Join us!

A well-known Portland Church, Imago Dei, recently invited a panel of African-American male leaders to speak on “The Black Male Experience” (http://www.imagodeicommunity.com/sunday/sermon-archive/ title “holla”).   

One of the thoughts a member of the panel expressed was that “Black people don’t want your help.  They want to share in your humanity.” This truth gave words to the exact feeling that drew the four women of the Monroe House (Hannah, Hillary, Gayle and Lauren) to East Garfield last July to begin on an endeavor of intentional community.

Almost a year after our move we have not only found the phrase tried and true, but have come to believe that it is the key to overcoming the racial divisions that have such deep roots in our city.   By doing life together with families on our block and in our building, we have been able to see beyond skin color and culture, and embrace each other as human beings and recognize the image of God in each person.

The desire to share in people’s humanity also informs how we define “ministry” in our neighborhood.  Instead of basing our activities around the question “how are we going to help people?” (Which often ends up being very top-down)  we ask, “How can we share in each other’s humanity?”  We have left “outreach activities” for daily life activities. Little ways of having needs that make us equal such as borrowing a mixer or using a neighbor’s washing machine.  We have found some great common ground with our neighbors, so nights and weekends tend to be full of laughter, reading books, making crafts, and one of our favorites having meals together.

Sharing in humanity with those outside of our doors has to begin with our own commitment to each other.  Those living in the Monroe House are not just roommates, but are living life through love, vulnerability, and accountability.  We believe in simplicity, making room for time and resources to be best used to aid those in need and releasing the control with which money and power often keeps our society in bondage.  The value of creative and loving problem solving is held high, both inside our home and outside of our doors.

We welcome you to come experience our lives first hand!  You can start by checking out our blogs (Hillary- believethatlovewins.blogspot.com) emailing us, stopping by for an afternoon, and joining us for one of our monthly potlucks.

The mission of the Monroe House is to provide a loving environment, rooted in Jesus, where we can share in each other's humanity and honor the image of God in each person that walks through our doors. We see love as the way to overcome barriers that separate us and we seek to practice this love with reckless abandon.

         We would love you to be a part of it!

Photo-Gallery

(For weekly photographs, follow me on Instagram or Twitter: @hannahbonham)

Let's Celebrate LIFE!

The dandelions are out, the trees are blooming, the birds have returned.  Life is all around us, winter has come and gone, but not without a few celebrations of it's own.

Pam-Pam and KK (Pamela and Makayla) turned 5 and 6, born just a year and a week apart.  They continue to be bright spots in my day.  I have the privilege of getting them ready for school each morning and walking them there.  We talk about all kinds of things, sing songs and play "I spy".  Pam declared that we are "just like a big family!" I couldn't agree more!

My beautiful roommate, Hillary, also celebrated a birthday.  We met years ago when she was new to the city and a leader in the college ministry at Willow Chicago that I was heading up.  A couple of years later she also became a roommate at the Roscoe house, and it was during some of those late night chats that we dreamt about living together again someday, and ways we could be a part of bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.  I am truly blessed by her presence in the Community House, and love the many ways we get to do life together!

A couple months back, I found an incredible deal on flights to Portland advertised for only 3 dates - 2 being my parent's birthdays, March 3 and 7.  Little did I know that a month before I this trip  I would lose my dear Grandmommy, who's name I carry (Catherine) and who has always been my special grandparent.  What a gift from God to be able to be with family while I was still grieving the loss.
 

Our Sierra completed 17 years and is becoming more and more of a woman every day, doing the hard work of a balancing school with being a young mom.  We have great late night chats and enjoy watching Nevaeh, now 9 months, whenever she needs a break.  I love her like my own sister!

Our upstairs neighbor's best friend's son also had a birthday! Here we got to experience a REAL dance party, and how these kids learn some pretty interesting dance moves a little too early...

Johnathan turned 14 and I asked him what he learned as a 13 year old and what he wants to see his 14th year be like.  He said "being 13 I learned that running with the bad kids is not good, and that hopefully being 14 I can find some good friends who don't want to do bad stuff."  There were no friends there to celebrate with, only us two from downstairs and his siblings.  I cried myself to sleep that night.

Moments like those are hard, where you realize what our kids here are up against and what little you can do about it.  When there isn't money left for the baby's milk and the only money thats around comes from drug sales.  Where gun shots ring out and deals happen in front of the house.  Where we are woken up from screaming matches and watch abandoned buildings occupied by families with kids  burn as a result of domestic disputes.

