Alassani's come to dinner

Our Family Portrait

A Night for the Arts in Minneapolis

I LOVE life in Minneapolis, and I love the people whose lives have intersected with mine because I live here. Last night friends who have been in the small group that meets here at the Stevens House took in a night of the arts.

Robin D, Tessa and I put on our skirts and started the evening with a Photography exhibit at the Mcknight Foundation. Robin's friend Angel was one of the spotlighted artists, and Rich Wong a fellow Dinomights volunteer also had work on display. The photos were cool and highlighted the changing demographics of Minneapolis. Mcknight gave grants to the group OVERexposure who then found local photographers to document the changes of different neighborhoods across the city.

After viewing the photos and eating a lot of gallery opening treats (seriously, I would encourage EVERYONE to make your way to any event at McKnight, so many good snacks) we made our way down Washington to the Southern theater for Momentum 2008. Our friend Josh had composed music for his friend Eddie's coreography and was playing with a band while Eddie danced. The music was great, Eddie and his partner Laura gave a super energetic engaging performance. There are more performances this weekend, and while I can't recomend the first act by the other performers (maybe I'm just not artsy enough to "get it"). The second act is phenomenal and you will enjoy it very much.

Here's Eddie's promotional picture: I'm looking forward to Aquatennial fireworks tomorrow night with our friends and neighbors Ahamadou, Beyah and Saide.

A busy/empty Week at the Stevens House

It's been a strange week at the Stevens house, we've had lots of activity, but now are pretty empty.

We had a visit Saturday afternoon from Alison a former roommate here at the Stevens House currently on staff with InterVarsity in St. Petersburg, Florida. She does some awesome work down there and just led an experiential retreat for college students called "JESUS, JUSTICE AND POVERTY"

After a quick lunch of leftovers, Wanda, Alison, Bethany and I walked up the block to the Fallout Festival. I bought an awesome necklace from a local artist it's the back end of a toy zebra suspended in some industrial glue.

I am not fruit designs has lots of cool jewlery, it's worth checking out if you're looking for a funky gift for someone. We painted on the community mural, looked at some art, shot water balloons at each other and had a great time.

Bethany and I scrambled to get ready for Erin and Johanness' wedding after Fallout. It was great to celebrate their relationship with other friends from church. Our friend Hugo from Colombia and his salsa band played in between DJ sets.

Sunday morning Wanda and her sister left for vacation in Hawaii. (I'm working on not being jealous). Noel cooked the best breakfast as dinner I've ever had that night.

Tuesday morning Bethany and her parents left for Alaska.

It's just Noel and I at home this week. Last night we took the bus downtown for the Aquatennial parade. We met Emily down there and cheered loudly for each communities princesses, comodores and marcing bands. I ran into a family I had worked closely with at church who recently moved to the Northside it was great to be a part of the larger community and to reconnect with the boys.

We're still waiting to see who our new roommate will be. There's a couple of women interested if things work out.

Bethel is waiting for one more reference for me, and then my application will be complete. Hooray! I can't wait to hear the official word.

Peace!

Katie

Professional Photos from the Wedding

Here's a link to Karen and Kim's page for the many beautiful professional photos of Emily and Matt's wedding. If you need a password it's "krusack". There's a few great "family pictures" of the house.

Body Pump

A big part of the story of life in our house lately is BODY PUMP

This Fall, Wanda, Bethany and I got a family membership to the YWCA. I love the eliptical machine, the track and the pool, but far and away my favorite Y-Dub activity is Body Pump.

God has been doing work in my heart lately about whole life stewardship. About taking care of and honoring him with my body. BodyPump has been one of the best ways to do that.

Bethany and I have been waking up nearly every Tuesday and Thursday to go to the uptown Y for a 6:15 class. The class is an hour long, 10 tracks of upbeat music working ever major muscle group. WE LOVE THIS CLASS!!!!!!

The uptown gym is closed for remodelling, so we're now waking up an extra 20 minutes early to get to the midtown YWCA in time for the 6:00AM class (JESUS HAVE MERCY). I missed the class this morning because I had a doctors appointment, but we noticed something cool Tuesday morning.

It's a diverse group of us from the uptown class that have made the trek down Lake Street to midtown. Being in a new location at a new time has given us something to talk about with our classmates. People who we have been in class with twice a week for 6 months talked with us for the first time this week.

Bethany and I are both moderately extraverted. We love meeting people, groups energize us. Between interacting with people, crazy music and an hour of strength training work we go into our Tuesdays and Thursdays with a crazy amount of energy.

Fallout!

The big event on the block this weekend will be the Fallout Art Festival. It's one block north of us and is sure to bring lots of folks into the neighborhood as well as getting people out of their homes and out into the neighborhood.

