i have a dream (or at least i had one)

we're a few months into our third year doing this intentional community house thing. i am amazed at what the lord has done. i honestly could not have guessed we would be where we are today. in fact, this is QUITE different than i thought it would be.

when we were first starting the hamline house, there was this momentum & energy behind everything. it was so clear to us that the lord was doing something & that something was significant. it only took a few months to actually move into a house & get some other people on board with our little seed of a dream.

i have very fond memories of our first year in the hamline house. don't get me wrong, it was definitely hard at times. learning to live intentionally with a bunch of people that all have lots of different ideas about how things should be. learning so much about hospitality to friends & strangers. breaking up fights right outside our front door (that only happened once). but for the most part i look back on our first year and i feel warmth. i feel family. natalie, ricky, sarah, heather, jamal, zac, greg and me.

towards the end of our first year, there was more momentum, more energy and more people! some close friends of mine (a married couple) had been living across the street from us & decided they wanted to give community living a try. a young man found us on the internet and wanted to come live with us. we had enough folks interested in moving in that we started a second house called the thomas house. we were even closer to reaching the dream.

this last year has completely kicked my butt. i think we changed our structure like 5 or 6 times throughout the year, got rid of the leadership, switched people into different houses, re-elected leadership, split the houses, got rid of the leadership again and hurt a lot of people in the process. my married friends moved out before the year was up. they left feeling wounded & lost. i think in some ways that's how we all felt.

a month ago ricky moved out. that was really hard for me. we have become really close over the last two years and him moving out felt like failure to me. we had made a lot of mistakes along the way, but this was the first time i felt like i'd failed. in a couple of days the guy who found us on the internet will be moving out. i remember when he first moved in how happy he was. full of life & excitement & passion. he's leaving us broken, depressed & alone.

the past few days i've been playing home videos in my head of our first year together. looking back over the footage & smiling. remembering happier days when the dream god had given us was being cared for.

since yesterday all i've been dreaming about is what it would be like to live somewhere else.

but i can't help but wonder if god's not quite done with me. here. in this place. yet.

i can't help but wonder if god's dream for these houses is still alive.

still here whispering in my ear to not give up. to not lose hope.

lord have mercy on me.