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Jim Doty |
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Dear Family and Friends: It has been two years since our last Christmas epistle, so we have a bit of catching up to do. Jim and Jennifer left for 3
years in Germany in January of 2000. You can imagine our feelings as we watched them walk down the jetway toward their plane. Jennifer flew back to the U.S. several months later for a good friend's wedding in
Michigan. We had a nice visit with Jennifer for a few days before she borrowed our station wagon to drive to the wedding. She called later with the news that late at night someone ran into the side of our car, knocked
it over a curb and pushed it fifteen feet up into the front yard. The car was a total loss. Jennifer felt terrible. The important thing to us was that Jennifer was not in the car and she was ok. The
perpetrator of this deed told the police officer that he was only going 25 mph and that he was dodging a rabbit. His insurance company paid us the value of our car. The good news is that we were going to sell it
anyway, so Jennifer saved us the trouble. If you have a car to sell and don't have the time, we will loan Jennifer to you. Jim works hard in the US Army. In addition to working long hours in Schweinfurt when he
is home, he also leaves for 6 to 8 weeks of "in the field" training with only one or two weekends off to go home. Jim leaves in Jan 2002 for 3 months in Kosovo, then he will return to Germany for a few months,
and then leave again for 6 more months in Kosovo. For the second year in a row, Jennifer is teaching at the American school in Schweinfurt. She has a class of 26 lively first graders this year. This month she
completed her work for her Master's Degree! When they aren't working, they take advantage of every opportunity they have to travel all over Europe. Italy, Spain, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia are a few of the
countries they have visited, not to mention lots of places in Germany. Jared finished an exciting and challenging year as a Custody Agent at Investor's Fiduciary Trust Corporation, a subsidiary of State Street of
Boston. Every day he would buy and sell between $10 and $50 millions dollars worth of stocks and bonds for insurance companies and mutual funds. He learned a lot but it was a high tension, high stress job, with long
days and short deadlines. He looked at all of the Maalox bottles sitting by everyone's computers and decided he would only work in that department for a year or two. His supervisor recommended him for
another position that he was interested in, but his supervisor's supervisor turned the transfer down because "Jared is too valuable where he is." A few days later, a chance meeting in a shopping mall
led to a series of interviews at Graceland University for a position as a residence hall director. During an interview with a committee of students, one of them, who had no idea what Jared was currently doing for a
living, explained how each student puts a few dollars into a small social fund. She asked Jared if it would be a problem for him to keep track of the money. He said "I currently manage a 2 billion dollar portfolio
in stocks and bonds. I think I can handle your social fund." Jared was offered the position and he has now been at Graceland for a year and a half. This semester he has been teaching a class on
creative leadership. College students still make factual errors in their essays. One of Jared's students wrote in a paper that Martin Luther King was shot and killed by James Earl Jones. Jared circled the
statement and wrote "Are you sure about this?" and asked the student what this had to do with Jones being Darth Vader's voice in Star Wars. Janae finished up her Emergency Medical Technician coursework at
Lansing Community College and received her EMT certification. She took a few more classes in Lansing and decided to take a break from school. She moved back to the Kalamazoo area and found a full time secretarial
job at a moving company. Within a week she was promoted and became the customer relations department. She booked all of the driver's moving arrangements and handled all of the customer complaints. This was not
always a fun job. A driver would be scheduled to arrive sometime between 1 and 5 PM at the end of a three-day cross-country drive. At 1:05 PM Janae's phone would ring. "Where is our driver?
Why is he late? When will he be here? How come . . . ?" Janae would explain the uncertainties of timing in a long cross-country drive. One driver heading across country from Michigan to Pennsylvania
on Interstate 80 really was seriously late. Janae tracked him down. He took a wrong turn in Ohio and somehow got off of I-80 and headed southwest to Indianapolis. One of the more unusual moves that Janae scheduled was
for a person who paid entirely in cash for a household move to the Middle East. A huge amount of belongings was crated up, trucked across country and shipped to Germany. From there it was shipped to its final
destination. He kept calling Janae to find out why his belongings were delayed. First U.S. Customs held his belongings up on the east coast. Then they were held up by German Customs. Finally his goods
arrived. Several days later, Janae heard on the news that the FBI wanted him. They thought he was still in the U.S. Apparently many of his belongings were illegally obtained. Janae's boss informed the
FBI that he was no longer in the U.S. This summer Janae quit her job with the moving company and she went back to school this fall at Davenport College here in Kalamazoo. Many years ago when Melissa and I were in
college and far from our own parents, some wonderful folks in Nebraska did nice things for us and became our "parents away from home." Now it is our turn to do the same. When Jalyn was
a student at Western Michigan University, Melissa would take her to lunch most Sundays after church. Jalyn has become like one of the family. She graduated with a degree in music in May 2000. She worked all
summer in Kalamazoo and then she took advantage of a great opportunity to spend 6 months living and working in London. She worked in an exclusive chocolate shop that has some British Royalty among its customers.
