Winter Break part I

Hello all,
Greetings with love and prayer. We're all over the country! Here's a bit of an update. Heather is in Oregon. Cory is in Michigan (ILLINOISE?). Lindsey is in Jersey. Abby and I remain residents of Washington, but not for long, because she's flying to New York and I'm flying to Florida. I reckon we'll all be back here early January, since that's when winter term starts.
Our house has been able to host a couple ragamuffins this week and that has been a wonderful blessing. The picture below shows me with New Zealander, Arielle, between Pioneer Square and the international district. She'll be on her way by tomorrow, but she has blessed us this week (and thanks, Heather, for lending your bedroom.) Also, it's been great to share a handful of adventures with Patrick this past week. Blessings in Ohio, friend.


Well, I guess that's about it! Don't buy too much shit for the holidays. Time spent is more valuable anyway.

blessings all around.

greetings family!

the month of november is nearly over, which means Autumn Quarter at SPU is also almost over. time passes quickly, and we are still learning how and trying to practice slowing down. as i ride my bicycle, i realize and am thankful for how it allows me to take in my surroundings and truly appreciate them. i actually notice the beauty of the persons walking on the sidewalk beside me and am able to greet them warmly with a "hello!" or "good morning!" without a rolled-up car window giving me an excuse to drive fast right past them without even a wave of my hand.

i hope you had a wonderful weekend of giving thanks and were able to spend time with people that you cherish and love. we had a lovely weekend here at OurHouse. cory, lindsey and i stayed in seattle. heather spent thanksgiving with her family in Oregon, and ben enjoyed himself immensely in Cabo, Mexico. my mom, Becky came up from Indiana, and my brother and his 4 yr. old son, Teague came over for Thanksgiving dinner, as well as Lindsey's parents, Susie and Joe and brother, Curtis. we also were blessed to have some friends join us for dessert and merry music-making. the fireplace set a warm glow to the room, and a banjo and harmonica entertained us with their joyous sounds.


cory, nate, brother josh, mama becky, abby


indiana family photo


jacob


within the last couple weeks, many blessed opportunities to serve our community have been presented to us. we are continuing to seek our Father's will and are so blessed when He gives us ways to serve.

+ one night, a few of us went over to the Green Bean [a coffee shop in Greenwood that lovingly serves the community] to help them finish their clean-up and asked if there was ever any need for volunteer baristas. our response was a very excited "YES!" so cory emailed Hayden, one of the women who runs the coffee shop and told her of our interest. we met together one evening at SPU and shared hot cider and relaxation while listening to some friends play music at a fall art party hosted by Lingua- the arts journal on campus. i told Hayden how i was once a barista at tullys for 1.5 years and missed making drinks but even more, i missed my customers and the relationships that i had built with them. those relationships are what makes the Green Bean so beautiful, and we want to be a part of that community even more. Hayden even talked about the possibility of offering a class for those wanting to learn the art of coffee-making [ben and cory want to learn! heather, lindsey and i have all had equal experience in this area]. thank you Hayden and Lisa for needing help! we'll begin volunteering there in December and January!

www.greenbeancoffee.org

+ We're going to be hosting an exchange student!

our new friend Richard Struijk is coming to Seattle from the Netherlands to work a 3 month internship with Steve Geelhood and his company, a member of Sanctuary church. Richard is in his early 20's and is 4 years into a 5-6 year joint BS and MS Chemical Engineering degree. happily, we have an extra room in our house to offer him. we are excited to have another member in our family! thank you Steve for thinking of us!

finals are next week for us at SPU. we're almost done and trying not to procrastinate as we desire to finish well.

please contact us if you need prayer, for we would be so blessed to have you come to us.
we LOVE you.
also, if you know of someone who needs help in some way or could use clothing donations, we are here to serve that person. we want to serve YOU.

slow down and find the beauty. it's everywhere.
and be blessed as you bless others.
thank you for your prayers and your support.

Happy Anti-Halloween

Tonight was Halloween and we gave away pumpkin loaf and extremely dyed pumpkin bread (pictured above). We walked around our neighborhood, met our neighbors and got some candy. They are really amazing and in love with our block. They made reference to how amazing all of the people on our block were and said that they didn't know about the people south of us. It was kind of funny.
On of our favorite neighbors lives behind us and up the alley. Her name is Mikel and she was dressed as a man for Halloween but assured us that she was a woman. She was great. A little emo girl that came us to the door after us was really funny too. In the most apathetic and flat tone she could muster, she mumbled tricker-treat and then ran away.
Our personal experience with tricker treaters was slightly traumatic. We saw people approaching our front porch, ran to greet them and then discovered what they were really up to. Two young boys were quickly emptying the entire contents of our candy bowl into their bags. They were so started that we came that they ran off with the totality of the candy and the bowl. We got the bowl back and I think that they were a little traumatized as well, but they deserved it or something...
All in all, it was amazing. Our landlord is going costume watching on Capital Hill which is amazing too.

