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    Serendipity Station: Additional Blessings and Challenges
    Serendipity Station: Additional Blessings and Challenges
    Serendipity Station: Additional Blessings and Challenges
    Ebook135 pages2 hours

    Serendipity Station: Additional Blessings and Challenges

    By John E. Huegel

    ()

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    About this ebook

    The author’s fascination with trains leads him to use the metaphor of a trip on a train and the various stops along the way to describe his journey through life. In the book, Serendipity Station, he tells of his experiences adjusting to life in a retirement community which is the last stop on his journey. He considers the numerous blessings he has received as well as the challenges he has faced and offers some reflections along the way.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris US
    Release dateDec 3, 2020
    ISBN9781664144262
    Serendipity Station: Additional Blessings and Challenges
    Author

    John E. Huegel

    John E. Huegel was born in the city of Aguascalientes, Mexico, the son of missionary parents. He also served as a missionary of The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Mexico for forty-two years. During that time, he served as pastor of various churches, as professor in Union Evangelical Seminary in Mexico City, and director of the Center for Theological Studies in San Luis Potosí. After he retired, he moved to Texas, where he served briefly as professor in the Edinburg Theological Seminary and as interim pastor of various congregations. He is married to Yvonne and they live in EdenHill communities in New Braunfels, Texas.

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      Book preview

      Serendipity Station - John E. Huegel

      PROLOGUE

      38897.png

      Since childhood I have been fascinated with trains and railroading, everything that rides on rails, including model railroads. I have always enjoyed riding on a train, visiting with fellow passengers, getting off at the various stations where it stopped and walking up to see the locomotive, eating in the dining car and at night dosing off to sleep listening to the clickety clack of the wheels on the track and sensing the gentle sway of the Pullman car. I must have trains in my DNA.

      My family of origin at times made the long trip of 1879 miles on The Sunshine Special, later the Texas Eagle, from Mexico City to St. Louis to visit my grandmother in Hannibal, Missouri. Then when I was studying at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, I added the additional 424 miles from St. Louis to Madison, vía Chicago, and when I was studying at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, I traveled an additional 1022 miles on the Penn-Texas from St. Louis to Princeton Junction. The trip from Mexico City to Princeton Junction, a total of 2891 miles, took three days and three nights.

      I recall looking out the window while the train was traversing the wide-open semi desert terrain of central and northern Mexico and seeing the brush and cactus plants in the foreground pass by swiftly while those in the distance seemed to keep up along with the train but eventually fall behind. This optical illusion always fascinated me.

      In certain places you could look out the window and see the mile posts pass by. By checking the time it took to go between each milepost you could calculate the speed the train was going. If it took 60 seconds it was travelling at 60 miles per hour, if it took 120 seconds it was travelling 30 miles per hour.

      I also found railroad timetables fascinating. They listed the various routes and the trains that travelled each route. The tables listed the stations on the route, to the left of each station the miles distant from the starting station and to the right the time when the particular train was to arrive at that station. It was fun to follow the progress of the train checking on the timetable to see whether it was on time or not.

      It is only natural for me to have chosen a trip on a train as the metaphor for my journey through life. The timetable for this journey might look something like this -- instead of miles listed on the left, I have noted my age when I arrived at the corresponding station, and on the right the year of arrival at each station and year of departure:

      In the various stations where I have stopped along the way there have been many happy and delightful experiences. In one of the lengthy stops I raised my family, in others I found many opportunities for service, and in all of them made dear friends.

      I had planned to make my final stop at the station of Richmond, a suburb of Houston, Texas, but that was not to be, for as my wife Yvonne considered the care her elderly aunts required and she could not provide, she suggested we move to EdenHill, in New Braunfels so we could receive adequate care in our last years and not be a burden to our children.

      In my book, Boundaries in Pleasant Places (2016), I reflected on my cultural and spiritual journey through life and in the last chapter, The Day is Far Spent, I wrote:

      This is the period in my life when I can experience freedom from all of the roles, constraints and expectations of life, freedom to live life to the fullest, when I can join the Psalmist and drink from the river of God’s delights…

      This is the time for me to uncover that which lies deepest within me and discover the hidden facets of my soul, and what I am about, to support my children and grandchildren in their various endeavors and to celebrate their achievements, to listen more attentively to those around me and to accompany others on their spiritual pilgrimage, to foster understanding between those on the theological and political right and those on the left, to pray for the worldwide mission of the church, and to have the courage to experience something new and fresh, "forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Php 3:13,14).

