Sketch by Gerard Manley Hopkins

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January-March 2008


Spring Skies are here (William Helm)

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Vineyard Chaparral Moves In!

Through much labor, Chaparral Vineyard Church has moved into their new location! It's been a 10 year undertaking, but the church has accumulated NO debt in this enterprise, and the new meeting house will be of great service to the Chaparral community. Here are some photos of their first service last Easter Sunday:

They are especially happy that there's now room to dance

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Yellow Bike Initiative

We've begun rebuilding and painting old bicycles yellow. We have four so far, but when we have a fleet of about 20, we plan on "releasing" them on the streets of Chaparral, El Paso, and Las Cruces to be used as free community bikes. We plan on opening up at least two mini-garages and to produce as many as we can for people to use. We've been invited to make an appeal to the public on the news, and we're also considering applying for a grant to establish  biking programs in the area. If you live in the area, and you have a bike you're ready to get rid of, please consider donating it to this initiative. We'll even pick it up from you. Stay tuned for the Yellow Bike Saga.

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Contemplation in Action

We recently had the honor of hosting a group of engineering students from Stanford University who came here on an "alternative spring break" to build "green housing." The Stanford Society of Chicano and Latino Engineers and Scientsts was led by local community activists, Robert Marquez and Mel Acosta. The group began building an earth-pressed structure on our northwest acre. We felt a kindred spirit with both Robert and Mel, and hope to be involved with them in the future as they seek to find affordable housing and clean water for communities both here and abroad. Here're some photos of this last week's (3/23-29) project:

Mel Acosta teaches about laying the foundation

Preparing the foundation

The students lay the adobe bricks

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Numinous Space

Congratulations to William Helm for delivering his first lecture on Numinous Space (which was on exhibition over the last couple of months) at the Rubin Center at the University Texas at El Paso. The exhibit moves onward to the Las Cruces Museum of Art. We hope that Numinous Space can be realized here at the community, and we're honored to have Bill Helm as our campus planner.

The Rubin Center

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