NOTE: Summing up our lives leads to simplification, exaggeration and unintended mistakes. That's why you have a chance to respond in the comments section.
Dennis M. Landis retired from teaching school May of 2012. He had been in education since 1972, teaching junior high in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for three years as alternative service to the Vietnam war and then moving to Ohio to work at Central Christian Schools. Over the years he served as principal, English teacher (with a bit of social studies and Spanish), founding IT person (creating and wiring the computer system), AV coordinator, directed plays (rewriting Shakespeare for a Kidron audience), taught photography and coordinated the yearbook, librarian (computerizing the system) and at one point, perhaps the only person who could keep the persnickety furnace running. He remodeled and added on to our two homes and dreamed of building a house so he wouldn't have to first rip out someone else's mistakes and had the privilege of making his own. He dreamed of land with a view and his skin crawled when looking at houses in a "hayfield" development.
Susan Mark Landis served the broader Mennonite church as peace educator and minister of peace and justice, first as a volunteer, then as staff from 1994-2011. She helped the church respond to injustice and violence, wrote worship and resource materials, preached and gave workshops, and coordinated volunteers who compiled a newsletter and website. With many other volunteers, she helped compile Seasoned with Peace, three books of devotions, recipes, photographs and other resources for peacemaking. Except for mothering Laura and Joel, she allowed the job to absorb most of her time and energy. When she left she found more time for baking, knitting, gardening, teaching Sunday school, voluntering and wondered how to help other overly committed women find a bit of a haven. February 2012 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since October 2012 she has been in remission.
Both our children are married and well established in their careers. Laura M. L. Yoder finishes her residency in emergency medicine, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, June 30, 2014. Adam Yoder, her husband, is a CPA who lives in Indianapolis. Their dog, Petie, lives mostly with Laura. Laura is currently looking for a job as an emergency department physician. Joel Landis is a movie trailer editor in Hollywood. He and his wife, Mikaela (Bender) Landis live in Los Angeles. Mikaela is working as an administrative assistant in a Jewish university associated with USC.
With the children unlikely to return to Orrville to live, or to settle down soon, Dennis and Susan were free to decide where to build a retirement home. Susan strongly wanted to return to Goshen; Dennis found an amazing piece of land there. Thus our saga began in February 2013. People in Goshen city and Elkhart county offices know us by name and consider us those crazy people trying to build on that odd piece of land.
We began this blog when close to being certain we'd actually get to build on the land, so initial entries come all at the same time and don't detail all the special permissions and hassles we've gone through. If everything going smoothly should assure us we are doing the right thing, then perhaps we are not. However, each time I'm ready to just quit, something important goes exceptionally well, so . ..I guess we are just those crazy people.
Welcome to the building process!
peace,
Dennis and Susan Mark Landis
We are so happy that your story has led you back to Goshen, and that things seem to be proceeding, albeit in fits and starts. This is much what we are experiencing in our hopes for a retirement place in a co-housing neighborhood near us, but enough keeps moving in the right direction to keep us hopeful! Our architect works for the same company you are using.
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