OUR KIDS' PLACE IN THE HODGES DYNAMIC

Life on Their Own

Rachel From TKA to Penn State.  Our eldest, Rachel, was something of a workhorse, taking on one challenge after another. She made top grades at school, became fluent in French, took on the flute and subsequently played that instrument in the county's youth symphony. At the same time, she worked at various part-time jobs in high school, from clerking at a grocery store to food service at an eldercare home.  And upon graduation from TKA, she headed off to Penn State, where she continued to do excellent work. But her second year was very hard for her, for purely social reasons. She did not get along with her apartment mates, who constituted a preexisting social circle, one that would give her no admission to their ranks.  She lived off campus and found it difficult to get to classes on time (bus service was most unpredictable), and just in general found the new experience very depressing.  When she came home at Christmas, it was clear that she simply did not want to go back.  However, she also did not know what she then proposed to do. Off to St. John's.  But the next fall she transferred to St. John's College in Annapolis, which was based entirely on a most unusual humanities program… and which put her back at the beginning of the academic process as something of a freshman, studying ancient Greek and taking on the classics (philosophy, politics, science and math) of the Greek and Roman period. But for some reason, her Greek teacher selected her to give a hard time to, for reasons that Rachel could never understand.  He criticized her for the bright red dress she was wearing the first day, and it went downhill for her from there.  And then she got sick, and found herself in trouble – because the college did not have a grading policy, but had just instituted an attendance policy, and her sickness put her over the limit (she had also not gone to class a few days, not feeling able to put up with her teacher's insults).  She could continue some of her other classes during the coming spring semester, but would have to start over with the Greek the next fall. But rather than just continuing part-time, Rachel decided to come home, and start again from scratch the next year.  Overall, she loved St. John's and its particular approach to learning (the classics in all fields of human learning, from ancient times down to the present) and planned simply to start over, if that was what was required of her. A rather uncertain future.  In the meantime, life seemed rather depressing for Rachel. She could not figure out why now her life was having such a hard time moving forward, when it had all been so easy, or at least manageable, previously. Rimi I had first met this young man who came to TKA for a chapel presentation, part of a team taking a break from a YWAM (Youth with a Mission) training program in Hawaii that we brought to the school. Rimi was most unusual, though I had only small knowledge at the time of how unusual. His Muslim/academic background.  This would not be the only time he would come across my path.  A year later, on his return from the Hawaii program, he was staying briefly at the home of our friends, Bob and Sue.  At a New Year's party they hosted, I found out from Rimi that he was heading home, to Kosovo (the southernmost portion of the former Yugoslavia).  I knew quite a bit about Kosovo, thanks to America's earlier involvement in the area when the United Nations called on America to intervene to end the ethnic cleansing or slaughter going on in that country. I also came to learn that Rimi was originally of a Muslim family (actually rather tepidly Muslim) and had many family members slaughtered by Serbian "Christians," and had to go into flight to avoid all of them being murdered (also nearly happening to him at one point) – and then having to live in a refugee camp. Rimi meets Christ!  After things settled down in Kosovo (thanks in great part to Clinton) Rimi would then continue on in life simply as a rather cynical Secularist, but one hungering to know why life had to be the way it was.  He thus became a philosophy major at Kosovo's University of Pristina.  There he also took a couple of courses in American history offered by an American professor, Bill, who fascinated Rimi because Bill was so different from everyone else Rimi had ever known.  Rimi came to know Bill as a man of incredible peace, and a special dedication to his teaching that reached beyond mere professorial professionalism.  Finally Rimi asked him why he was so different.  And he was completely shocked when Bill answered simply, "Jesus Christ."  Bill (quite understandably in largely-Muslim Kosovo) had given no prior indication of any particular Christian foundations to his life.  Quite naturally, the answer merely perplexed rather than satisfied Rimi.  Finally Rimi got up the courage to try the question again.  And the teacher, seeing Rimi's sincere interest, began (very carefully) to explain what Jesus (not "Christianity," such as the Serbs were famous for) meant to him personally. Finally Rimi decided to test God on this matter of a Christ-based faith, and the answer God gave him was immediate and highly impacting.  