I like having Source Ministries and the Fallout as neighbors. I haven't ever spent much time at the Fallout Festival but have enjoyed special events at the Fallout for Lent, or their trip to New Orleans a few years ago. The Wohler family who started the ministry are former Park Avenue people who were dedicated to the prayer ministry at Park before leaving to start a church earlier this year.

It seems so obvious that the Stevens House would be connected somehow with Fallout and Source but our lives seem to be so busy that we haven't made much effort to connect.

Right before Emily's wedding the doorbell rang on a Saturday afternoon. Peter (dread-locked daddy) Wohler, and Anna-Skye (sweet and blonde and 6years old) were at my door. Anna had written me a letter and decorated the envelope inviting me over for dinner and to the Art Fair. Hopefully post artfair I can take them up on their dinner offer. I'm planning on spending some time over there Saturday afternoon, maybe I can get a screen printed t-shirt and take in some music.

stream of conciousness thoughts on "urban ministry"

I plan to mail in my application for Seminary today, if I'm accepted I'll be mastering the art of community ministry leadership. The program is Monday nights and will be a combination of traditional seminary courses (Bible, theology, hermeneutics) and also courses in community development and ministry. I'm excited for this next step of exploring my call to life in the city.

We have a group of 40 High School Students and 6 adults staying at church this week. Last night I was asked to teach them about Urban Ministry.

I shared about our house, our neighbors, my work at park, and student teaching at Jefferson.

We made a list of the words associated with "inner city" or "urban" and looked at how many of those were negative or positive. I encouraged them to think this week as they serve not only about why the kids need them, or benefit from them, but also why they need the kids, why they need the city.

I shared a poem from Randy White's book Journey to the Center of the City "Sleeping with the Fan on High." Find this book and read this poem, you can find an online version on google books if you don't want to go to the store.
I was thinking last night about the different authors who have impacted my relationship with the city, John Perkins, Randy White, Shane Claiborne Wayne Gordan, both Campolos, Ray Bakke, Chris Rice and Spencer Perkins, Bob Lupton.

I love books, I love reading, I love how language helps me understand things in new ways. I love that our house has a library.

The authors are great, their books have shaped not just me but I think everyone in this house and a whole generation of people ready to seek the Shalom of the city. There's a lot of men on that list, I haven't read anything by a woman author about community development or urban ministry. I know there are lots of women out there, CCDA was full of women.

Do you know any women authors who write well about Urban Ministry? Who are they? Post suggestions in the comment section.

We're Back!

Maine was phenomenal, and so great to be there with the Stevens House "family". Folks seemed to be amazed that our whole house (an extended house family) would make the trip that far to be there. I've said it before, I forget how weird our house is.

Our house feels empty without Emily, and we're still waiting to see who the new roommate will be. My heart is kind of heavy, missing Emily and after sending Maria back to Grafton, I think we're missing her too.

Here's a few highlights from the trip:

The first night I arrived in Maine, Matt and I canoed, while Emily kayaked late at night. The ocean was calm, almost like glass, and the stars were reflected on the surface of the ocean. Then, a little farther into the harbor, as I pulled my canoe paddle through the water, it churned up plankton with bioluminescence, and so there was a glow in the dark trail wherever my paddle had been. SO beautiful!

The next day, Vicki and Erwin arrived from the Netherlands, this time, Emily and I kayaked while Vicki and Erwin canoed. I had a great time and discovered that while I'm a great kayaker, I'm not a very good getting-out-of-the-kayaker. I didn't exactly fall into the ocean, but the ocean fell into me. Here's Em, Vicki, and Erwin:

In case you can't discern the family resemblances, this is Matt's dad and Em's mom:

I was blessed by the Bright and Krusack families' hospitality. I want to be that gracious and that welcoming at such a busy time. So much like Jesus! They were awesome!

I was also quite amazed by the lobster industry, I could watch the lobstermen check their traps every morning while I drank my coffee. I loved looking for lobster buoys on display as we travelled around. We enjoyed a really great fresh lobstah dinner (lobstahs, steemahs, cahn on the cahb, bring your own soda or beeyah) two nights before the wedding. If I could perfect one accent this year it would be a Mainer accent, it's like a kinder-gentler/more country version of a boston accent maybe. Besides eating a lot, we got to canoe, kayak, swim, hike, and visit an island 9 miles out. It was absolutely wonderful.

We've got more pics from the trip on our facebook pages. I can't wait for the professional photographer to post pics from the wedding. She was great, and if you get married in maine, I'd recommend her :0)

The wedding was as beautiful as Maine itself. Here's Matt and Em's first dance, with a little bit of unintelligible comentary from me and steph (the Maid of Honor)

Since we've returned we've had a few adventures, I'll post a more thoughtful blog post soon, but I wanted to get a few pictures up and thank you for your prayers while we were away.

peace

katie