The Years Go By

Nineteen Eighty Five!

A year after college graduation I (Catherine) moved to San Bernardino, CA, to work at the headquarters of Cru. I was assigned to a team of writers in the Mass Media office and I worked with a woman named Wendy Hill.

Wendy grew up in Connecticut (like me!). I met her older brother, Kirk, at UConn. Wendy and I met in Colorado as new Cru staff. We worked together for four years, then I had our first daughter and our HQ moved to Orlando. Some years later Wendy got married and moved to Indiana.

Now, 33 years after our first meeting, we are working together again and Wendy is going to be my boss. I could not be more thrilled.  I have joined her team of writers/communication specialists to “help shape the US Campus Ministry culture by writing, editing and posting key messages within our ministry.  To help inspire, direct and foster conversation between our staff, volunteers and partners, through clear and compelling messaging.”

This position is working for the US National Campus Ministry Office here in Orlando.  The job offers me flexibility, which I need, and the opportunity to stay connected to what God is doing through Cru, which I crave.

Join me in praying that I can catch up on what our campus ministry is doing, and on the modern media outlets we have and use (the web, Facebook Workplace, Google, Twitter, etc).  I am feeling all of those 33 years!

A brief Grandgirl Update (you can’t have a newsletter without a Grandgirl Update!)

Miss Khloe just turned two! April 12th Miss Rylie will be one! Khloe loves the movies Sing and Trolls. Rylie now has six teeth!

Nineteen Eighty Two!

The summer between my junior and senior years in college I was invited onto a summer mission with Cru in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I worked in the community during the day, did Bible Study and leadership training in the evenings and participated in evangelism events on the weekends. It was an incredible summer of growth in my walk with Christ.

Now, 35 years later, Rachel is going to get that same opportunity! She will be spending the summer in N. Myrtle with Cru! Andy and I are over the moon for Rachel.

Please join us in praying:

• For the money Rachel will need to participate in this summer mission — that she will have the time to send letters to those who may want to join her through giving.
• For God to prepare her heart for what He wants her to learn this summer.
• For a way for Rachel to keep up her lacrosse skills and physical fitness over the summer, whether that is a gym or people on the mission with her.

Nineteen Thirty Nine

July 22, 1939, my father Jeffrey T. Belcher was born. Jeff grew up in Melrose, Massachusetts, as the second of seven children.

During 1958, working in the Appalachian Mountain Club hut system, he met my mother, Barbara Stevens. They were married in 1959 and I was born in 1962. My father attended Bangor Theological Seminary and became a pastor. His first set of churches was on Orr’s and Bailey Island, Maine. My brother Tim was born in 1967. We moved to Unionville, Connecticut, where dad was the Associate Pastor of the First Church of Christ for six years. My brother Matt was born in 1970.

My mother and father divorced in 1975 and he moved to Plymouth, CT, and took a church there. In 1976 he married Steffany DeLazzero who had two sons, Chris and Jason. Both boys had Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy; Chris died in 1984, Jason in 1987. Between 1976 and 2018 dad and Steff lived and worked at churches in Germantown Hills, IL; Champaign, IL; Amesbury, MA; W. Newton, MA; and Bristol, ME. He served as an interim pastor in many places in Maine, and then retired. Dad and Steff helped many people through counseling groups on grief, marriage, recovery and other topics.

Last Thanksgiving my dad became ill with aortic failure and lymphoma. He took his last breath of earthly air on February 21st with his wife at his side. He was 78.

Grief is such a strange thing, like trying to describe the taste of milk. I keep replaying scenes from my times with him. The night after he died I played John Denver and Harry Chapin music. I have been digging up photos of him for his service on the 21st. I am very glad I will see him again in heaven — no more pain, no more hurts, just joy.

With joy in Christ,