Whitehead Christmas Letter 2007

From RHEA WHITEHEAD

2007 DECEMBER 19

Subject: Whitehead Christmas Letter 2007

Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:13:05 -0800 (PST)

From: Rhea Menzel Whitehead

Dear Family and Friends,

Warm greetings for the Christmas season and the New Year.

We have been negligent in keeping in touch with many of you. We hope we can remedy that. Our friends from different parts of our life and from different countries and continents are important to us and we want to maintain and renew contacts. Some of you have queried where we are based these days. We write from Toronto where we began a “second retirement” when we returned from Nanjing in May.

It is hard to believe it has been seven years since we took off for the Philippines in fall 2000 to serve as voluntary teachers at the Divinity School of Silliman University. The school has a lovely ocean side setting but in a country plagued by violence, exploitation from the outside and corruption from the inside. We learned much and felt privileged to be part of community and church groups who continue to struggle for change.

From fall 2002 to spring 2007 we spent half or more of each year in China, teaching at the National Seminary of the China Christian Council. Life at Nanjing’s Union Theological Seminary is very different from the Philippines but also with many parallels as people seek to find meaning and justice in a complex modern world. The joy of those five years included teaching enthusiastic young students from all over China (reflecting their different regional contexts), working with dedicated faculty older than ourselves with their history of adaptation to China’s changing polities, and also with the majority young faculty seeking to develop the vision and mission of the Seminary for the whole church in China.

Now we are ready for a change of pace, renewing relationships and involvements in our community. We are enjoying reunions with groups of friends from various periods of our life. Celebrating our fiftieth wedding anniversary this summer provided occasions for reflecting with family and friends on so many shared experiences, and remembering dearly missed loved ones no longer with us. We thank you for giving richness to our lives, and being part of our circle of loved family members and friends. Our old 1914 built house has suffered from “deferred maintenance” but soon will be ready to welcome visitors. Please come our way if possible.

We are delighted to have family close by here in Toronto: daughter Cynthia with husband Brian and their seventeen year old daughter Clare; daughter Beth and her husband Hugh. Still working in Thailand is our daughter Sara, with husband Philip and their sons Eli (12) and Ben (9). Fortunately they visit us each summer in Toronto. We will also visit them in February 2008 (and add on brief visits to Hanoi, Nanjing and Shanghai).

As we reflect on the ups and downs of the world over the past half-century we agonize over continued violence and ecological disasters. May this Christmas season be for all of us a time to renew hope for justice and healing in our world. In words that come from the Mennonite Central Committee, we pray

For everyone born, a place at the table

For everyone born, clean water and bread

A shelter, a space, a safe place for growing

For everyone born, a star overhead!

Love,

Ray and Rhea

416-653-8119

29 Tyrrel Avenue

Toronto, Ontario M6G 2G1

Canada