Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Re- Creation

Recreation.

The word means to re-create. It is interesting that we choose such a word to describe activities that we consider fun.

Fun is essential to wellness.

We have a person in our Episcopal Church community, the Diocese of West Texas who works with churches and vestry in areas of evangelism and church growth. One of the things he does is some basic personality inventories of leaders and leadership groups.

A few years back I took the test. It showed that I like being a leader, but I also like to have fun. I am best at leading when what we do is creative and fun.

(That may explain why puppets show up in church so much!)

Tomorrow, Anne, Suzanna, and I fly to Oregon where we will meet up with our son Colin for some much needed re-creation.

I am so grateful to God for the opportunity to take a few days to simply be, to visit with family, and to let my brain wander off in different directions for a while.

Thanks be to God for opportunities to be re-created.

Peace - paul

Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas 2008

Dear ones, family and friends,

(A quick note - to see the pictures click on them and they will open in a new window where you can see them slowly and with more detail.)

Looking back on 2008 we were tempted to borrow from the Chinese, and call 2008 our “Year of the Funeral”. We lost a number of loved ones, family and friends this year, and this Christmas, as we celebrate the birth of our Lord, we also look forward to the day when as St. Paul says “the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26). And we give thanks to God for the privilege of knowing some very dear family and friends during this earthly pilgrimage.

Suzanna Frey is now in her second year at Baylor, and still enjoying college. She’s actually become a member of the Hispanic Student Association, who decided after meeting her, that with 10 years on the border, she’s as Hispanic as many of them! She’s been able to make a few trips down to Laredo and San Antonio to see her parents and grandparents.

Colin moved from Guemes Island, near Anacortes, Washington, down to Portland, Oregon, and thankfully found employment. He’s working for a property management firm in Portland, and also playing the piano and organ for a church on Sundays.

Both Colin and Suzanna were able to be with us for Thanksgiving this year. Paul was officiating at a wedding of Beth Treviño and Mike Rangel on Catalina Island and Suzanna joined us and flew out from Austin, and Colin flew down from Portland. We spent Thanksgiving touring in LA, taking pictures by Ann B. Davis’ star on the Walk of Fame and eating at the restaurant bar of the Roosevelt Hotel. The next morning we joined the wedding party and their families on Catalina. It was a fun weekend and great to have the four of us together for the first time since Colin’s graduation in May of 2007.

Anne continues to work in the grant writing department at Texas A&M International. This year she feels that she’s learned enough to actually be valuable. Most days she loves her work, and only occasionally gets a little crazy during the weeks when multiple large grants need to be submitted all at the same time!

Paul is very thankful for Christ Church, and continues to feel called to parish ministry on the border. He wishes the climate were a bit more like the northern border, but you can’t have everything. He is also grateful that 3 out of his four siblings now live within a few hours drive. It is the first time in 30 years that 4 of the 5 Frey kids have been close enough to see each other somewhat regularly.

We also managed to travel to Guanajuato, Mexico with Suzanna to see Mike and Margaret Rooney and their kids, before they finished their year of studying Spanish. We drove down and spent a few days touring the beautiful city and promised ourselves a return drive down in the very near future. It was great to see Grace, and Adam, and Nora showing off their Spanish! And as a special bonus we spent an evening with some of their German friends, making delicious Apple Kuchen. A very international time indeed.


And we were blessed with a lot of visitors this year. We hosted Mike and Margaret just a few weeks after they had hosted us. We had fun with some exchange teachers from Korea who spend a few weeks with us, and our dear friend Sanae Yamazaki was able to visit us again this past August, which also meant we got to see friends from Eagle Pass.

This April Anne was able to make it to one of the funerals on her side. She was very grateful to join her sister Alice at Uncle Dick O’Donnell’s funeral, and see her Aunt Alice and cousins, and visit some with her dad.

Paul was grateful to make it to a dear family friends funeral in Denver this December. Lynn Ewing, a very close friend of the family passed away. Seeing family and friends in Denver was a great gift, despite the grief of the occasion.

As this year comes to a close we are grateful for so much: for another peaceful and democratic election, and for an African American president; for the gift of time with our children and other family members; for employment in a year when many are looking for work; for a home to live in and share, when many are homeless; for food to eat and food to share when many nearby are hungry. Above all for the love of God manifested to us in so many ways, and the opportunity to share Jesus grace.

