Love Your Neighbor

In the early 1960's a small home mission church, Millersville Bible Fellowship Church, purchased about four acres of land on W. Charlotte St. here in Millersville. Over the years they built a parsonage and a basement church which were separated by a 60 ft. wide piece of land to eventually access the property behind the new buildings. In the late 1960's the church disbanded and everything was put up for sale. When there were no buyers, my father decided to purchase the property and sell us the parsonage. We have lived there ever since. Over the years farmers used the land behind us. The problem came with the basement church - nobody wanted to buy it. So eventually dad rented it to a group as a Teen Center. This proved to be a problem and near disaster for all of us and, fortunately, that group also disbanded. Eventually the local Lions Club purchased the building and used it for their meetings. Then they added the top floor and used it for a Community Center. Often this caused problems for us because parties and noise there went on after midnight and kids and teens often ended up in our yard. Many times I had to call the police since the Lions Club did not seem to police the groups using the center. Then a developer asked to buy the land behind us and the 60 ft. access to the land. At the same time our own church was buying land to build a new building. So my father worked out a deal to give his land to our church who in turn sold the land to the developer. As a result, all the sales money went towards our new church. This thrilled my dad and was a huge boost to our church. Dad felt the Lord allowed him to hold this land over the years as an investment in the future of our church which he originally had helped start. Soon the developer built a street on the access and this improved things tremendously for us. The Lions Club now seemed so much farther away and we no longer had throngs of kids and teens in our yard. But then a few years ago the Lions Club membership declined and they could no longer afford to maintain the building. They put it up for sale and we shuddered thinking about who might buy it. To our surprise, a local organ repair company wanted it, but that would require a zoning exception. To get support for the change, the prospective owner and his wife visited us and our neighbors, introducing themselves and sharing their plans for the building. Among the things they shared was the fact that they would never need the 30-40 parking places on the property and that neighbors were welcome to use them whenever they needed a place to park. Their company would only actually need 8 - 10 of the spaces. And, since the company would never be open on Saturday or Sunday, they were always available on the weekends. We were thrilled to help them get the zoning change needed and they eventually moved in. Since then we have seen little or nothing of the owner. It has been very quiet and we have appreciated having them there. Once I did try to talk to the owner when he was having a problem with his lawn mower, but he had no interest at all in talking to me. That was the extent of our contacts until a few days ago. We seldom have taken advantage of his offer to park a car there. However, a number of times when we hosted our small group I did park our red car there for a few hours on Sunday to provide enough space for our guests in our driveway. This past Sunday I did that and at 8 pm I moved our car back to our drive. Monday, about noon, I found a note had been placed on the windshield of our car in our driveway. It said "This vehicle is illegally parked on private property." It told me that I had been ignoring the "notice clearly visible on the side of the building". The note also said that I had broken "PA Crimes Code 3505 (B)(1)(11), Criminal Trespass, Summary Offense, Punishable up to $300 Fine and 90 Days in Prison". It also said "Your car, make, model and license number have been recorded as well as surveillance video of you entering and leaving the vehicle for identification purposes." "Your car may be towed at your expense." I was stunned. I decided to go and talk to the owner who obviously knew me and knew my car, especially since they had come to my driveway to post the notice on my car. I apologized to him for parking on his property and explained that I thought he had said that we could park there when needed. His reply was that he gave me this notice because I hadn't first called and asked permission. I guess the rules had been changed since he won the zoning change. Well, I guess he had me there and I assured him that I was sorry and that I would never park in his lot again. And that may create a problem for us. No parking is allowed along the streets anywhere in our neighborhood so when we have company, our only choice now will be to park on our front lawn - except when it snows. So that's the story. There is no question that in terms of peace and quiet it is a pleasure to have his business in our neighborhood. But in terms of friendliness, neighborliness and cooperation ... well I must be reminded of that admonition to "love my neighbor". And hopefully the Lord will give me the grace to do that. And, if not, then I hope you will come and visit me during my 90 days in prison. Now relax Barry and remember - “Love your neighbor!”