A year of living.

[temporal1]

It will be near this year’s Harvest Moon, September 20.

[Dan Z]

It will be near this year’s Harvest Moon, September 20.

Great picture T1 - that's likely the Vinalhaven ferry passing the Rockland Light in Maine, a bit up the coast from Wayne's place.

[gcdonner]

Wayne's family and church community welcome you to join us for the celebration of life, and burial of brother Wayne Chesley at 11 AM on Saturday, September 18, 2021, at Singing Creek Community in Muncy Valley PA.

The service will also be live-streamed. Directions and more information can be found here.

We'll follow up the service with a "Mennomeet" in Wayne's honor. We hope many of you can make it.

I wish I could attend, but even more regret that I didn't take the opportunity to talk to Wayne on the telephone. We had shared numbers with the intent of speaking together. We both waited too long, at least I did.
Wayne and I didn't always see eye to eye on things, but I have always appreciated him for his dedication to following Jesus. I met him many years ago when he was just beginning to try and put together an Anabaptist style fellowship in his area. We lived about an hour away, and there was talk of also starting one down on Cape Cod.
I have a favorite quote from him that I have saved for many years:

We acknowledge the social order that punishes violence with violence, and recognize it as God ordained for maintaining order in a realm that is not presently subject to Him. But because of Christ's commands, we do not participate in it and we call men out of it into a new social order: The Kingdom of God. (Wayne Chesley, 5/07)

I expect that he is now basking in the glory of the full effects of God's Kingdom, in His presence.

2Co_5:8  We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

[Betty in Maine]

Good morning All,
We were blessed with a lovely day on a mountainside for Wayne's service and burial.
Near the end of filling and covering his grave, it was very real that this was Easter: He is not here. Praise God for the hope we have in Him.



Blessings,
Betty

[Ernie]

Good evening Betty,

Due to major Covid sickness in our church community, I thought it best not to attend. But I was glad to watch the Livestream and the tears came often even though I was not there in person.
Seeing the children waiting patiently to place their handfuls of wildflowers on the mound of dirt was very touching. And as others placed their hands on your shoulders, we were there doing the same in spirit.
Please know that we pray for you often and hope to visit you after you move. May God's grace be around you and in you during this difficult time.
- Ernest and family

[mike]

Hello Betty, our family had a four hour drive tonight through northern Pennsylvania and I thought a lot about Wayne. Please know we will continue to pray for your family in the coming days just as we prayed for Wayne many times the past few months. God be with you.

[Betty in Maine]

Ernest, thank you and your family. And thank you for watching the livestream instead of coming in person, because you had Covid running through your community. I hope all stay well. That was our aim, too. I'd love to see you visit at some point. Wayne very much enjoyed joining the Penn State project with you, and always appreciated hearing from you.
Blessings,
Betty

[Betty in Maine]

Hi Folks,
For those interested, I wanted to make these links available.

Wayne's service was recorded:
There is a slide show first. The service starts around 1 hour and 17 minutes in.

This link is for the music we had accompanying the slideshow.

Blessings,
Betty

[Betty in Maine]

I posted this on FaceBook this afternoon, and wanted to share it here especially for the resources:

"It's been almost 2 months since Wayne passed away. In that time, I have relocated out of state, and continued the work of grieving in earnest, amidst getting established in a new area.

Because of the rapid change in Wayne's condition, coming into a weekend, we didn't have access to hospice support in the hospital, though had a caring palliative doctor visit twice who also arranged a private room on Wayne's last afternoon. But there's been no follow-up in dealing with Wayne's death, outside of what I have arranged myself.

So this is what has helped, and what I would encourage anyone else to do who has faced such loss:

1. Do what you need to do, when you need to do it, to take care of yourself. Unapologetically. It's okay.

2. Draw near to God. He's always been near you.
I obtained these booklets in my own study for caring for hospice
clients and found they have a wealth of wisdom and a lot of things suddenly made more sense to me. It's a series of 4 booklets that are read at 3 weeks, 3 months, 6 months and 11 months after a loss. https://www.stephenministries.org/grie. ... lt.cfm/774...
I'm also reading and journaling (and praying) through Max Lucado's "God Will Help You". https://www.christianbook.com/god-will- ... vent=ESRCP
These resources have been so helpful and spot on, that I have bought them for my three adult children.

3. Line up some supportive counselling. You need to talk to someone who will listen without judgement and who will meet you with kindness. That's not to say others cannot do the same. But sometimes you need a little more therapeutic approach and outside perspective.

I hope these resources may be helpful to someone. Grief is hard work. My life has been turned upside down and inside out enough to the point that I sometimes don't recognize it. But I can assure anyone, that God is faithful, a sustainer and the Comforter, in a season that will take time to go through. And for that, and for our 44 years together, I am truly thankful. Blessings." ~Betty

[Neto]

Hello Betty,

I met your husband and daughter only briefly at a MennoDiscuss get-together here in Holmes County some years ago, so I did not know Wayne well. I just wanted to say that although I have not said much here, I have continued to think about you all in the past months.
I have also read through the 4 book series you mentioned. Some former co-workers of ours from WBT in Brazil sent the books to us one at a time, spaced out over the past year, as you mentioned they are intended to be read. First my father-in-law passed away in September of last year, then my own father in December. They were 99 and 90 respectively, so this was not unexpected in our case. (My wife's father had been in declining health over the last 6 months of his life, rapidly loosing both sight & hearing. My own father had been suffering with severe memory loss due to Alzheimer's, over the last 10 years or more.) Our friends sent the books because of these losses, but for me, I related what the author says more to some other losses, years ago, actually. One, an unborn child, not yet beginning in life, the other, a young man, in the prime of life. The author talks about something akin to the idea of "getting over it" - that every grieving person is free to take as long as necessary to go through this process of healing. What I have found is that these experiences change a person, never to be the same again. (I think he does also talk about finding the "new normal - I don't recall it all, as I finished the last book some time back already.) I don't think I want to "get over it". Maybe I'm concerned that I would forget these people, but I am at peace with a grieving process that never really ends. Certainly, it changes over time, which for these two cases is now 30 and 14 years, respectively.
Blessings.