JPUSA will it come and go so fast?

Its already nearly halfway through my time here at JPUSA. In three days I will be leaving to join my family for the extended family vacation. Although I always love spending time with my extended family, but I haven't been able to look forward to the week to come yet. I have been so involved here at JPUSA with my group of friends that I have made. People seemed to come out of the walls as I forced myself to leave my room. I found random reasons to spend time in the garden relaxing or simply sitting in the diningroom in the evening. Enough about making friends though. My daily life now feels like a life I could truely see myself living. Working each day doing service, living simply, and surrounding myself with friends who welcome conversations about deep intimate issues, while feeling free to be like giddy children who can't stop laughing. Surrounding myself with people who are devoted and outspoken about their faith has been a big change from me. In college my friends were nearly all believers, but most were not outspoken. What was at first uncomfortable for me to hear, became encouraging as I explored my faith. I still maintain the belifs I have formed during my first two years at GC (Goshen College), but have gained a new openness for evangelicals and people of strong faith. I have started to see the christians I have been looking for that  dedicate their lives to living out their faith in Jesus' name. The early church calls us to abandon our "nuclear family" life style and pick up and take our family to live in the community of belives. People in the NT picked up their stuff and followed Jesus. Living in a community where no one earns a salary, creates and incredible level of equality, community, and sense of care for eachother. There is an equality and repsect between people who work highly qualified jobs that in the end earn the community more money and people who work dishes all day because it is something that needs to be done in the community and allows for others to dedicate  more of their time towards their job. I have worked a week and a hlaf doing dishes and about another two weeks as an electrician's assistant. My life seems to be in balance here at JPUSA. I work, serve, and live in community. I don't think I feel called to live here perminantly, but only time will tell, as I leave the freindships I have made here and the lintentional lifestyle of choosing to live in community.

Thinking ahead to leaving for Argentina I can't help but wonder how my sentiments will change in the post JPUSA life style. They say you don't know how much you love someone (or some place) untill it's gone. JPUSA will be gone in some sense when I leave for argentina, but I plan to stop by and say hi for a while when I fly back into chicago when ever it is I make it back to the U.S. 

In all things only time will tell, but for now I will be working to make use of each day and each opportunity. 

And Wii danced

Today we had a dance party

JPUSA Community Dynamics

Last night I learned a lot about the community Dynamics here at JPUSA.  Life here is unique in so many ways, from the acceptance of young people, to the senior citizens, to the family building adults who sustain the community. Obviously it is the adults 25~60 that sustain the community keep things working and manage the businesses that JPUSA runs. But like any community, church, or group of people things eventually change. Although I have not yet had all of my official history lessons about the community, how it formed, developed, changed, moved throughout the years, a friend of mine who grew up here gave me some insights to some of the things I have notice. 

(pictures of so many families and people who live here. More below)

What was once a thriving community fueled by visitors who come and go and are constantly exploring their faith and challenging the community has changed into a very different picture. Previously in generations past JPUSA was much more whole community oriented, which means the 300? 400? almost 500? (I haven't heard an official number) living here all would congregate in common areas like the worship space, the play ground, dining hall, etc where discussions would flourish and everyone enjoyed them selves. Group dynamics were very different and visitors were thrown right into the community living with anyone from elderly people to children (I heard even one example of a young adult staying with a 2 year old). This is to say that the community was trusting, close, loving, welcoming, and very open to new people. This kind of open welcome community creates so many connections between people from all parts of the states and even the world and from all walks of life. Everything can look so good, joyful, and happy. But as I grew to understand there is also some cold shoulder to go around. 

Especially among the kids who grow up in JPUSA they are accustomed to making friends with people who make a big impact on their lives, but then they leave. People come and go. Making friends, sharing experiences, and spreading love is a great thing, but when there is no stability in the relation ship to keep people in the same place things become hard. Its hard when people leave, so soon it becomes easy to become cold towards visitors and those who are not deeply rooted in the community. 

Many of the adults in the community that grew up in JPUSA rooming with young adults and the era of people coming and going have become much more family oriented towards a smaller group of people. People develop 'families' of close-knit friends and spend time with them, rather than the community as a whole. This of course is natural looking at their childhoods where people they loved often left, leaving holes in their lives. Wanting to become a solid community they bind together to form these families. So rather than the huge open group oriented community, there are clique type families. Almost everyone here at JPUSA is extremely kind, sincere, and friendly, but it is hard to penetrate much of the community beyond the level of acquaintance in my experience. 

My first few days were quite lonely here at JPUSA, my roommate wasn't very happy about having a roommate. He grew up here at JPUSA and had seen his fair share of visitors who come and go after a few months or years. I quickly realized he wasn't interested in a roommate. Soon I started making more connections with other visitors some of which are interning in different roles in the community. I felt relieved to get to know more people in the same boat as I was in. My day two goal I set for myself to get out of my room more went well as I found time to go on walks, spend time in the garden reading, and connecting with people to hang out, talk, and play games. 

JPUSA is full of characters from all walks of life, normal joe's, hippies, PK's, newly converted christians, people who struggled with drugs, gangs, and all sorts of sin. They have all made a choice to live intentionally to follow Jesus (or who ever guides them toward the kingdom of heaven, Buddhist, Jew, and i dont know what all else)

^^ A sweet Big'ol sandwitch.

(I know of one older Jewish man and one of the kids growning up is Buddhist, though mostly there are just christians haha)