January 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Kathy Hoffmann is ending her service at Woodstock after 25 years. She returns to the United States in July.

School closed on December 19 for the winter holiday. By the day after Christmas there were very few people left on the hillside. This winter I have opted for spending quiet, reflective time here in Mussoorie for most of our break. Recent readings on silence and solitude by Dallas Willard confirmed to me the value of this time, even though at times I panic and think, “I should be accomplishing something.” Two weeks have gone by now, and I noticed today that for the first time in a long, long time I was humming a tune, which is a sign, I think, of feeling more solid and whole and less simply functional. From my window I watch tiny birds settle on the fence, yellow ones and blue ones. The days have been sunny and the sunsets spectacular.

Letters have been few from me in the last couple of years, signifying in part the difficult times we have been through here, with many changes at school. In addition, the cycles of a school year repeat themselves and while for me each year brings new students, in a letter it seems simply to simply repeat: new school year, activity week, Christmas, new term, graduation. Woodstock is now poised to move into a new phase, with new administration in a “new” India, a school moving into the 21st century in a rapidly developing country, in a world that is looking for bearings with new leaders and challenges that go beyond what we could imagine even months ago.

Kathy Hoffmann (seated, center) with nine student advisors from the Woodstock School.

I recently joined Facebook, thinking I should learn such things. Within days I had contact with dozens of students who I have taught over the last 25 years. It has been fun to find them again. Many are working in development, refugee camps, and NGOs in places such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Israel, Iraq, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Jordan. Others are in government, politics and journalism in Ghana, the United States, Turkey, Bangladesh, India, and Bhutan. Some are in academics at Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, SOAS, teaching economics, languages, development, social sciences in the United States, India, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Others are artists, filmmakers, and writers in Korea, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Many are in the medical profession in Australia, India, the United States, and Germany. Others do business and law in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, New York, London, Mumbai, Delhi.  They work for the UN, the World Bank, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, Save the Children, World Relief.  They do theology and ministry; they’re homemakers and caregivers. Of course, a new generation of babies are coming into the world and they are all beautiful; they dance to ditties, smile into cameras, cuddle puppies, receive kisses. This list goes on, and in these quiet days you might imagine the direction of some of my reflections. What is a call? When is it over? How is it measured?

This year the local Church of North India churches have been busy. Our pastors, the Templetons, created timely and moving services for harvest, for Teachers’ Day (a big day in India), Advent, and Christmas. Carolers sang around the hillside in the evenings before school closed. Our annual combined Advent Service at Christ Church is always a highlight of music and lessons and carols. St. Paul’s is over 160 years old and this year has been restored as the result of a generous donation; we had a special thanksgiving service at the dedication of the newly restored St. Paul’s Church. I pondered the irony that this event should occur while in Orissa churches and Christians have been under attack.

Children at Charisa, a home for AIDS orphans in Dehra Dun.

This year I was able to join the group from St. Paul’s that went to the Leprosy Mission and Charisa, a home for AIDS orphans in Dehra Dun. We gave gifts of blankets, towels, and food staples at these places, and we sang and prayed together. The Woodstock Hindustani Church has services every week in Hindi and, in winter, a bilingual service attended by the few of us still left on the hillside.

The Non-Formal Education Center of the Allahabad Agricultural Institute hosted our activity week group again this year. Ten students turned their hands to turning soil and planting seeds; we even harvested a paddy of rice—cutting, bundling, threshing, and bagging. This experience and others we had with the work it takes to provide food never ceases to be not only a valuable but a revelatory experience for our students. It is also an example of our mission history together and how education has been historically and still is a vital part of PC(USA) mission. (The Ag Institute was started by Presbyterians and the non-formal education program is led by Dr. Miura, who is from the Rural Asian Institute in Japan. He also consults with MGVS here in Mussoorie—see pages 106-107 and page 6 of the first color section of the 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study.) Seeds are sown, lives are changed, the harvest is in the next generation of caring professionals who will help lead the world.

So the year ended and a new one began. I will be leaving Woodstock in June after 25 years teaching here and 20 years with PC(USA). In the summer I will visit friends on my way back to the United States for interpretation assignment and settling into life in the United States, looking for a job, reestablishing family and friend connections, beginning a new mission.

When I came to India in 1984, little did I know how long I would be here and the lives that would touch mine. Now as I consider the move back, the same kind of unknown lies ahead. But with all these years and all these lives, it is easier to grasp that He has gone before and has prepared a place, a place of abundant life.

Happy New Year and rejoice that you participate…

Love,

Kathy

The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 106