Community

Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to find a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to discover the mystery of forgiveness, we will soon be disappointed.
- Jean VanierCommunity and Growth

Some of our Homeless Friends were in the Paper

Hey everyone!
Recently a couple of our Friends were featured in a front page article in the "Daily Press," our local newspaper. I am attaching a link for you to read the article; it is beautifully written and looks beyond their circumstances to show their love for each other. We know these two people very well and I am glad that the paper is taking an interest in the Homeless. The sad part of this whole article is that the reader comments on the internet are quite disappointing to me. They really show how angry and hateful we can be as a society. I hope that you read the article and the reader comments to get a good idea of how our area opperates!

http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/love_3784___article.html/life_tony.html

One Love!

C.J.

Homeless survey for San Bernardino County

Hi! i just wanted to share with you some data that is hot off the presses. It is a study done by San Bernardino county which is the country we live in and where we minister to the homeless. Although surveys like these are usually bureaucratic in nature, and are really about numbers and money instead of people, it still provides some important information and really makes the actual situations hit home in a broader sense. The crazy thing is that when you put these statistics into practice, and touch and see theses precious people it is really quite life changing! if you are interested please follow the link and see for yourself!

http://www.sbcounty.gov/csd/homelessness_in_san_bernardino_county.htm

C.J.

Mobile Bike Shop???

Hey everyone... you may be asking yourself "What the heck is a Mobile Bike Shop?" Well our little version of a "Mobile Bike Shop," pretty much consists of a rolling tool box, some random bike tools and a few miscellaneous parts. But the excitement is not in the actual physical expression of having a bike shop, cus who cares about that, its pretty easy to fix bikes. The excitment is centered around the fact that we will be able to use this little idea to impact the lives of many homeless people who depend on bicycles to transport themselvs around the city. Bicycles to the homeless in Victorville are very important! Obviously they do not have the money or the tools to repair their bikes! They certainly cannot afford to buy their own bikes. This ministry is two-fold: we want to give used bikes to those who are in need and to provide a free repair service! We are really excited about getting this under way and should have all our ducks in a row to begin bringing bikes and tools down to Forrest park during our already established ministry times on Thursdays and Saturdays! If you are interested in participating in this ministry at all: from donating money for parts, donating parts(anything really), donating bicycles(we are interested in all bicycles, even if they are really bad looking we can salvage parts or other things to use for repair) and most importantly yourself! Please consider coming down and helping out! Bicycles are revolutionary!!!
Pictures will come soon!!
c.j.

Wrecked for the Ordinary

I would like to take a couple seconds and thank an online publication called "Wrecked for the Ordinary." They recently asked me to write an article kinda showing what we do in Old Town with our Homeless friends. The folks at Wrecked are really trying to create an arena where people and communities who are trying to make a difference no matter how big or small, can express themselves and their vision. Please go check out their site and read all the articles and submissions that you can! There is some pretty inspirational and intense stuff! The article i wrote is featured in the Community section of the webpage and is displayed in two parts... please read it if you like! They also included some of the photographs in the second part, that Tisha took(also featured on this very blog)! They are amazing photographs and really tell the story of Old Town on their own!!!

http://www.wreckedfortheordinary.com

One Love
c.j.

Parea Community Members at the traintracks

On a Saturday in May, the same Saturday as the photographs below, which Saturday I cannot recall, some of the members of Parea Community ventured to the traintracks behind Forrest Park and took a stroll down to the bridge. Here are a few photographs documenting our adventure!

Photographs By Tisha Lynne Galvan

Saturday Morning Continued...

After a long delay... (Tisha gets her film developed in San Diego) Here is the rest of the photographs from that same Saturday Morning in May 2007. These photograph feature community members as well as extended family members from Forrest Park.
*All Photographs are by
Tisha Lynne Galvan

The Family drinkin coffee and hangin out on a saturday mornin

These are some photographs taken by Tisha Lynne Galvan a few Saturday mornings ago. Featured in these photographs are some of our beloved "extended family members" in the Forrest Park in Old Town Victorville.

