September 2018 Witmer Family Update

Andrew and his family were in Monson for approximately ten days in early August. Mary and I had a great time with Maureen and the grandchildren while Andrew researched and conducted interviews for a book on the history of Monson which he’s hoping to publish in time for the town’s 200th anniversary in 2022.

Stephen and his family are now back in Pepperell MA from Europe where they were based during his two-month sabbatical. During that time he was able to get away for two weeks of quiet and work on his own, completing a draft of his book on ministry in small places, while Emma and the children spent time with her family in Northern Ireland. We’ll hopefully see them all in November when Stephen leads a Small Town Summit event in nearby Dexter, Maine.

Tim and his family were able to visit the Witmer grandparents and other Witmer and Lehman relatives in Pennsylvania over Labor Day weekend. Earlier in the Summer you would have often found them hiking and canoeing in the Maine woods, as well as gardening and working their regular jobs at Louisiana Pacific Company and in area nursing homes where Amy works as an Occupational Therapist.

I had a rough patch in early September when kidney stones, the beginning stages of pneumonia, and atrial fibrillation all converged into a perfect (or perfectly nasty) storm, requiring two separate ambulance rides to area hospitals. Thankfully, that crisis seems mostly resolved at this point.

Meanwhile Mary continues to cruise along without any remarkable symptoms of her aortic valve stenosis condition. Her next echocardiogram is scheduled for October 1, so we plan to update this blog after the results from that test are in and we know more about what might come next. Meanwhile we are grateful to God for what seems to at least be a miraculous delay in the normal deterioration of this condition, eventually leading to heart surgery.

Thanks for reading along, as well as for your prayers and interest in our lives over the years.

Enjoy Autumn.

You do know why birds fly south in the Fall, don’t you?

Right. Much too far to walk.

Daryl E. Witmer