      As I began to reflect on my life in the station of EdenHill, I was nurtured by Sr. Joan Chittister’s classic book on aging, The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully, and have referred to it in various places.

      As the train slows, I hear the conductor open the door of the car and proclaim in a loud voice, New Braunfels. The train stops, he opens the vestibule door, places the step stool on the platform, takes my bag and I step down into my last stop. I invite you to join me as I share my experiences here in EdenHill Communities of New Braunfels, Texas, the Serendipity Station where I stop before embarking on the last leg of my journey.

      1

      O NO, NOT ANOTHER MOVE!

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      We were driving back to Richmond after visiting my wife’s elderly aunts in Angleton, Texas, when Yvonne said,

      Have you noticed how frail Aunt Frances and Aunt Vernie are getting? I’m glad they have someone caring for them. Then she added, I wonder if we should consider moving to where we can be cared for in our advanced age and not saddle David and Ceci with that responsibility.

      Oh, no! I thought. That means another move.

      I had moved to Richmond, Texas, to be near my son David and his wife Cecilia and planned to make that my final move trusting that they would care for me when I needed it.

      Moving my place of residence, with all the dislocations, frustrations and adjustments, has been part and parcel of my life since childhood. I guess that is the lot of a child of missionaries, and since I was also a missionary, as an adult I continued the pattern.

      I remember moving to my first pastoral charge in the small rural community of Los Nogales and the challenging adjustments I faced. I had never lived in a place where there were no electric lights, and fear of the dark threatened to derail my ministry. In order to conquer the fear, each evening, as I washed my teeth, I stood in the open doorway and faced the darkness. One night I heard steps behind the back wall of the small courtyard. I grabbed by trusty flashlight, went out to find out who it was and what they wanted. Then, I heard steps behind the side wall. I crept quietly to the corner, peeked around, and focused the beam of my flashlight on a big horse ambling along munching on some stray bits of fodder.

      Soledad means solitude in Spanish but in Mexico it is also a name that can be given to a woman. When you are living alone, people say you are living with doña Soledad, Ms. Solitude. Soledad was my constant companion and she was especially present when after spending a few days with my parents in Mexico City, I would return to the village and face the loneliness.

      But the blessings I received the two years I lived in Los Nogales far outnumbered the challenges. I learned to participate in the sufferings of others as I ministered to the women whose husbands were in the States working and who had to face all the struggles of raising their children alone. I also learned what it meant to live with those on the margins of society who suffer injustice. The governor of the state had a monopoly on the purchase of corn, the staple of the region, and he bought it for a low price when it was harvested in the fall. When the local supply was depleted in the spring and farmers needed seed, he sold it back to them at an exorbitant price.

      The move to Los Nogales proved to be one of the most formative and enriching experiences of my life.

      I also remembered the decision to leave Mexico, my country of origin and lifelong ministry, and move to the United States. I found life in the town of Raymondville, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas full of adjustments. I had to make new friends and, at first, live with no vocational challenge. I had to get accustomed to the oppressive summer heat and the uninspiring flat land of the valley -- the highest spot near-by was the overpass of Highway 77 over 83 in the city of Harlingen.

      But my pastoral ministry for eight years at First Presbyterian Church in Raymondville and Bethel Lutheran Church in the neighboring town of Lyford, proved to be some of the happiest years of my life, filled with joy preaching, visiting in the homes of parishioners, and cultivating new enriching friendships.

      When Yvonne hinted that we should move from Richmond, I resisted the idea. I remembered the emotional pain over leaving familiar places, the sense of loss on disposing of many things, the physical drain that goes with packing, not to mention the same effort in un- packing and setting up house in a new locality, and the struggle to adjust to a new environment. But the more I pondered her suggestion the more I saw its wisdom, even though it meant downsizing again, packing and leaving David’s family.

      *****

      I first discovered the retirement community of EdenHill, in New

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