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INCIDENTAL REMARKS
April 7, 2001
Dear Family & Friends,
Since Maria's birth in January of 2000, we have had a number of interesting and beautiful experiences. Here are just a few anecdotes from our lives to bring you up to speed.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
by Jim
As many of you will recall, until late last summer, we had planned to study at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in Deerfield, Illinois in the Fall 2000 semester. Well, wouldn't you know, that as the Lord often does, He had a different entry on His appointment schedule than I did. But many wonderful things have happened since then of which I am very grateful.
One morning in early December 1999, Wachira Ngamau of PACE (Pan African Christian Exchange) International sat in my livingroom and told me the story of how he had been forced to encounter the Kenyan deathcare system when his own father died the previous year. Due to a crippled government infrastructure and sharply escalating death rate, most hospital morgues in Kenya have been unable to deal with refrigeration equipment failure and mass overcrowding.
Wachira asked me if I would help PACE start a mission-run funeral home in central Kenya. The Spirit moved in my heart. I consented and was sent to Kenya in March 2000, to do investigative reporting on these gross atrocities. While there, I saw outrageously macabre conditions not unlike those of the Jewish Holocaust. As government hospital morgues are the only available institution to provide storage of human remains affordable to the non-affluent, the situation has become quite serious. Our work there has been covered by the Associated Press, The Des Moines Register and the Kenya Daily Nation.
Last summer, I took a leave of absence from working at my father's funeral home and helped co-found Operation Anubis, a humanitarian relief organization working under the auspices of PACE to improve the death-care industry in East Africa. You can learn more about this project at: www.netins.net/showcase/rolandfs/anubis
While working with Wachira over the past year, I have found him to be a man of great integrity, compassion and vision. At the same time I have also become intimately involved with PACE's broader work in evangelism, economic development, education and healthcare.
After a lot of hard work and many intra-continental emails, PACE International has raised $10,000 to purchase the land on which we will build our clinic and funeral home. We have an x-ray machine and two complete dental treatment stations ready to ship. As a result of an article in the Kenya Daily Nation about our investigative report, the government morgue in Nyhururu has undergone a major clean-up and the town is rejoicing. However, we were also saddened last year to say goodbye to a close ministry associate, Mr. David Kamau Gathii as the Lord called him home in early August.
After such an incredible "diversion," I am still ready to take up my books and pen and play the part of a student. We plan to move to the Deerfield area in July or August and begin the Christian Thought program in the Fall semester. This hybridized program, combining theology, philosophy, and history, is geared for the individual who intends to pursue a career in college or university teaching and who will need a research degree which provides competency in more than one of the theological disciplines. In the Christian Thought concentration, I will take my emphasis courses in Early Church History and cognate studies in Philosophy of Religion.
In preparation of writing my master's thesis, I have been considering the history of teleology (the study of the purpose of things). This topic could cover views from Plato to the Puritans to Richard Dawkins.
Upon the completion of this masters degree, we tentatively plan to spend 2003-2004 ministering with PACE in Kenya. After completing a PhD., I may teach at a university or seminary in the areas of theology and history or apply to work with the ministry of L'Abri Fellowship. However, my life's dream is to write books and articles that will accurately retell the Christian Story in a fresh way to the modern world.
AN UNBEARABLE YOKE REVISITED
by Heidi
Did you remember that, on March 30th, 1999, Jim nailed his treatise "An Unbearable Yoke." to the tower door of Northwestern College's Nazareth Hall? That paper dealt with the history of Fundamentalist/Evangelical social restrictions and Christian liberty. You may also have heard that in the weeks following the publication of his treatise, a combined total of over eight hundred copies circulated through the NWC bookstore and the web site, and it was "all the talk" in many student and faculty circles.
Well, about a month ago, Jim received a call from his alma mater's student newspaper "The
Column" asking for an interview about the treatise. The reporter said
that the new students didn't know about the paper or the incidents
surrounding it and therefore had no context to understand the changes in
policy and administration which have taken place since then. Deborah Duer has written an excellent article which was just published in the "Column."