We love our neighbors a lot and are looking forward to getting to know them over the rest of the year.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

our family

our Father in Heaven gave us His love for each other.

we are a community of believers who love Jesus.
it is a struggle at times to love others and be loved.
but we choose to love at all costs.

"Life in community is no less than a necessity for us, an inescapable 'must'... all life created by God exists in communal order and works toward community." -- Eberhard Arnold

we are a family.

School is cool but not for a fool who can drool with a tool in a swimming pool making a rule about a cruel mule

The first couple weeks of school bring many things into our lives. We've been busy, but not too busy (debatable?) haha! We're trying to remember to pray often and love generously. It's so fun to get free stuff! I'll just say it right out! It just is! coffee! coffee grinder! french press! marker board! If you're ever thinking about buying a cup of coffee, come to our house instead =) Most of all, though, we're thankful for the people that share life with us. It has been wonderful! It means so much to us that people find a sanctuary when they enter. We hope you come soon.

an update of sorts

Hello family.

Here is a brief and abbreviated post about our current status as a community, sorry about the breviety but we will update in more detail soon.

We have been rejoicing in the amazing blessing of our house. It's one of the most beautiful gifts we have ever recieved and it has filled our lives with incredible joy. We have had parties and gatherings with so many friends and house guest over the last few weeks.

We have also been grieving the loss of one of our members. Katie will no longer be living with us and we miss her incredibly. Her presence and lack there of has been such a joy and heartache but we will always be one with here, regardless of her location. She is a loved forever by us.

We are awaiting the arrival of our last member, Ben. He arrives Saturday night!

We are looking forward to the year and the things that we will be learning and living.

To God be the glory.

we have a home!

hello dear family.

well lindsey and i are moved into our house. we still await heather, cory, katie and ben. life will be even more joyous once they arrive.

moving in wasn't stressful at all. Jesus blessed us by having our friends ask when they could come and help us. we had six people and five cars. we moved all of the contents in our apartment into our house in one load! it was really great. and quite fun actually.

we continue to be blessed each day, either by having someone come help us clean the house, finding furniture on the side of the road, being given something we've been praying for, or simply but beautifully having people always at our house sharing in community and love.

here are some photos finally.
the start of our new home.
there aren't any photos of the downstairs, because i couldn't get any good ones. and the dining room isn't worth taking a photo of yet, because there's nothing in it. soon, perhaps by the end of this week, there will be a large dining room table, created out of an old, vintage door that we will add legs to!

please come visit us and share in the love and joy that we have to give.


thank you Merek!
Merek was our painter this week. he cleaned our walls and put a fresh, stark coat of white paint on them all. he also washed our porch today. so lindsey and i decided to show him our appreciation by baking him a cake, complete with a small paintbrush!

our back porch, currently full of recycling, two lovely lanterns from goodwill and a beautiful watering can from goodwill-by-the-pound.



clean kitchen.


half of our front porch.
two comfy chairs from a dumpster.


this is the beginning of our living room.
large, burnt sienna couch that was given to us.
rug from the salvation army thrift store.
table from goodwill.
and a beautiful fireplace, complete with candles.


come soon!

okay then, the house is rented.

It's amazing to me house some sentences are so effortlessly rolled off tongues, while the same sentence can cause heart attacks and fits of joy in others. I think that was the moment when I finished signing our deposit check and Robert said, "Well, okay then, consider it rented."

Over the last week, we have looked at 9 houses, emailed dozens, and called about 50. Being first time renters I am sure there are people snickering at the commonality of our journey but it was difficult to transition into after last Tuesday. A question that was reoccurring in my life was my ability to hear the voice of God in the situation. Where we able to look at a house and get a tingling feeling knowing that this was the one? What neighborhood are we suppose to be in? Are we doing too much work on our own or is God calling us to be patient, faithful, and diligent in our search. We got to a point where we could see God's hand of supervision over our sporadic journey. He protected us from the craziness of the U-District, installing a bathroom, and a completely confusing landlord who wanted us to rent her house enough that she was going to move. Doors where slammed closed and at first we would get sad and disappointed but after a while, those feelings were non existent. Another house wouldn't work out, but it became okay because God was protecting us from something. The last house we called on on Monday was advertised at a 5,000 square foot mansion for the small monthly price of $2,200. It was a typo.

