A Root out of Dry Ground

Page 4 — New England

The Northeast Kingdom

Jay was born and raised in Massachusetts. When he drove his Mustang down south to visit his fiancée's brother and look for a summer job, he thought he might encounter a different culture. He had no idea he was going to find a whole new life. He also had no idea who was going to share that life with him.

When he discovered the little Community on Vine Street in Chattanooga, he wanted to tell everyone about it. So, on his trip back home to get married, he tried to explain what he had found. He even played a cassette tape of his new friends singing songs about their Savior. But no one seemed to be impressed, and really, it wasn't the music that had captured Jay's heart. It was the relationships.

Because she loved him, Jay's new wife, Annette, left her relatives in northern Vermont to live in the south with people she hardly knew. It didn't take long, though, for her to develop her own attachments to the people in the Community. And, the more she and Jay talked to the folks back in Vermont about their new life, the more curious they became. Over the space of the next few years, word spread about the Community that Jay and Annette were living in.

Annette's sister Jackie and her husband Andy, the town Water Commissioner, had been having prayer meetings with Richard, the local TV repairman, and two woodsmen, Steve and Gene, and their wives. They also knew two men in a nearby village, Maurice, a deliveryman, and Guy, the owner of a small restaurant, who had decided that God wanted their families to share their housing and finances with each other. There were others, too, who were thinking of opening a Christian retreat center together in the area. They all wanted to know about the communal life that Jay and Annette were involved in. Couldn't someone from Chattanooga come up and be their pastor and teach them about community life? They wouldn't be able to pay very much…

No, the Community in Chattanooga replied, they had no teachers for hire. But they would get a house in the little village of Island Pond and move three couples there at their own expense, to demonstrate the life that they had been given. If the local Vermont families wanted to join them in living that life, they would be welcome to do so.

They did join, around 50 of them in the first year, all from that snowbound section of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom. The composition of this Community was different from those down south. Its members were mostly in their late thirties or early forties, not their teens or early twenties. They had older children, owned lands and houses, and ran established businesses. From among these mature disciples, elders were appointed, and a transition began. Businesses in which the disciples could work together were strengthened, others that took away from the common life were shut down, and everyone adjusted to the demands of being available to help each other day and night, all week long. This was a big undertaking, and the Vermont Community needed more help from experienced disciples. Soon others moved up from Chattanooga to help establish businesses, teach children, and bring in firewood. The new group became known as the Northeast Kingdom Community.

Then an unusual thing happened. In the wake of the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, deaths a mounting anti-cult hysteria had been infecting the Chattanooga area. Accusations of child abuse had been leveled against the Community. Police officers had stopped Community-owned vehicles and illegally demanded to inspect the children for signs of abuse. Community members had complied, ignorant of their rights, and no evidence had been found, but the children and parents had been shaken by the experience. Repeatedly, disciples had been kidnapped by deprogrammers, once even with the cooperation of the police department and a local judge. Because many of the responsible members had been sent north to help in establishing the Northeast Kingdom Community, these circumstances had made those remaining in Chattanooga very insecure. Moved with compassion, the Vermont Community decided to open their homes as a refuge for their friends in the South. It would mean stretching their modest income very thin and doing without a lot of things they were used to, but they could not stand by and let their brothers be demoralized. No matter what sort of trouble they would have to face in the North, at least they could all face it together. By the middle of 1980, the Communities in the South had all been dismantled and the small town of Island Pond, Vermont had experienced nearly a ten percent increase in population.

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