Jim is still just as concerned about orthopraxy in the Christian community.
If you think of it, please pray for us. We want our practice to be such,
that those whom we deal with will not be closed to our ideas about Truth because of what we do or how we live our lives.
Click here for NWC Column Article
ROLAND HERALDRY
by Jim
I have been enjoying a new discovery in family history and heraldry. Last winter I was going through some old family papers and stumbled across a heraldic description of an old "Rowland coat of arms."
I decided to use it as a basis to design and assume my own arms. I wrote to a herald, Walter Cross, and asked him about the description. He said that it was an interesting blazon and that because the shield was so simple, it suggests a very old family. I did some more research and believe that the most ancient record of our name is the "noble Hrudoland, lord of the Marches of Brittany" mentioned by Einhard in his Life of Charlemagne and of which the oral legend "Song of Roland" memorializes. Of course I can trace no pedigree to Hrudoland, but the reference is interesting as the name means "Famous throughout the country" from Old German hrodi (fame) + landa (land).
SAILING NEWS
by Jim
On April 1st, I couldn't stand it any longer. I had gazed at the blue mountain in our backyard all winter long. Bungee cords flew as the gigantic blue tarp slipped off of our '22 MacGregor sailboat (click here) to reveal the beautiful lines that had been concealed for six months. During the dark hours of winter, I had designed the apparatus in my mind for a system to step the 24 foot tall mast. The procedure was to include a sophisticated bit of engineering that would provide a carefully controlled ascent, operated by one person.
Without such a system, stepping the mast is a nightmare. You had to have several people help lift it at the same time and hope that it didn't start tipping too far in any one direction.
Coincidentally, public television recently broadcast a documentary program in which several historians were trying to figure out how the ancient Egyptians raised their multi-ton obelisks. One of the methods used a lever system not unlike mine.
Anyway, to begin with, I found a wooden handle from an old reel lawn mower that had been cluttering up the garage. Then I grabbed a block and tackle from the ceiling of the garage, which I had used to hoist my bike into suspended storage, and attached one end to the top of the bowstem and the other to the top of my lawn mower handle. Then I attached the jib halyard to the top of the lawn mower handle. The bottom of the handle was fixed to pivot at the same point as the mast on the step plate.
By heaving on the tackle, I lifted the mast up, and out of its cradle. The top end immediately swung far out over the port beam, threatening to rip the step plate (which was already loose) off of the deck. That wasn't going to work! Luckily, Heidi's family (who we had been expecting for a visit) pulled in the driveway and helped to heave on the working end of the block and tackle while I steadied the mast. It worked beautifully then and in no time we had her standing rigging up and were flying a strand of signal code flags as a celebratory monument to our achievement.
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TIDINGS FROM THE GARDEN
by Heidi
One of my big frustrations this spring was attempting to get our garden tilled without a tiller and without giving in and renting (an expensive) one. The crisis point had almost arrived when Jim came home one afternoon and gave me the boost I'd been needing. If you couple a farmer's daughter's gumption with Jim's inventiveness, stir in a little originality and creative thought, you may have come up with our solution, too! If you had happened on our house and made your way to the garden plots a few hours later, you would have seen Jim and I in laughing ingenuity driving a John Deere lawn tractor back and forth across the gardens with a jury-rigged plow pulling behind it.
Since the plow (which we found in the weeds behind the garage) had only one bottom (blade for you non-farmers), one of us had to stand on it to keep it going in a fairly straight and deep line, then leap off when the edge of the field was reached- maneuver a tool handle into a wedged position and then lift the whole thing out of the ground and carry it while the mower turned for the next pass.
It was a great pleasure to have it done, and now Jim has my eternal gratitude. Oh, for the days when men and women worked side by side in the fields under the wide blue sky! The soil was perfectly soft and dark, interspersed with earthworms and fine leaf mulch that housed my prized ladybugs. It was just the right day for tilling because of the nearly dry soil, and rain was forecast in a matter of hours. As this is written, several long rows of seeds are germinating already.
