A Letter from A Wind Blown Gypsy Caught in a Heat Wave.

A month ago I arrived in Tennessee on a rainy day in May. Since then it has been a whirlwind of change. Even in the heat wave that is hovering over Elizabethton, the whirl wind keeps blowing.
The first couple of weeks I stayed with my dear friends, the Munceys, and took a class at ETSU. Even after my parents arrived a week later, I did not join them. Our family unit remained scattered while we looked for a house. Friends from the church and the community were so helpful and went out of their way to make us feel welcome in their homes and help us.

As my grandmother stated last night, "God gives us more then we can ever ask for or imagine." A house was finally found after my parents had been here a week. It is on the road behind our old neighborhood. My sisters and I have worn a path through the field that separates us from our former neighbors, games of Kick the Can and swimming. We are surrounded by trees and flowers, including southern magnolias. I have come to call the house Magnolia Manor. The house itself required a lot of cleaning and some repairs. For a while we had the old toilets sitting out in our front yard. A heat wave settled on the town by mid-month, and the final repair has yet to happen. Our air-condition does not work and some of the windows do not open, so the morning cool is always a welcome occurrence.

Unfortunately the whirl wind carried me away from the house for a while and I was not able to help with the move very much due to class and preparing for my summer job. I wrote ten papers in two and a half weeks. Then it was done. All of it. The last lecture came abruptly to a halt on a Friday. I was not able to find art students, and the art store, like many places in the area, was low on sales. After wandering around town in the thick heat looking for a job, I went back to the house.

The Father always knows what He is doing. The weekend brought a much needed calm in the wind and heat. My mother found a beautiful chalet in the mountains so we all piled into the Lincoln(better known as The Mother Ship) and drove the thirty minutes to the retreat center. We were finally together as a family. The next couple of days were filled with fun and rest. I almost finished a book I had started in February and we played some vicious games of Settlers of Catan. The birds sung us to sleep at night, while the butterflies called us to go exploring through the many surrounding mountain paths during the day. Only a cool refreshing breeze blew in those mountain passages

The next week brought a part-time catering job, and an art student. In my free time I have been able to spend cherished moments with my sisters, and help with a friend’s wedding. Australia plans continue to develop as well. The Australia government has been giving me flack for my living in Zimbabwe, and the visa application process has been delayed. However, all there is left to do is wait. And the heat continues, but at least there is the wind.