Apparently, the queen mother has quite a sweet tooth. Perhaps high quality chocolate is the secret to living to be 100! I am sure some of you will consider this good news. Before leaving London she shipped us a
delicious box of chocolates. (No, I won't quote Forrest Gump.) Jalyn returned to Michigan in the spring of 2001. She lived with us for a couple of weeks while she found a job and waited for an apartment to become
available. One of the highlights of the summer was her priesthood call. It was Jim's honor and privilege to ordain her to the office of priest. Jalyn was bitten this summer by the photography bug. Jim may be
partly to blame for this. By the end of the summer she had photographed over 200 species of Michigan wildflowers. In August, Jalyn moved to Red Wing, Minnesota (home of Red Wing shoes) to begin a 9 month
program in band instrument repair at the Red Wing branch of Minnesota State College. The word for Jim and Melissa the last two years has been travel. In March 2000 we joined other family members in Waco, Texas
for a 90th birthday party for Melissa's father. To celebrate our 30 anniversary, we went on a 21/2-week trip of a lifetime to Alaska in August-September of 2000. It fulfilled a long time cruise dream for Melissa and a
long time photo dream for Jim. Melissa's twin sister Melinda and her husband Bob went along on the trip. Anchorage was our home base for sightseeing in between two major adventures. We spent five days on a
splendid Cruise West cruise in Prince William Sound with gourmet meals and unbelievable scenery. We spent another five days at Camp Denali in the heart of Denali National Park. Each of our cabins (complete
with wood stove and propane lanterns) had a view of "The Mountain". Our private outhouses each had a similar view of Mt. McKinley. We saw glaciers, fjords, snow fields, mountains, fishing
villages, bore tides, lemon sharks, beluga whales, salmon, sea lions, fox, caribou, moose, beavers, brown and grizzly bears, glorious sunrises and sunsets, and northern lights. We had a stunningly clear day to fly
around Denali (Mt. McKinley). Film flew through Jim and Bob's cameras like there was no tomorrow. You can see a few of the highlights of the trip In April 2001 we flew to Waco, Texas and Fremont, California to spend a week with Melissa's
family. Bob and Melinda joined us for this wonderful trip of family visiting and remembrance. The trip happened to coincide with the bluebonnet season in Texas and the poppy season in California. Jim
discovered unexpected, short-term, low-cost airfares on the internet and started following ticket prices between Detroit and Germany. Round trip tickets ranged from $1000 to as high as $5,000. Then for two
weeks only, prices dropped to $350. We spent a week in May with Jim and Jennifer. Each day we would head out and visit one or two old German cities. We saw castles and cathedrals and other buildings
hundreds of years old. Whizzing up and down the Autobahn at 160 kph (100 mph) and faster was something else. We had a wonderful time with Jim and Jen. On a very different note, the thoughts and emotions
experienced while walking through the concentration camp at Dachau are difficult to describe. Melissa continues to work at the fertility clinic, doing wonderful medical things to help couples who really want to have
children. She has been having tingling sensations in her left arm. An MRI shows some disk problems so she has an appointment with a surgeon in early January. Jim continues to travel in his work for the
church. In August he ended five years as the pastor of the Kalamazoo congregation, something he really enjoyed doing. His travels were such that the some of the congregation call him the "phantom
pastor." In the past two years his ministry has taken him all over Michigan as well as to Ontario, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Jim is still on the faculty at the Kalamazoo
Institute of Arts and teaches photography classes when his schedule permits. We have received word that Jim will be transferred to Ohio in January. We will be moving to the Columbus area next spring. At this
time of year we are reminded of what is most important. Certainly God's gifts are in our thoughts. So are cherished moments with those we love. May some of the joy and wonder of this season be with you from
time to time in the coming year. The Dotys: Jim, Melissa, Jim, Jennifer, Jared, and Janae
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