The girls and I planted 3 varieties of lettuce, roquette, masses of spinach, green onions, radishes, peas, sweet peas, sunflowers, blue statice, bachelor's buttons, hollyhocks, sweet Williams, larkspur, and edible nasturtiums. The thought of fresh salads is nearly irresistible, and I admit to over-planting. We will never be able to eat all of this- and many of the flowers won't even bloom until we are leaving- but the delight of "creating" is just too much when coupled with spring fever and temperatures of over 60 F. and perfect garden soil.
Since then we've put in bush and pole beans, more flowers, edible pod peas, beets, carrots, many squashes, melons and tomatoes. The many hours to spend in the gardens stretch in front of me like a lovely vision- no more toys to pick up! Sophia and Maria love to play outside, and although they are a little "trigger happy" when it comes to pulling weeds- I mean plants- they are sweet little helpers.
RENAISSANCE SAWDUST
by Jim
In the spring of 1999, I decided to replace the bookshelf on my desk (made of boards stacked on canning jars) with a desktop cabinet in a Graeco/Roman style, complete with Michelangeline dome. I enjoyed playing with the idea and had the design completed when we moved back to Atlantic that summer. For the project, my father-in-law, Gary Dahl, supplied me with rough-sawn walnut boards which had been in storage for about twenty years. About a year ago, we invited our dear friends Steve & Marie Livengood over for supper. Marie teaches kindergarten at a nearby school and Steve is a full-time sergeant in the Iowa Army National Guard as well as a master woodworker.
When Steve looked over my plans, he saw beyond the ink and paper. What exists today is a testament to his woodworking skill and artistic ability.
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The band reads:
JAMES � W � ROLAND � INVENIT � ANNO � DOMINI � MCMXCVIII � ST PAUL
STEPHANVS � LIVENGOOD � FECIT � ANNO � DOMINI � MMI � ATLANTIC
THOLVS � DIVI � PETRI � VATICANVS � POST
MICHAEL � ANGELVS � BONAROTA � INVENIT
VINCIT � OMNIA � VERITAS
NON � NOBIS � DOMINE
VIRTVS
JVSTITA
PRVDENTIA
TEMPERANTIA
------ Translation: ------
JAMES � W � ROLAND � DESIGNER � IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD � 1998 � ST PAUL
STEVE � LIVENGOOD � BUILDER � IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD � 2001 � ATLANTIC
THE DOME OF � SAINT � PETER'S � IN THE VATICAN � AFTER
MICHAELANGELO � BONAROTI � DESIGNER
TRUTH � CONQUERS � ALL
NOT � UNTO � US � O'LORD (Psalm 115:1)
COURAGE
JUSTICE
PRUDENCE
TEMPERANCE
Plato's Supreme Virtues appear to remind the person using the desk that Temperance is to govern the Appetite, Courage is to govern the Spirit, Prudence is to govern Reason and Justice is to govern the Whole.
Non nobis Domine refers to Psalm 115:1 "Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake."
WELLINGHALL DOWNS HISTORY
by Jim
I remembered my grandparent's two-story Victorian farm home as a place of wonderful experiences. Grandpa would take me on his knee as he sat in his old wooden rocking chair and ask if I was going to be his football player. His plaid flannel jacket always smelled of Swisher Sweets cigars. He had been a hometown football hero in the 1910's and his popularity in Atlantic as "one of the nicest men I ever knew" only grew throughout the years. My beautiful grandmother was the model house-wife of the 1950's. Countless times I saw her working in the kitchen, with a flowery apron over her favorite dress with big white polka-dots on a navy-blue background.
When Heidi and I returned to my hometown, their vacant home, "Ten-eleven East Tenth," and the eight acres of land around it were offered for us to live in. I couldn't have wished for a more storybook place to take my little family.
However there was much work to do as we moved in. The original plaster walls had deteriorated so that you could poke through them with a finger. Breathing plaster dust and horse hair, room by room we reclaimed the Victorian house and returned to the refined and cozy home I remembered. During the first few weeks we lived here, I wondered each evening as I climbed the wooden stairs, if my grandparents were looking down and what they would think of their little great-grandchildren.
