Living Local - A Place To Be

You can’t know who you are until you know where you are. Wendell Berry

What are you giving your life to?

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Neighbourhood Life

Where we learn to move from a “me-faith” to a “we-faith.”

Signs of a Livable Church (from Zoe)

1. Humble submission to Christ's body the church



2. A disciplined practice of contemplation and faith with regards to God's story



3. Habitual learning and listening to God, self, others, and creation



4. Living in relational and geographic proximity with one another.



5. Living in and for a particular geographic community



6. Collaborative stewardship of time, resources, and strengths



7. Nurturing a common life between people of faith within the neighborhood



8. Developing pathways of inclusion for the marginalized and excluded



9. Practicing hospitality and giving in response to God's giving



10. Peacemaking and conflict resolution in the midst of violence and brokenness



11. Maintain the bonds of giving and receiving regionally, globally, historically, and futuristically



12. Embody the story of Christ's faithfulness in both our words and our deeds

Neighbourhood Awesome Foundation

In Highlands, we live in the (self proclaimed) best neighbourhood in a wealthy city in the richest province in one of the richest countries in the world.

We also live in the reality that some of our best and brightest ideas never see daylight because of drawn out processes that license and fund our most hopeful plans.

Lending a hand
Some of us in Highlands have talked about this recently. Must everything in life be so arduous? A smattering of us have bought into the idea of giving generously. Some ideas just don’t have to slog through mountains of applications and jurisdictional compendiums to agree that it’s good to support a local business venture, or help an individual in need.

The Awesome Foundation is a new venture brewing that works like this: a committee of 10 volunteer members give $100 each that goes directly in a brown paper bag (equals $1,000 buckaroonnies).

Applications (via napkin, e-mail, calligraphy or any other creative means) flood in from the neighbourhood as to needs and ideas that require dollars. The foundation of 10 chooses the most worthy cause and the money is awarded. Ta da! it’s that easy.

Continue the efforts
It could be a person or family in need, it could be a young lady/gentleman with a great neighbourhood business venture ... hopefully your ideas far out-originate ours.

In essence, we fully recognize our abundance in this neighbourhood and we want to recognize the needs and opportunities that exist amongst us and climb aboard where we can be of assistance.

The goal, as it stands, is to repeat this venture in concert with each publication of Highlands-Bellevue Highlights Magazine (quarterly) and continue the awesome-ness. Got it? So get talking and ruminate on what needs to happen. (D. Rietveld)

Canada Day Pancake Breakfast

For those looking for a simpler neighbourhood event than something like a Block Party or our Chicken Wing Night, how about a Canada Day Pancake Breakfast?

You can make it as small (invite just one or two families) or as large (we have 30+ people each time) as you want it to be. We host this in our backyard (we are fortunate to have a good sized yard and deck) and it is just for our neighbours. We cook pancakes and sausages and have fruit and coffee and juice as well. It is simple and inexpensive to put together.

We have face painting for this event as well. It is a nice, casual way to spend a quieter time and foster neighbourhood life. We even had a bit of a petting zoo with a snake, some rabbits and a dog.

Jim and Jeanne

Who are you calling chicken?!

Ever wonder what kind of event you can plan to start making inroads with your neighbours that isn't too scary?

Read this story from Jim & Jeanne:

In response to Howardʼs recent email about neighbourhood block parties, I thought I would share some info about our neighbourhood event from last night. A flyer was put in neighbours mailboxes about three weeks ago and this event is open to both neighbours and friends.

Our neighborhood had our 5th annual Chicken Wing Cook-off last night. In spite of the cool weather (only 9C when we started at 4PM) it was well attended with over 60 people in attendance. The idea is that everyone brings their favorite recipe of chicken wings both “regular” and “hot wings” and then everyone votes on their favorite wings. We have two categories with trophies for the best Regular wings and the best Hot wings. We had 22 entries of wings so needless to say we ate well. One Filipino lady who was not able to attend cooked up about 50 spring rolls as an appetizer for us and a neighborhood family from Pakistan made us up samosas even though they were not able to attend due to a prior commitment. People also bring a salad or chips and there are usually some desserts as well. People bring their own beverages.

We live in a cul-de-sac and this event is held on my and my neighborʼs driveways and front lawns. We set up tables for the food, and then set up chairs and picnic tables on the lawns and driveways.

These three boys won the trophy for the best Hot Wings and they were pretty pumped to win. It was their own recipe and they cooked the wings themselves!

My next-door neighbour who heads this event up has a full sound system with music linked from his computer. As part of this we also have some Karaoke with both kids and adults joining in. We have a neighbor who does face painting for all our events and both kids and adults alike get their faces painted.

We have street hockey and a portable fire pit (which was a big attraction last night due to the cold weather).

We did open up our home for bathroom facilities as there were those that did not live nearby.

We did not get a permit from the City for this particular event although we probably should have. We do get one every year for the block party that we usually have in August.

The event started at 4pm and ended at 11pm. We provide all the paper plates, cups and garbage bins for both garbage and recyclables.

Needless to say it was a wonderful event. Blessings from Jim and Jeanne