In January 2020, I was talking with a friend and she mentioned that they were planning to rent out the second floor of their home. At the time, we were just beginning a new lease at our apartment, we usually signed 12-18 month-long leases because honestly, it was the only way we could afford to stay. A lease any shorter increased our rental rate at an exponential amount.
Travis and I were intrigued by the idea of living with friends. To be totally honest, we have lived with friends once before while we were quite literally figuring out our lives in the last months of 2013. We have often wondered and talked about what it means to live in community. Our church covenant is, “Together with the Beth-El faith community, I will seek to follow Jesus,” and we have often discussed that while we have a faith community, we don’t live in a community. We live alone. By choosing to live with others, there would be considerable compromises, joys, and struggles.
After thinking, praying, and talking about this for a while (thanks to COV!D) a new community-centered opportunity, called Service Adventure came up in November 2021. When we heard about it we each thought it could be a possibility, even f we didn’t mention it to each other immediately. Then a few different friends at church, whom we deeply trust & value, mentioned it would be a great fit for the two of us, yep the two of us. In ministry together. So, we prayed about it, talked about the pros and cons, and eventually filled out applications & referrals & background checks & then had a zoom interview & in early February we found out we have been confirmed as leaders for the Colorado Springs Unit!
But before we can move into our new communal living space, our lease will be up in April. So, in the meantime, we get to move in with our friends. Which I am very excited about! Our living space will be smaller, and we won’t need to move everything to their house. So, we are downsizing, minimizing, and taking a good hard look at what we have because we cannot take everything we have acquired over the last 14.5 years.
So, I am looking at everything through the lens of; functionality & use, aesthetic & bringing joy, and not using & doesn’t bring us joy. Some things will get put into storage so that when we end our term with Service Adventure we will still have some furniture & other meaningful belongings back with us. But we would also like to take some things to our new community space and leave them as a donation when we depart, a few years down the road.
I can’t wait for this new adventure & in the meantime, the content around here will be changing slightly. If you haven’t noticed already, I’ve been slowing down my buying and wearing more and more of what I already have. Because I don’t need more things to move than we already have.
As for moving sustainably, I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. Here are a few ways we are trying to reduce our waste while we move: reusing boxes from the last move, taking items to be donated instead of throwing them away, reducing bubble wrap by packing breakables in towels & rags, choosing to use what we already have instead of buying something.
I don’t know how well we will do sustainability in the next few months. Moving is incredibly wasteful & I’m sure I will go through a ton of single-use items cleaning out our old apartment.
In March, I’ll share a little more about what Service Adventure is and how different life will be for us beginning in August, and while this means my content will be a little less niche. It will be more encompassing of our life.
Stylishly Shelby 