Rimi was coming home from class on a horribly rainy-snowy day with the wind so fierce that when he stepped off the bus it destroyed his umbrella.  Rimi's challenge was: Jesus, if you are real, you can make this weather cease.  And most abruptly it cleared immediately around and above him.  It shocked Rimi. His spiritual journey begins.  From that point on, Rimi found himself on a spiritual journey, one that was so different from his former life – and the lives of those around him.  And that was what finally had brought him to America (thanks to the encouragement of Bill, who would continue to remain close to Rimi, even from afar), and into the Hodges' world. Rimi comes to Pennsylvania.  It was on this second visit to our area that I asked Rimi if he would return to TKA for its weekly chapel service and tell us more of his spiritual journey.  He agreed.  But there was a problem in that chapel service was just after lunch and I had no way of getting him via the half-hour trip to the school ... unless someone (like Rachel who was at home at this point) could bring him there at the appointed time. Rachel rather reluctantly agreed.  She had the feeling that Rimi was more than just intellectually interested in her.1  But thanks to Rachel, we indeed had him at chapel, easily delivering a most powerful message to our students. Rimi's Kosovo challenge to Rachel!  It was on the trip back from school that Rachel mentioned to Rimi the kind of spiritual battle she seemed to find herself deeply involved in.  Rimi then challenged her: do you seriously want to know about real spiritual warfare?  Come to Kosovo.  You'll learn a lot more about spiritual warfare in doing so. And wouldn't you know, that very evening Rachel informed us that she thought that God himself wanted her to take up Rimi's challenge.  Not sure what to make of the idea, Kathleen and I agreed to go into prayer on the matter that night.  And indeed, the next morning both Kathleen and I knew that this was exactly what Rachel was called to do. Can you imagine sending your daughter off to Kosovo?  But that's exactly what we did. 1Rachel did not know that when Rimi was back in Hawaii, a prophetess of sorts informed Rimi that she had a vision of him meeting and marrying a tall, dark-haired beauty from Pennsylvania. Rimi's reaction was "No!  I don't want to marry a woman from Transylvania" ... thinking the woman was talking about someone coming from northern Romania, a gypsy most likely.  He finally had to have it explained to him that it was Pennsylvania, not Transylvania, she was talking about.  Rimi was thus given an American geography lesson right then and there!  Needless to say, after that, the thought never left Rimi. Rachel and Rimi This venture turned out to be a real life-changer for both.  Rachel came to take on a peace of mind and spirit that she needed badly, a new empowerment even in the face of life's toughest challenges. Marriage.  And all this also brought Rimi back into an American world he thought he had said his goodbyes to permanently.  The two really connected.  And thus several months into the adventure, we heard from Kosovo that the two would be returning to Pennsylvania in July, to get married.  And indeed, Pastor Bill was more than glad to perform the ceremony at the Lighthouse Church. Off to Hawaii.  Once married, they headed on to Hawaii, for Rimi to undertake theological studies for an MA degree at the University of the Nations, living off various grants that people had extended to them to be able to do so.  Back in Pennsylvania ... and Anna.  After a year, they returned and took residence in the apartment at the back of our home, while Rimi took on hard work at a food-distributor's warehouse to cover their living expenses.  That same year their daughter Anna was born, and Rimi was able to finish his master’s thesis on Christian evangelism.  And as if that weren’t enough for them to be carrying, Rimi also took on part-time work as a youth pastor (with Rachel a big part of the program) ... at the same Presbyterian church in Pottsville that I had once pastored! On to Massachusetts.  But Rimi wanted to go further on his spiritual journey, and applied for and was admitted to the Gordon-Conwell Seminary in the Boston area.  And thus off they went, Rimi, Rachel, and Anna – with Rachel also taking on more college courses in the area (Gordon College and elsewhere). Pastoring back home in Pennsylvania.  And wouldn't you know that after two years in seminary, Rimi would then find a job as youth pastor at a Methodist Church located just one block from our home in Pennsylvania (but they would now live in the parsonage near the church). Moving along academically ... and Peter.  Over the next five-year period (2015-2020) Rachel would quickly finish online course work at Penn State for a BA degree in literature, and Rimi would not only finish his thesis work for his Gordon-Conwell MA degree, but would undertake and then complete doctoral work at the University of Birmingham (England) in the process.  And in the meantime, a son, Peter, was also born to them. Anyway, we'll get back to their story a little further along in this narrative.

A major event in the Hodges family occurred when Rachel went to join Rimi in Kosovo (February-July 2010)  Then they returned to the States to get married in August.   That's me praying a blessing over the couple! And Rimi quickly adjusts to Hodges family life A year later (August 2011) our first grandchild is born:  Anna

Paul's TKA world.  Paul came along two years after Rachel, and just as Rachel was the very picture of a young lady, Paul also became that of a young gentleman. He took an early interest in sports, especially soccer, something that remained a passion for him through his TKA and Temple University years. In fact, not only did he and a fellow student put together TKA's new soccer team, he later even helped start up a local soccer team in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (at the same time he was undertaking his new business venture there as well). Things seemed also to come easy to Paul, although I knew that there was a lot of work that he put into his many ventures.  Like Rachel, he became quite adept at French, spending the month of August before his senior year at TKA in Paris with the family of the young lady, Julie, whom we ourselves had hosted just the month previously. Off to Philadelphia (Temple University).  Heading on to college, he had been offered a soccer scholarship, but knew that he would have then been expected to be a PE major.  Instead, he continued his interest in international affairs, majoring in political science and minoring in history. He also got to witness the rougher part of life living in Philadelphia, where crime was not exactly an uncommon occurrence.  Once he got called to the window of his apartment when he heard arguing going on outside on the street, in time to witness one young man shooting and killing another before running off.  Another time he was driving from his apartment to school, stopped at a light, just as a man came running out of a Chinese restaurant, shooting at a bunch of kids who had just run out of the restaurant ahead of him.  One of the boys went down in the firing, before Paul scooted off to get out of the shooting gallery! He subsequently moved on to campus, hoping to find this to be a safer environment.  But when he was away in Europe, a group of masked young men broke into a neighboring campus apartment at gunpoint, to take whatever they could from the guys gathered there.  These were close friends of Paul's, and most likely Paul would have been among that group if he had been back in the States. None of this of course made the papers, as such events happened regularly on a daily basis in Philadelphia (the "city of brotherly love")! His junior year in Freiburg and Florence.  Paul spent part of his junior year in Europe, at first studying German at the Goethe Institute in Freiburg, then moving on to Florence to study Italian. It was in Florence that he truly settled into the surrounding life, becoming quite close to a number of British students also studying there, including Princess Diana's niece, Kitty, who became a close friend of Paul's and who helped host his 21st birthday party while he was there in Florence. Also while he was there he put together a research paper, one he had convinced a Temple University professor to allow him to do for college credit, focused on the action of the European Union in the overthrow the previous summer of Libya's dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  Paul too liked to study actual political dynamics, just like his father!  And he got to see a lot of that up close! Elizabeth joins him in Europe.  Then in May, his younger sister, Elizabeth, joined him for a month in Florence, before the two headed off together to spend the rest of the summer touring much of Western Europe.  This was easy for them, as both had also been to Europe twice previously with our TKA visits, and of course by this time Paul was fully familiar with life in Europe. Solar for Academics.  Upon graduation, Paul and a TKA friend of his, Mikey, decided to join together in an enterprise designed to bring solar power to schools in Third World countries.  Paul, in order to give their Solar for Academics enterprise some support, took a position on the board of directors of an organization that sponsored just such Third World enterprises.  But even then, Paul and Mikey knew that they would still need to find their own funding to put the enterprise into actual operation.  And thus it was that they decided to build and sell (quite pricey) solar lights as a means of financing this larger operation. But actually, the solar light business (Soltech Solutions) became itself the major focus for them.  Things started off very slowly.  They decided to set up their operations in nearby Bethlehem, where, to pay the bills, Paul was able to get a job as a waiter at the Hotel Bethlehem (he had previously worked summers as a host at the Nassau Inn's restaurant in Princeton).  Eventually they were able to move their operations to a building dedicated to supporting startup businesses.  Here they received a lot of wise counsel and personal encouragement in their undertaking. His business world expands.  Gradually their business began to grow.  They then took on a third partner, Chris, a young man that Paul knew from school (Temple University) and was working with at the Hotel Bethlehem.  And thus Mikey served as the company’s solar engineer who designed, improved and diversified their products, Clark was in charge of their on-line presence, and Paul was the overall director of the enterprise, growing the company through his widening world of business contacts and operations They quite early took on students from nearby Lehigh University as business interns, showing these students the actual challenges of a business startup. Then their product got noticed by the media, and became featured on various shows.  Their business now took off, greatly!  At this point they had to take on a much larger staff to meet a growing demand (for instance, Google bought a large number of their lights for their new offices in New York City). And thus it was that Paul’s world became that of business, even though his heart still wants to go into the world of helping struggling nations get on their feet economically.

