Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

I am sharing this week and in posts to follow a few influences--videos, books, people, places, stories--that have helped me notice my blindspots with regard to racial justice. The story is ever growing. In fact, sometimes the more I learn, the harder it is to write. So I'll just start here, hoping that if I tell one or two stories it could be a way forward to you reading or telling one or two more stories, and that could be a way forward for all of us. In 2017, our family visited Washington D.C. My priority stop was the National Museum of African American History and Culture which had opened less than one year before, but I had not planned far enough ahead to get tickets before we arrived. So every morning of our five-day visit I logged on to the website at 6 AM to try to get five tickets (we had an exchange student with us). One morning I was able to get three. I wasn't sure how that would work out, but we figured we would go get in line for the other two and see what would...

As our van drove up to the unofficial refugee camp, a group of children were already coming over to greet us.  “Hello!”  They practiced their new English with bright vowels.  “Nice to meet you!”    It was a beautiful spring day, and I was over the worst of the jet lag after traveling from Texas to Lebanon with a group of six others from my church.  On day four of our trip we had visited with Christians who were stretching themselves every day to serve refugees from their old enemy of Syria.  Now it was our turn to visit a camp and see it with our own eyes.  Fadil*, our guide for the morning, told us that we were invited by Nadia to visit her tent and talk with her.  The tent was one of hundreds and hundreds nestled close together just on the edge of town.  They were made of wood and covered with plastic, some covered with old billboard material—the walls of homes made from out-of-date advertising.  We took off our shoes an...

Sometimes people ask if I grew up overseas, since my parents have been living in exotic places off and on for the past eleven years, and I point out regretfully that they started taking all the wonderful overseas assignments after they were empty nesters.  While I think it would have been great to experience Vietnam, Poland and London as an American high schooler, I’m quite pleased and privileged to be able to enjoy these places as an adult with children of my own.   So in July, Elisabeth, Henry and I traveled to London for our second visit.  The first week of our two week trip was spent on the Isle of Wight, along with my parents, my brother Josh and his children Timothy and Charlotte. (Sadly, work obligations kept John in the U.S.) The Isle of Wight is off the southern coast of England, so from London we took a train, then a ferry, a train, and then a taxi.  Shortly after arrival at our country hotel, we enjoyed a cup of tea on the enclosed terrace ov...

Summer travels took a detour this year, and in July the kids and I wended our way through hilly back roads of Missouri and found Laura and Almanzo Wilder’s little house in the Ozarks .  I’d heard a long time ago that there was a museum there, but I thought, “Missouri?  Laura never lived in Missouri!”  But she did.  It was not a move taken lightly.  After their marriage, written about in These Happy Golden Years , Laura and Almanzo suffered greatly in De Smet, South Dakota: they had lost an infant son, lost their livelihood in a drought, and their property in a fire.  So when their daughter Rose was seven years old, and Laura had saved $100 from sewing jobs, Laura and her husband packed up what was left, said tender farewells to Laura’s parents, and began the long trek to Mansfield, Missouri. In the house in Mansfield there is a picture of Laura and Almanzo taken in 1942.  Laura is 75 and Almanzo is 85.  Since they are the only two in the p...

Dear Mom and Dad, A week and two days ago the packers came to your house in Houston.  All your piles of belongings, sorted for “air,” “sea,” or “storage” were boxed up and labeled.  And tonight you will spend your third night in your new home in London.   Your two-day stay with us was wonderful.  I didn’t think about you leaving.  I just enjoyed having you here. As I mentally prepared for your move, I keep thinking about my last sight of you as you left for Vietnam in 2003.  I was seven months pregnant, wondering how you could leave me as my hour of need approached.  But really I knew why.  You went with your husband.  You belonged to each other and I, for nearly three years at that point, belonged to another.  And it was good.   Of course, you could hardly stand not being there when Elisabeth was born.  We called you on the phone somehow, and Dad, newly christened “Grandpère” jumped out of bed in his excitemen...

To walk in warm rain and get wetter and wetter October 2012 Last week we had a good rainy afternoon.  Earlier in the day I had taken the kids to the YMCA for their P.E. class.  I had asked my friend Wendy if she would walk with me while our kids were at P.E., but then it started raining.  To my delight and hers, we found that we are truly compatible as we could both enjoy a walk in the rain together . . .with umbrellas.  But the conversation flowed just as well as it does on a sunny day, if not better. After P.E. I drove the kids home and they asked eagerly, “Can we take a walk in the rain?  We can wear our boots and jump in puddles.” I chuckled to myself, because over the past 2 years boots were crucial to survival in Hannover, and never did the kids want to go for a walk in the rain.  9 times out of 10 if it was raining it was a cold rain, and we had just been walking in it out of necessity, and we were happy to get inside and dry off and ge...

Bike riding to the store has its limitations By January of last year I felt like I was really quite adjusted to living in Hannover.   On a chilly January day two friends and I met to walk together and then get a few things at the grocery store.  We planned to then take the tram back home.  It was a lovely, brisk walk.  Two Americans and a German who lived in the US for five years have much to talk about.  Soon we were at the store doing our shopping.  In between the produce and the dairy section, I saw my neighbor, Frau K . . K . .. what was her name?  I simply couldn’t remember, although I had seen her a number of times and had chatted with her husband.  She was in her late 70s, a tall woman with excellent posture and silvery white hair.  I got up enough nerve to say, “Guten Tag.”  On earlier occasions when I had talked with my neighbor and her husband, it was her husband who was always the friendly one, with English that he le...