Posted on

the RULE of THREE in a Financial Freeze: Shelter

WHAT IF?

Playing the game of “What if?” can start to seem pretty real when the scenarios play out in the daily news. Here’s our current scenario – Financial Freeze: an economic downturn that hits hard, causing widespread unemployment and increased financial strain, especially with winter heating bills creeping up.

So – let’s talk about the potential of a financial down turn – the likes of what we saw in Alberta in the mid 1980’s. That’s still pretty fresh in my mind because that was when we lost our house. Actually, to be more precise – we didn’t lose it like so many others did at the time. We sold it in the 11th hour, for barely more than than what we owed on it – which was considerably more than what we paid for it six years prior. We owed more on it than we paid in 1979, because nearly a year after Dan was laid off from his job, and after a plan to go into business with our brother in law didn’t work out, with Dan looking for work and taking every side job he could find to bring in cash – we finally couldn’t make the mortgage payments anymore. So we didn’t. Interest multiplied, and what we owed added up.

We hadn’t seen this coming; a year before, it seemed Dan’s job was secure and he enjoyed it. Life was comfortable. We had three wonderful kids, had been fixing up our home as we could afford it, and were finding our way in the world. I picked up a few side jobs to bring additional money in; things were tight, but alright. And then suddenly, nothing looked the same; it was complicated and uncertain. We didn’t have much, or (thankfully), owe much at the time so the stress was mostly from not knowing what to do. At length we decided Dan needed to go back to school, which meant leaving our little house in Calmar and moving back into the city – temporarily we hoped. We put the house up for sale, and made plans to move as soon as possible. Dan got a part time job driving for Edmonton Transit that would work well around his class schedule at NAIT, we applied for subsidized housing in the city. We desperately didn’t want the complications involved with losing the house to the bank, and prayed earnestly for a buyer as we moved ahead with our plans. We did our best to live the gospel – being active in our church, faithful that God was in the details and trying to do all we could to meet our financial obligations. It was a trial – the biggest we’d had up to that point, and though we felt we were being tested, we never felt abandoned.

Two weeks before our scheduled move, a buyer came forward – making an offer slightly more than what we currently owed. The interest we had been paying on our mortgage was 10,5% A good rate at the time, almost half of what Dan’s dad locked into for five years. Not surprisingly he lost his house before those five years were up. By the time all the details were settled and additional fees were taken care of, we walked away with $42 more than what we paid the bank. We considered that no small miracle, and basked in the goodness of God for months afterward (and to this day) as we reflected on how much worse it could have been. We did our best to DO OUR BEST, and we knew that God knew it. He is our loving Heavenly Father, and He knew the desires of our hearts. He told us that “I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” [D&C 82:10] We trusted Him. It seemed that while we went through those two years leading up to our leaving Calmar we’d been protected from being able to see the bigger picture. We’d been so involved in the micro picture of day-to-day life without employment and getting through one week at a time, that we didn’t have time to be scared, and to truly FEEL the ramifications of how life defining this time was to become for us. It became a life lesson that altered many things we did from that time forward. It was a tender mercy to us that we didn’t know the end from the beginning, or the fine print in-between – so we simply walked by faith.

Flash forward to this week February 5-11, 2024 – in the Preparedness Group I am part of “We’re All in This Together“, we are living with the hypothetical, but very plausible challenge of a Financial Freeze – a veritable “storm of economic struggle causing widespread unemployment and increased financial strain.” Huh. Imagine that.

We moved into Edmonton April 1, 1985. 1712 17 avenue, a townhouse in a subsidized small housing complex across the street from the elementary school our two older children would attend. Dan started working for ETS a few weeks before. We planted a vegetable garden in Dan’s mom’s backyard – within walking distance. Dan started school in September, our fourth baby (another son) was born in October. I’m not going to say things were easy (they weren’t) – but they were comfortable. We did our best to do our best. We made friends, we worked hard, we paid our tithing, our bills and avoided debt. We enjoyed good health, we obeyed the sabbath – there were times Dan had to work on Sundays, but he never did school work on Sundays. We put what little money we could manage away. In our second year, Dan had to let his job go and we took out a student loan. He started applying for jobs in January 1987 – hoping to walk out of class and into a job at the end of the term. It didn’t happen that way. It took till the end of the summer before he found employment in his chosen field. Immediately, we began looking for a house to buy. During the time we struggled with our loss, and re-entry into the work force, many other Albertans were doing the same thing. Many had walked away from their houses – letting them go because they simply couldn’t make the payments anymore. Using the money we saved to make the necessary small down payment, we moved into a small affordable house that sold for considerably less than the sellers had paid for it, but they were moving on to another house, and needed the sale. Generally with real estate, if you sell low you buy low, if you sell high, you buy high. They sold low, and we benefitted. We moved in on the Halloween weekend of that year; the weather was in our favour – staying mild till we were completely moved in. Funny how you remember stupid little details like that. We were very grateful and received plenty of help from ward members in the move. It was a happy day to be in our own home again.