But flowers still bloom, the bird sing and we celebrate that Love wins.

and then, God...

reminded us that He. Is. Here.

Thankful

Ever since I started working with and loving the wonderful communnity of 5Loaves at Willow Chicago, I have opted to stay in the city for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, making time for traditions with my homeless brothers and sisters. Many great memories were made in the Roscoe house these past four years withThanksgiving Dinners and Christmas Open-houses. Over and over, I have found that being a family and a support system is a much better way to approach homelessness, and to offer the kind of normal experiences that the rest of the world is doing on those days that they may be missing out otherwise. In doing so, we have not only created family for those without, but we have been over and above blessed.

(Here are a few that we grabbed for a picture this year!)

This year I felt conflicted with also feeling that being in the neighborhood would be an important activity for the day! Luckily, our 5Loaves family was able to participate in a free Thanksgiving meal that Tapas Valencia puts on every year, which was a great treat for everyone and left time for me to go back and be a part of things going on in the house. I was excited to have my cousin Erin with me for the second year, and we were lucky that her brother Jesse flew in from NYC to join us as well!

Jesse, Erin and I arrived back at the house to find the downstairs family Thanksgiving in full swing! Several car loads of cousins had arrived the night before, bringing back home some dear ones that we hadn't seen since the summer.

Several of the girls slept in our spare room the night before, and the kids all came up to do hand turkeys while they waited for the food. We truly felt like one big building family!

The days after things quieted down, giving us time for some of our favorite activities.

Life is full, and we are thankful to God for His many blessings!

and then, God...

Smiled :)

Impromptu babysitting for the ever growing and cutest

baby, Nevaeh!

Watching Elf and making snowflakes!

Learning Dutch Blitz!

Learning about who our block was named after!

Dinner potlucks and community time!

The football field you see in this clip is the one that I see every morning when I come out of my house, and when I come home at night. The team that this young man was a part of was the team I see practicing every day. The halls of the school are the halls that my neighbors walk down each afternoon.

Why did this make me cry when I watched it, while for others its just another sad news story about the West Side? Because it is familiar. That school, that field, that neighborhood. It is not something on the news - it is something in my life.

I read a quote once that said something to the effect of this: "I ask God to break my heart daily, because if my heart is not broken, I cannot be moved to action." This embodies much of why I have chosen to do what I have done. How can we be moved to action if our hearts are not broken? And how can our hearts be broken if we run from brokenness becoming familiar?

On September 10, our 15 year old neighbor boy downstairs was jumped by 7 kids in the back alley while taking out the trash. He had to have stitches and root canals on two teeth that were knocked around. We sat together in our living room - my roommates, his mom, sister, and her new born baby girl. As his mom was venting and crying, he walked in - dazed, lips swollen from the stitches and the beating. All of the sudden, I felt a sense of the Holy. I felt that something was happening here - something rare and beautiful. Something where race and money and differences had been left at the door and where we were nothing but neighbors sitting together, leaning on each other in our confusion, struggling with the sadness and helplessness of the situation.

It also happened to be my 29th birthday.

A week later we threw a going away party for the boy, since his mother had decided that she had no choice but to send him to live with his uncle. (This was the 3rd time these same kids had jumped him, despite her talking to the cops and the teachers at Marshall High School about it) I fried 5 trays of chicken (after having dreams about it the night before - its no small task, being a vegetarian and all) while my roommate decorated the house and made a card with his little sisters. The 3 floors of neighbors gathered together to eat, laugh, and celebrate the love that existed within all of the sadness. At one point during the dinner, the mom turned to me and said "We have no family here-no family. But now we do. Now we have family here. Now we have family here."

So are we going to let brokenness be familiar? Because there is beauty there, too.

and then, god...

was present.

Guns and Roses

3:30 am. Shouting. Shooting.

Repeat

Pink Tutu. New life. Celebration.

Repeat

Do we call the cops? Do we not?

Repeat

New faces, new names, new neighbors, new stories

Repeat

Intervene? Stand and watch? Say something? Say nothing?

Repeat

Babies staring, children welcoming, bored men staring, mothers cursing

Repeat

Hold your breath. Close your eyes. Say a prayer. Share a life.

Repeat

Cry a river! Shake a fist. Share a shoulder. Hold on to faith. Somehow.

Repeat

Ponder Justice. Give up power. Share some hope. Give a flower.

Repeat

Fight for Love.

Fight for Love.

Fight for Love.

Fight WITH Love.

And then God...

please?

