February 2015

In February we had another personnel loss.  Erin was in the end of her final semester of college and did not have time for huddle or doing much with the family outside of her studying.  We affirmed her decision and told her that of course when she was ready to jump back in we would be there with arms open.  Jarred had already offered her a job out of school as his assistant (which paid in friendship) and we anticipated her sticking around after school ended.

Now that we had more people from the neighborhood coming to family dinners, we wanted a more visible presence in the neighborhood.  There is a Mexican restaurant in a few blocks from Katy and Jon’s house that we decided to go to on the off weeks from family dinner at their place.  It was a little safer space for Rhonda and her girlfriend to get to know us and it allowed for us to support a business in the neighborhood as well as start building relationships, at least with the employees.

Rhonda was starting to become more comfortable with us.  She had lost her job at the end of January and was looking for a new one and pretty down about not having one.  We prayed with her that she would find a job.  Eventually she did but not in the field that she wanted.  We are still praying for something more suitable for her.

One time at Chimichanga’s, Rhonda and Mari simultaneously got talking about their past with the church (we were split between three table since we had so many people).  Mari had grown up going to Catholic schools.  Rhonda had not grown up in church but she had started going to a charismatic church with a friend in high school.  She got used to people laying hands on each other and speaking in tongues, the whole nine.  As she got comfortable, she realized she wanted to look in to other religions to see what they said since she was newer to the whole thing.  As soon as she started asking questions about other religions, she was quickly ostracized.  They both were very interested in coming to church with Katy and Jon.  As of yet that hasn’t happened but we are waiting on God to continue the work he is doing in their hearts.

During much of the previous year, Katy and Jon had been in a band with a group of friends.  That band had disintegrated but several of the people still wanted to play music together.  Katy started her own music project and most of the people from their band play and record with her.  Eventually, some of those people would make up the band The Resounding with her.

The Resounding

        One couple from that group started hanging out with Katy and Jon quite a bit.  It was easy to see that they were people of peace to the Goldstein’s.  Brooke and Randy started reading the 3dm books and were quickly hooked to the idea.  They realized they wanted to do something like Katy and Jon did in their own neighborhood.  They started figuring out that they would need sometime imitating Katy and Jon before they would be able to start off on their own.  They slowly started to become a fixture at family functions and became more and more integrated in what we were doing.