📌 Reviewing the Rule of Three – the big one in this scenario for me is definitely SHELTER.
In our society, it is too easy to take some things for granted – like shelter. And yet, a conservative estimate of people without homes in Edmonton is currently well over 3000 – according to an article in the Edmonton Journal January 12, 2024. In a winter city! It is difficult to try to imagine what that might FEEL like, unless one truly has experienced it. I am so grateful not to have experienced it.

Right now Alberta is again going through a “storm of economic challenge causing widespread unemployment and increased financial strain“, and again people are struggling with housing. It seems the more things change, the more things stay the same. Some very dear friends who were renting a house in Edmonton, were recently given the unexpected news that due to his mortgage coming due, and the increased rate, their landlord had decided to sell the house they were living in. Suddenly they were scouring the market looking for anything affordable. Quite literally, in the few weeks they had – they could find nothing to accommodate them at a price they could afford. My friend told me “In all the efforts of trying to be prepared for an emergency, we hadn’t considered being houseless.” It was a sobering reality for me to listen to. Fortunately for them, a relative had an older small house empty, in a small town seven hours away. They packed up their belongings, left their jobs and their local family members and moved into it, to try to formulate a plan of what to do next. What. to. do. next?

This scenario is REAL for a lot of people. Without jobs in a very small town – with zero employment potential, how long can one continue to pay rent? – even if it is lower than in the city? And in the city with inadequate employment at best, how does one pay rent?

I’m not pretending to have any answers – the problem of affordable housing in our province (and country) is dismal, and we as a people need to start considering alternative ways to adjust. One such way may be multi generational family homes. Its a departure from what our society has become accustomed to in the last fifty or more years, but we see examples of three generation living situations around us all the time, mostly among newcomers to Canada. Perhaps we can learn some lessons from them. Perhaps we may need to.

For nearly eight years, my elderly mother has lived in our home, and yes there have been plenty of adjustments – on all parts. But all in all, it has been a good thing and we’re happy to be able to provide a safe home for her, for as long as that is possible.

In the year 2000, we owned a bookstore. We had just recently – after four years without a wage, putting every dime back into it and in paying off a bank loan – turned a corner and I began drawing a small wage from it. One year before then, we bought a house that we hoped we’d stay in till we died. With no expectation that it was coming – Dan got laid off. His position was dissolved and we suddenly found ourselves on strangely familiar ground. We truly believed he would eventually retire from that job. It took a few days to process it enough to be able to call our family together and tell them our news. Our oldest son was 22, our youngest was 10.

We had recently taken measures to follow prophetic counsel to “get out of debt”. We worked to pay off remaining credit cards and any other obligations we had. We had adjusted our spending to stay within our means, promising each other above all – that we would avoid future debt. I recall it had been important to us at the time, and we had felt an urgency to do so. Imagine our relief (and gratitude) that we had obeyed that counsel, as here we sat in the living room telling much bigger our kids what was going on.

Some of them asked fair questions: What does this mean? What is it going to look like?

We were happy to say “Except for this house, we owe no money. We have no credit card debt. If we did, we would be in SERIOUS trouble. If we’re careful, we should be able to ride this out in a way that won’t feel much different from our current day to day living, for as long as it takes Dad to find a job again.” I cannot verbalize how reassuring that was to be able to say that to our children. I cannot tell you how relieved we were to have taken the steps necessary to be able to say them. “The most important thing in our life at this time” we told them, “is THIS HOUSE! We cannot. lose. this house. Every effort will be dedicated to keeping this house safe.”

