http://VrienDuineN.tripod.com
http://VrienDuineN.tripod.com It has been a little while since we wrote, but we are still enjoying the hospitality and community of The Open Door. We will be staying here till June 3; I think I may have confused a few people in one of the messages I sent since some people have questioned whether we will still be coming back to Holland. Well, we are planning to!
We hope to visiting MI for a weekend in June, move our stuff during a week in July and then officially coming back in the middle of August. The big news is that we've decided to live in Jane and George Vanderbeek's house on 18th street while they take their "year of adventure" and spend time volunteering in Mexico. We've always admired the ways in which Jane and George live out their Christian faith, so the idea of living in their house and community is exciting to us. Deb will then resume teaching at Holland Christian and I'll try to find a new job.
Another exiting thing for us is that we will attend the Word and World School on our way back from Atlanta. This is a week-long series of classes and seminars for people in "the social justice and nonviolent movement." Hopefully this experience will complement our current experience at Open Door and help us to create other contacts.
Holy Week just ended; it was a much more focused time than I normally have leading up to Easter. Every day we had a worship service at a different place around the city, places considered "contested spaces" in their relationship to our homeless friends (the city hall, the state capital, the city jail etc). Furthermore, small groups of us spent 12 hours walking the streets every day, a small attempt to be in solidarity with the experience of being homeless. Deb and I really enjoyed our time on the streets, and while we know it was a "pseudo" street experience, we were faced with some of the realities of those without a place to call home. We saw some of the abandoned areas where people sleep, realized how hard it is to find a place to eat, and how long you have to wait once you do, felt unwelcome in places that had "no loitering, customers only" signs.
Easter week was difficult to the community here as two of our newer members (who had come to us from off the streets) left. Ricky had been living here for about a month and Moses for a week. Coming into the house means no alcohol and drugs, and 30 days of not being allowed to go outside of the house on your own. As many of our friends from the streets struggle with addictions, living here is a difficult step to take. Unfortunately, the majority of people who are invited into the community from the streets don't stay here for very long. Long-timers at Open Door maintain the philosophy that each day someone decides to stay is a gift to the rest of us, so instead of mourning a loss, they celebrate the time we were able to have with someone. For us, however, it has been painful to see these people leave, often without even a goodbye (Ricky was on his day off and never came back, Moses just went out for a walk and never returned). But, for these stories, we continue to have success stories. Bear, for example, had been in and out of the house three times over the last two years. He came in December and is still here, much to the surprise and delight of everyone.
So, as we live out Christ's example - with the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other; with one foot in a supportive Christian community, and the other on the harsh streets of Atlanta; with one ear to Christ's gospel message, and the other to the powers and principalities that seem bent to classism, racism, violence and injustice - we continue to grow and learn and pray.
Blessings to all of you -
Jon (and Deb)
We have included a couple web sites for those interested in more info.
Word and World School - http://www.wordandworld.org/
Map to our home next year - http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&ed=DS_Ob.p_0Tr9Z2b5DlI7EIKrUH229EOgz7WRdC8RJpBDuHsbtRfLWj6E&csz=HOLLAND+MI+49423&country=us
Southern Center For Human Rights (a friend of ours from the Open Door works here) - http://www.schr.org/
Northland Poster (a great site for ordering posters and cards) - http://www.northlandposter.com
