Meet the East Aurora Restore Team

Last week I presented a brand new team we are forming in East Aurora--the East Aurora Restore Team that will be made up of 10 - 15 families living in our focus community in East Aurora. These will be families that have relocated to the neighborhood from more affluent communities, and families that have lived in the neighborhood for years. This Team will exist to engage deeply and relationally in the neighborhood, to identify community assets and challenges, and to work with people inside and outside the community to tackle those challenges.

I'd like to introduce you to the 5 families committed to launching this team:

 

Scott, Kirsten, Erik (14) & Brian (12) Strand
  We moved to East Aurora from Naperville in 2007, and our kids have attended the public elementary and middle schools in District 131.  Kirsten directs Community 4:12 at CCC, and Scott teaches 3rd grade at one of our partner schools, Bardwell Elementary.  While we've worked and served in East Aurora since 2003, it has only been since moving here that we have built deep and lasting relationships that have quite honestly been life changing . . . from a teenage girl we've been able to mentor to a single mom and her kids that have become like family to us. Our boys have experienced cultural and economic diversity and learned "life lessons" that can't be taught in even the best of schools.   We absolutely love living in East Aurora!

 

Obe & Jack Arellano

  We moved from Villa Park to Aurora in 2007 with the plans of planting a church.   We felt God leading us to do so in the East Aurora community.   We first got connected with what was going on there, volunteering with not-for-profit organizations like Community 4:12, which led to Obe doing a Leadership Residency at CCC. We started a bilingual campus in the heart of East Aurora in January, 2010. Obe is the campus pastor and Jack works with Emmanuel House, an organization that helps low-income families in East Aurora purchase their first home. We have recently moved just down the street from the campus and love opening our home to the community. 

 

Drake, Josie, & Grace (9) Schopen

  We moved to East Aurora in July, 2011, and Grace is currently attending Bardwell Elementary. Drake owns his own Pest Control business (which he hopes to move to East Aurora in 6-8 weeks) and Josie works at CCC-EA campus as the Kids' City Director. We began helping in East Aurora with several Community 4:12 events and after helping and building a relationship with Kirsten and hearing her story we decided to move to the community. We continue to help with events, but I have now begun to help and become a permanent fixture in Bardwell School. I am trying to build relationships with staff and parents. And now by living 3 blocks from the church and 4 blocks away from the school has made it a great middle point for the kids that we have built friendships with to stop by and hang out. We look forward to the day when their parents join them!!

 

 

Mike, Jeannene, & Amanda (21) Miller

 We have spent the last year physically (you know, all those ongoing home repairs), mentally and emotionally preparing (ourselves & families) for our move to East Aurora, which we are praying will happen in 2012.  We have served for many years in the East Aurora area; from the events through Community 4:12, being a part of the EA Campus & their launch team, to being a part of the Tuesday night Kids City program.  It has been through this continued involvement and evolving friendships, that we have felt the prompting to take the next step.  We really want to get to know these kids, their families & this community.  It is extremely difficult to build true deep relationships when commuting from Naperville to EA , without sacrificing one or the other.  We are looking forward to being a real & constant part of this community.  I can't wait to see what happens when families and cultures are blended and our "family" is extended.

 

Lou Peryea
  I spent the first third of my 63 years growing up in an affluent suburb, assuming that I knew a lot about the real world.  Going off to college in the late sixties introduced me to a world filled with color, diversity, excitement and injustice.  These last 4 decades have been spent in a variety of diverse settings - raising our family in a small but multi-cultural city - being blessed with friends from a broad range of racial, ethnic, educational and economic diversity - helping to raise children who have experienced challenges that break my heart  - and traveling to nations, thus witnessing the profound faith of the truly impoverished.  Jesus continues to stretch my comfort zone and open my eyes.  Life is good........ being a neighbor on the East Side of Aurora is good....... understanding that I can truly contribute to the healing of the world is good!