We have finally gotten settled in our new apartment after the mold issue in our last place caused us to have to move.
It is a very nice place, but comes with all kinds of new, exciting and not-so-exciting challenges.
The Kenzie is one of Austin’s nicest apartment buildings in one of Austin’s nicest areas, “The Domain.” Its basically the complete opposite of where we were living.
Have you ever shown up at an event and realized you were very under dressed for the occasion? I don’t know about you, but those situations make me feel naked and awkward. I’ve had that feeling on a number of occasions since we’ve moved in, even when I was just walking our dog at the park behind our building. At our last place I might have run into a guy decked out in mismatched thrift store clothes, here I find people in slacks and oxfords.
I’m starting to get over it, but its still something I think about often.
The apartment management here has a culture of constant pressure to perform at your peak and to have great quantitative results to show your effectiveness. This is a stark contrast to the laid-back nature of our last apartment management.
We moved in at the beginning of May and have started getting to know our new neighbors.
As you know there are two primary intentional ways we are doing that, beyond the spontaneous meetings in the elevator, fitness center, or community mailboxes. We are still doing Welcome Visits with everyone who moves in (since its a brand new place, we will actually attempt to meet every person). And we are hosting 3 events per month.
This is where things are going to be dramatically different from our last place.
They have given us a significant budget to work with to host these events and have requested that we serve alcohol at all (or almost all) of our gatherings.
At first I felt a little strange about that, but I supposed I have good precedent since Jesus did the same (John 2).
Our first event is next Thursday. We’ll be hosting a “Poolside Social” with appetizers, margaritas and live music. It should draw a good crowd, even though the building isn’t totally full yet.
We are praying that these events will serve in the same way they did at our last apartment, as an open door to relationships with our neighbors who don’t yet know the joy of a loving relationship with the King, Jesus.
Join us in prayer for relational favor with our new neighbors, and pray that the Lord of the Harvest would raise up workers for His Harvest in Austin.
By: Jordan Bunch (Austin, TX)
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