Paul studying in Germany and Italy during the spring semester of 2012. Here he celebrates his 21st birthday with British friends in Florence. He was joined in May and June by Elizabeth  … and they visited some of the rest of Europe (from Italy to Ireland) Soon after graduation in 2013, Paul put together a small company, "Soltech Solutions" (recently renamed a more simplified "Soltech") with another TKA grad, Mikey Planer (left below).  Later they would add a third partner, Chris Clark (behind Mikey in the photo below), a friend of Paul’s from Temple University.  Together they would manufacture and sell very high accuracy (and rather pricey!) grow-lights ... starting with the exceptionally well- engineered "Aspect."   The company eventually became a Pennsylvania Governor’s new startup "company-of-the-month."  Here they are (with John visiting) at a garden show (February 2016). Mikey Chris A picture taken with an intern working with them (2018?)   Their office ... prior to a major expansion at the end of 2020 It was slow going at first ... selling only a few lights a month ... barely enough to cover their operating costs ... much less make a salary for themselves.  Consequently, Paul had to work as a waiter at the swanky Hotel Bethlehem ... in the city where he and Mikey got free office space (via a grant) in a special "start-up" facility for young entrepreneurs like the two of them.  And it was while Paul was working at the hotel that he brought fellow server at the hotel (and former friend at Temple University) Chris onto the team ... as they began to expand business (slightly!)   But the three of them hung in there ... believing in their product.  And bit by bit so did other people as well ... until their lights began to be featured on Youtube and TV plants shows.  Business then took off! Indeed, so well did their business develop that Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro (and a team of his) came in October of 2023 to see personally how award-winning Soltech actually functioned. And so goes the old American spirit of "entrepreneurship"!  Be brave, be authentic ... and never quit Visit the company's website:  soltech ELIZABETH Elizabeth's TKA years.  Elizabeth came along not quite two years after Paul.  And although she did not suffer greatly because her older sister and brother were relatively notable personalities ahead of her in her world, she would have to work a bit harder to bring notice her way.  She was, like her brother and sister, quite good academically.  She was musical like her brother and sister, like them taking up piano at an early age, and then eventually becoming a violinist on the Schuylkill Youth Symphony, as her sister had been a flutist for the same organization and Paul a cellist there (Paul being as well as a drummer and guitarist for small groups).  She too played soccer at TKA, like her brother before her, though not quite as passionately as Paul.  She too learned French and went abroad twice with the TKA groups, like her brother and sister ... eventually (like Paul) even serving as a fellow chaperone on a later TKA visit to Europe. But most importantly, she was quite artistic ... way ahead of her brother and sister in that category! Off to Lafayette College.  She got a huge scholarship allowing her to take up study (computer science mostly) at Lafayette College in Easton (eastern Pennsylvania), though tuition still tended to be quite pricey.  And thus it was there that she spent her first two years in college, finally able to do her own thing, out from under the shadow of her sister and brother! But when the third year rolled around, the college hiked its tuition considerably (it had fancy street surfacing to improve!) and I blew up.  This was pure nonsense (or just plain academic greed).  Thus I pulled her out of Lafayette College.  What then?  It was already a couple of weeks into the fall term, and too late to get her entered elsewhere.  So, she found herself back at a job at the dealership of our friend Bob's, cleaning the floors in the extensive service shop (actually, she had started that work that same summer as a way of earning a bit of spending money).  Most oddly, she loved the work ... or was it just that she loved the enormous appreciation she received from the male workers for the way no one had ever cleaned the floor before! Off again to Florence.  Needless to say, that was not quite the world we had designed for her.  And thus somewhat reluctantly, she headed off early the next year to take up in Florence where she had left off earlier.  And thankfully, she came to once again love academic life, especially when it involved a side course in art and sculpture that she took up while studying Italian. Actually, she came to love Florence deeply – where she was extremely fortunate (her encounter with Fortuna!) to find an apartment for herself right in the very center of town!  