The real house is less than 5,000 square feet (thank God) but has 6 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, a huge living room and dining room with hardwood floors, a fireplace, front porch, den, and parking. It's perfect.

When we signed the check, I wasn't really all that excited anymore. I was happy and content, but just satisfied with the process, feeling the comfort of God in the tangible reality of renting a house.

He is faithful even when we are faithless and he has provided us a house.

Please stop by anytime. We are at 4111 Stone Way next to the dollar store and across the street from the 24 hour Emergency Vet Clinic.

Trust and Obey

Being a good Baptist, I have sung this hymn for most of my life, even at the points when I was definitely not obeying and trust was no existent. However, during the current phase of my life, I feel as though I am living into this song a little bit more deeply. It is not simply enough to trust and it's so often confusing just to obey, the tension of our Christian struggle is to live in faith between the two, being humble enough to remain in that tension until we are called to a new one.

As a community we had seized to live in that tension for a wee bit. Posts like the previous one demonstrate that we were definitely rejoicing in God's providence and his faithfulness, becoming preemptively content before our time. Our meeting yesterday was... confusing, in a word. God's presence was there very strongly and we had a chance to stand in awe once again at the places that he had brought us from and the amazing work he has already done. We were able to meet an amazing woman of God and share in her joys and dreams about community. We felt so encouraged and supported by our mentor and his presence and leadership was such a needed blessing in a delicate moment. We were asked difficult questions and gave answers that accurately portrayed our community, glorifying the way God has made us. By the end of the meeting we had all seen God and his presence was undeniable, but we were on two different pages of the 'co-habitation' (a term we have slowly come to despise) issue, staring at each across a valley of disbelief and confusion.

We left the meeting, not on bad terms, but wounded and confused. We have experienced every single emotion it seems like; anger, pain, joy, hope, confusion, exhaustion, fear, and peace.

Right now we are at a good place. We rejoice fully in God's perfect plan for us even though we are in pain. We have hope beyond this moment that he will provide for our needs, even though we were moderately discouraged. We see the clock of August ticking down but we have faith in an eternal God who provides all things in his perfect timing. And we are learning to trust again, because, right now, it is the only thing we have. Our flesh tells us to fear homelessness and deadlines and failure but the Spirit provides peace and comfort beyond our understanding. We have realized that everything in this journey is secondary to our pursuit of God, a house doesn't matter and all of the bowls and towels mean nothing. We will forever be homeless because we are the body of Christ and we are too large to fit into a house. We were able to see the community of believers that he has weaved together across the nation, from New York to Philadelphia to Indianapolis to Colorado Springs to southern California and here. God is good and we are called to live in response to him, a task that is confusing right now but our ultimate joy.

Thank you for your prayers, they move mountains and build houses. We are so thankful for everyone who has been with us on this journey and we are so blessed to be in this journey together with you. We could definitely use prayer and encouragement right now for the next step and any points of wisdom would be so greatly appreciated. We in awe of the things that God is doing and we are amazed that we get to experience them with you.

To God be all honor and glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

did you guys want a...

In regards to the last post, God is faithful. We have a meeting with the landlord (Fawn) on August 7th and we are all so excited to discuss the possibilities for next year. I still stand in amazement whenever I hear someone else tell the story and am so happy to think that God didn't just want to give us a house, but wanted to add a little excitement and humbling perfection to the situation.

All we really do is dream about next year. It was easy being in the moment when the house was a hazy concept and our location was undecided. Now that we have a house and we have a location we want to be there. August will be the best month of anticipation we will ever experience.

In the mean time, God is keeping us in the moment by providing incredible blessings. The people that he has surrounded us with are putting on the skin of Jesus and giving richly. We are in constant awe of the generosity of the body and the faithfulness of God to provide. A dear friend recently gave us an entire kitchen set. She worked since her junior year of high school to generate supplies to live on her own but her heart has changed and she can't see her future self living outside of community or within the US. Through God's nudging she decided that our house would be a great home for her belongings. My parents are donating a bike rack and Mason jars for canning (fresh peach, pears, tomatoes, applesauce, and salsa). Hangers from the side of the road, colanders from dumpsters, glasses from free boxes are just some of the ways that little bits of God have popped up in our lives. We see the amazing work that he is doing, weaving together supplies for community living and we are overwhelmed, but together in our joy which makes it infinitely sweeter.

