Wallkill Bethel

We got up at about 6AM and started getting ready so we could be at Wallkill about 8AM. Shawn and the boys went down to the hotel restaurant to get breakfast and I ironed shirts and pants and got ready in a male free room! Wallkill was about a 30 minute drive from our hotel in Newburgh and was fairly easy to find thanks to Google. We missed one turn right in the town of Wallkill so had to get directions at the little deli in town.

When we arrived, we were able to visit a wonderful display in the lobby about the history of the Watchtower and Awake magazines and the Watchtower organizations radio station WBBR that was in existence in the early days. Very interesting! I also got the "Noah" and "David" DVD in ASL from the literature counter there. So exciting as it's one I don't have!

Next, our tour guide Brother Lester Slack came to the lobby to give us the tour of the printery and bindery. Lester has been a member of the Bethel family for over 27 years, spending the majority of his time at the Brooklyn facility. He's new to Wallkill and we were his first tour! He did a wonderful job explaining everything and if he didn't know an answer, he found someone to ask. I posted pictures along with captions over on the dropshots site. We have MANY more pictures, but I didn't want to post them all tonight.

Anyway, after our tour, we went back out to the lobby display to finish reading that. A few minutes later, Lester reappeared and asked us if we had plans for lunch. He asked if we would join he and his wife Shirley along with the Wallkill Bethel family for lunch! We gladly accepted! There was about 2 hours before lunch though, so we drove back into Wallkill and got some pop, uploaded pictures from the cameras to the computers and let the boys throw rocks and look at fish in the Wallkill river. One problem was at the deli where we got pop. Jonathan gave the lady a $20 to pay for his pop & cupcakes. She gave him change as if she had given him a $10. He didn't catch it until he had walked out of the deli and when he went back in she refused to give him the rest of his change. A hard lesson (count your change in front of the clerk before you leave) for a money conscious teenager.

We headed back to Bethel and enjoyed an EXCELLENT meal of linguine with pesto sauce, roasted carrots, homemade wheat bread, salad, and homemade strawberry sorbet. Interestingly, they have a prayer before the meal and 15 minutes later another dismissal prayer. You can continue eating after that, but it's for those who have assignments to get back to - just another petition to Jehovah to bless them as they work. Lester and Shirley then took us outside to walk the grounds and take pictures. What a nice couple!! They even told us where to eat in the city that wouldn't break the bank with 3 boys.

After lunch, we piled into our big SUV (We got a Mercury Mountaineer with leather seats!) and headed over to Fishkill, NY to the Extended Stay America Hotel. We checked in there and they gave us passes to a local fitness center/outdoor park. Shawn took a nap while the boys and I got me a latte at Starbucks and headed over to the park. James and Jonathan played tennis, then joined Noah at the pool. They stayed for awhile until the lifeguards heard rumbles of thunder and ordered everyone out. We swung into Wendy's for Frostys and then back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with my cousin Kevin and his wife Andrea.

Their apartment is only about 5 minutes from our hotel and was very easy to find. Andrea made a wonderful meal of pulled pork (with GOOD New York crusty bread), corn on the cob, baked beans, and a salad with spring greens, feta cheese, craisins, sunflower seeds and a oil/vinegar dressing. YUM! She made enough to fill everyone including the boys!! We had a great time chatting about their years at Bethel, me and Kevin's memories of growing up, and catching up on family. Andrea was amazed when I told her I saw pictures of the two of them in a slide show in St. Paul, when they were serving in Ghana, Africa given by another brother from Milwaukee. On a similar note, the sister that will be giving us the tour tomorrow at Patterson (that Brother Cano set up) works in the correspondence department with Andrea's sister Helen who we'll be having lunch with tomorrow. Always a small world in Jehovah's organization!

We're off to bed now, this is the only night we got the boys their own room so it is exciting to have quiet!

We'll update you all on Patterson tomorrow. Take care!

~Lynetta