Sharritt Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas 2011 Friends:

It is the Sharritt's hope that the love of the Son of God has found you rummaging around for it in your life. We are well. It is Christmas Eve. A puzzle is on the card table with four heads bowed, hands reaching for the box top, sorting edge pieces, and seeking; silently hoping that all 1000 pieces are present and accounted for.

We are fine, even spectacular. In our second year of empty nesting, we have found that our kids are becoming more and more interesting each year. This is a soothing balm for those years of Grace not doing differential calculus at dinner parties as a toddler, or Ben's stubborn refusal to work on the development of teletransportation during the field's and his own infancy. They could have grown up together, and Roger could have ruled the world with such a device.

Grace is home for three weeks from a year of study abroad in Ghana. Which means, this will be the best festivus ever. After five months, homesickness, falling prey to an umbruni trap, the pieces have come together and while a welcome relief for three weeks, she is looking forward to the return trip for spring semester and the challenges that will provide. More on her travels in her paragraph later.

Ben is doing well. He has found his calling in teaching the youth of America. Who would have thought he would be able have conversations with his mother using words like pedagogy, inductive learning, experiential, and paycheck? It is a joy to see that pieces that were ill fitting four years ago can be rearranged so that the picture comes into focus.  It is even more of a joy to come into contact with his friends who always say "farmer Ben is the best friend in the world. " More in his paragraph later.

Bev is in debt to Grace's Ball State friends and their parents who allowed her to become Auntie Bev and host them on visits to the farm, and be recipients of lunch or apple pie now and again as she passed near Muncie. Both Ben and Grace's friends seem to becoming more interesting at the same rate as Ben and Grace.  Family vacation was spent in New Haven Michigan, complete with beach, interesting kids, interesting kids' college friends, and a unique rental house. The house, called the Mod Haus in the rental listing, had three porches, which turned out to be the perfect number for adults who wanted to read and rest, while peacefully coexisting with the youngins who at any moment might want to have a dance party or practice martial arts on their boyfriend. We enjoyed the collection of L.P. records the owner keeps there, playing the soundtrack of West Side Story while playing our favorite card games, and daily visits to Sherman's Ice Cream Stand. Just down the block on our Mayberryesque street was a park with a diamond, perfect for kickball. It's a long way to go, bringing three extra people on your vacation in order to have a good kickball game, but worth the  bringing an extra watermelon or two.

Roger found a new pastime and honed a second. He has taken up bike riding with a passion and finding enough good ideas along the way to write a blog a week for the year. While riding, he found one particularly pleasant childhood memory and quite by accident lost the equivalent of large toddler in weight. It was not all sunshine and roses though. Early in the summer he noticed that assassin deer, harboring nefarious intent, were stalking him. The situation has been documented on several occasions in his blog and has escalated steadily through the fall and now winter. He hopes that they will be deterred by the personal cruise missile that he hopes Santa will bring. Barring that, he feels that talking big reduces the angst of a daughter halfway around the world.

Grace: this past year has been full of the greatest adventures of my life. I had an excellent and busy second semester at Ball State, going out with a bang with sixteen days in Rome and London where I got to meet my anti-trafficking hero, Sister Eugenia Bonetti. This fall, I crossed the Atlantic once more to study abroad in Ghana. The past four months have been the most challenging of my life, but also the most rewarding. I have learned a ton, from how to eat fufu correctly, to taking the tro tro, to how to work with trafficking victims through my internship. That being said, I'm only halfway through my journey abroad and I have a lot left to learn. I head back to Ghana on January tenth and I appreciate your prayers and support. Check out my blog if you’re interested in learning more about my life in Ghana. Www.findingmyneighbors.blogspot.com

Ok, so you know how in my last paragraph I was talking about adventures? Well, two hours ago I learned about an all new one that is coming up in my life. My boyfriend, Chris Kozak, asked me to marry him today and I said yes. As you can see, this is all very new and there is no date set, so keep your ears out for news. Here’s a little bit about him:

Chris:  During the last year, I have been spending my sophomore year at Ball State working towards a Legal Studies degree as I prepare for law school, where I will be training to use my skills as a lawyer to advocate for human trafficking survivors.  Around a year ago, I was introduced to the Sharritt family by Grace through parmesan potatoes, climbing on to the barn roof, and fake band photos on the farm.  Since then, I have experienced many new and exciting adventures as I have gone to Rome and London with Grace, to Michigan with the whole family and then some, and as I have spent time at the farm while Grace has lived in Ghana.   Grace has received numerous marriage proposals from Ghanaian men during the semester. One of the first things she said upon her return was, “I’m so relieved that no one is going to hit on me or ask me to marry them!” Now that she’s back, I threw in one more marriage proposal for good measure, hoping all the Ghanaian men hadn’t worn her out by now.  But instead of the “no way” bazooka with which she had been obliterating the Ghanaians, she said yes.  I am excited to start off on this new adventure, and you can keep in touch with her for new developments in this department.  I have heard so much about so many of you, and I can’t wait to meet you when I get the chance. 

Ben: This marks my fourth year in Bloomington, where I am slowly but surely plugging away at a degree in special education and elementary education. I was lucky enough to get some quality classroom time by substitute teaching three days a week last semester. While wondering the halls of an elementary school where I was subbing, I overheard a student/teacher conversation and decided to listen in to see if I could gather some valuable teaching insight from a seasoned vet. The teacher asked, “So Kevin is coming home with you tonight on the bus, huh? Are you guys going to have a party?’’ The student said, “Yeah, We party til we die!” Instead of gaining teaching wisdom, I gained a whole new philosophy on life. With the words of the wise third grader in mind, I proceeded to take the party to the east coast for a two-week skateboarding trip. New York City, Newark, and Philadelphia all provided an excellent party, where I got to visit old friends and make some new ones. However the East Coast did not satisfy my insatiable party appetite, so a trip to the south was in order. We packed up two vans with 15 party people and headed to Nashville Tennessee where we skateboarded and camped out at our wonderful friends Farm. Man, Clay and Eilleen sure know how to party. I look forward to where ever the party takes me in 2012. I hope you all do the same.

Like working a puzzle, our lives seem to work from the edges inward. Even inside the borders, we hunt for edges; where the sky meets the horizon, the tree in front of a barn or a house, the clothes-line in the backyard. We seek those places where the contrasts make our lives interesting. Adventures to other continents, finding a hearts desire in the classroom and on a skateboard with friends, finding the refrigerator after spending a night in your car in your future wife’s driveway, finding surrogate nieces and nephews to lessen the yearning for a far way daughter, or plotting the demise of nemesis assassin deer; the Sharritt's were drawn to the edges this year and blessed that none of the pieces were missing.

We love you! the Sharritts