A new kind of Normal

No, I did not drop off the face of the earth. I was not killed and no, I didn't abandon blogging for good.

Yes, I have returned. Yes, I have felt amazingly overwhelmed with this incredible experience and how to express it. Yes, I have felt the burden of the lives that I have come to love, how to tell their stories and share some of their experiences in a respectful yet honest way.


It has now been 6 weeks since me and my 3 roommates moved in to East Garfield Park. Six wonderful weeks, full of beautiful moments and beautiful challenges.


We have fallen head-over-heels in love with our building. There is a family of 4 kids with their mom and mom's boyfriend that live on the 3rd floor, we are on the second, and a family of 4 that live with their mom and mom's uncle on the bottom floor, in addition to countless cousins, friends and whoever else always in and out.



The first week was full of non-stop activity, with people in and out of the house constantly. Funny enough, both of the moms upstairs and downstairs had birthdays the same week. We made cookies as a surprise for Minisha (downstairs), and then the kids came over two days later and made cards and surprise cake for the other (Tina). It was midnight when they were finally done with the grand project, and right before bed I heard them upstairs yelling "surprise!" as their mom came back from the store. Eugene told my roommate the next day that they really enjoyed making the cards, and that their mom had cried at the little surprise.


Downstairs, Sierra is 9 months pregnant (due any day!!) and we have had so much fun getting ready for the baby with her, including helping with a baby shower and finding lots of cute little things to welcome Neveah into the world (Yes, she is 16, and loves telling people it is "heaven spelled backward"). With her mom having to work early every morning, we have also been helping take her two little sisters to school so that she can stay home and rest.




We are starting to have some fun traditions with the kids. Books before saying goodnight, sharing our happy and sad moments of the day, and healthy snacks whenever they want them.







We have been so grateful to partner with Love Without Agenda for food donations from several places around the city. It has created some fantastic opportunities for working together on solving food shortage problems on our block. Tina, the single mom upstairs, had experienced 3 deaths one week and was able to bring a box of food to the friend who had lost her boyfriend to a shooting. What a blessing!




Eugene and Jonathan from upstairs were super-troopers in helping getting all of the donations in! And, as you can see, are quite the little ladies men :) We love them like our own little brothers!






We are so blessed to have been so welcomed by the people in our building, and slowly, the people on the rest of the block. The block now has faces and names, and it is no longer about "that" neighborhood-or that everyone from the outside tells us it's "so dangerous there" or that they would "never go west of western". It is now only about it being OUR neighborhood, full of OUR people that we dearly love.


Of course, there have been challenges,but I have felt like God is truly turning these into good. The first day that the first of us 4 roommate moved in, our door was kicked in. Yasmin, the 15 year old that lives upstairs right away asked my roommate if we were still going to move in. Lauren told her that it takes more than than to scare us away! In that ONE experience, I feel like our trust level with the building grew. We weren't just some "white girls" that were going to run away scared when one bad thing happened.


The second break in was by some kids from another block, but involved some of the kids we had befriended from our block as well. Nothing but a wii was taken, and when our little friend was pulled aside to be asked about it, he looked terrified, like he was going to get yelled at or hit. Hillary and Lauren calmly told him that they weren't accusing him, but that they cared more about the truth than the wii and that they believed that he has a bright future and the ability to make good choices. Two huge tears welled up from his eyes and trickled down his checks. They hugged him as he cried and told him over and over how much he was loved. So powerful.


A few days later, a friend's car window was broken out - all for a basketball that some girls from the next block over wanted to play with. When we found it that night, we gathered around the car and held hands and said a prayer of love and blessing toward the girls that did it. We pulled in a little boy who had been accused of breaking a window out the week before from a car the next block over, as well as a young teen who had watched the girls break the window. I just felt God's presence as we prayed love over the whole situation. That night, gunshots rang out right in front of our building, and while no one was hurt, we were all reminded, again, that everyone has a choice - to choose good, or choose evil.


In Deuteronomy, God begs his people to "Choose Life-that you might live the life I have mapped out for you!". In John, Jesus continues this urging by promising to "Give Life, and Life to the full." I have felt this same urging as I see all that people are struggling with around me. Kids playing pretend jail and shooting (i suggested they play school instead), eight-year olds talking about getting drunk, fist fights breaking out during tag and on and on. I have had this overwhelming desire within myself to grab people and look them in the eye, and beg them: "Choose life! Choose Life, that you might live it abundantly."

and then, God...


taught me that the fullest life isn't about safety and prosperity, but that it is about choosing HIM.