Written by Juanita Fox
Dave and Liz Givens moved to Garden Spot Village from Michigan in early-October 2018. A week later U.S. News & World Report named Lancaster the #1 place to retire. Their Michigan friends immediately reached out to say, “You made the right choice!”
U.S. News & World Report simply affirmed what we truly believe – Lancaster IS the #1 place to retire. U.S. News & World Report listed all the obvious things that make Lancaster great – access to quality health care, affordable housing, a healthy job market and relatively low taxes. We know, though, people choose Lancaster for more reasons than that.
It’s the charm of rural living with access to a small city.
It’s the opportunity to stop at a farm stand and purchase fresh produce just minutes after it was hand-picked in the family garden.
It’s the convenience of travel: you can be in Philadelphia in 1.5 hours, Baltimore in 2 hours, New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2.5 hours.
It’s the beauty of four distinct seasons.
It’s the welcoming spirit of the people who live and work here.
In fact, the welcoming spirit she experienced at Garden Spot Village reassured Liz’s friend from Michigan that this was a good move for Dave and Liz. Before leaving, this friend who drove east with Liz from Michigan to New Holland said, “I feel good leaving you here because I know I’m leaving you with friends.”
For Dave and Liz, the move to New Holland was like coming “home.” Though they had retirement opportunities in Michigan, their hearts kept pulling them back to eastern Pennsylvania. Dave says, “Yes, we’ve lived elsewhere, but Lancaster always felt like home.”
Their roots were in Lancaster County and suburban Philadelphia and they met at Cairn University. They worked with SEND International for 42 years, serving as church planters in the Philippines and more recently, leading an English program in China and teaching and equipping other global workers around the world. As the developers of SEND’s media team they used visual and written storytelling to share the stories of global workers with SEND supporters, prayer partners, and potential new workers.
Liz describes their global approach to life: “our heart is all over the world.” As a result, says Dave, “Everywhere we go, we’ve got friends.” And, even as they moved into Garden Spot, they realized their connections to Cairn as well as SEND meant a ready set of friends already living in New Holland.
Dave says, “In my mind I have an open book before me. We have just written the preface. I anticipate that our move to Garden Spot Village will allow us to be even more mobile. The best part of our story has yet to be written.”