Community Living

One of the unexpected benefits of our house fire was the experience of community living and sharing a home all summer long. Our dear friends were some of the first people we called the morning of the fire. They immediately opened their home to us and began preparations for our arrival. Our friends have a very beautiful and spacious home. They were very gracious to us. Their teen sons opened up their bedrooms for us. They call us "Aunt Tina" and "Uncle John" and our children do the same for them. Both of our families are blessed with sons. The guys took over the basement, where they had quite the bachelor pad. . . pool table, big screen TV, weight room, comfy furniture, and a room full of mattresses! Our friends had hosted baseball players in their home for several summers and had a perfect set up. Just the week before, they had decided to pass on hosting members of the Bull Frog baseball team for the summer. Just didn't want to commit to hosting that summer, without really knowing why. I guess God was holding our reservation open for us.

Besides the obvious stresses and adjustments of loosing a home to a fire, we really felt comfortable and welcome right away. The kids were quite enjoying the company. It was almost like we were on some kind of extended vacation together, which we have done together several times over the years. It was such a blessing to have all the interaction with friends. I can't imagine being isolated in a hotel room somewhere. This was so therapeutic for us.

Now it may sound like we were taking advantage of our friends' generousity. . .but we also brought others into their home with us! Our oldest son's good friend has spent a great deal of time with our family over the years. He has become like a second son to us. He and his mom were going through very difficult times grieving the loss of a relative, so this young man moved in with us. We also have some former foster daughters who are now mothers themselves. Those little foster grand babies spent some nights with us too. And true to form, our sons always seem to have a buddy sleeping over or spending a weekend with us, so they too moved in occasionally. Our friends also have an older son who would visit from Milwaukee. This house was a favorite gathering place for high school buddies, so there were always people coming and going. On an average day, we were 9-12 people living together in that house. And really things went quite smoothly. Honestly, even after the two full months, we were doing well together. We wondered if maybe television crews might show up for some reality TV show episodes. I guess we didn't have enough conflicts to make things exciting.

We did get a taste of what community living is like. We all seemed to like it. We bought lots of groceries, helped share the work load of chores, yard work, cleaning, cooking and laundry. We learned to prepare large amounts of food. (5 teen boys to feed!) We shared in parenting and disciplinary matters. We shared expenses. Our doggies shared the food dish! Both families seemed to learn and benefit from each other. I guess God knew that we needed each other. It felt good to receive and to give.

The day I drove away with the last load of stuff in the car, I had tears in my eyes. We hadn't really planned when we would officially move out. It was quite a shock when all the togetherness was over. There was some type of void hanging in the air. Its a void that is still felt even today as we remember, with gratitude and fondness, our dear friends.

The Believers Share Their Possessions Acts 4:32
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.