Several months ago, I heard my brother mention that during the remodeling, he had replaced a board at our house with a date from the 1890's on the back of it. I had not heard of the discovery before, so the next day I went to the living room with a claw hammer to investigate. My brother had said that the date was on a window/door corner piece, but didn't remember which one in the room. I circled the room and chose a corner panel on the west doorway to the knotty-pine room. As gingerly as possible, I pried the piece loose and turned it over. I couldn't believe it, I had found it on the first try!
In beautiful copperplate script were the words,
Byron Bair
Atlantic, Iowa
July 22, 1897
1897
G.R.B.
W(est)DOOR
Dimensions for the rest of the trim were scratched in pencil under the dates and signatures. I felt like Indiana Jones! It was quite a find to have discovered the carpenter's marks and the date of the house on what was probably the last board they put into place.
However, being an historian I couldn't leave the discovery there. I soon found the abstract to the property and began my research. I labored through the tedious document page after musty page looking for what I knew I probably wouldn't find. Then as I was just about to give up, it appeared on the yellow page.
20. Omar W. Rich,
Abbie A. Rich-wife-
to
Byron Bair, Esq.
Special warranty Deed
March 20, 1897
34. Byron Bair
(Unmarried)
To
Horace S. Lynch.
Warranty Deed
October 11, 1902
Byron Bair had officially purchased the land in March and finished the house four months later. He then sold the entire property five years later. So far, I have not been able to trace any of his descendants in the Atlantic area.
As some of you may recall, we chose to name the place Wellinghall after the home of the venerable old Ent Treebeard in Tolkien's great classic, "The Two Towers."
KINDER NEWS
by Jim & Heidi
Here is a sample of what goes on in the Roland household with a one year old and a two and a half year old:
Heidi just told me that she has had to change Maria's diaper eight times today. That does it! From now on, we're going to have her wear a catheter.
Sophia loves to brush her teeth (or more accurately, she loves to suck the sweet toothpaste off of her brush.) The problem we have is that she carries her toothbrush all over the house and then we can't find it (she's lost about three or four to date). The last two times, I have drilled a hole in the handle and tied it to the sink with fishing line. After the first time I did that, I found her cutting it off with a pair of "grown-up" scissors which she had pilfered from my desk. The last time, she cut through it with her teeth. Now we'll see how she does on stainless steel aircraft cable.
"Barter"
Life has loveliness to sell
All beautiful and splendid things
Blue waves whitened on a cliff
Climbing fire that sways and sings
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
~ Sara Teasedale
Maria made her first attempt at a prayer a few months ago. Her childish sincerity is as touching as it is funny. She bowed her head, rapidly blinked her eyes (trying, I think, to hold them closed) and prayed "Dod, tha tha (thank you). Ahm. (Amen)
I praised her "Maria, that was wonderful!" but Sophia said "No, I know how! God, I love you. Amen." We both love and thank God for our sweet little girls.
Be sure to see our new online Photo Gallery with plenty of snapshots of the little darlings.
BOOK NEWS
Two friends, who shall remain unnamed, have just published their first book under the pen names, Peter R. Sterling and Augustus R. Kelvin. We are very excited to see what effect this enterprise will accomplish in the world. It is a humble attempt at literature, admittedly, but they are such good friends that we are intimately interested in the outcome of their venture. We wish them the best of success in their endeavor. Online preview under construction
FINAL NOTE
As a final note, we are very happy to announce that we are expecting another baby to join us sometime in late December. We greet this prospect with great happiness and anticipation. The girls are thrilled with the concept of a new baby as far as they understand it- and spend lots of time each day rocking and singing to their dolls. With all this practice and their warm little hearts, they'll be great "helps".
Hope to hear from you soon.
Warmly,
Wellinghall Downs
Spring 2001
Man--"What a freak, what a monster, what a chaos, what a suject of contradiction, what a marvel! Judge of all things, and imbecile earthworm; possessor of the truth, and sink of uncertainty and error; glory and rubbish of the universe."
~ Blaise Pascal
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