But not only did she come to love Florence, Florence came to love her – not only by the circle of friends she acquired in the venture but also in the form of the many shop owners in the area that she came to know quite well, and love!  That was Elizabeth being Elizabeth! So she finally forgave her dad (me) for having yanked her around so much in her effort to move ahead in life! She heads west in Pennsylvania.  When she returned to the States, she signed up to attend Indiana University (of Pennsylvania), way over on the other side of the state (probably also another aspect of her hunger for self-sufficiency), to continue her computer studies.  And she would finish out there two years later. Pittsburgh.  During her last semester, as graduation approached, she signed up for some job interviews.  Her first interview was with the PNC bank, headquartered in Pittsburgh, an interview which she undertook as something of a "practice session" in the art of interviewing.  She had never interviewed before, and knew that she needed to develop some interviewing skills. But actually, her interviewer loved his interview with her, and recommended her forward to some follow-up interviewing, which ended up with the same impression of Elizabeth.  Thus her "practice session" landed her a job in Pittsburgh (also on the opposite side of the state from us), to where she would be moving immediately after graduation, to undertake work as a mainframe computer engineer. She fell in love with Pittsburgh, loved the computer team she worked with, and at this point made Pittsburgh a true home.  It was distant, but Kathleen and I made the trips west to visit as often as possible (about a 4 to 5-hour trip depending on the traffic and the route we chose) to see how Elizabeth was doing in her new world. She adds the world of art to her high-tech world.  But more recently her world of art also found its way forward, when she started doing some art work for friends, then had some of her work displayed at a local pub, subsequently noticed by the director of an art studio in the neighborhood.  He invited her to join a small group of fellow artists who gathered at his studio and had their work displayed there.  And so this new world opened up for Elizabeth, becoming increasingly important to her, not only as a personal interest but also as a supplement to her income, for her work found sales quite easily. Ever the adventurer.  And Elizabeth proved to be quite the adventurer as well.  At one point she took some vacation time to fly to Iceland, rent a car, and do a full tour around the island, many days without seeing much by way of human life, sleeping in the car at one point.  But that's the way she liked things.  Then we were shocked to learn one day that she had gone up in a plane, just to take a parachute jump from the plane (accompanied by an instructor, of course).  She also liked to jump in the car and head out from Pittsburgh, heading west or south, into neighboring states or beyond, just for an extended weekend! Meeting Ryan along the way.  Then more recently she decided to take some vacation time to drive all the way to the American West, swinging south to New Mexico and Arizona before then heading north to join Paul (who flew, not drove, there!) in Wyoming and Montana.  Then on the way back she decided to swing by Kansas City, running into President Eisenhower's grandson at a tiny bar in the city, and his good friend, Ryan.  And it was Ryan that would invite her to stay on for a bit, so he could show her more of his city. And thus a relationship was born, which soon had them headed in the direction of marriage.  But this raised the question of where then the two of them were to locate themselves.  They spent some time in Kansas City ... before moving to Pittsburgh – where both of them took up new technical jobs, ones able to be performed online from home! On to Cleveland.  This new approach to the business world in turn freed them up to think further as to where they wanted to spend their future together ... someplace other than very expensive Pittsburgh.  And thus it was that they recently found a much less expensive place to call home in Cleveland ... a beautiful apartment located right at the shore of Lake Erie.  And they now continue their same work from there.  Where then life takes them is now simply a matter of going at things a day at a time! In the spring of 2014, Elizabeth returns to Florence for the semester But on her return to America, she heads off to Indiana University of Pennsylvania ... all the way over to the west side of the state.  She will graduate in 2016 ... and immediately take a position with PNC Bank at their Pittsburgh headquarters, doing mainframe computing (and art work on the side!). Thanksgiving weekend 2018 – Elizabeth buys a Honda ... allowing her to continue her wanderings far and wide Then, in one of those many car trips across America, on her return to Pittsburgh from Montana (where she joined Paul, who flew out to meet her there) she decides to swing by Kansas City ... and there runs into the person that will change her life:  Ryan.  