After the house was finished, the real work began. Chris, Sarah, Elijah and I moved in on April 30th. Our friends moved in on June 1st. Altogether, there were 4 adults, 2 teenagers, and 3 kids under 5 in the house--and two dogs and a cat.
One good thing was that both families had lived in community before. Our family had two previous attempts at living with other families. One went really well, and we remain friends with Gene Traver (and now his wife and son) to this day. One did not go so well, and that gave us some experience with setting boundaries and talking openly and honestly on a regular basis about what was happening in the house. Our housemates, Craig & Trish, had lived with a community of people before they had their 3 kids, and that was a challenging experience for them during which they learned about the importance of open communication as well.
So, from the time we got settled, we had weekly house meetings. These were really important, especially at the beginning, to provide a forum for planning our schedule for the upcoming week, talking about what had worked well for each of us, sharing things that were not working, and praying or singing or reading together as a household.
One major focus of the household is hospitality. We are strongly interested in having guests--for dinner, for special events, or to stay with us for short or long periods of time. Everyone in the household shared this vision, and we made it a point to invite others for dinner 2-3 times a week and host "open house" events 1-2 times a week (watching sports on TV, hosting lectures and concerts, reading aloud, and a weekly Compline service at 8pm on Saturday nights). Also, my daughter has a group of friends who live all over the Pioneer Valley, and she would often invite 2-15 kids over to watch movies, some who needed to spend the night because of the distance to their own homes. We also had some "regulars" who dropped in and knew they had an open invitation--Sarah's friend, Steve, Katherine, a friend and babysitter for Craig & Trish's kids, Julia, a friend of Craig & Trish, and Dave, a close friend of Craig & Chris. So, the scheduling part of the meeting was critical to be sure that everyone in the household knew who was coming on what nights, and what each person would cook or prepare for our guests.
The what's working part of the meeting involved talking about things we enjoyed about living in community. Each person would go around and tell about things that were important or meaningful during the week. I took notes at every meeting, and some of the things we shared over the year were things like: Good to get a chance to go to Maine together and expand our shared circle of friends, Good to have household guests and feel like hospitality is really happening regularly, Enjoyed watching a movie together, Good to work together in the yard--felt like we accomplished a lot, Love eating our meals together--great to have 10 and more at the dinner table and to talk together about our days, Good to see that the trash is getting taken out and I don't have to do it!
The what's not working part of the meeting was similar, except a bit harder. This was a time to share things that were difficult, or needed to be changed, or hurtful. Some things we shared were: Can't do Sunday night parties--too hard to get into the week, Too many people this week--chaos, clean up wasn't shared, Didn't expect to have to pay for vent cleaning--bad communication really caused stress, How to find a quiet, private space, Laundry not going well--wet stuff getting mildewed--how to avoid this and share one washer & dryer. The weekly issues were generally dealt with by brainstorming as a group about how to make changes, adjust schedules and share work in a way that was helpful. Our attitude was one of trying to find creative solutions that met everyone's needs. For example, Chris & Trish both enjoy cooking, and so they made most of the meals. After dinner, Craig & Trish had the responsibility of bathing their kids and getting them off to bed, so Chris and I and either Craig or Trish would clean up and the other would take care of the kids. This left the house in order by 7pm and gave all of us a chance to rest a bit in the evening.
There was also the underlying issue of ownership of the house. Craig & Trish were very motivated to own a home, but also wanted to have an opportunity to sell their home if they ever needed to re-locate. Chris and I owned the house we were all living in, and were very interested in establishing this as a permanent home for Elijah (and possibly Sarah if she chooses) to secure a future community for him without state funding--so selling or liquidating assets from the house was not an option for us. In the end, we had to do a seperate facilitated discussion about this issue to uncover all of the underlying concerns and try to brainstorm a solution to what seemed to be an impasse. We planned for several hours together, and Craig & Trish also took the results of this conversation to their own planning group made up of their close friends and supporters. In the end, it was clear that we would not be able to co-own this house and maintain the possibility of selling part of it in the future. So, after a year of living together, Craig & Trish found a house in a nearby town.
In the meantime, we have a new housemate who joined us during the year and brought many things to our community (including a baby grand piano, a lot of beautiful stained glass to adorn the windows, a fantastic library and new bookshelves that he build, and...the name for our house). More about how the community continues later.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Beginning of Community
I've been pushed over the edge into the blogging world--inspired by my friend, Alana, and the many blogs she talks about, and the connections she's made--I guess I've now entered the fray.