We knew first hand what it was like to lose a house, and we were determined to not go through that twice. It was clear to us, if we did lose the house – we would likely never recover from it. That was October. It’s a full time job looking for a full time job, and it went on a lot longer than we expected it to. Who knew? I recall saying aloud to whoever was near enough to hear – several time during those months “Who could have guessed this would go on as long as it has? There is no doubt in my mind, that if we had had credit card debt, we would have lost this house.”

The years that followed were difficult years – mostly emotionally. Dan was older and getting back into his profession proved harder than we expected. He had ‘specialized’ for too long, and his field of expertise was too specific, not currently marketable. It became evident that his career as he knew it, was over; he began looking elsewhere and finally took a temporary retail job to re-enter the workforce. The pay was inadequate, but our resources were running low and any money was money. In retrospect, it was the most difficult trial of our life together up till that point, and repercussions went on for years. We continued to be grateful for prophetic counsel to get out of debt. We were grateful for our commitment to follow that counsel – which ultimately saved us much unnecessary grief. It was hard enough without the extra pain that could have accompanied consumer debt. We were grateful for the promises that come with paying tithing. We learned empathy in a way that we never could have learned any other way. We felt we had been resourceful, but we learned to be more resourceful. Our kids – most of them being old enough to remember – came out of that time with a healthy respect for the dangers of credit card debt.

Truth is – as hard as those years were, I am glad for them, and would gladly re-do them for the lessons we learned, particularly for the lessons our kids learned – life lessons that they were able to learn from an arm’s length. Close enough, but not too close. I used to tell them “Don’t remake our mistakes. Make your own. Otherwise, you’re wasting them, and what a waste of time that would be.” If we would all follow the wise counsel of prophets, and learn from the experience of others, we might save ourselves grief that doesn’t need to be.

With the Rule of 3 in mind, specifically SHELTER –
consider the circumstances of the many people without houses right now.  In any season that’s a tragedy, but in winter in a city like ours its unthinkable. There are things we can do to ease the burdens of others; agencies we can serve with and donate to.
Ask yourself:
“Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad? and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.
Has anyone’s burden been lighter today because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my helped was I there?”
– Will L. Thompson

What is your plan to prepare yourself against any possibility of losing SHELTER for your family?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle

Posted on

a Good Neighbourhood . . .

Good neighbourhoods do not exist independently of people. They’re not specific about the size of houses or yards. Whether your nearest neighbour lives across the hall, across the street, down the alley, across a field, or down the road, you live in a ‘community’. And everyone who lives in the same community has one thing in common. Its the one thing that every good neighbourhood needs no matter where it is: good neighbours.  So how do you GET good neighbours?   Ah, that’s the mystery isn’t it?  Its really very simple. If you want to live in a good neighbourhood, you must be a GOOD neighbour.  There.  That’s the long and short of it.  The consistent inescapable reality – that “it always comes back to you“. 

When speaking about friends, Christian songwriter Michael McLean said:
“Everyone hopes to find one true friend who’s the kind
They can count on for forever and a day.
BE that friend, be that kind that you prayed you might find
And you’ll always have a best friend, come what may.”

Well the same thing applies to neighbours.  Why should you care?  and why do you want to live in a good neighbourhood anyway? I suppose there must be many personal reasons, but these are the ones that are important to me. Perhaps some of them might be important to you too. Here’s the clincher though: good neighbourhoods don’t just happen. They’re created by the good neighbours who live in them. So herein, you might find some ideas worth implementing, you may even find courage to step out of your comfort zone and make it happen. Somebody’s gotta start the ball rolling. It might as well be you.

10 reasons you want to live in a ‘good’ neighbourhood and how to make your’s one.

1.   People are social beings. 
Whether you want to admit it or not, we ALL need other people.  Of the things we learned from Covid, one of them is that we cannot be happy for long without other people.  Perhaps you consider yourself more of a loner.  Yeah, whatever.  So am I.  But whether you admit it to yourself or not, everyone has the same basic social needs and that is to be *safe, *loved, and *to feel important.  So deny all you want, I don’t believe you.   We are not an island and we were never intended to be an island.  

2. Living where people are friendly makes for a more comfortable, peaceful environment.  Even for the grump who inevitably lives in every neighbourhood. 

