Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma – Page 5

Slowing down, catching up

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | September 30, 2019

September began for us with HarmonyFest, an annual festival celebrating our community’s diversity that happens right in downtown Three Rivers where we live. That’s also the weekend we celebrate the anniversary of the fair trade store we helped start, and we did so this year with a drum circle in the store. HarmonyFest takes place the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, which is also a weekend that Kirstin’s family often comes to Three Rivers to spend time at the family cottage, so it was fun to hang out at the lake on Labor Day with the fam.

After the holiday, September has been a month of catching up on things after the busy summer, like food preservation and back yard maintenance (it was starting to look a bit like a jungle!). September is also Kirstin’s birthday month, and we celebrated this year with some down time at GilChrist Retreat Center, where Kirstin works. It was nice to spend some intentional time in reflection in the beauty of nature after a very busy summer.

Community celebrations

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | August 31, 2019

Our summer busy season continued into August, with further Imaginarium work in preparation for the wedding of our friends Alek and Deborah, which was be the first major event there besides Future Fest. These two dreamed up a beautiful wedding and had perfect weather. At Deborah’s request, we performed a sweet little song during the ceremony with Rob and I on vocals, Rob on guitar, and our friend Elisabeth on violin. It was fun to reconnect with many friends at the ceremony and reception, several of whom came to Three Rivers, like Deborah did, through our summer internship program.

August is often a month of saying goodbye and this year was no exception. We transitioned this year from a less formal program to an AmeriCorps summer associates program and were grateful to work with Sugan, Anna, and Jacob for ten weeks. Our good friend Emily also came to join us for the summer between semesters of grad school and she helped out immensely with special events, including a thank you dinner and house blessing for all those who helped with the community house renovation in the spring. Even though it’s always hard to say goodbye, we’re so very thankful for all of the friends who have brought a fresh perspective to our work in Three Rivers and thrown in their energy alongside ours to lift up the gifts of our community!

Unveiling the Imaginarium

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | July 30, 2019

Well, it was a race to the finish line and we gave it all we had! The new community space, called the Imaginarium, came together about 95% of the way before our big annual community festival at the Huss Project at the end of July. While we wish we’d gotten everything finished, it was certainly enough for visitors to Future Fest to catch the vision for this vibrant new space.

Launching the Imaginarium was just part of Future Festival. Along with dozens of volunteers, we hosted a rummage sale, farmers market, bake sale, live music, an art show, and a Community Carnival with hands-on activities and free school supplies for kids and families. This was actually the tenth annual Future Festival, chaired by our good friend Julie. A lot of friends, both local and out-of-town, come together to make the Fest happen every year and it’s always an amazing celebration of creativity and friendship…and then we crash!

*Rob taking a break with his parents at Future Festival*

Family, renovations, farming

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | June 25, 2019

Between late May and early June, we enjoyed several opportunities to visit with Kirstin’s sister Alyssa’s family while they were visiting from Idaho. Alyssa and her husband Dave have two kiddos, and this was our first opportunity to meet the youngest who was born in March. They’re growing up so fast! We also grabbed a couple of days away to visit Chicago in celebration of Rob’s birthday, taking in a Cubs game and lots of good food.

In between out-of-town adventures, we’ve been hard at work on another renovation project. This was actually the one that we PLANNED on doing this year before the community house project came along. Basically, we’re taking two rooms in the historic elementary school our organization owns and turning them into a new community space for all sorts of programming. Rob has a gift for designing spaces, and he had the idea to cut a hole in the floor between two levels and install floor-to-ceiling bookshelves made out of old barn wood. In addition, the old barns we had taken down at our friends’ property will be furnishing most of the wood for a new pavilion as an outdoor extension of the community space. Among other things, the pavilion will provide a space for our summer lunch program that provides a mid-day meal for any school-aged kid in our neighborhood. We’re also working hard to get everything rolling for the season at the farm. Thankfully, we have a lot of help from volunteers and contractors!

Planting futures

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | May 26, 2019

As the weather warms up, it’s been delightful to get outside and start working on the farm. At the beginning of the month, we got a crew together to plant several varieties of potatoes, which is always a big job and definitely wakes up the muscles after the long winter rest. Our tomato and pepper seedlings have been struggling in the basement this year for some reason, so we’re trying to figure out how to work with our local farmer network to make sure we have plenty of summer vegetables to share.

*Planting potatoes at the Huss Project Farm*

This has been a big month of transition for our community development organization. For many years, we’ve been hosting potluck dinners on Friday nights at our community house, and we had our very last potluck there before our big move on May 18. Prepping the new house involved some heavy-duty teamwork to move an old player piano out of the foyer and over to the home of a local piano tuner, among other tasks. But we managed to get settled in in time for orientation for our new AmeriCorps program. We’re excited to be taking this step as an organization because it will spread out the labor among a larger group of people and help us develop our vision and capacity for the next phase of our work.

Concerning resurrection

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | April 27, 2019

April has been a big month for working on the new community house as we anticipate moving day in May. Thankfully, a whole crew of people from our church have volunteered to pitch in, including skilled trades people. The house was converted to a bed and breakfast at some point, so most of the bedrooms have a bathroom attached, but only one bathroom was in working order. We actually ended up demolishing that bathroom to combine it with another one and create a wheelchair-accessible bathroom on the main floor. Besides that one, we got three other bathrooms up and running as well. Removing old wallpaper and putting a fresh coat of paint on most of the main floor has made a huge difference. This house is going to make a wonderful space for overnight hospitality and group gatherings.

*Painting at 208, the *cino community house*

We also celebrated Easter this month, which is an important holiday for us. Nearly every year, we attend the Easter vigil at St. Gregory’s Abbey, which is a Benedictine monastery just west of Three Rivers. The service starts at 11pm with readings of Bible stories leading up to the life of Jesus. At midnight, the bells ring, the lights come up, and we celebrate the first communion of Easter together, followed by a delightfully subdued party (remember, this is hosted by monks who are usually in bed by 8:30pm every night!). Then we head home around 2:00 a.m. to catch some sleep before driving to northwest Indiana to spend time with both sides of our family.

Author: Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma