The Maynard-Reid's 2012 Annual Letter

We hope 2012 found all our blog followers in good health and enjoying God’s many blessings. This blog is a joint report by Violet (Vie) and Pedrito. We had another full year – here are some of the highlights:

• Pedrito’s annual trip to Oakwood with 2 students for Pastoral Evangelism Leadership Conference.

                                    

• Christmas in Seattle at Pedrito II with Lorraine, and Natasha and family on Skype from Florida.
• New Year’s in Portland at Lorraine’s. Began helping her move to Canby. Braved the terrible storm (drove to Portland – took 6 hours to do the 4-hour trip) to preach at Your Bible Speaks Church and a week later Sharon Church in Portland, and finish helping Lorraine move into her new home.

 
 

• Led out in one of the best Martin Luther King Celebrations ever at Walla Walla University, featuring, Donna Beegle, a famous national speaker on the issue of poverty.
• Pedrito spoke on Blue Mountain TV for the program “Daily Bread.”
• Successful Black History Sabbath with Henry Wright and Black choirs from around the Northwest, and Pedrito on the massive pipe organ. We had church!

• Pedrito invited for the 4^th time to be a member of the Union Bulletin,  Advisory Board, and to chair it for the 3^rd time – a 10-month assignment.
• Took Worship Class on field trip to Seattle to visit Emerald City Community SDA church and New Beginnings Christian Fellowship -- a Baptist church. Quite an eye-opener for most of Pedrito’s students who were worshipping at an African American church for the first time.

 

• Preached in Palm Springs and visited the WWU Alumni there and at Loma Linda. Spent a little time with Lisa Thompson, our niece who is a medical student at Loma Linda University.
• Our son, Pedrito II, became an inventor: “Predicting geographic location associated with network address” -- http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN/7937336.  He also received a well-deserved promotion at Microsoft. 

• Natasha is enjoying her job as Director of Training Counseling and Wellness Center at the University of Florida in Gainsville. Here is a video worth seeing: http://www.counseling.ufl.edu/cwc/clinical-staff-webpage-natasha-maynardpemba.aspx

• Preached at Bay Area Church, near Houston, TX for their 3^rd anniversary.
• Performed the dedication of Aiden, son of Kathy and Andy Augustin, and preached at Kent Church near Seattle, WA.
• Whenever we go to Seattle, we take the opportunity to visit our friend Marsha at the Women’s Correctional Center at Belfair (a few miles from Gigs Harbor).
• Pedrito became a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow in April.
• Pedrito was invited to preach at Pickering SDA Church near Toronto, Canada in April. It is always a treat to spend time at Janice’s and visit with Noel and family.
• Natasha and Evans gave us our 4^th grandchild! Vie got to Florida a couple days before the early arrival of Dalitso Eva Grace Maynard-Pemba. Mayamiko is absolutely delighted to have a sister.

• Pedrito had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend with Pedrito II and family in Walla Walla. It is always a delight to spend time with our daughter-in-law, Margaret, and our grandkids, Jasmine and Leo. The Balloon Stampede was awesome.

• We were surprised at the North Pacific Union Regional Convocation (“Black Campmeeting”), when Pedrito was called to the platform and received an engraved vase in recognition of his work at Walla Walla University and throughout the NPUC for the Black cause and development.

• Pedrito always had exciting times visiting Academies to represent WWU and to give out hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to graduates and prospective students. This year he attended the graduation ceremonies at Milo in southern Oregon, and Livingston in Salem, Oregon.
• Finally, after 6 weeks Pedrito got to go to Florida to see baby Dalitso, and to escort Vie back home to Walla Walla. It is 9 years since Vie retired, and she is enjoying being able to spend lots of time with the grands. But she also has a little business on the side, being an agent for “Real Time Pain Relief.” – It really works wonders! Visit her site: www.rtpr.com/site/16db5382
• Pedrito celebrated turning 65 in July. We celebrated with his brothers, Hugh and Dexter, in New York. Dexter also turned 63 two days before. We had a blast. 

 

• We took the opportunity to join Lorraine on a genealogical tour through Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York. We crossed over into Maine for the first time. Pedrito only has the Carolinas left of the 50 states to visit.  This was a memorable tour. Lorraine has fore-parents who came over on the Mayflower in 1620! New England is awesomely beautiful.

• This summer Pedrito was supposed to be on Sabbatical. But with all the extra work in his capacity as Assistant to the President for Diversity, he was not able to get as much writing done as he would have loved. But he did get some done. He is working on another Commentary on the Epistle of James. Part of the time he spent in Los Angeles with his sister, Audrey. They celebrated, belatedly, his birthday in her former home city, Las Vegas.

• Two big trips to China and Thailand. Margaret took us and all her family to her home town, Guiyang, in China. This was our first time to mainland China. Three million people live in Guiyang. We did not see one foreigner. We were the center of attention! All necks were turning as we walked by! Wow! Black people! In Beijing we visited the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. A fabulous time!

• We had 19 team members on the Thailand Trip. It was a great group. This year, besides teaching English at the High School in the mornings, and at the Community Center in the evenings, and working on the farm mostly weeding the fields, we tore down and rebuilt the shed where our disabled farmer spends most of the day. The cultural trips to the Tiger Temple, Rain Forest, riding elephants, Grand Palace, etc., will not soon be forgotten.

• 

 

• Vie left from China and went straight back to Florida to be with her grandbabies! This allowed Natasha to get back to work to orient the new batch of doctoral Counseling interns.
• During this stint in Florida, Vie had the opportunity to go to Baltimore with Natasha. She had a great time being nanny to Dalitso, while Natasha was busily occupied at her professional conference.
• During the Fall Quarter, Pedrito had the opportunity to teach in Portland at WWU’s School of Nursing campus. He loves it whenever that opportunity comes his way.
• Throughout this first year of Dalitso’s life, Vie will shuttle often between Florida and Walla Walla. She came home in October for a couple weeks.  During that period we did our annual apple juicing. The fruit trees did well: we canned pears, jam, and grape juice. The vegetable garden also produced well: red peas, carrots, beets, watermelon, cantaloupe, corn, tomatoes, etc. And of course our flower garden brightens the neighborhood, with over 100 rose bushes, thousands of daffodils, tulips, irises, dahlias, and gladiolas. 

 

  

• Pedrito was scheduled to go to Toronto at the beginning of November to recruit at Kingsway and Crawford high schools. But Hurricane Sandy caused that cancellation. Disappointed!
• He also had the opportunity to make a Brown Bag presentation to his colleagues at the University about his most recent writing project. The presentation was entitled, “Another Commentary on James? Why?!”
• Appointments in Seattle are always a great time to see the Maynard-Zhang set of grandkids and their parents. This opportunity came in November when Pedrito gave a sermon and seminar at the Kirkland SDA Church on WWU Alumni Day. His theme was, “Sabbath: A Day of Redemption and Liberation.”

• This year’s Society of Biblical Literature and Adventist Society for Religious Studies meetings were held in Chicago. The theme for the ASRS meetings was on the hot-potato issue of Ordination. As always it was great for Pedrito to visit, eat, and fellowship with lots of friends, especially Olive Hemmings, and Madeline and Bob Johnston. And it was a delight for him to spend some time with his best friend while living in Puerto Rico, Angel Hernandez.

• While Vie was in Florida with the Maynard-Pemba’s, Audrey invited Pedrito down to LA to be with her for Thanksgiving and to help her pack to move into her lovely home on the shores of the Pacific. They always have a great time together – this year just hanging out in Long Beach, and doing a lot of walking. Incidentally, Pedrito has already passed the 5,000,000 pedometer steps he barely made last year!

Well, that’s it for life at the Maynard-Reids for the last 12 months. Thanks for your love and prayers. If you wish to see numerous photos of this year’s events, please visit our photo site: http://people.wallawalla.edu/~pedrito.maynard-reid/gallery2/main.php.