כחולמים Like Dreamers

More and more I find myself looking around Shiloh and wondering if I'm not a dreamer, or some sort of Rip Van Winkle who suddenly awoke from a nap and discovered that many years had passed.

When we moved to Shiloh in 1981 as a youngish family with just four children, within no time we knew every single neighbor. I knew all of the children's names and ages. After a while I lost track of all the children, (we had also added to our family) but I not only knew all of the families, I also knew who had completed the entire legal "absorption process." This was because I had been on the committee that accepts new families, which came in handy when I was on the election committee, too.

Now, when I run elections, I have ask people's name. And that isn't only the girls I've known who are now married and go by their husband's name. I'm always amazed when people I can't recognize give me a ride straight to my door. They know me, but I can't remember ever meeting them. And, bli  eyin haraa, there are so many children. Do they live here, or are they just visiting?

I also knew every child in our school in its early years. Today I couldn't even tell you how to find the front doors. Yes, "doors" in the plural, since our little school is now two full elementary schools teaching First Grade to Eighth Grade, one for boys and the other for girls. Besides the elementary schools, there's a boys high school in Shiloh and one for girls will be opening this coming school year.

When we first came to Shiloh, there wasn't even a functioning grocery store. Now there are two large supermarkets, a clothing/toy/gift shop, a lovely restaurant and a pizza place. There's also an "industrial zone," which has a humongous professional hardware store for both "builders" and ordinary people. That's besides the gift shop, carpenter, kitchenmaker, prize-winning Meshek Achiya and more. Now there are two medical clinics instead of the zero there was when we moved to Shiloh.

How could it all have happened so quickly? I must have been dreaming...

Baruch Hashem! Thank you Gd. Such a dream come true.💖