Niggle's Parish must be familiar to Tolkien readers, but I was new to it this year. From the story, "Leaf by Niggle," the parish is a place in which a work of art is completed, a broken relationship mended, and a small community begun.
Our Niggle's Parish in Amherst, MA is a New England farm house that was started in 1830, with additions attached throughout the years. Finally, in the mid 1970's, the house was renovated into an office for Stavros, our local center for independent living, an organization supporting people with disabilities. In March 2006, my husband, Chris, and I bought the place from Stavros, and renovated it back into a residence with some spectacular open spaces thanks to the generous planning and hard labor of over 40 people from our church.
I need to stop here to say that the way our search and renovation happened was truly an act of Christian community at its best and a major blessing of God! We had been looking for a place to live in community with other people for years--since our son, Elijah, was diagnosed with severe autism in 1995 (see articles at www.charlottemeryman.com); but we didn't have the time, the money, or the expertise to even think about a place with enough space to make community living possible.
Then, in 2005, a family from South Africa who attended our church expressed an interest in trying out community living with us--and our search for a place began. Our families started meeting together regularly for dinner, and started looking at places to buy. In the summer of 2005, they left for South Africa for six weeks, and we found a place in a nearby town. We did inspections, emailed each other daily with updates and questions, and worked really hard to make it happen...but in the end, the place needed too much work and we had too little money to take a chance on purchasing it. I was devastated; yet this false start got a lot of folks in our church interested in the idea of a community house...so it was definately a step down the right path, but it sure didn't feel that way. Our families continued to meet through the fall and look at an occasional house, but by December, we'd decided to give it up and go our seperate ways.
Then, on January 15th, we drove by the place that was to become our home. It was still being used as an office at the time, and when we first looked at it, both Chris and I said, "No way!" Even our real estate agent, who was also very excited by the community idea, discouraged us from thinking about taking on the renovation. Yet...when we saw the place for the second time with our friends and after the folks from Stavros had moved their office equipment out, we started to feel differently. We brought our friend, Jerry Gates, by the house soon after our second look. Jerry is a general contractor and very successful business man, and he was with us during our attempt to move in 2005 and had really encouraged us to stick with our vision. With Jerry's expertise & encouragement, we made an offer. This time, Chris & I planned to buy the house, and move in with our friends as renters for 1 year until we could be sure that our community could move forward in a way that would work for both families and allow both families to own the property together.
At the same time that we made the offer, we had to put our condo in a neighboring town on the market...but we were reluctant to sell with an agent because our budget was so tight. Elijah has a wonderful respite provider who has helped our family out every week since 1998, and who is a second mom to him and a great friend and encourager for us. We were very worried about how he would deal with the move since we'd lived in the condo since he was a year old (before he was diagnosed). As God would have it, our respite provider had gotten married and was looking for a house, and she told us that she loved our home and wished she could find one like it. As we talked and prayed about the move, it became clear that our respite provider and her family were very interested in buying our condo, and that would make it possible for Elijah to stay in his old home for part of the week as we transitioned into our new home in Amherst. This incredible provision overwhelmed me and really encouraged me that we'd found the place for our community and that Elijah was, as always, being provided for.
So--in March 2006, we sold our condo on the same day that we bought the Amherst farmhouse. But--the story wasn't over. We had 5 weeks to renovate the house, converting it from a 1/2 bath, 3800 square foot office with 3 bedrooms into a 2 bathroom house with laundry facilities and 7 bedrooms to hold our two families. Jerry Gates volunteered as our general contractor, and designed the entire front part of the house. He lined up his plumbing subcontractors , his fantastic lead builder, Ron Boyko, and several general laborers to come and do the work. Then, we put out the word to our church and friends that there was an acre of land to clear, a huge parking lot to remove and convert to lawn, over 1800 square feet of flooring to remove and replace, 3 bedrooms to build, and all of the interior to paint. In 35 days, our friends from The Arc (where my husband and I worked at the time) and from First Baptist Church of Amherst, Grace Episcopal Church, and the First Congregational Church of Hadley came together and made it all happen. We got our occupancy permit 2 days after we had to be out of our condo. I've included some renovation pictures with this post.
There's much to tell about the past year, and about how the house got its name, but I'll leave that for future posts. I'm overwhelmed by the generous provision of God for our family, and by the blessing of our friends, our new neighbors, and some new people who've come through the parish in the past year. Living in community has meant big changes--but also tremendous rewards & encouragement in living out my faith. I'm looking forward to what lies ahead.