3.  Good neighbourhoods are SAFER.  
Good neighbours pay attention.  They notice things.  They watch out for each other and their property.  They are invested in your safety, just as you are invested in their’s. 

Several years ago, when our kids were teenagers, it was a common prank among their peers to TP each other’s houses.  Their friends’ homes, their teachers’ homes, their neighbours’ homes.   Don’t ask me why.  TP is toilet paper if you didn’t know.  Sneaking to a friends’ house late at night and stringing TP over their trees, hedges, vehicles, fences … anything they could reach.  You wake up in the morning, and …. you’ve been TP’d.  It was a fun thing to do, and fun thing to have done to you too.  Like I say, don’t ask me why.  My kids did it too, so you can’t expect not to get TP’d if you are also a culprit.  What goes around comes around.  I must admit, we have some fun memories involving toilet paper. 

Late one fall night I got a concerned phone call from my neighbour across the street.  “Cindy, sorry for calling so late. I was on my way home, and I noticed something going on in your yard so I pulled over to watch.  Some kids. ….”
“Are they causing damage?”
“It doesn’t look like it.  Hard to say.  Just go look out your front window.”   I absorbed his concern, and peaked out my front window. 
“OH!  That.  Its okay Dwight.  Its just a bunch of Sarah’s friends.”
“But they’re … “
“I know. Its what they do.  Don’t worry about it.  I’ll have Sarah take care of it in the morning.”  We had a rule in our house.  If it was your friends who did it, then you get to be the one cleaning it up.  Like I say, what goes around comes around. “Thank-you for worrying about it Bryce, but this sorta thing is just part of living with teenagers.  My kids do it too.  Its okay.  Its not vandalism.”

The point is, that our neighbour cared enough to notice, to be concerned, and he-knew-our-phone-number to alert us of something he thought was amiss.  Good neighbours are also the most logical ones to keep an eye on your house while you’re away from home.  There’s added security in knowing that you all have each others’ eyes and ears. 

4.  Good neighbours share. 

I know it seems so cliche to borrow an egg from a neighbour, but sometimes – you just need something you didn’t expect to run out of, and it sure is handy to have that reciprocal relationship.  You wouldn’t ask someone you didn’t know if you could borrow a cuppa sugar, or an egg, or some other small thing. 

Sometimes neighbours share bigger things too.  We bought a weed trimmer several years ago with one of our next door neighbours.  You only use something like that how many times a year? and they last forever.  It didn’t seem necessary for both households to own one.  So we shared, and its worked out well for many years.

Sometimes neighbours even share BIG things.  We don’t often need a snow blower in Edmonton, but we live in a crescent so once in a while it sure would be nice to have one. But for the few times a year that you’d use one it was cost prohibitive and difficult to justify, unless . . . . you could co-own one . . . . .  Dan talked to the three neighbours closest to us and all agreed to jointly buy a snow blower.  You wouldn’t feel comfortable asking a stranger about entering into that kind of relationship, but this too, has worked well for many years. 
The common thread is that actually ‘knowing’ your neighbour, makes it easier to lend, borrow and jointly own – or not.

Sharing on building (and replacing) common fences is another ‘co-owned’ investment that benefits everyone involved.

5.  Good neighbours HELP. 
Its an easy thing to lend a hand when you see a neighbour struggling with a package, or involved in a project.  And even just a few minutes assisting someone can be relationship defining. Look for those opportunities, and take them.
We share a common front lawn with our neighbour.  Not really, but neither of us know nor care exactly where the property line is.  When one is mowing the front lawn, how easy is it to mow both sides of it?  So we do, and so do they.  Its been much appreciated on both sides, for many years. 

6. Good neighbours ARE RESPECTFUL AND CONSIDERATE.

Maintain your yard and shared spaces.  Keep your weeds down, and your pets under control.  Even if you’re not that motivated to keep your property tidy, consider what it looks like to your neighbours, and go the distance.   Don’t allow garbage to accumulate, keep your lawn watered and mowed and tidy.  If you don’t like to weed, then establish a low maintenance yard, but keep it tidy. I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough.  

