Follow the Trail

With every hike we take, Lily and I are amazed by how well-designed and maintained the trail systems are. They seem to be carved into the areas of the mountain that are easiest to traverse. Someone has taken the time to carve steps into rock, lay logs across the path, and create more stable places to step. A little research revealed that the National Park Service is responsible for maintaining many of the trails, with volunteer groups helping along the way. We are incredibly appreciative of everyone who works on them. We know it isn’t an easy task.

Someone once told me that all of our life’s decisions are leading us along a path that has already been laid out for us. We walk that path toward an end we are destined to find. I don’t know if I believe in destiny exactly, but I do believe we are called to use our talents for the betterment of others. And I believe the path we walk in life is often designed and maintained by people who came before us.

In 2015, I was working as the Tourism Director for my community. At the time, I was working on downtown development and needed the support of City leadership to establish my town as a Main Street City. The city manager told me he would support the program if I could “fix the homeless problem” first.

I hadn’t really thought much about homelessness at that point, although I had always felt drawn toward some sort of ministry. But once I was given this new task, I began considering different possibilities and looking at how other communities approached homelessness.

What I discovered was that every community seemed to have a different solution. Some had sanctioned encampments. Some criminalized homelessness. Some focused primarily on housing vouchers. Some built shelters. Others tried different combinations of services and programs.

If you see one solution to homelessness, you’ve seen one solution to homelessness.

After much research, I found Community First Village in Austin. It was a completely different concept. Chronically homeless people were given tiny homes and, perhaps more importantly, treated with dignity, respect and love. A community of people came alongside them and helped them navigate life.

I spent three days there in 2017, and I completely fell in love with the model.

I knew it was the solution we needed.

The mountain was standing in front of me, and I was ready to figure out how to climb it.

Lucky for me, the Community First model was one they openly shared, hoping other communities would replicate what they had learned. They had already built much of the trail. We just had to follow it.

I came home and began spreading the word, encouraging conversations, building relationships, and dreaming about what it could look like in our own community.

It was an uphill battle.

There were plenty of obstacles. Finding the right location seemed impossible at times. Funding was another mountain of its own. And perhaps the biggest challenge was helping people understand that the answer wasn’t simply about putting a roof over someone's head.

It was about community.

It was about belonging.

It was about dignity.

It was about giving people the opportunity to rediscover their sense of worth and believe that their lives still have purpose.

Because the thing a person needs most isn't simply a place to sleep. They need someone to walk alongside them.

They need a trail.

Almost ten years later, we are there. We have seven tiny homes at Elizabeth’s Farm.

We are working to finish the infrastructure and prepare the site to welcome women leaving street-level homelessness and traumatic situations. We are working toward having the tiny homes ready for community tours in December.

And as I write this in September, I can hardly believe it.

It is finally happening!

For almost a decade, we have been climbing.

We have followed the trail that others helped build. We have learned from those who came before us. We have stepped where others have stepped, and when the path disappeared, we kept looking for the next foothold.

And now, for the first time, we can see the summit.

It is a glorious sight!

But standing here, I realize something about trails.

The people who build them rarely know who will eventually walk them.

The person who carved those steps into the mountain may never know how many people they helped reach the top. The person who laid that log across a muddy section may never know how many hikers were grateful for that one small act of preparation.

But the trail remains. And someone else gets to follow it.

Maybe that is what we are called to do with our lives, too.

We are not always called to reach the summit alone. Sometimes we are called to make the path a little easier for the person coming behind us.

Sometimes we are called to carve a step.

Sometimes we are called to lay down a log.

Sometimes we are simply called to walk beside someone who is struggling up the mountain.

And sometimes, if we are very fortunate, we get to look back and realize that all those difficult, uncertain, uphill steps were leading somewhere.

Elizabeth’s Farm is more than seven tiny homes.

It is evidence of a trail that was built one step at a time.

It is evidence that someone else’s vision can become our path.

And perhaps, someday, the women who find a home at Elizabeth’s Farm will build trails of their own—trails that make the climb a little easier for someone else.

We followed the trail. We can see the summit.

And now, we get to help someone else make the climb.