So, we are entering into the Last Days! Not quite as apocalyptic as those preceding the Second Coming, perhaps, but still - there are big changes ahead. We now have less than three weeks left in Philadelphia (well, I've got three weeks + one year, but we're speaking about this JVC experience). My community members are getting ready to become FJVs - finding jobs, signing leases for apartments, packing up clothes and books, figuring out class schedules for the fall. The "real world" is calling.

My hope and my prayer for all of the JVs on the East Coast who are getting ready to transition out of this experience is that the JVC lifestyle will become part of that "real world" they will soon be entering. I hope and pray that the values of community, simple living, social justice, and spirituality will be more than a one-year experiment. Each of us will, of course, take something different from this JVC year, and each of us will leave certain things behind. But wherever life takes us, I pray that we'll always be able to recognize the mark of this year in one another. I pray that being "ruined for life" is more than a catchy slogan. I pray that it's a reality that will manifest itself uniquely, but still deeply and substantially, in all of us.

For my part, I've been gearing up for big changes as well. I may be staying in the same house and the same job, but I've got six new community members arriving in August - which means six new perspectives on how exactly the JVC life is meant to be lived. I'm so very excited to meet each of these men and women, and to talk, pray, struggle (and hopefully laugh) with them as we learn what exactly it means to be in community with one another while living simply and working for social justice.

May God be with us as we go!