Allendale Fifteenth Anniversary

by Sean Connolly

Fifteen years ago, on President’s day of 2002, Nick Holovaty, J-T Kelly and I laid our eyes on Allendale for the first time. I am so grateful for all that God has done there over the past 15 years. For Stephen Parker who first brought us to the neighborhood and for Miss Beebe, our first friend, who called the police after someone broke into our house, before we had even moved into it. For the first Action teams who came in the summer of 2002, enduring the heat and the early mornings, and for Jeff Fournier and Steve Hendrickson who led our construction effort, turning our mistakes into a home that still serves its use today. For Ricky Thomas and Pete Hammer, who lived in our first missionary household. For the beauty of the neighborhood—the narrow roads, the birds chirping in the pecan trees, the rolling hills that make for a country atmosphere in the middle of a mid-sized city. I am grateful for the children, those we knew then and those we know now, and for their parents, grandparents and other relatives who love them and envision a glorious future for them. Most of all I am grateful to God who called us as a community to go to Allendale, and gave us a prophetic vision, expressed in a poem that Nick and I wrote together, based on Isaiah 65, that still rings true to me today: