It’s almost 5 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 20. The sun is setting and the temperature is dropping, but energy is beginning to build in a Park Forest cul-de-sac.
Neighbors of all sorts — senior citizens, 30-somethings, kids and dogs — are making their way to the end of Douglass Drive for a holiday celebration. Tables have been set up, lights have been strung and a high-tech sound system has been employed to play Christmas carols. The crowd soon approaches 100 people, and folks are enjoying Christmas cookies and several varieties of soup.
But the neighborly connections seem more important than the edible concoctions. The COVID pandemic may be going on and on, but as I circulate around the Park Forest crowd I am reminded that warm interactions are still possible. Especially at an outdoor event that is imbued with holiday cheer.
“With the pandemic and the isolation that people have been feeling, I think people are hungering for this kind of thing,” says Lee Stout, a long-time resident of nearby Canterbury Drive who was the long-time archivist for Penn State. Adds his wife, Dee, “This is an opportunity to get together and just enjoy one another. Especially during the pandemic, it makes you feel like, ‘I’m not the only one.’ We’re all connected.”
Much of the conversation might be described as small talk: “How’s work?” “What grades are the kids in this year?” “Will you be here for Christmas?” But such predictable exchanges are warmed by the frequent use of first names and the sense that these folks are much more connected than those in the average suburban setting.
Chief among the event’s organizers (or “instigators,” as described by Lee Stout) are Jorn Junod, pastor of Calvary Church’s Midtown congregation and his wife, Bonnie. “People want to have relationships,” Jorn says. “Most of our neighbors know I’m a pastor, but we don’t really play that card. Relationships are of the utmost importance to me. Whether you’re a Christian or not, everybody knows they need community in their lives.”
SOMETHING GOOD FROM COVID?
Although “COVID” is increasingly seen as a modern “curse,” an occasional good result can be attributed to it. According to Junod, the warming trend in his neighborhood is such a result.
“When the pandemic hit,” the Mifflintown native says, “we’d been here (in Park Forest) for quite a few years, but we didn’t know a lot of our neighbors. We felt like this was an opportunity to encourage and love our neighbors.”
The Junods’ first effort, a weekly Zoom gathering called “Coffee Online,” began in mid-2020. Each Saturday morning, six to 10 Park Forest residents would connect electronically. “We got to hear each other’s stories,” Jorn recalls, “things we hadn’t heard before. Maybe one person was saying, ‘I lost my business,’ and another was saying, ‘I have parents who are older and I can’t go see them.’ It really was a place for encouragement to people.”
Such relationships spread to a wider circle in December of 2020 when the couple held a Christmas event in the cul-de-sac that featured Christmas cookies, hot chocolate and the singing of Christmas carols.
Then this past summer, the Junods placed a fire pit in their front yard. “That was really fun,” Jorn says. “We’d just invite neighbors to join us and we’d cook burgers and hot dogs, make s’mores and tell stories.”
By the end of the summer, Jorn and Bonnie sponsored a “big blowout” in the cul-de-sac, a gathering that attracted 75-100 people. “We brought in portable pizza ovens and made New York-style pizza for everybody in the neighborhood,” Jorn says. “People brought side dishes and desserts, and we had a live band. That was really, really fun.”
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Several years before COVID prompted Junod to focus more attention on his neighbors, Jonathan Weibel began thinking the same way. A pastor who had planted three new churches in Centre County, Weibel was preparing to move into a new neighborhood in 2016. But just before that move, he and his wife, Suzy, took a Memorial Day weekend trip to Providence, Rhode Island for a visit to their friends, Tony and Susan Fruchtl. (The former Susan Robinson is a legendary figure in Penn State women’s basketball, and in 2016 she was the head women’s coach at Providence College.)
While visiting the Fruchtls, the Weibels found themselves attending three or four neighborhood parties. “It hearkened back to when I was a kid,” Jonathan notes, “growing up in a little town (Bellevue, Ohio) where your neighborhood was everything. Everybody hung out on their front porches, we would do parties on the block all the time, and our neighbors were our first responders.”
Looking back, it seems that time in Providence was nothing short of providential. “It made this really strong impression on me,” Weibel recalls. “And we were just moving into a new neighborhood, so we became more intentional about loving our neighbors, learning their names, praying for them and just having fun with them.”
DINNER IN THE DRIVEWAY?
Even with a vision rooted in childhood experience, Weibel had no guarantee that State College residents would respond. But he had to try. And so, three or four years ago, Suzy wondered if an event could be held on the couple’s large RV driveway. She suggested that they could sponsor “Dinner in the Driveway,” put up signs and hand out cards to invite the neighbors.
The Weibels had a feeling that no one would show up that night, but, Jonathan says, “Every table was full; every chair was full. Even a year later, people were still saying, ‘When are we going to do that Dinner in the Driveway thing again? That was really cool.’
“And so we fell in love with the great commandment, to love God and our neighbors. And we thought, ‘Why can’t we just do this and teach other people to do it?’”
Those “other people” included other pastors, especially those involved with City Church, the 16-church association in the State College area. And so, he began interacting with Dan Nold, the outstanding visionary who leads Calvary Church. It just so happened that Pastor Nold had already been focusing attention and prayer on the importance of neighborhoods in American life.
In time, their interaction led to a new job for Jonathan. “Dan hired me at Calvary,” he says, “not just to work for Calvary but to work for the community and the other churches. There was no agenda other than to help people love their neighbors better.”
FRONT YARD MISSION
The name of the new emphasis, “Front Yard Mission,” was originated by Nold but its meaning is totally embraced by Weibel. “It’s the idea,” he says, “that we can move — both philosophically and physically — from the security of our backyards to the visibility of our front yards where we can interact with our neighbors and see their needs.”
The Weibels, of course, continue to offer a wide variety of group activities in their part of the Dalevue neighborhood. Last summer, they held an event called “The Wurst Party Ever,” asking friends to bring their favorite bratwursts. They often invite neighbors to join them on Saturday mornings for “Donuts in the Driveway,” and they hold gatherings at the fire pit in front of their home or the fire pit on the side. “We’re big on fire pits,” Jonathan says.
But even more important than the events that Jonathan and Suzy hold are the opportunities they recommend to the 2,500 members of the Front Yard Mission Facebook group and to the 50 neighborhood “point people” in the Centre Region. No good idea is too big for blessing a neighborhood, so they happily loan an outdoor movie kit or a pair of portable pizza ovens to FYM friends. Yet, Jonathan says, “We love the small interactions as much as the gathering events. We value the conversation with a neighbor in the park. The epic cornhole games in the yard. The invite to a neighbor for dinner.”
And, of course, Jonathan encourages volunteers from 11 area churches to hold neighborhood Christmas parties. Last year, 27 such gatherings were held — including food, music, lights and candles. As Jonathan says, “Telling your neighbor how much you love him or her might be weird on May 24, but it’s completely appropriate on December 24 or February 14.”
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My conversation with Jorn Junod took place just 30 minutes or so before the beginning of his neighborhood Christmas party, but he was more than willing to talk to me. He knew I would see the goings-on at the event, but it seemed important to him that I understood the “why” behind the activity.
“I think the most important thing,” he said, “is knowing that people want to be loved. So we want to create the kind of community that people are looking for. We feel like we offer that to people by consistently serving them, loving them and creating opportunities like tonight.”
I can tell that Jorn is speaking from his heart, and I know he’s going beyond the call of duty. After all, his “job” with Calvary is to lead the Midtown congregation, which is almost totally comprised of Penn State students. Yet here he is working tirelessly to care for his considerably older Park Forest neighbors.
I also know that Jorn does much more than just coordinate social events. So I asked him how he demonstrates the love of God to others, regardless of their own beliefs.
“Well,” he said, “we serve our neighbors. Recently we were able to help a family down the street. We put an exhaust fan in for them because every time they used their stove, the vent was shooting smoke into the house and turning on the smoke alarm. So, they said, ‘Hey, can we pay you?’ And I said, ‘Oh no, Merry Christmas, this is a gift from us to you.’
“I don’t believe we’re the only ones in our neighborhood who would do this. Our neighbors are our friends, and for tonight many of them provided money for the gifts we gave to the children, made pots of homemade soup, brought their best cookies and helped hours before the event in setting up the lights.
“Love and serving are contagious and we see these things in each other.”
