*cino – Page 3 – vander giessen-reitsma

Holidays with friends and family

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | December 30, 2019

We started out the month with a trip to Grand Rapids that we’d been planning for a while, to attend a concert with the band Over the Rhine and celebrate our friend Ken’s last show as the director of the Student Activities office at Calvin University. We worked with Ken for five years in the SAO and, like many others, were deeply impacted by his intelligent faith and his passion for popular culture and social justice. It was a joy to be able to spend time friends from around the country and even the UK who came in for the celebration.

*Finally finishing the new bathroom at the Imaginarium!*

Work projects this month included finishing the second bathroom in the new Imaginarium at the Huss Project, which is one more step toward getting our official occupancy permit to be able to host events and programs there. We also hosted our annual Christmas potluck at our house, with a wacky gift exchange and, even though we still debate whether it’s actually a Christmas movie, a viewing of the beloved action film, Die Hard.

In mid-December, we received some unexpected news that Rob’s aunt (his mom’s younger sister) had passed away. She was in a lot of pain so there was some relief, but it was still very difficult for her daughters, who are about our age, to find themselves without a mother or father anymore. Their whole family had been a huge help when we started World Fare in 2003. It was good to be together as a family, sharing memories, food, and the rituals of grief.

Shortly after the funeral, we made the trip back to northwest Indiana again for family Christmas celebrations. Because things were a bit spread out this year, we had time to visit with friends (former high school teachers of ours) and also to get into downtown Chicago with Rob’s parents. We wandered around the Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza for a while, and then headed over to the Chicago Architecture Center to view exhibits about the history of Chicago and skyscrapers around the world. Buildings and urban design are some of Rob’s great passions and it was fun to be able to share those passions with his parents in a new way.

*Visiting the Chicago Architecture Center with Rob’s parents*

We returned home on Christmas Day and after a few days of relaxing at home, we closed out the year with our annual New Year’s Eve party at our apartment, which doubles as an anniversary party. It’s hard to believe we’ve been married for 19 years! We don’t know what 2020 has in store for us, but we do hope that our path to parenthood becomes clear in the coming year. It’s been a long wait and we’re anxious to share our lives with a kiddo.

Sharing and learning from stories

By Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsma | November 30, 2019

The month began with Rob at another conference—the Earlham Writers’ Colloquium in Richmond, Indiana. He spoke on a panel about the importance of imagination in rural communities, which is a topic right in line with our work at the Huss Project. While he was away, Kirstin attended the Halloween party across the street at the Riviera Theatre, dressed as none other than young environmental champion Greta Thunberg!

We also enjoyed a day trip to Kirstin’s parents’ house in northwest Indiana to have a “grandma dinner” (pot roast, mashed potatoes, carrots, salad…) in celebration of their kitchen renovation, which was motivated by making the space in their home more useful for our expanding family to gather. While there, Kirstin enjoyed looking through an old family photo album that included pictures a trip to Florida her grandparents made before Kirstin’s dad was born. Who knew Grandma Marge was so stylish!

In the midst of getting ready for the Christmas shopping season in World Fare, our intentional community enjoyed some retreat time together at GilChrist, where Kirstin works. We spent a couple of days deepening our relationships with each other, sharing food, reading poetry, and talking about things we’d like to work on as a community. The week after the retreat, we hosted another storytelling night at the Imaginarium—this one on the theme of “earth.” It’s always nice to hear so many different perspectives on the theme of the night and grow in understanding of one another.

*Storytelling at the Huss Project Imaginarium*

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.

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