Some News From the Meeter’s

Dear Old First congregation:

We miss you. We thank you for your prayers for us, and we love you. So we want to tell you about the next step in our lives, which has come to us more suddenly than we ever imagined. We will be moving
out of Brooklyn. By November we expect to move to an apartment that we are leasing in Poughkeepsie, New York, about two hours north. We are doing this to be near our family (Anneke and David, and their
children Naomi and Theo), who moved there this past August. Anni has a new job there, Naomi is enrolled in school, and Dave is running his business mostly remotely.

We had not expected this. We love our apartment in Brooklyn, where we’ve lived longer than anywhere else. But COVID changed everything. Now that our family has relocated, and because we may not participate in Old First, which is the only real community we have here, our course became increasingly clear to us over the summer while we were in Canada. We had been planning a road trip out west this fall, but COVID changed that too. So when we arrived back here on September 14, we began to investigate a move.

Three days later, we went up to see Anni and family for the first time since June, and we also scoped out some apartment possibilities. We found one we liked, nine minutes’ drive from our family, and we signed the lease yesterday. We will be in downtown Poughkeepsie, on the waterfront, with a balcony overlooking the Hudson (and the train tracks, which I like!). We have engaged an agent to list our apartment here. We hope to buy a place upstate next year, precisely where we do not know.

For the next couple months we will be busy with moving (and downsizing). Perhaps in the new year we might look for some part-time work as chaplain (Melody) or interim minister (Daniel). But you have not seen the last of us! Whenever it’s safe and possible, we hope to have a real farewell. Meanwhile let’s keep each other in our mutual prayers.

Love, Daniel and Melody