The 3 of us in Seattle are going to be planning, planning, planning over the course of August. We will be creating a recipe book, finical system, food structure, fencing, gardens, flowerbeds, and then the last joyful act of moving in!

If you are looking for a way to support us, please pray. It's a phrase that gets used flippantly but we have seen God move so powerfully in response to our prayers and we want to constantly remain in the center of his will. Some things that we need prayer for are planning over the summer, the process of securing the house, finding balance of the now and the overly exciting not yet, and more faith.

Things that we still need:
push lawnmower, vacuum cleaner (preferably new), large pots and pans, an indoor drying rack, white dishes, and furniture.

It's all going to be okay though... someone will most likely just say, "Did you guys want a..." and we will just laugh and say, "Yeah..."

perfection is found in Ballard

As we sit at our favorite, or most frequently visited coffee shop (Fremont Coffee) we are rejoicing and so at peace with the plans that God has in store for us. Abby had the opportunity to meet with a fellow member of Sanctuary today. Her name is Clara and she has lived in community for 9 years in Boston and a few other cities. Over the course of the conversation the topic of our lack of housing came up and Clara responded with a shocked face and an overflow of excitement. Apparently, the house that she is living in right now is a 6 bedroom, 2 story house, fully optimised with a backyard! and garden! and washer and dryer! and TWO refrigerators! in Ballard! The landlord is a 33 year old female who is a Christian and feels that God is calling her to rent the house to an intentional community.

Right now we are overwhelmed with the smallness of our imaginations and overwhelmed with the faithfulness of God. He wants to give his children amazing gifts and we sit here and doubt with our worry. He is so faithful and just to give us our wildest desires and ultimate dreams. We will be meeting with the landlord, God willing, sometime this week. Please be in prayer for this opportunity and we will keep you all updated about our journey.

To God be the glory!

-abby and lindsey

faith. not worry.

this has been a difficult week.

satan is constantly tempting us to worry about our financial obligations, both present and future. each time i'm under this now familiar temptation, i pray asking God to fill my heart with His Spirit while assuring me that He will take care of us all as long as we trust in His promise.

God already has a house picked out for us! and He will provide whatever funds are needed to get us into that space. He will also help us pay our last months rent, our cell phone bills, money we owe to our families, etc... i can't allow myself to worry even once because i have personally seen over and over again how God has blessed my sister with anonymous checks in the mail, or a refund from something or other presented with the exact dollar and cent amound that she needed. her testimonies become personal to me, so how could i possibly sadden my Lord by worrying and doubting His hands and His angels?

thankfully i have a friend, Jake who reminds me of God's faithfulness every single day. i value so dearly the encouragement from people that are dear to me and our daily prayer times together.

i pray that the Spirit of the Lord is dwelling in our future community house already.
i pray Jesus blesses you as He continues to bless us.
and may you remember to have faith in His promises.

-

continual blessings.

life in the u-district is grand.

the Saturday farmer's market is located in the parking lot across from our house. we have a disfunctional toilet [had to buy two plungers and rid-x]. lindsey's purple orchid makes our windowsill colorful, and john's bamboo has new sprouts. we've enjoyed tea parties and will be making dinner for friends in a couple days. we bought value village dishes and glasses -- all mismatched and unique. and praise Jesus we all have jobs.

heather, lindsey and i will begin looking for our house in a couple weeks. oh boy! this responsibility has thankfully not stressed me out at all. i had a lengthy encouraging conversation with my sister, Keren today; she told me that she was excited for us in reflectings on this journey we have all been on and will continue to live out together. she told me she couldn't wait to see which house God has picked out for us already. i was instantly encouraged. God has already picked out our house! and He's probably laughing, excited for us to begin our search and wondering how long it will take us to find it. i pray we walk in the footsteps of Jesus all in His timing -- not only in following our own agenda.

simple blessing:
thursday night, heather and i were sitting at a table at the tollgate, listing appliances we'd like to have in our apartment but will need for our house next year. i finished writing 'toaster' and 'blender' when raylene came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, telling me she had a few items she thought we might be able to use in our house. i followed her into the back room, and when she turned around, she held a toaster in one hand and a blender in the other... later, i crossed off the two items and wrote, "thank you Jesus."

be encouraged by the simplest things.
we are so blessed.