Don’t make a lot of noise, especially after dark. 
If you’re gonna have outdoor company with excessive noise or a fire in the backyard, give your neighbour the respectful heads up, and promise to keep it reasonable.
Don’t let your teens party hardy late into the night either.  They can make a LOT of noise.

If you’re having a large group and parking might be an issue, let your neighbours know ahead of time and try to keep it manageable.  Ask your company to be courteous.   If nothing else, apologize ahead of time. LOL

7. Good neighbours are PATIENT and Overlook the small stuff.
When our kids were young we had a trampoline.  It was a magnet for all their friends and the source of a lot of kid-noise.  We never had a neighbour complain.  To be fair, most of their kids spent considerable time on it too.  Once, when I was jumping on it, I noticed how visible many yards around us were from the high point of the jump.  No one had any real privacy with our trampoline. I realized that our trampoline affected people in the several houses immediately surrounding us.  It was not lost on me that no one had ever complained, and I really appreciated it. 

One of our next door neighbours used to have a few friends over once or twice on summer evenings to sit around the fire.  They played music and after a few beers, they could get a little noisy, and yes, maybe even a little irritating if you were trying to sleep.  It made it difficult to escape with our backyards adjoining and bedroom windows open as they most often are in the summer.  These were the times to remember our noisy kids on the trampoline in the daytime. We never complained about those noisy parties, they were infrequent enough that in the big picture, we considered them more than a fair trade.

For years I had several wind chimes hanging outside our kitchen door and along our back deck.  One day as I stood on the back deck visiting with Glenda our next door neighbour there was a slight breeze which made the wind chimes happy.  For the first time I took note of the fact that their bedroom window was open and right across the fence from my wind chimes.   Our bedroom window was around the corner, so on breezy evenings, we were never bothered by the chimes, but it was impossible for our neighbours to not be bothered from time to time.  So I asked “Do these chimes bother you at night sometimes?” Glenda admitted that sometimes they bothered George.  “OH! I am so sorry!”  I exclaimed “Why didn’t you say something?” 
“Oh it’s not that bad.” she claimed, but she was lying of course.  I know what its like to lay awake by an irritating night noise.  I took the wind chimes down that very hour, never to go back up in that area of our yard again.  They appreciated it.

Now in a different house, we have grandchildren. Once a year in the summer time, we have a Grandkids Day, (sometimes a few days).  All 18 of our grandkids come over to hang out with us.  Outside mostly.  On the trampoline, in the treehouse, riding bikes in the crescent, and making their share of noise.  That’s a lot of kids. And that can be a lot of ‘kid-noise’. In the beginning I was hyper sensitive about bothering our neighbours.  Dan and I delivered notes around the crescent to let them know of our plans, asking for their patience and also their extra care in backing out of their driveways with all the bikes, scooters, and other riding toys that would be in use.  They were and continue to all be very patient. 

As our teens grew they all got cars, and on the evenings their friends came over, there could be a lotta cars parked around our house.  Our most immediate neighbour jokingly commented once that living next door to the Suelzles was like living next door to a used car lot.  They weren’t that far off. Well, time went on and our kids all married and left home.  Most days it was just Dan and I.   But those same neighbour’s kids grew up and got cars.  Sometimes their friends would come over for the evening and there could be a lotta cars!  I jokingly complained to them one day that “Living next door to the Bowdens was like living next door to a used car lot!”  And more time went by. Their kids are all gone now too.  . . . There’s no sense in getting all bent outta shape about a minor irritation when in due time it will take care of itself.  Save those bent-outta-shape moments for when the problem is more serious. 

8.  Good neighbours are KIND and SUPPORTIVE. 
Neighbours care about each other, and can be counted on to lend a hand in time of need, and can be a good resource for kids to go to if they need help when you’re not home. 
* One winter day our 17 year old son played with the neighbours’ young children pulling their sleigh on the ice. Little did he expect they would come over often after that asking him to come out and play with them.  Sometimes it wasn’t convenient but he did when he could. 
* For years now Dan keeps small packages of cookies in the garage to give to the neighbour kids and grandkids when they come over.  One summer two wonderful little boys moved into the rental house on the corner. They were the only children in our crescent at the time, and as they rode their bikes one day, Dan gave them each a cookie. They were regular visitors after that, and sometimes we’d come home to find them playing with the riding toys we kept in the yard. I told them they were welcome to use them as long as they made sure to put them away when done. They were pretty good at that. I jokingly told Dan “I guess we’re the Mr. and Mrs. Wilson in our neighbourhood now“. (from Dennis the Menace if you don’t know). Those nice little boys only lived in our crescent for a year, but I missed them after they were gone. One neighbour’s grandkids call my husband “Cookie Dan” and come over when they’re visiting their grandparents asking “is Cookie Dan home?” Its mostly about the cookies of course, but that’s okay. LOL