Elizabeth and her now-fiance Ryan (September 2021) JOHN As the "baby of the family" John had the usual dynamics to deal with, although he handled these quite nicely. John's very challenging TKA years.  Where he ran into trouble was at TKA, where for reasons we never were able to understand, the primary school teachers came to some kind of mutual agreement to make life as hard as possible for John.2  Part of the problem was that John is very intelligent, making schoolwork a largely boring experience for him.  This got him in constant trouble with his teachers, who would punish him for his inattention by making him do remedial schoolwork during recess, rather than play with the other kids ... about the worst thing you could think of doing to John.  And our protests got things nowhere.  Even Barbara, the school director, appealed to the teachers to let up.  But that was just not going to happen.  So John had to learn early-on just to take punishment quietly as part of his world.  It left a rather deep impression on him. Once John reached high school, he found the pace to be more to his liking. 2One of them, his 5th grade teacher, came up to me on the last day of school (she was also finishing up at TKA), and totally surprised me by telling me tearfully that God had told her to apologize to John for the way she had treated him.  That meant a lot to John! John teaches himself.  As far as French was concerned, I started up a new French series only every other year (teaching a full load of French, history and social studies forced me to be selective in how I structured the development of each of these fields), and I had only French 2 (and French 4) scheduled for the coming year.  So rather than wait until the following year to start up the French series with French 1 (which would have allowed him only three years of French study) he undertook to study French on his own during the summer before his freshman year, and thus was able to jump into French 2 that fall. And that would be typical of how John would go at things.  John would come to understand that his best teacher was himself!  And that would extend through his college years. His high-tech world.  Like Elizabeth, John did all the standard Hodges stuff – soccer, music (trumpet and piano), travel abroad with TKA, and a deep interest in everything from history to computers.  But, like Elizabeth, computers would become his primary focus ... though interestingly, the social-political aspect of the world of computerized communications. Once again, in his senior year (2015-2016), he ran into trouble with a teacher – who was in charge of guiding and grading the writing of the student senior thesis and its public defense (public as far as the school itself went).  He picked the subject of internet security, and all the problems that came with the growing world of internet communications.  He even created a virus and showed how easily these kinds of things can get into the program.  But his teacher accused John of stirring up hysteria, of "McCarthyism," and threatened to flunk him.  Of course she knew not the first thing about the subject itself. She was not very supportive of him at his oral defense, more grudging than happy at giving him a "pass," so he could then graduate.  But John took matters like the moral soldier that he had over the years learned to become, never arguing back, but just pushing forward. Indeed at the graduation ceremony, when the 20-or-so graduates were asked to summarize thoughts they had about their TKA experience – and all the fellow students gushed on about how wonderful it had all been – when it came to John, he offered only a single word on the matter: "perseverance."  All his classmates laughed.  They knew exactly what he meant. Off to college.  That fall John too went west like Elizabeth, all the way to Indiana University (of Pennsylvania) – but only for a semester.  He quickly transferred to Penn State – but the Lehigh Campus in Allentown, taking up residence in neighboring Bethlehem, not far from Paul's apartment, John sharing an apartment with a number of Lehigh University students, older than him, but becoming good friends.  He became especially close to an upperclassman named "Miles!" John's field was a blend of computer science and communications, John creating some kind of major of his own design.  But again, it was not easy for John, because he seemed already to know about as much (if not more) concerning the technical aspects of his subject as did his teachers, John being so completely self-taught, constantly taking on more and more knowledge as some kind of personal challenge. We were never certain exactly where John stood on the academic road toward graduation, as he took on all kinds of courses that interested him – but avoided what he considered "idiot" courses, courses in particular areas that nonetheless he was going to have to take to graduate. His junior year in China.  