Greetings from Tucson!  All is well.  We are enjoying our little RV in the church parking lot.  And we are anticipating Christmas and enjoying all the festivities this time of year.  We miss loved ones and appreciate all the photos and texts throughout the holidays!

Homeschooling for Jodi continues to be a challenge, especially with holidays and needing to get last minute Christmas gifts, baking done and other day to day things that arise.  Nathan and Julia are attentive students, however, it's tough to stay focused when the weather is nice outside plus their teacher is not as organized or as creative as she should be :-).  But they love reading, so whenever there is a lull, a book comes out and they are content!  

This weekend we had off and decided to get out of our camper for a while.  We debated for a while, but on Wednesday we ended up making reservations at a dude ranch just 12 miles from where we are staying.  Because we signed up so late, they gave us a good deal since they knew they wouldn't be full.

We all had a great time.  The kids had lessons and rides with other kids their age and Jodi and I took lessons and rides with adults.  Some of our rides were separate, however, since my skill level put me with the "try and stay on your horse" group rather than Jodi's "loping over the hills" group.

The ranch abutted the Saguaro National park, so our rides went through beautiful mountains filled with enormous saguaro cacti and all kinds of other cacti and desert plants.  It was a surreal place to ride, but at a bit risky since falling would mean landing on rocks and/or a cactus not to mention trail apples from the horses ahead.

Also of note is that we had our first Sonoran Hotdog, which is a local American/Mexican fusion.  It is a hotdog, wrapped in bacon, covered in pinto beans, salsa, mayonnaise, and mustard, in a bun, with a hot pepper on the side.  It is actually very good.

Working at CHRPA continues to be great in that the work itself is fun and being able to connect with so many people that are different from me is rewarding.  Today we put in a toilet for an 80 year old Korean War vet and his wife who works as a cook at a local Mexican restaurant.  I have seen poverty in developing countries before, but this is different.  I'm not sure if it's better or worse, but I guess it's all bad.  Their house should just be torn down and rebuilt.  They were very grateful and they resteamed for us the most wonderful tamales for lunch, definitely the best I have ever had.

It seems that I have to struggle with my own biases of poverty here more than I do when it is overseas.  As opposed to in Kenya, when I see poverty in America I tend to tack it up to bad personal choices rather than something that is out of their control.  It is true, when I am fixing a furnace and look over and see a big screen TV, I get a sense of poor decision making.

However, after talking with these people face to face, I get the feeling that they work hard and are not in poverty by choice.  I am sure that in spite of a tough childhood, many of them could have made the "right" decisions to work harder in high school, go off to college, and get a higher paying job.  There certainly are many of those stories out there in books and on Oprah.

But when I look back at my childhood, I think I was pretty much a product of my environment.  I tended to do what my friends did.  I took advice from and emulated my parents.  I went to college where my older siblings did.  Those people were the people that I was exposed to as a child and it would have been hard to stray from those influences.  I believe that I would be in the same boat as the people I am working for if I were born into their household.

If I believe that, then where is my compassion?

I do not know how fix poverty in America or if it is even possible (fixing their houses is definitely not the answer by the way!).   I may be unwilling to help fight poverty in America because of how difficult it would be, because I don't know how, or because I feel there are more important battles out there.  But if nothing else, I think it is important that I at least know about it and try to grasp the extent of it.

I did happen to receive via email a couple of links that I think are good concerning poverty in America.

http://www.holmesbargainhunter.com/article/20131216/COLUMN/712169923/-1/hbh#.UrDrFKJQHPs.facebook

www.mcc.org/fearnot/world/pennypoll  (click on the photo show)

We have already received many Christmas cards, gifts, and the knowledge that we are in your prayers.  We thank you so much for all of these.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Eric, Jodi, Julia, and Nathan

Greetings from Tucson!  We are now feeling more settled in after being here for almost two weeks. 

The kids continue to adjust to our homeschooling routine and trying to figure out how to enjoy their new surroundings.  They are doing well and even enjoying the small camper space still.   My focus has been homeschooling which has gone well but keeps me very busy!  We have had a chance to see some local sights here in Tucson.  Last week we visited the Sonoran Desert Museum.  They house rescued animals and have some amazing displays of minerals/plants and other desert gems.  It is an amazing museum where the kids learned a great deal and had fun.  

Saturday morning pancake tradition:

This past Sunday we attended Shalom Mennonite Church for the first time.  We enjoyed the fellowship and especially the singing of Christmas songs.  We are slowly getting into the Christmas spirit even without the snow!  Last evening all four of us ran a fun Christmas 5k run through the Winterhaven Festival of Lights.  It is a neighborhood in Tucson that decorates almost every tree and almost every inch of their yards, plus they pipe Christmas music into the street and there are hayrides and trolley rides for the public to ride to view the amazing display of lights.  It benefits the Tucson Food Bank which is where we will be volunteering on Wednesday evening, collecting canned goods to be distributed over the holidays.  Overall we are enjoying city life!

