Did You Know?

Don’t forget—get your holiday orders in by December 10 to guarantee delivery by Christmas! Our phone lines are open from 8 am-10 pm EST Monday through Friday, 9 am-6 pm Saturday, and 1-6 pm Sunday. You can also order by fax, mail, or online anytime.

We have many wonderful visitors arriving in December, but we have space for plenty more! Come join in the abundant harvest, fellowship with us, and get up-close and personal with more pecans than you could shake a stick at. From the eldest (Dave Castle, 83, driving the forklift) to the youngest (Hakeem Brown and Adriana Lincoln, sorting pecans before a pizza party), we all pitch in. For information or to make a reservation, contact Ellie or Ann on our website or by calling 229-924-0391.

Have you joined Koinonia’s Nut of the Month Club? You’ll conveniently receive items each month for a year, thereby keeping your pantry stocked, as well as your bookshelf and DVD/CD player! You can choose your own monthly selections or use the pre-selected items on our list. Call us at 229 924 0391 to learn more or to join.

Reaching Out

The Circle of Friends’ annual Health Fair brought neighbors and community members of all ages together with health professionals and nursing students (pictured) for everyone’s benefit. Participants were thoroughly needled, weighed, measured, and gifted! We learned about hemoglobin, blood sugar, the Vial of Life program, the Rosalyn Carter Center on Aging, and much more. Affordable flu shots were administered thanks to the Georgia Farmworker Health project.

Visiting handyfolks are giving a great boost to our Heart to Heart home repair ministry this month. Charlie Hingston and Chuck Martindale are installing new, quality windows for Geneva Brown, and Nashua Chantal and others are “winterizing” Bertha Williams’ home. A big thanks to all who help keep our neighbors toasty. To support this project financially, donate online and indicate that your donation is for Heart to Heart. To support this project with your talent (and muscle and tools), contact Ellie or Ann in hospitality and schedule a visit to come work with us.

The Circle of Friends prepared a delicious Thanksgiving banquet and invited the Senior Citizens group of Peters Chapel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) in Columbus, GA. Wonderful fellowship and delectable eats abounded. Afterward, meals were delivered to friends and family members who were ill or otherwise unable to attend. Pictured, friends from Peters Chapel and friends Cecilia Tuck and Jo Knox serve up plates.

Traveling and sharing the Koinonia story, Bren headed northwest and Emory headed northeast this month! Bren spoke at the Cynicism and Hope conference in Evanston, IL this month (see www.cynicismandhope.org to learn more). And Emory represented Koinonia at the Tree of Life conference at First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, CT. Koinonia was one of the co-sponsors of the conference, which focused on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

This month, the American Friends Service Committee sent a small group of activists, dubbed the State of Hope Tour, to nine cities around Georgia, including Americus. Their Eyes Wide Open display, mourning those who have died in the conflict to date—including 117 Georgia soldiers and countless Iraqi civilians—was set up in downtown Americus, where it affected many passersby. Some were angered, some were sobered, and perhaps a few hearts were changed. The group was grateful to have Koinonia as a home base for the end of their tour, and we invited friends and neighbors to enjoy folk musician Witt Wisebram’s singing and strumming that evening. Visit stateofhope.blogspot.com for a first-hand account of their journey.

Again this year, we welcomed groups from Oberlin College, Sojourners, Eckerd College, and Mount St. Joseph Academy to occupy Koinonia’s beds and floor space during the annual School of the Americas Watch vigil at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia. We sent vigilers off with Ellie Castle’s home-cooked breakfast, then packed into the Koinonia minivan and attended the vigil ourselves. For more information about the School of the Americas (now known as WHINSEC) and its activities, please visit the SOA Watch website at www.soaw.org.

At the Farm

On Thanksgiving Day, the community gathered for an abundant feast, including all visitors to the farm, our interns, friends and families, and eleven members of the Gonzalez family from Ann's ESL (English as a Second Language) class. Joyful folks of all ages filled the dining hall with songs, prayers in English and Spanish, fellowship, games (including Ida and Valeria, pictured) and of course, a big Thanksgiving dinner. We remembered those who must be apart from their families on this day and every day, and together prayed for peace.

We’ve been blessed to welcome many visitors from near and far this month: friends from Church of the Servant King in Eugene, OR; Tony and Claire Fortune (the “Good Fortunes”), our long-time friend Jake Jacobson, the Deitzes, the Crowes, the Driscolls, and many, many more. Our dining hall is full and jovial each day at lunchtime, and devotions at this time of year become extra special thanks to these many friends and neighbors.

We deeply thank Boy Scout Josh Brown (pictured) and his small but dedicated crew for rehabilitating Koinonia’s Retreat Shack, nestled at the end of our Peace Trail. It certainly needed some TLC, and Josh picked it as his Eagle Scout project this fall. It is a rustic place for a retreat— let us know if you might be interested in a solitary nature retreat at Koinonia.

Coming Soon

A new MRI machine for the local hospital, Sumter Regional—we hope! Many, many folks have been visiting www.winanmri.com each day and voting for Americus’s hospital, which was destroyed by the tornado that ripped through town on March 1st. Sumter Regional Hospital is currently 100,000 votes ahead of any other hospital in the running to win the machine, but we still have one month left in the contest, so please keep voting. Thank you!