Yesterday I hosted a luncheon for my former students who are home from college for Christmas vacation and although it was a smaller group from last year, what a joyful and high energy reunion it was!

Because I just came home from the mainland on Monday, and because of my broken wrist, I wasn’t able to cook the luncheon myself, so we went to a nearby restaurant.

Joey Fala is keeping up his organ practice while home from graduate school at Yale University. When I found out that he won’t return to school until mid-January I prevailed upon him to substitute in my place at St. Elizabeth’s this Sunday. I decided I really can’t play the organ decently until my wrist is healed, which is maybe the first week in February. Miki Yamamoto is actually home for good, as she graduated in December from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA and just accepted the position of Organist at Kilohana United Methodist Church. Jordan McCreary is continuing his pre-med studies at Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR. All of them regaled us with humorous and outrageous stories of college life and personalities.

Unfortunately two other of my former students now in college were unable to join us: Joshua Yuen-Schat (a sophomore at Kenyon College) and Daniel Yuen-Schat (a freshman at Rochester Institute of Technology) stayed on the mainland over the holidays. I hope they will be able to join us in a future reunion.

What was so heartening to me was every one of these students has truly developed into real people — no longer just students and finding their way.  I would like to say that I now consider them friends and colleagues.