Much love,

Paul & Anne Frey
139 Kentucky St. Laredo, TX 78041 rooneyfrey@sbcglobal.net

BTW - Paul can also be found on Facebook.- Look for the picture with him and Anne.
BTW - Again - The video is Christmas Day 2008 in Bill & Barbara Frey's kitchen.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Christmas 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

For more pictures go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/PaulAnneRooneyfrey/FreysXmas06ToXmas07 or click on the slideshow at the right.

This is the year of completion and commencement! Colin graduated from Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH on May 28, 2007, Memorial Day, and four days later Suzanna graduated from Alexander High, here in Laredo, TX on June 1, 2007. Needless to say, we did some fancy traveling via airplanes and automobiles. We were so grateful that Grandma and Grampa, Bill and Barbara Frey were able to be at both events. Bill has healed up from his broken heal and quadruple bypass of last year!

The morning after Colin's graduation, Paul and Colin took Anne and Suzanna to the airport and packed up 4 years of College stuff before Paul took off for Laredo, arriving in time to get to Suzanna's graduation. She graduated with honors in the top 25 of her class of over 500. After our first year when she struggled through months of living with a freshmen status label the fall of her sophomore year due to some home school credits not transferring to public high school credits this was a great moment.

Later in the summer, Colin moved to Anacortes, Washington, where he works in the only store on Guemes Island, and tries to find time to write music. He's bought a car, an aging Cadillac, and is getting ready for winter on the island.

Suzanna's move to Baylor has made us empty nesters. She's very involved, wearing lots of Gold and Green. Sic 'em Bears! She's got a wonderful roommate and has made lots of new friends. She's also been blessed to find some friends who she's worked with at Camp Capers, our summer church camp here. And she lives in the honors dorm where the students actually study!

The other event of August was having Mike and Margaret Rooney, and Grace, Adam, and Nora come through on their way to Guanajuato, Mexico. We had a couple of good days visiting with them as they set out for their year of studying Spanish.

A few days later in August, our dear friend from Japan Sanae Yamazaki was with us when we all drove up to Baylor in Waco, Texas to move Suzanna into College.

It was wonderful to see Sanae, and fun to go to Baylor together. For Paul it seemed just a few days since he had loaded all of Colin's stuff home from college!

A bit later Anne and Colin both got to meet at our niece Rachel Brown's wedding to Gabe Moreno in Wilsonville, Oregon in late August. Colin rode the train down from Washington. They had a great time with family and new friends during the wedding celebration. Unfortunately, Paul had to work and Suzanna had started classes at Baylor, so they couldn't attend.

There were a few other highlight to the year. Back in early May, Anne was able to go to Colin's senior recital for composition. Marilee Jaskuski with both kids in tow was able to be there as were Uncle Matthew and Colin's cousin Drayton Frey. Colin had one of the pieces he wrote for teh recital performed as part of the graduation festivities, a real honor for a graduating senior.

And in April, Paul, and lots of adult sponsors, went with the Christ Church Acolytes to Washington, D.C. for Texas Days at the National Cathedral. Paul also managed to squeeze in an appearance at Martyn Minns' retirement from Truro Church which took place later that same Sunday. It was a blessing to get our church kids to D.C. and to see some of our dear Truro friends.

Anne continues working at Texas A & M International University (TAMIU) here in Laredo and loves it. She's been very busy writing grants, setting up workshops for professors, and going to professional trainings. Through TAMIU we've been blessed to go to several gatherings of international students. We were also able to host a Korean teacher in February for two weeks.

Paul continues working hard at Christ Church, and getting more and more involved in Laredo. We've seen some very big answers to prayer and we are thankful that God brought us to this congregation. All in all, we are very exited to live here.

We've been blessed to meet all kinds of fascinating people. Our picture with Santa Claus is our first time to visit Santa as "empty nesters"! Santa is Norman Bowman, who is a missionary to Spain. This is the second time he's been in Laredo, and we've enjoyed getting to know him.

We pray that God who is faithful, will bless you, and that the love of his Son Jesus will fill your heart and surround you this Christmas season.

Much love - Paul and Anne Frey 139 Kentucky Street, Laredo, TX 78041, rooneyfrey@sbcglobal.net 956-285-2753

Monday, December 4, 2006

2006 Chistmas Newsletter

Dear Ones,

We figure a select few of you will read this, and while we love the paper version, we wanted to do something a bit faster this year. Hence the card with the website address.

Paul: This year has been a year of connections. After two years in Laredo we are starting to really feel connected at Christ Church. It takes a while to begin to feel at home, but we have been welcomed and are glad to be here in Laredo.

