The Leichty Letter

Advent 1999

Greetings in This Joyous Christmas Time!

Blessings to all our friends and family at Christmas! As the millennium year approaches, it is appropriate to reflect on the gift of time, especially another year that God has given us! We hope this epistle will be the means of sharing briefly how our time has gone in 1999.

1999 was a milestone year as both of our children hit adult age markers. Renita turned 18 in March and Nathan reached his 21st birthday in May. Of course, the major event in our family life was Renita's high school graduation and going to college. (See her article for more details.) Suffice it to say, it has been quite an adjustment for Mom and Dad to have our daughter away at college. We are looking forward to her return very soon for Christmas break.

Another event that marks the passage of time is getting to see our first grandniece in February. She came with her parents, Tyran (son of Nancy's brother, Brent) and Karola Zumbrun, all the way from Germany for a visit.

We also marked history on the Leichty side of the family by celebrating the 50th anniversary of Paul's parents, Clarence and Wilma Leichty, on the weekend of August 1st. It was a joyous event with just the immediate family, all 13 of us, together in Goshen.

In July, we celebrated 25 years since our days of Voluntary Service in Puerto Rico with VS reunion in Goshen. It was great to catch up with old friends and to realize the important impact that those two years of living and serving in another culture had upon our lives.

On the church front, three of us participated in a bit of Mennonite history at St. Louis 99 at which important steps were taken to bring the two largest Mennonite denominations together. Paul served as a delegate to that conference and Renita participated in the youth convention. Nancy enjoyed simply taking in whatever interested her from both the youth and adult conventions and also helped with a role play at a workshop.

Our family had the somewhat surprising privilege of being invited to lead a monthly worship service, primarily for residents of the group homes for the (secular) agency for which Nancy works. We enjoy very much the opportunity to share God's love with persons affected by disabilities.

I could go on about family events, but perhaps it would be best to summarize our individual work and activities for this year.

Renita has written about herself below; you won't want to miss it!

Nathan changed jobs during the year, as unfortunate circumstances turned out to lead to further blessings. He now works five days a week for up to three hours a day at Joe's Crab Shack, a seafood restaurant chain store located in Fort Wayne. As with his old job, he enjoys wrapping silverware into napkins, completing his work before the customers arrive. He travels on the public transportation system, taking two buses to and from work. The money he earns helps him to contribute to family expenses and add to his growing collection of compact disc recordings.

Nathan accompanied me on an August trip to the Disabilities Retreat in western Pennsylvania. It was a good time for both father and son!

Nathan did a wonderful job in his acting debut with the Jesters drama troupe this past February and March after two previous years of providing sound effects. This year, he has even more speaking parts as rehearsals are going on for the 2000 show featuring old TV sitcoms.

Nancy completed two years in October at AWS as residential manager for a group home for children and adolescents with severe disabilities. The work continues to be both stressful and rewarding. In the early fall, there was some shuffling of residents as the agency opened another smaller group home. However, hers still has eight persons with the age range from 6 to 21. Some of the residents were featured in a public service TV announcement for the agency's Christmas fundraiser.

Despite her heavy work load, Nancy found time during the year to serve on a worship planning committee for our Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference, held this year in the Fort Wayne area. Together we also led worship in November for a conference leadership retreat.

I, Paul, continue my assortment of jobs as our two-year "transition" seems to have become the status quo. I serve as Minister of Music at North Leo Mennonite Church where I have had the opportunity to work with both children's and adult choirs as well as various ensembles. In February, we celebrated the dedication of new hymnals, and I had to pinch-hit for a half-day of a weekend workshop as thunderstorms(!) temporarily grounded the plane of our special guest.

I continue to do freelance work for MennoLink, a Mennonite computer users network, and Mennonite Mutual Aid, helping to plan retreats for families affected by the disabilities or mental illness of a family member. That work led to some opportunities to travel and do some presentations in Colorado and Pennsylvania. Additional travel opportunities are afforded by my volunteer work on several committees connected with our church conference.

I've also stepped up my personal business interests, under the name of Companion Resources. During the year, I started a monthly e-mail newsletter, secured by own domain name, and added additional sites to the World Wide Web. I also became an Independent Technology Consultant with Handtech.com which allows me to sell a wide assortment of computer hardware, software, and other related products from my web site. Check it out for yourself at http://www.cresources.org. You will also note that the three e-mail users in the family all have our own cresources.org addresses as well.
Paul - PDLeichty@cresources.org
Nancy - NJLeichty@cresources.org
Renita - renita@cresources.org

If you had asked me last year, I would have guessed that we would probably be located somewhere other than Fort Wayne by this time in 1999. However, despite job interviews in Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York, and feelers from several other states as well, the way has not been opened. We continue to seek God's will for the present as well as for our future ministry, trusting that wherever we go will be good for our whole family. When I stop to think about it, that is the appropriate stance for anytime in our lives.

We wish you a joyous Christmas season and a blessed millennium year in 2000!

Dear all,
Hi. :) Renita here.