* Dan and I are involved with our city’s annual Food Drive each fall. Our crescent neighbours contributed occasionally if they remembered, until the year we decided to talk to them all and introduce ourselves, putting a name and a face with the service project.  We didn’t ask for donations, just told them we were involved, and that on Saturday morning someone would be by to pick up donations, and if they could help us out we’d sure appreciate it. On Saturday morning we saw nearly 100% participation from the people we spoke to.  

* There have been times we’ve asked for a neighbour’s helping hand.  There have been times we lent a helping hand. The point is, you’re not going to ask a complete stranger to help move that bookcase, but you’d probably ask a good neighbour.

9. Good neighbours become FRIENDS. 

We find our friends in the areas of our lives we invest in.  We have something very important in common with each of our neighbours.  We each chose to make our homes in the same neighbourhood.  From there, we can find other things in common to share.  From friendly over-the-fence conversations about the weather, to sharing concerns about our children, we start to socialize and create relationships that we otherwise would not have had.  Don’t wait for that relationship to flourish, don’t wait for your neighbour to initiate it.  WE can and should be the ones who start the dialogue.  A smile and wave coming and going.  A plate of cookies, a loaf of homemade bread, a bouquet of garden flowers, asking to borrow that proverbial couple of eggs (and then returning them), sharing the news about a bargain we find at the grocery store, bringing a meal when a baby is born, a small Christmas gift, an invitation to sit around the fire, . . . .

If our neighbour needs a ride to pick up their car from the shop, will they feel comfortable asking us?   Would we feel comfortable doing the same?
If our neighbour has an emergency and can’t make it home in time for the kids coming home from school, will they feel comfortable phoning and asking us to watch for them? Will their kids feel comfortable with us?  Would we do the same?   Do they even have our number? Do we have their’s?

We can also learn much from people who are different than us. Becoming friends bridges a gap between cultures and customs as well as religion.  Sharing our differences enriches all parties and expands understanding and tolerance.  It doesn’t mean we are trying to convert others, it means we are feeling safe enough to share an important part of us.  It involves risk and vulnerability, but it makes us relatable.  When we first moved to our current house, our neighbours were Sikhs. A little older than us, with adult children.  The parents didn’t speak much English.  We had little in common and it was difficult to communicate short of a smile unless their kids were home. Within a short time we were sharing garden herbs, and building our joint fence together.  We were invited to their daughter’s wedding which was a wonderful opportunity to experience a religion and culture very different from our own. They have long since moved and we may never see each other again, but I am so glad we got to know them when we did.   That neighbourly opportunity opened up a whole new world for both of us.

10.  Good neighbours are INclusive.
It is good to develop a friendship with our neighbours, and its alright if we feel closer to one or two, but it is not alright to exclude some from a circle that should be inclusive.  Remember that all of Heavenly Father’s children have the same social needs of feeling Safe, Loved and Important.  That means the neighbour two doors down as well as the one next door, and the one across the street too.  Be the glue that ties others together.

Years ago we had a yearning to get to know our neighbours better.  We were young, shy, busy and quite introverted.  But it bothered us that though we could wave and smile at each other, none of knew each other’s last names.   We decided to take the plunge, the RISK (make no mistake, it is a risk), and host a neighbourhood get-together in our backyard, including our immediate neighbours on either side of us and the three directly across the street.  It was August and fresh corn was available, so we chose to have a corn-roast thinking it would be easier in the backyard. Corn roast made it an easy menu and the kids could jump on the trampoline.  We picked a date and went to each one of those five doors to introduce ourselves, and invite them to a ‘get-to-know-your-neighbour corn roast‘ in our back yard.  The reception we received was hesitant, even strained. And in the end not a single one of them ended up coming. We were very disappointed and more than a little discouraged.  It shook our confidence and our resolve for a few months, but soon those same nagging feelings that we could be doing better began to surface, and we decided to try again.

