If You Build It They Will Come

Last year Brooke and her family relocated to Austin from Las Vegas. After settling into their new neighborhood and home, they set about building their new life in their new town. Not long after the move, Brooke heard about The Turquoise Table movement through her pastor at ONEChapel church and she just KNEW. She knew that she wanted to have a Turquoise Table as a means to connect with her new neighbors. She knew spending time around the table would turn neighbors into friends. And she knew just how to make it happen.

As is frequently the case when a family moves into a newly-built house, building materials are left over. In Brooke’s case, there was some wood that had been accidentally delivered to their house and never picked back up by the builder. It sat unused in the garage for months, just waiting for a purpose. After hearing about the Turquoise Table idea, Brooke asked her husband if he could build a table out of that wood, and he agreed to see how much of it could be used. It turned out that they were only one board shy of a completed table! Almost exactly the amount of wood needed for the table was right there all along.

“That wood had been delivered to our house three months before we even knew what we were going to do with it,” Brooke says. “It seems like God knew full well that we would use it to build our table and reach out to our neighbors.”

Brooke’s two young sons helped her prime and paint the table turquoise, except for that one additional board that had to be purchased. She placed that board in the center of the table, and that one was painted orange to mark her table’s significance. Once the table was placed in the front yard, the family made a point of getting out there frequently, but not on any set schedule or plan. Over the months they have met many of their neighbors, and started gathering to share snacks, meals and conversation. Just recently Brooke texted many of her new friends to let them know that she was setting up a slip-n-slide in the front yard for the kids, and welcomed everyone to join in the fun. Several families came.

“The Turquoise Table has been the center of many wonderful events already,” says Brooke. “It’s given us the opportunity to make new friends for our children and ourselves in our new neighborhood, and enabled other families to do the same.”

Brooke’s Turquoise Table also inspired one of her friends back in Las Vegas to have a table of her own. But since neighborhood lots are significantly smaller in that area, fitting a picnic table in the front yard wasn’t feasible. So, Brooke’s friend now has a Turquoise “Bistro” Table out front that better fits the scale of her yard, while still enabling new neighborhood friendships to flourish. A smaller table can still produce big connections!

So now more Front Yard People have been created, both next door and a thousand miles away. That forgotten wood in the garage has definitely been transformed into something magical!