Upstairs, Downstairs in a House of Peace

Until eight years ago, the house at 479 Lake Street in Aurora, Illinois, was simply a home to one family or another. It has three fireplaces, four stories, and 18 rooms. It was built 99 years ago, when most families could field a baseball team.

So in 1985, when pastor Steve Kennedy and his wife, Sue, assumed ownership of the home, it was not merely to house them and their four-year-old daughter. The Kennedys had worked with young women in trouble with drugs, family, and the law. They were increasingly disturbed by abortion, and they knew that the large institutions that previously supported 100 and more unwed mothers were closing their doors.

In the Easter season of 1985, the Kennedys christened the house Resurrection Life and opened its doors to young, unwed mothers who have nowhere else to go.

Since then, a few dozen young women have come and gone. According to Sue Kennedy, they have all been impressed by a sense of tranquillity—a sense coming from the house itself. “They say it is filled with peace,” Sue reports. Stan and Naomi Jones, former owners of the property, agree.

The Joneses bought the house eight years ago and operated it as the Everlasting Arms, a retreat center. “Stan and I were Pentecostal, and there had been some controversy about our retreat center among the religious community,” Naomi said. “The first group to use the house was a Presbyterian church staff. They had their suspicions. But when they were ready to leave, they said, ‘We felt peace here.’ ”

Hearing these testimonies of serenity in stone and glass, one wonders: What is this peace?

Sue’s Office

The room is airy and filled with light, since two walls of the room are paned windows. Stuffed grocery sacks and boxes line one wall. Some hold toys or infant car seats, but brightly colored baby clothes brim from most. “I have to distribute these,” says Sue. “The girls usually do quite well together. But after a girl has a baby she’s protective—ready to fight for her child.” The donated clothes are much needed, since most of the young women passing through Resurrection Life are disowned by their parents. “You’d be amazed how many parents say, ‘Get an abortion or get out,’ ” Sue says.

Sue knows the dilemma personally. She was unwed and pregnant in the early 1970s. She got an abortion.

Not long after that, Sue “received Jesus—but I didn’t know what I had.” She has learned since then. Running a household of 10 to 20 girls, many in emotional and spiritual confusion, requires more than a little personal knowledge of Jesus. Sue, who is adept at summarizing theological issues in a line, says, “I thought it wasn’t right to talk about abortion without doing something. Faith is a two-letter word: DO.”

Steve’s Office

The light shifts from evening’s weak whiteness, fading in a large corner window, to the warm orange of the popping and cracking fireplace. It is a long and narrow room, secluded like a cave off the living room—the kind of house-space that invites sleep, day or night. But Steve Kennedy is wide awake behind his desk.

He remembers a sleepless night two years ago, when he switched on the television and watched a documentary about abortion. His wife was trying to persuade him that they should open a home for unwed mothers. But Steve had already lived several years on the shoestring of faith. And he had a family to support. The steady salary, insurance, and other benefits of the pastorate were reassuring.

So the documentary left him in tumultuous prayer. “I realized God was going to do something about abortion,” Steve says. “Then I realized he was going to use me to do something about it.” He fought that conclusion, but a piece of his wife’s no-nonsense theology floated clearly into mind: “You’ll never learn to walk on water until you get out of the boat.”

Within weeks, in December of 1984, the Kennedys signed for the Aurora home. They had to come up with $40,000 by April. The $40,000 came (with $200 to spare), largely from their church.

There are still huge payments to make, though. “And you can’t budget,” Steve says. “You don’t know where the money’s going to come from.” For this, he left the comparatively secure pastorate.

But he cannot pretend he entirely regrets that. “This work is exciting,” Steve says. “We’re always seeing life. Girls come in here depressed, not knowing God. They’re not just objects with babies inside them, you know. They are people with needs, too. Our total purpose is to introduce girls to the Lord. When they leave we can’t go with them. But when they meet the Lord he can go with them.”

An Upstairs Bedroom

Cheryl came to Resurrection Life nearly two years ago, eight months pregnant with her second child. She was alone and afraid, freshly abandoned by everyone she loved. Despite that, Cheryl began to settle when she passed inside the house. She was led upstairs. It is hard to remember now, but maybe she felt a small excitement, a thrill mingled with childhood fantasies—like climbing the secret passageway of a castle—as she ascended through quiet and the mote-laden light, peering into one chamber after another.

She came to a pink bedroom, on the west end of the second floor. She unpacked her suitcase, hung her few clothes in the closet, and settled on the bed. The leaded windows cast fragments of rainbow on the opposite wall.

“It was breathtaking there,” Cheryl says. Still, the first couple of weeks were difficult. “I had to leave reefer alone. That wasn’t too bad. But it was hard to get off cigarettes.” She stayed at the house because she sensed a constant, palpable peace, and because she was curious. “I had heard about Christians,” she said. “I’d heard they were different. I needed love because I hadn’t had that in a long time.”

Two days before her daughter was born, Cheryl was baptized.

The Living Room

Several girls gather in the living room. The room seems larger than it is because the east wall is mirrored.

The room is also noisier than others in the house, with a parakeet chirping in its cage, and many voices clamoring over two household events. The first has to do with a volunteer (some 40 people from area churches help the Kennedys with cooking, shopping, bookkeeping, and so forth). He stands looking warily at the piano, manufacturing excuses against playing it. This man ordinarily clears snow from the driveway, but it has just come out that he can handle a piano as well as a shovel.

The second household event concerns Carmen, who sits cross-legged on the couch, leaning back to allow her great stomach comfort. Her labor pains were recently timed, and are occurring at seven-minute intervals. Sue is excited, repeatedly declaring, “We’re going to have a bay-bee!” The young women have daily responsibilities, and Carmen, who was cleaning the offices, had been forced off duty. “I’m all right,” she insisted, waving a cleaning rag in protest.

“You can’t work now,” said Sue, snatching the rag from Carmen’s hand. Now Sue busies herself with a pitcher of water, rushing from one plant to another. People drift into the living room from the kitchen, to surround the couch and tease Carmen. She sits and strokes her belly.

Across the room, a recent arrival watches. Her name is Maureen, and she entered the house only that morning. Aware of house rules, she smoked her last cigarettes on the long bus ride from Wisconsin. Her cheeks are burned red from tears. She looks on the hubbub with uncertainty.

But again Sue exclaims, “We’re going to have a bay-bee!” and disappears up the stairs with her pitcher. A smile, which had appeared fleetingly on Maureen’s lips throughout the afternoon, begins to stick.

By Rodney Clapp.

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