Maynard-Reid's Annual Letter 2018

January 1, 2019                                                                                           397 SE Highland Park Dr

          College Place, WA 99324

Dear Friends and Family

Here is the latest edition of our annual highlights of the previous year in the Maynard-Reid’s lives:

January:

The year began with Pedrito in Florida for the January semester intensives at the Robert Webber Institute for Worship Studies. Exciting group of students eager to delve deep into “Cross-cultural Perspectives on Worship.”

At WWU, Pedrito’s former student and colleague in academia, Olive Hemmings, was invited to be the guest speaker for MLK Assembly. She blew up a lot of dust on our campus. For months her talk continued to be a topic of conversation. As always she made us proud.

February:

Pedrito II and family took a to Victoria, British Columbia; and Jasmine earned her driver's license.

Natasha continues to work as a Counseling Psychologist and as Associate Director of Training at the University of Florida's Counseling and Wellness Center. This year she traveled to D.C., San Antonio, TX, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, for professional conferences. 

March:

Pedrito’ made his annual trip to Washington D.C. for the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education conference. He had a great time visiting with Olive Hemmings and bouncing around deep ideas that feed the mind and soul.

Later in the month he was invited to the West Coast Youth Congress and West Coast Pastor’s Retreat at Ontario, CA. He spoke on the topic “Present Truth: Relevant Contemporary Preaching.”

He completed the Spring Break with a visit to his sister Audrey at her home in Long Beach. They saw the Broadway production of “The Book of Mormon.” Many missiological insights. While there he completed writing the Introduction for the 3^rd volume of the forthcoming work on the history of Hymns and Hymnody. Pedrito is one of the contributors and on the editorial board of the project.

  

Vie attended the Oakwood Alumni Homecoming for the first time. She had a great time with our dear friends Juliet and Dave Knight.

April:

Pedrito joined his colleagues for the West Coast Religion Teachers’ Conference in Loma Linda. Got to spend a couple nights in Long Beach with Audrey and Liz cooking up a storm. Also saw his cousins, Joneen and James Wilson who suffered the ravages of the 2017 hurricane in Puerto Rico.

Jasmine spent a week in France with a group of other high school students who were studying French.

May:

A highlight of May was Pedrito’s visit to Bermuda as guest speaker for the Intercultural Worship Conference. Thanks to his former student and dear friend Gwendolyn DeLa Chevotiere-Creary for a lovely tour of the island.

Natasha took her psychology interns along with another colleague to Jamaica for their social justice consultation project where they learned about and promoted mental health awareness.  Evans started working at his dream job as an audiologist in the Villages.  It is a commute but worth it. 

Vie and Pedrito attended the graduation at Milo Academy in southern Oregon, where Pedrito gave out $585,000 in scholarships at Milo. As always we had an early celebration of Vie’s birthday at Lorraine’s home, with Lorraine’s special pineapple upside-down cake.

June:

Pedrito did the June intensives at the Robert Webber Institute for Worship Studies. The Faculty confirmed him as a permanent faculty member. Before returning home he spent a week with Natasha and family.

Natasha and two of her colleagues attended a leadership conference in San Francisco. 

Pedrito was quite shocked when it was announced at the end-of-year banquet that he was the recipient of the Rotary of Walla Walla’s highest award: 2018 Rotarian of Merit.

He was fortunate to be able to spend another weekend with Audrey house hunting for a possible retirement home – not for him; but for her. He plans to retire when he turns 93! – Twenty-two years to go!

July:

We attended Vie’s brother’s youngest daughter’s (Lisa’s) wedding in Toronto, Canada – a lovely affair with family and friends; and a lovely extra time with her sister Janice.

Pedrito II’s son, Leo, decided to take Geometry during the summer so that he could start with Algebra 2 in high school with the most advanced math students. He rocked it. 

Ten-year-old Mayamiko started fifth grade.  She is an avid reader and also loves math. Dalitso is six years old and enjoying first grade.  She still loves to learn and draw! 