Anyway, in the fall of 2018, during what might have been considered his "junior year," he headed off to Shanghai to study Chinese, living with a Chinese family – under a special arrangement involving inexpensive housing in exchange for his offering of English lessons to the Chinese family's daughter.  That worked out very nicely.  And he picked up a lot of international (mostly European) friends at the school in the process, and came to really appreciate his young Chinese instructors. Paul and Elizabeth join him!  And his 21st birthday just happened to come around while he was there.  And to celebrate it with him, Elizabeth and Paul (and a friend Ben) joined him for that celebration in Hong Kong, Paul and Elizabeth having also combined that visit with a trip to India (and Elizabeth with a visit to Thailand just before that as well) before arriving in Hong Kong. In 2018 John heads on his own to Asia, specifically to Shanghai, to study Chinese. While there he has the opportunity to celebrate his 21st birthday in Hong Kong, joined by Paul and Elizabeth ... and an old TKA buddy of Paul's, Ben. John with his teachers in Shanghai ... and with his host father and daughter ... and with fellow students in Shanghai With Paul, Elizabeth and Ben in Hong Kong celebrating John's 21st birthday! (September 2018) Phuong.  A very sad episode that developed during this time was a relationship he had with a young Vietnamese girl who was a fellow student at TKA ... and whom he took to their senior prom as his date.  They seemed to become quite close ... especially when he traveled the previous summer (2017) to Vietnam – and explored the country with her from north to south. Then when visa complications set in for foreign students, they decided that getting married was a perfect answer to the problem.  And as far as anyone could see, the two were truly in love.  Thus a huge and quite elegant wedding thus took place (May 2019). They then made the decision to move to Providence Rhode Island  ... so that Phuong could undertake pharmaceutical studies there.  At that point she had received her green card and was well underway on her move to full American citizenship. For John, the two Rhode Island years that followed provided him only a rather restricted existence (they lived in a tiny studio apartment) ... he attempting to continue his studies at Penn State remotely. Then in early 2022, it looked as if they would be moving back to Pennsylvania ... for her to begin a series of pharmacy internships there.  But she told John that she wanted to undertake this phase in her life alone.  So he moved back to Pennsylvania ... but to home in Schuylkill County – not Bethlehem where she took up residence.  Then she announced that she wanted a no-fault divorce ... and he sadly agreed.  That summer John was back alone.   John and Phuong in Vietnam - Summer of 2017 Me blessing them at their wedding in 2019 / The two families Graduation ... and the Philippines.  At the beginning of September (2022), John arrived in the Philippines, where he would reside for the next three months – meeting with old friends and research colleagues that previously he had known only over the internet.  Besides just getting to know these individuals on a more direct, face-to-face basis, he was looking to build up a team of researchers who would work with him in developing his internet research program.  The trip proved to be a grand success. May 2022 – John receives his Penn State diploma by mail. June 2022 – John at work in his "laboratory" John then heads off to the Philippines for three months (September-November 2022) cultivating friendships that will become an important part of his own professional development. In the Philippines at Indio's Barber shop with close associates old and new:   Radz, Michael, John, HK (Homer Kim), and Indio squatting – September 2022 John in the Philippines with some of his other friends: John, Kyle, Luther, NJ (Niña Jean), and AJ (Aaron John) – November 2022 Marketing director.  Recently John was brought on to our friend Bob's massive GMC-Chrysler business in Pottsville – now headed by Bob's son (and John's longtime friend ... and his "bestman" at his wedding with Phuong), Jacob.  John was hired to clean up a mess left behind by their marketing chief, who quit in early 2024.  At this point, it looks as if John is going to be there for a while ... because he and Jacob have been working closely together to develop some awesome expansion of the company's outreach! John working fulltime as a marketing consultant with Weaver GMC-Chrysler dealership John has just come in from using his drone to film a new car model! Go on to the last section:  Life Goes On! Miles H. Hodges