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.