Hospitality

On our registration forms- which eventually grew to six, once Vincent was joining us – we all checked off that we preferred to stay in someone’s home, instead of in a motel (One of us – Martha – was staying with her mother, who lives in Nashville – Martha grew up in Nashville). Pastor Jane and Soni stayed with Nancy, the woman who locally organized much of the event, and who had the Saturday night/barbecue party at her house (I went home sick – but more on this below).

Stephanie, Vincent, and I stayed at the house of the local organizer #2, Susan. Susan was very gracious when half way through things Friday evening, I approached with a surprise geography/navigational question (more on this below) – and she drew an excellent map. (Susan and Nancy were both part of the Second Presbyterian congregation, who were our hosts for the conference.)

Friday night when we arrived at Susan’s house, it was obvious again that there are some wealthy folks involved in this mission effort. Susan and her husband lived in a big house in an attractive old subdivision. We stayed in what apparently used to be the live-in servant’s quarters –in a now kind of mother-in-law/garage apartment behind and to the right of the house. Vincent – once he finally got there- stayed in a guest room. Susan’s husband, Barry, is a pathologist who had gotten back from work just before we arrived Friday night. We stayed up talking for a while. Their son is a big baseball fan, and he (at age 16) drove home from working at the gift shop at Nashville’s counterpart to the Louisville Bats - even though they’re just three hours away – not in the Bats/ International League- they’re in the Pacific division. In fact, the son had just been up to Louisville earlier that week to see the AAA minor league All-Star game, at Slugger Field, where Nashville Sounds stars helped the Pacific division All-Stars – in the 10th inning – beat the Bats and other International League all-stars. His sister is a college student.


(Friday night our hosts also – after that great dinner – supplied us with a Tennessee Goo Goo chocolate candy.)

Saturday night Vincent and Stephanie got to enjoy more Nashville hospitality, as they went with Susan to Nancy’s house, for a catered TN barbecue dinner and party, complete with sangria and guitar playing and singing (Vincent didn’t sing.). Cass, one of the participants in the conference, played guitar and sang original songs (and some oldies) while reminiscing about why she moved to Music City.

We ended up not caravanning back with the conservative-driving other car. Besides us getting lost getting on the freeway, we were able to use the extra few minutes to ask Susan (pictured above back at the conference) more about her job: Susan is a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Young Adult Volunteer site coordinator in Nashville, just as Kate was in London. (The YAV program is kind of a Presbyterian Peace Corps/AmeriCorps or a Presbyterian version of the Jesuit Volunteer program that my friend was part of.) This year two Young Adult Volunteers lived in the community (in a building on the Second Presbyterian campus) in Nashville, and spent time volunteering at local agencies, worshiping and helping at Second Presbyterian, and engaged in spiritual journeying and vocational discernment. (Many YAVs – like our friend Sarah – end up becoming ministers.) (Nashville Epiphany YAVs must raise $8,000 of their stipends.) (Susan herself spent most of three years as a seminary student. Later that weekend Susan took a break from the Amigos de K’ekchi meeting to go to the Middle Tennessee presbytery meeting to talk about the Amigos de K’ekchi and Nashvile Epiphany projects.))

It turns out Susan and we know a number of people – from Crescent Hill church and/or the Presbyterian Center – although Susan also intimated that enrollment in her program and the YAV program in general has gone down with a lack of attention because of different focuses of some of those very people.

Susan and her husband are natives of Arkansas (and their daughter is at Arkansas’ Hendrix College), and Susan is just slightly younger than me.

Susan and Barry and their family also include two great big (outside) dogs, who were always there to greet us in the driveway when we drove off (and cleaned up some of the leftover food crumbs in our car). I must confess when I was feeling so sick Saturday afternoon at the conference at the church I was looking forward to coming to this second home, not just to lay down but to interact with the dogs. I love our dog, and I missed him on Saturday, but there’s something about these big warm snuggly dogs that makes you already start to feel better when you’re sick.

Watch Susan, meet some of the volunteers she’s worked with, and hear more about the Nashville Epiphany Project at: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=18500955

-- Perry