I wish they’d talk to folks like Wade & Penny.
Having both grown up in small towns, they felt that a rural setting was the perfect place to live and bring up children. Nevertheless, their first home was in Winnipeg, a ‘white picket fence’ type of setting in a quiet neigbourhood. But the time came when even the large suburban yard wasn’t enough to pacify the urge toward rural life.
They made a firm decision to move to the country. Wade started building a log home about 90 miles out of Winnipeg, close to relatives. Their children would enjoy the fresh country air and a wholesome life far from the hectic pace, conflicted values and noise of the city.
As the log cabin neared completion, they prepared to sell their suburban home and move out to the country. Folks in our inner-city church would really miss them and their kids, but felt there was nothing we could offer to compete with the call of the wild.
But during their preparations to leave, they began to consider another option – homesteading of a different sort.
About eight years ago, Wade and Penny sold their suburban home. But they didn’t move out to the log home in the country. They sold that too.
And they moved into a large three story home on Maryland Street, just down the street from our church. Penny called it a handyman’s delight and a decorator’s dream. We helped them as they started renovations in advance of their move.
At first, some friends and family questioned their sanity. They would call Penny and Wade to review news headlines of mishaps and mayhem in the neighbourhood. These concerns seemed confirmed when they found a hole in a window from a pellet gun and Wade’s moped was stolen. But they saw potential which outweighed the problems.
When they moved, they brought with them an apple tree, grown from a seedling around the time of the birth of their last child. The transplanted tree has grown and borne fruit in the heart of the inner city – as has their family. They have four kids now. Each deeply involved in the life of a community they have come to love.
Instead of sowing and reaping crops on the fertile soil of a rural acreage, they have sown grace, faith and creativity in the midst of urban concrete and asphalt. As the years go on, they celebrate a harvest of a different kind. Relationships formed, challenges met, opportunities taken. An abundance of recreational, educational and occupational opportunities. A rich mosaic of socio-economic and cultural diversity. As volunteers in local schools, groups, and community endeavors they express confidence that they have received more than they have given.
They still enjoy their visits in the country, but we share a deepening love and pride for our neighbourhood.
Penny has commented, “I have seen the beauty here – in the large, leafy trees that bow their heads over the street, in a lovely flower I noticed by our front step, and in the many faces that pass by every day. For a neighbourhood labeled ‘hopeless’ and a people that have ‘given up,’ these growing things speak to me of hope and possibility.”
I’m sure the next time something bad happens in the neighbourhood, reporters will again quote quitters talking about a mass exodus and a desperate retreat.
But I hope you’ll remember those who have lived here peacefully for years. Notice those who are moving here on purpose. And feel our pride at the good things happening on this frontier of urban revitalization.
Rev. Harry Lehotsky
514 Maryland Street
Winnipeg, Mb R3G 1M5
(204) 775-4929
lehotsky@escape.ca