August:

Vie was extra busy this summer attending fairs and other events promoting Real Time Pain Relief. Remember if you are suffering any type of pain this product really works. Here is the link to the product:

https://mkt.com/vies-pain-relief

 

Pedrito II’s family took a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia.  He followed this up with an 11-day, 3000+-mile solo motorcycle trip to Moab, Utah, that included visiting with the James family, who are close friends of their family. As usual he made a stop in Walla Walla to visit the homestead.

Pedrito was invited to be the guest speaker for the NY chapter of the Association of Adventist Forums. He made two presentations: “Justice: An Act of Salvation” and “Present Truth: Relevant Theologizing.” It was good to see his brothers Hugh and Dexter. 

For the 16^th year in a row Pedrito made his mission and cultural trek to Thailand. For the first time he was the only male on the team! He also took some time to travel to Chiang Mai and audit the Rotary projects in which Rotary of Walla Walla has been involved.

September:

 Leo started high school! Where did the time go? His favorite activity continues to be playing computer games with his friends.

Jasmine continues to actively participate in and enjoy gymnastics. She was selected co-team captain for Issaquah High School gymnastics team for the 2018-2019 season. 

Natasha started off the month meeting with her very close friends from graduate school for a weekend away in New Orleans.  It was the first time they had been together in 10 years.  She then went on to run her second and final national conference as the president of the Association of Counseling Center Training Directors in Minneapolis-St. Paul. It was an amazing and awe-inspiring privilege for her to serve this wonderful group of psychologist trainers. 

Pedrito taught every Monday this term in Portland at the WWU nursing campus.

October:

During the fall, Margaret attended and presented at quite a few conferences related to Machine Learning and Android. Throughout the year she has been active doing this in places such as the Bay area, Vancouver, Toronto, Boston, and New York.

Another wow!: Jasmine will be in College next year. So this fall she was visiting and applying to colleges.

Natasha and her family took their first family trip to England to see the sights and visit Evans’ family. The kids had a blast with their cousins (“brothers and sisters”) and Natasha was treated to cake and treats for her birthday.

Pedrito was again asked to pray for the pilots at the beginning of the Walla Walla Balloon Stampede. He also got the honor and privilege of going up in the balloon belonging to the organizer of this annual event.

November:

Natasha’s best friend of 25 years, Perla Brown Robertson, passed away after a year-and-a-half long struggle with metastasized cancer.  She was an amazing friend, musician, mother, and all-around person.  She is missed every day by the wide circle of friends that she touched.  She was like a daughter to Pedrito, who performed her wedding 14 years ago.

The Adventist Society for Religious Studies and Society for Biblical Literature meetings were held in Denver this year. One of the highlights was spending time with his dear former student and friend Rachel Davies.

He ended the month in the southlands of California and Nevada with his sister, helping to set up her new home, and having Thanksgiving with the Reid clan.

December:

Pedrito and Vie both attended the Pastoral Evangelistic Leadership Council (PELC) at Oakwood University. It was our largest ever contingent from WWU, with three students (Kelsey Turner, Katie Wagner, and Tommy Tamuleaa), and Pastor Alareece Collie. Pedrito also attend the West Coast Black Administrators’ Caucus meeting where he was chosen to be the North Pacific Union Conference representative in the planning of PELC.

Everyone came home to Walla Walla for Christmas. We had a blast! – Lots of food; and going to the Blue Mountains to play in the snow! We were especially delighted to have Evans’ brother Arthur and Arthur’s son Mekhi come from England to visit the Pacific Northwest for the first time. And his other brother Alex who works in Portland, was also here. He was the life of the party!

Well, that’s it for life at the Maynard-Reid’s (and Maynard-Zhang’s and Maynard-Pemba’s) 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: https://www.flickr.com/photos/143715478@N06/albums/  and visit Pedrito’s blog as well:  http://blessingsfrompedrito.blogspot.com/.

We would love to hear from all of you, so drop us a line at pedrito@wallawalla.edu or violet.maynard-reid@wallawalla.edu or “friend” us on Facebook.

Blessings

Vie and Pedrito