Chris and I have been sharing life with and learning from the community of North Minneapolis since the fall of 2011. In April of 2016, we participated in The Sankofa Journey which “seeks to assist disciples of Christ on their move toward a righteous response to the social ills related to racism.” We were introduced to the above African Proverb on that trip. What we experienced changed our life course and led us to move to North Minneapolis.

Lion's Ink was born from our experience here. We found a duplex to share with some young men who were friends of ours, volunteers in the neighborhood, and needed a stable place with reasonable rent. We added a "community room" to host others who don't live here, but need space to grow and found it here.

We've hosted things like leadership trainings, college students learning about ministry to adolescents, dinners with the volleyball team, grad parties, going away parties, Sunday morning breakfasts for 20 somethings...you get the idea. The longer we stayed, the more convinced we became that small acts of radical generosity breed hope and create transformation, for all of us. One of our favorite authors, Father Gregory Boyle writes "transformation is exquisitely mutual". True.

As time went on, possibilities grew and we became more convinced we were doing some of the right things in the right place. In effort to be better stewards and as it became clear more people shared a desire to contribute in all sorts of ways, we began the process of creating our own small nonprofit, Lion's Ink.