Tucson Botanical Gardens:

Another bonus to being here in Tucson is that we actually know some people here!  Sure, it's great to get to know new friends which we have lots of opportunity to do.  But we've also run into people that we either knew in the past or have some connection with through our families.  We have been able to spend time with close friends from college - the Matt Baer and Jeanne Yordy family.  They have graciously welcomed us to Tucson and given many recommendations of kid-friendly activities plus evenings here and there for we adults to relax and catch up while the kids jump on their trampoline.  That has been invaluable and we have so enjoyed reconnecting with them.  Many have asked us what our plans are for Christmas Day and such - we are looking forward to spending more time with their family over the holidays!

Eric continues to enjoy his work with CHRPA...his thoughts are below:

Every day is something new with housing repair with CHRPA (http://www.chrpaz.org/  if you want to check it out).  It is always fun in part because we get to meet and see the homes of the people that we are working for, the majority which are elderly.  They have always been very thankful and as helpful as they can be. 

Today I worked with two other guys fixing a roof.  It was a nice change of pace from fixing more furnaces and water heaters.  But I realized what a softy I am as a physician.  Roofing is hard work!  Thankfully it was nice and cool and I very much enjoyed the fresh air and the surrounding mountain views. 

The sad part of this job was that the roof should have been deemed beyond repair.  However, at a cost of $4-5,000, CHRPA couldn't replace the roof but was forced to spend much time, SO MUCH effort and eventually good money after bad to repair it again later.  It won't last long, but since the owners looked 90 years old it will hopefully hold out longer than they will!

I have noticed during my short time already how expensive it is to be poor.  When we repair things in a mobile home (the only option many poor have), you can see that anything that needs to be replaced is much more expensive than its traditional house counterpart.  A furnace, door, faucet, or whatever cost much more and is of poor quality.  The lack of insulation in mobile homes requires much more on heating bills.

In the long run, the roof we fixed today would be much cheaper to replace than fix, but that is not an option if you are 90 years old on a fixed income and don't have money now.  It isn't an option to buy a quality car that will reliably get you to work on time and one that doesn't cost thousands extra each year on repairs and fuel.  It often isn't an option to overextend on credit cards when you are trained as a medical technician but have been out of work for two years. 

I have talked to all these people.  They seem to be hard working people that have certainly made mistakes but are trying their best.  

I see the same thing in health care.  It is cheaper to eat unhealthy food, but the cost is realized later.  It is cheaper to avoid seeing a doctor for regular check-ups, but the resulting ER visit and hospitalization ends up costing much more.   

It is expensive to be poor.

On our way home from fixing the roof today, we watched a $10 million Air Force jet landing (there is a big base just a couple of miles from us).  $10 million could replace a lot of roofs, or make a lot of schools better, or create a lot of good will helping people overseas. 

But for now, we will keep patching roofs.

Thanks to all for the many thoughts and prayers.  We've enjoyed receiving Christmas cards already as well as emails, texts and phone calls!  We hope you all are experiencing a peace-filled Christmas season full of love and joy!

Eric, Jodi, Julia and Nathan Miller

We made it to Tucson!

So far our journey has been going great.  Our drive down was over 2,000 miles and thankfully uneventful.  We did do a couple of fun things on the way down, but then made up for it with some long driving days.  On our longest day we drove over 700 miles from St. Louis, MO to Amarillo, TX.  We couldn't drive as fast with an RV, but we saved time by just staying on the road.  It is great to be able to make, eat, and "process" lunch all while cruising down the highway.

We arrived at our new home - the parking lot of Shalom Mennonite Church in Tucson - late afternoon on Wednesday and were warmly welcomed by the pastor, other volunteers, and then college friends of ours that live here and attend Shalom. 

Our living situation is pretty much what we expected.  We are becoming accustomed to life in a 21 foot RV, which is a great lesson in cooperation and living simply.  We are in the corner of a large gravel parking lot.  There is a basketball hoop and room for the kids to ride bike.   There are no other kids to play with, but at least they have each other.

The weather has been on the cool side, so we are still spending most of our time in our new, very small home.  We have been having highs in the 50s and lows in the low 30s.  They are even calling for possible snow on Sunday! It looks like it is to get a bit warmer soon.

The kid's homeschooling is going well (with their great new teacher Mrs. Miller - aka, Mom).  The church gave them a small Sunday School room to use, giving them a much needed chance to get out of the RV for a while.

Eric had a great time at work doing home repair.  (Don't worry, I am being supervised closely!)  My first day was Thursday, helping replace a furnace for a 65 year old widow.  She is one of those that you hear about that works full time but doesn't make enough to get over the poverty line.  It was a pleasure to be able to help her out in that way.

I was very excited too when she said she would be making lunch for us.  She is Hispanic, so my mouth was watering anticipating some good authentic Mexican cuisine.  Instead, out came a frozen pot pie.  Not so much as even a Dorito to go with it.  But after all the physical work in the morning, it was very welcome anyway.  

  

We have been appreciating your prayers.  Things have been going so well that we know they are working! 

We hope you all are doing great as well!

Eric, Jodi, Julia, and Nathan