been a little overwhelming and exciting all at the same time. Last week was work week and we had hundreds of people here working on the grounds, repairing porches, finishing trim, building stairs, dry walling, painting, digging, installing, moving beds, cleaning, sorting library books, and garbage building yurts and staircases. It has been a long full week with the kitchen staff working their tails off as well as everyone else. The village is really starting to look nice. Meals have gone in shifts or we have been eating outside. Everywhere you go there are people committed to making Holden a better place.
This week Dave oversaw seven work crews, who were doing everything from repairing siding to building yurts out at the ball park. I have been working on banners for the VC and butterfly’s, working with a team in the Library to get it ready to move into the new space and helping with worship set up. The village normally overbooks in the summer because there are often cancellations but this year there were no cancellations and we are really stretching to fit everyone in the village. Some of the staff have even moved out of their rooms and are camping to make room for all of the guests. We have twelve people living in our chalet this week. Dave and I are sleeping in the girls room after a failed attempt to sleep on the hill next to the chalet. Dave and I slept on the bottom bunk of the girls bunk bed and were joined in the morning by Nyrie which was a little squishy but fun. After Nyrie headed down to breakfast we were joined by Jordyn for a snuggle.
It is a strange thing to let go of the winter village. All of the staff that we have grown to know over the winter are hard to find amidst all of the new folks, although there are many new amazing people that have come up here. My friend Joy and her daughter Emily are up here for work week and it has been fun to have them around. Emily and Nyrie have been constant companions. They have been having a lot of fun pretending, playing dolls and dressing up. They participated in the kids portion of work camp this week which is called Narnia where they made crafts and sang songs and explored and went on hikes. They seemed to have a really good time at the camp. Jordyn tried the camp and found that she is kind of at an in between space in age, so decided to only go for portions of the day. The other parts she spent helping Dave and I in our perspective work places. Jordyn also got to partake in acting out a creation story that was both tragic and beautiful. She is so intuitive and creative and was an asset to the performance.
We have had Peter Mayer, the lead guitarist from the Jimmy Buffet Band in the village on teaching staff this week. He gave a seminar on Healing by Fascination which was a writing workshop geared at opening our creativity. It was a lot of fun going to the workshop and I felt challenged and inspired by what he and others in the seminar had to share. He also led a guitar workshop which was amazing to watch. I was amazed at the way he could draw people out of themselves simply by anticipation. He would invite people to participate and was not daunted by hesitancy or insecurity, he would simply wait for the participation and people would come, volunteer, and allow themselves to be stretched and vulnerable. It was fun to be around someone with such a passion for music and life. His wife, Patricia, felt really familiar to me from the first moment that I met her. She is kind and compassionate and solid in who she is. There are some many other talented people here, sharing thoughts and vision. I have loved the group discussions about theology, and learning about word origins that completely change some of my understandings about biblical texts. We have an amazing array of artists and musicians coming through the village this summer and I am going to try to take advantage of as many of the seminars as I can.