By this time it was February so we would have to meet indoors, that meant adult only.  We had a small house with five children, and hosting a sizable group ‘inside’ was a little intimidating to us, but in February there aren’t a whole lot of options in Edmonton, so ‘inside’ it would have to be.  I made up some handwritten invitations in the shape of a house.  We referred to ourselves “the-people-in-the-brown-house-with-all-the-kids“, and we called them “the-people-across-the-street-in-the-white-house-with-the-spruce-tree-in-their-front-yard” or whatever they were.  We went together and knocked on their door.  I readily admit we were terrified.  It is always easier on paper, but once you knock on the door you’re committed.  We introduced ourselves again.  “Hi.  We’re Dan and Cindy. We live over there in the brown house with all the kids.”  We handed them the invitation, telling them we were inviting them to a neighbour party. We didn’t ask for a commitment right away, but told them to RSVP before Thursday. Then we said our goodbyes with a  “hope you can make it,  we look forward to all getting together,”  and went to the next house.

Once the initial invitations were given, we set about happily readying ourselves.   But then we started second guessing ourselves, wondering what on earth we were thinking, wondering where we got the idea that we were up to this, wondering if they’d think the games we planned were lame, wondering if we’d make fools of ourselves, wondering if it would just be one big awkward mess!  All our insecurities came to the surface.  And then a new thought entered my mind.  What if they smoked in the house?  What if someone brought a case of beer?  We were a non smoking, non drinking house – I wasn’t prepared to deal with that possibility, didn’t even know how I might, it had never happened before.

One by one our neighbours called before Thursday to say they were coming.  Each new phone call solidified the reality of the mess we’d gotten ourselves into. The day of, I was a total wreck.  I worked myself into such a state that I cried all day.  Was the house clean enough?  What about the food I planned?  Was there enough?  Why did I pick that dish anyway?  And now there was no time for a change in menu. Dan offered to cancel it.  Secretly he was hoping I’d take him up on it so he could use me as the excuse.  He was just as nervous as I was.  But I knew if we cancelled, we’d never rise above it. We would have lost our best chance to get to know our neighbours, and for them to know each other, and it would be even harder to try again . . . .  

The end of the story is that we went ahead with it.  And yes, we had a few surprises.
1) We were surprised to observe that each of our neighbours were nervous when they arrived. 
2) We were pleasantly surprised that no one brought alcohol, and no one smoked in the house (this was in the days when people still smoked in houses). 
3) We were surprised that everyone enjoyed the games we chose. 
4) Our biggest surprise of all was that though each of them knew our first names and perhaps the first names of the people directly beside them, none of them knew anyone else, even though most of them had lived there much longer than us. 
Into the evening we were laughing and thoroughly enjoying each other.  We all commented about how wonderful it was to finally get together and we promised to do it again. Which we did. Several more times over the next few years, each taking turns hosting.  In retrospect, it was the best thing we ever could have done for each other.  Since then we’ve moved out of that neighbourhood, but we still remember fondly those wonderful people we shared a it with.  They made it hard to leave. Recently we ran into Ann-Marie at a hospital.  We greeted each other warmly and caught up with each other like the old friends we were.  We each walked away smiling, happy to know the other was doing well. 
. . . . . . .

People of faith preach a gospel of peace. We accomplish this through our actions, using words only when necessary.  Doing so makes the world a better place for everyone.  It makes the world our neighbourhood.

It is easier to love people that we live in close proximity with, and as we get to know them personally, we feel a connection that bridges possible differences.  Though it sometimes might feel complicated or intimidating to reach out to strangers (even those who  live beside us), the concept of loving our neighbour is really very simple. We are here to love each other.  Jesus taught us to “love thy neighbour” in the New Testament, the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. (DC 59:6, 3 N 12:43)   In fact he said it was “like unto the first and great commandment” which is to love the Lord with all our heart, and with all our soul and with all our mind. (Matt 22:37-40).  While we know that this admonition to love our neighbour includes more than the people we live near, home is a good place to start. 

I’d love to hear about your experiences in building a better community within your neighbourhood. Please share your comments below. I promise to read them.

Warmly,


Cindy Suelzle