New name for St John’s homes with heart
The inspiring disability housing project completed by the congregation at St John’s Tea Tree Gully SA now has a name: LYNAY Homes.
The acronym that stands for ‘Love Your Neighbour As Yourself’ (Mark 12:31 NIV) was chosen after a congregation-wide process that included a new logo design for the three wonderful Lutheran Disability Services homes.
The Bible verse beautifully captures the community spirit that has underpinned the project from the start.
The houses, built on an unused piece of church land with the support of an LLL loan, were officially opened and blessed by Pastor Rolly Stahl at a ceremony in September 2024.
The congregation has welcomed their new neighbours with open arms and a barbecue – the first of many social events to come.
‘This is a chance to get to know each other a bit better, which was the whole idea of the project,’ Stephen Pfeiffer, co-leader of the project, said.
‘We’ve had some interaction before now, but this is the first organised event, which we’re hopeful will become a regular thing.’
Each new neighbour was offered a wall hanging as a housewarming gift, featuring stunning photography of locations, including the Kimberley region by congregation member Jenny Kraft.
The project, which had its origins back in 2014, had its share of challenges along the way, but co-leader Carey Noack couldn’t be happier with the outcome.
‘It’s just very satisfying because it’s turning out to be how we hoped it would,’ Carey said.
‘The vision is real now, it’s happening right in front of us, so I’m really happy.
‘We started out as a congregation with differing opinions about what should happen.
‘And what we found was that this project brought the whole congregation together.
‘I’ve talked to another congregation and said that that was one of the big positives – once we’d decided on what the project was going to be, everyone got right behind it.
‘If a congregation has spare property that they don’t know what to do with, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it. Even though it took a lot of work and time, everything was positive along the way.’
If your congregation has a project – large or small – that would benefit from a partnership with LLL, they’d love to hear about it.
Contact LLL at lll@lll.org.au or 1800 556 457.
Read about other difference-making missional loans, Mission Outreach Grants, sponsorships and transformative projects that your investment with LLL supports via the LLL website information hub, Mission Matters, as well as Together in Mission.
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