Photos of some of the members of our community

Hey! these are some photo's that we took after we served coffee down at the park one saturday morning. The bittersweet thing about Old Town Victorville is that there is a beautiful set of train tracks that disects the neighborhood, the downside is that it disects the neighborhood... and because it is one of the busiest lines in Southern California, there is constant train traffic, with loud horns that blow throughout the night! but we decided to take some photos of us messin around on the ol tracks! Some of the community is not pictured here regretfully...

The thing about thursdays

One of the highlights of our week here at ol parea community, is thursday afternoons when we share burritos with our homeless friends!!! the fun starts on wednesday afternoon when i put the beans in the pot to soak, then on thursday the community gets together and cooks the beans and rice and wraps the burritos! then we drive down to the park where we are greeted by about 30 hungry, smiling, sometimes dirty faces!- c.j.

An Introduction to Parea

Parea is a Greek Word that basically means “circle of close friends.” When we chose that name for out ministry, we wanted it to embody who we were, not just to ourselves as a ministry, but also those who we encounter as we minister in Old Town Victorville. It speaks of our desire to make a long term commitment to people in a radical, relational way. Parea Community is all about relationship. We believe with all sincerity that Jesus will use us to change the world one relationship at a time! With that declaration, I would like to tell you a little story…

One day well over a year ago, after months and months of intercession and planning, a couple of us decided to plunge headfirst into the murky and turbulent waters of the homeless population along the Mojave Riverbed (no pun intended). We hiked down the side of the highway 18 bridge that spans the river and ventured under the bridge around the girders hoping to find someone who was camping out. Our hearts broke. Graffitied all over the concrete pillars and support beams were cries of desperation, loneliness and brokenness. We read poems written in permanent marker that told dark and sad tales of lost love, abandoned dreams. An insurmountable amount of old clothing, trash and broken appliances littered the entire area. My friend and I were completely overwhelmed, all we could do was stare and proclaim “Lord have mercy!” After a couple of minutes we saw three figures (two men and a lady) walking down the railroad tracks, waving at us. Quickly looking at each other, eyes saying “this is our chance,” we scurried down the rest of the way, dodging empty tin cans and beer bottles to have our first contact with the locals. After a couple of minutes, our paths crossed and after hasty introductions we began to share with them who we were and what we were doing. With a skeptical tone, one of the men offered to let us camp at his place, mistaking us for being new to the river. “Oh, we’re not homeless, we just wanted to come down here to help in any way we can!” I awkwardly replied. With a collective nod of understanding and a singular “cool!” the ice was broken. The other gentleman told us how he had recently come to be homeless. A week previous he had gotten out of jail (CDC drops off new parolees at the bus station on 6^th and D st.) and found himself with no money, no way of getting a steady job because of a disability (he has only one leg), and no place to lay his head. The night before our encounter he had slept in an abandoned building and almost froze to death, frost covered his un-blanketed body in the morning. The other two had been walking around town in the freezing winter night in order keep warm. The intensity of their stories gripped our hearts and we could feel the confirmation of our decision to begin to minister to these precious people. It seemed that we instantly formed close bonds with all three of these people, and inevitably this encounter has opened up the doors to a blossoming new movement towards the poor called Parea Community.

To many of the Homeless, it is imperative that they form close, tight-knit social networks that really resemble a sort of family. It is really hard for someone outside of the network to gain acceptance into the family, especially when they are not homeless. Although all of the member of Parea love and support the many ministries existing in Old Town, our homeless friends look on most of them with a wary eye. I too have noticed that while many of them meet very important needs, the one key thing that they are missing is relationship. We may be the smallest ministry with a microscopic budget, but somehow God has blessed up with the most meaningful relationships and loads of close friends, most of which do not have a consistent roof over their heads and struggle daily to exist in this world. The other day, a friend came up to me during our Saturday morning coffee ministry and smiled. Then he proclaimed “every time you guys come down here, you brighten up everybody’s day, its one big family down here, and you guys are part of it.” What a privilege!