In case you've missed out major events in my life over the last year, here's a quick synopis: I graduated from high school in June and in August moved two carloads of stuff down to Greencastle, Indiana (45 minutes Southwest of Indianapolis) to DePauw University (DPU). That's the short version.

Want more details? Oh, okay, I suppose. Let's see...

~January '99: We had something like 7 snow days immediately following Christmas break. I believe we had one full day of school in two weeks. Possibly the three days we did have school were all 2-hour delays.

~March '99: Visited DPU over Honors and Fellows Weekend to interview for Media Fellows. Had a great time. Later in the month, I turned 18.

~April '99: Started second job working at Video Encore. Took several weeks off from Chuck E Cheese, but later resumed working there on a regular basis. <somewhere in this time period I decided to enroll at DePauw, and later became the recipient of a generous scholarship:)>

~May '99: Senior prom. It was awesome.

~June '99: Graduation! We didn't get our diplomas at the ceremony, due to the many snow days our school district had accumulated, but did receive the official piece of paper two days later.

~July '99: Visited St. Louis for the biennial Mennonite Youth Convention with North Leo youth group. We had some major problems whilst down there, but it all turned out relatively okay, and I still managed to have a good time despite our inter-group problems and the 110-degree heat.

~August '99: Had a few last flings with friends, ended job at Video Encore, packed up my room, and on August 21 I moved into room 312 of Mason Hall at DePauw University. It's a single, hence no roommate horror stories to tell. The first week here - orientation - was literally almost exactly like summer camp. The stories I could tell....we even played tag -- and this was a University sanctioned activity. However, I did make a lot of new friends, and it's been great. The classes I took first semester, in case you're interested: Introductory Psychology (my 8 AM, yuck); Physical Geology (it rocks!); Comedy (theory of comedy, okay...we definitely do not sit around and watch Adam Sandler movies all class); and Media Fellows First Year Seminar (theories of media). Mason, my dorm, has been great. It's the Substance-Free dorm on campus, meaning absolutely no smoking, drinking or drugs - nor are you allowed to come back visibly drunk. A now-famous quote from my friend and fellow MeFe (Media Fellow) Stan Jastrzebski, who lives across campus in one of the "party" dorms (though he's not a big partier): "You substance free people don't need to get drunk -- you're weird enough already." It seems to be true: we're unique.

~September '99: Broke up with my boyfriend of a year-and-a-half for various reasons, including the fact that he's in Dayton and I'm in Greencastle. Now single and having terrible luck with guys, but that's all right. Enough about my love life. Also in September I started writing for our college paper, published twice weekly, The DePauw (online version at http://www.thedepauw.com), got involved with JC, the student-led Christian fellowship on campus, and learned just how different college is from high school. Additionally, I've been helping out on and off with SafeRide, which runs Thursday thru Saturday nights to provide rides around campus for students who are unable or unwilling to walk. (Drunk or lazy, usually.)

~October '99: The beginning of October brought parents' weekend, during which my parents got to see my room in its lived-in state, meet lots of my friends, etc. The second weekend of October was fall break, a much-appreciated four day weekend during which I went home for the first time. The third weekend of October I went to my first college formal, which was a lot of fun (I went with my new good friend Sarah Mordan-McCombs and a group of people, no real date...) The fourth weekend of October I hung out around here, played a lot of pool, had a great time, and went trick-or-treating with some girl friends. (I have an amusing story about the president of the University if anyone wants to hear it...)

~November '99: The weather got cold and yucky. I bought a plane ticket to Hawaii for Spring Break. (The aforementioned Sarah is from Hawaii and I'll be staying at her house.) The second weekend of November, Monon Weekend occurred (the Monon Bell game is the biggest football game of the year, with our arch-rival, Wabash College) and we won. We partied hard (I partied at a dry party, thank you) and had a great time. The third weekend of November signified the start of Thanksgiving break, and I was home from the 19th to the 26th (the 26th through the 28th I visited some friends in the Chicago area). I returned to DePauw the evening of the 28th.

~December '99: It's now the 6th, and my finals start this week on Thursday the 9th. I will be home again on either the night of the 14th or morning of the 15th. It's been a good semester, I've met lots of great people who I would love to tell you all about, but I don't think Dad'll give me enough room here, and had lots of great times. I love college. I am however looking forward to finals being over and being able to come home. Thus ends the semester, and when I come back in January I will be taking a three-week Winter Term class on photography. In February second semester starts, and I am currently scheduled to take Interpersonal Communication, Intermediate French, Introduction to Philosophy, Media Fellows First Year Seminar (second semester) and hope to pick up a Greek and Roman Mythology class.

Mail, whether "snail" or electronic, is always appreciated. Here's how to get in touch with me:
Renita Leichty
UB Box 7092
408 S. Locust St.
Greencastle, IN 46135-1776
(765) 658-5313
e-mail: rleichty@depauw.edu

I hope you all have very merry Christmases and very happy new years:) Happy Y2K! (Even though it is NOT the start of a new millenium, thank you...)

Love,
Renita