At the end of December last year we got to go to Houston for Wendy Mims wedding to Hugo Rivas. Paul was blessed to help at the wedding. It was wonderful to catch up with the Mims and many of our friends from our Church of the Redeemer, Houston days! We got to meet lots of folks Hugo’s side of the family (from Perú). And we had a chance to see my Aunt Judy and my cousin Mike.

Then this past spring we were blessed to go to the Pittsburgh area twice. First, we traveled one weekend in April to the retirement celebration of Les Fairfield, the beloved Church History professor at Trinity Seminary in Ambridge, PA, where Anne and I were blessed to study prior to ordained ministry. We were doubly blessed by being able to stay with Mark and Sarah Kwolek. Mark whom we knew from our time at Church of the Savior, while studying at Trinity, and Sarah (Mims) whom we have known since birth, those many years ago when we were at Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas. That two people we know and love from such different places would find each other, and that we would be blessed to see them and their new baby Micah is blessing indeed.

We got to see so many other folks while we were there, my brother Matthew and his wife Katherine, and many of my classmates as well as friends from Church of the Savior. In addition I had the gift of spending several hours with David and Pam Meeks, who were the first couple I had the privilege of officiating at their wedding the year I got ordained. It was so good to see them and hear first hand about the mission work they are doing in the places God has called them to serve.

Anne: A month later, we were given the opportunity to go back to Pittsburgh for two special events over a long weekend. First we attended the spring festival of the Arco Iris Spanish immersion preschool that my sister Megan founded in Pittsburgh. Paul, Suzanna, and I had a wonderful time joining her and my Dad there. It was wonderful to see Megan and Eric, and so many of her friends in action and to watch the kids. And as Paul said, “It’s almost a miracle to eat truly well made tamales in Pittsburgh!” Then from Megan’s we drove over to Oberlin, Ohio to go to Colin’s junior recital at the conservatory. We took two nephews Yoka Rooney, and Drayton Frey, and one Aunt Katherine Frey with us. Colin showed us around the college, and we met some of his friends and heard his composition and several other pieces. Colin’s piece included a voice piece, Native American drums, a trap set, organ, and an electric bass being played with an electric toothbrush!

Then at the end of July we were blessed to go on a week’s vacation to Portland, Oregon to celebrate (a month early) my dad’s 80th birthday. It was a wonderful Rooney reunion. My brother Ted and his wife Lori graciously opened their new house to the Frey clan. Colin and Suzanna got a chance to re-connect with cousins on my side of the family. It was a very special time to gather together, and to honor my dad. All 9 of us brothers and sisters were there along with their families and many old friends.

Paul: Then later in August our good friend Sanae Yamazaki. We are grateful that God has made it possible for us to keep up with her over these last several years.

And this past November, Anne and I were blessed to be part of a short-term mission team to the Episcopal Diocese of Southeastern Mexico. We traveled to Tuxtepec, and some of the smaller cities in Oaxaca and Veracruz states. My parents were on the trip as well. My Dad and I did a clergy retreat together. This was my second visit to Tuxtepec, and it was wonderful to see many familiar faces, and to be able to introduce my dad to them.

Anne: Then a week after we got back we gathered with Bill and Barbara Frey, Ann B, and the Timberlake clan to celebrate Thanksgiving. Again, it was so nice to reconnect with friends and family. And thankfully we were still there on Saturday, when Paul had to take his dad to the ER. Bill had felt tired the whole time we were in Mexico, and it turned out he’d had a minor heart attack the week before we went, and now needed bypass surgery. So, the end of November, and the first part of December, we have been even more grateful for all the time we’ve been able to share with Bill and Barbara and all the people we love.

At the same time I started a new job, Associate Director of Grant Resources at Texas A & M International University, (TAMIU), here in Laredo. Basically I’m always looking for money for each department! It really is a wonderful change from the public school classroom.

Paul: Dad’s surgery reminded me once more that it is our relationships that have eternal and lasting value. It was another reminder to never take time with those we love for granted.

And now a word about our kids…
Colin is now a college senior set to graduate in May, with the dilemma of trying to figure out what comes next. And Suzanna is now a high school senior in the throes of deciding where she wants to go to college. Lots of transition for both our kids this year!

So…if you are reading this it is because we want to keep up with you, even if electronically!

Much love in Christ,

Paul and Anne Frey
139 Kentucky Street
Laredo, TX 78041
956-727-2774 home
rooneyfrey@sbcglobal.net