New Family

NBA XPLOR Spokane, WA House 2018-19

Greetings from Spokane! This is a happy update from a happier camper.

Communal living was a bit of an adjustment at first, particularly because of how solitary I’d been before taking part in XPLOR. In the very beginning, even after three days in the car together, I was still more accustomed to long stretches of time where I was completely alone. Even one meal with another person a week was a lot, and now we have dinner together almost every night.

It is becoming more and more normal to come home and engage with my housemates. While we originally worried about making time for devotional time and house meetings, it turns out that we naturally gravitate to the main room where we can talk about anything and everything. It has become muscle memory to sit together and talk about our day, our hopes and dreams, and our insecurities.

It’s not only the fact that we go on outings or watch videos together, it’s how our relationship has grown out of regularly celebrating and validating each other.

Instead of feeling as though we were forced together, we have organically grown a bedrock of support within our household, and it has truly helped me personally when navigating my new surroundings. Whether I am at church with Colby, or out and about with Nathaniel (I call him Nae-Nae) and Emily (I call her Milky Boy), I know that I am not alone.

I was scared to leave my family at first, to move into a house far from home with three strangers. But now that we have celebrated Colby’s birthday together, and as we are approaching the spookiest day of the year, and into the more family oriented holidays, I’ve found that I’ve moved far from my family, and into a new one.

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NBA XPLOR is a 10-month service residency opportunity for young adults ages 21-30, with the purpose of empowering young adults to discern and develop a “heart for care” as they live together in simple community, engage in direct service and justice work, engage in leadership development, and discern their vocational calls to honor the various communities they are called to serve. Learn more and apply at nbacares.org/xplor.