Travel Plans

I now have plans to fly to Esther Kuepfer's funeral, along with my sisters Linda and Lois, and Lois' husband Marvin, who orchestrated the arrangements. Marvin attributes the success of the arrangements in large part to the extraordinary helpfulness of an agent for the airline we'll be flying with--AA. I attribute it to Marvin's generosity and hard work as well, and, most of all, to the blessing of God.

Hiromi was originally scheduled to go instead of Linda. He offered her his place, however, when he realized how much we would have to ask of others to fill in if we were both gone. We all realized that Linda had been a long time friend of Esther's while they both lived at Mission Home, and that it would mean a great deal to her to be able to attend.

Unexpectedly, Wal-Mart proved to be very helpful in Hiromi making arrangements to be excused from work. He just needed to make a phone call on both days he would have had to take off. If the death had been of an immediate family member, he would have had his scheduled work hours paid just as if he had showed up for work.

Clarissa, our newest daughter-in-law, is helping out at Mom and Dad's--seeing that Mom's meds are taken on schedule, etc. and other family members are helping otherwise as needed--all filling in for Linda.

Thanks to each one who is making this possible.

I understand that the following people from here also plan to attend: Norma Miller (my co-teacher, who is flying from Dallas today with Craig and Rachel), Lorne, Grace, and Frieda Kuepfer, Joe, Twila, and Daniel Yoder, and Trish Bontrager. Laverne and Rebecca Miller and Gary and Rosanna Miller both have children married to someone in Mark and Esther's family, but neither of them are in Kansas right now. I suspect they might find their way to the funeral as well.

We plan to leave Wichita at 10:30 AM Friday and return there at 8:30 PM Monday. The Virginia destination is Richmond.

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After Shane and Dorcas (in Illinois) got word of Dorcas' mother's death, in consultation with the owner of the semi, they started heading toward home (Kansas) again via St. Louis. Near St. Louis, they picked up a load and continued to head west.

Around the same time they started heading for home, Eric G. headed east with Shane's car. Somewhere west of St. Louis they met, swapped vehicles and directions, and continued to drive. Shane and Dorcas were scheduled to arrive at Mission Home after 6:00 this morning. How much after 6:00 depended on how often and how long they had to stop. I haven't heard, but trust they arrived safely.

The two couples Shane and Dorcas were scheduled to meet in IN plan to attend Esther's funeral, and the three couples might try to arrange to spend a bit of time together early next week.

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Esther's daughter Ruth posted on Facebook today:

I never believed there were holes in the floor of heaven before ...

I'm not sure what all she meant by that, but Shane told me last night that in the last few minutes of Esther's life she called out, "Mom!" Perhaps it's clearer to her family now than it was then, but Shane said that they didn't know whether it was an exclamation because of who she was seeing, or if it was a confused call for help. She had fallen and Ruth and Mark rushed to help her. She was gone within five minutes.

As Wes said when he called back to tell me that I should plan to go to the funeral with no worries about school: "God rest her soul."