Niggle's Parish must be familiar to Tolkien readers, but I was new to it this year. From the story, "Leaf by Niggle," the parish is a place in which a work of art is completed, a broken relationship mended, and a small community begun.
Our Niggle's Parish in Amherst, MA is a New England farm house that was started in 1830, with additions attached throughout the years. Finally, in the mid 1970's, the house was renovated into an office for Stavros, our local center for independent living, an organization supporting people with disabilities. In March 2006, my husband, Chris, and I bought the place from Stavros, and renovated it back into a residence with some spectacular open spaces thanks to the generous planning and hard labor of over 40 people from our church.
I need to stop here to say that the way our search and renovation happened was truly an act of Christian community at its best and a major blessing of God! We had been looking for a place to live in community with other people for years--since our son, Elijah, was diagnosed with severe autism in 1995 (see articles at www.charlottemeryman.com); but we didn't have the time, the money, or the expertise to even think about a place with enough space to make community living possible.
Then, in 2005, a family from South Africa who attended our church expressed an interest in trying out community living with us--and our search for a place began. Our families started meeting together regularly for dinner, and started looking at places to buy. In the summer of 2005, they left for South Africa for six weeks, and we found a place in a nearby town. We did inspections, emailed each other daily with updates and questions, and worked really hard to make it happen...but in the end, the place needed too much work and we had too little money to take a chance on purchasing it. I was devastated; yet this false start got a lot of folks in our church interested in the idea of a community house...so it was definately a step down the right path, but it sure didn't feel that way. Our families continued to meet through the fall and look at an occasional house, but by December, we'd decided to give it up and go our seperate ways.
Then, on January 15th, we drove by the place that was to become our home. It was still being used as an office at the time, and when we first looked at it, both Chris and I said, "No way!" Even our real estate agent, who was also very excited by the community idea, discouraged us from thinking about taking on the renovation. Yet...when we saw the place for the second time with our friends and after the folks from Stavros had moved their office equipment out, we started to feel differently. We brought our friend, Jerry Gates, by the house soon after our second look. Jerry is a general contractor and very successful business man, and he was with us during our attempt to move in 2005 and had really encouraged us to stick with our vision. With Jerry's expertise & encouragement, we made an offer. This time, Chris & I planned to buy the house, and move in with our friends as renters for 1 year until we could be sure that our community could move forward in a way that would work for both families and allow both families to own the property together.
At the same time that we made the offer, we had to put our condo in a neighboring town on the market...but we were reluctant to sell with an agent because our budget was so tight. Elijah has a wonderful respite provider who has helped our family out every week since 1998, and who is a second mom to him and a great friend and encourager for us. We were very worried about how he would deal with the move since we'd lived in the condo since he was a year old (before he was diagnosed). As God would have it, our respite provider had gotten married and was looking for a house, and she told us that she loved our home and wished she could find one like it. As we talked and prayed about the move, it became clear that our respite provider and her family were very interested in buying our condo, and that would make it possible for Elijah to stay in his old home for part of the week as we transitioned into our new home in Amherst. This incredible provision overwhelmed me and really encouraged me that we'd found the place for our community and that Elijah was, as always, being provided for.
So--in March 2006, we sold our condo on the same day that we bought the Amherst farmhouse. But--the story wasn't over. We had 5 weeks to renovate the house, converting it from a 1/2 bath, 3800 square foot office with 3 bedrooms into a 2 bathroom house with laundry facilities and 7 bedrooms to hold our two families. Jerry Gates volunteered as our general contractor, and designed the entire front part of the house. He lined up his plumbing subcontractors , his fantastic lead builder, Ron Boyko, and several general laborers to come and do the work. Then, we put out the word to our church and friends that there was an acre of land to clear, a huge parking lot to remove and convert to lawn, over 1800 square feet of flooring to remove and replace, 3 bedrooms to build, and all of the interior to paint. In 35 days, our friends from The Arc (where my husband and I worked at the time) and from First Baptist Church of Amherst, Grace Episcopal Church, and the First Congregational Church of Hadley came together and made it all happen. We got our occupancy permit 2 days after we had to be out of our condo. I've included some renovation pictures with this post.
There's much to tell about the past year, and about how the house got its name, but I'll leave that for future posts. I'm overwhelmed by the generous provision of God for our family, and by the blessing of our friends, our new neighbors, and some new people who've come through the parish in the past year. Living in community has meant big changes--but also tremendous rewards & encouragement in living out my faith. I'm looking forward to what lies ahead.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
