Meridian Church Hosts Human Trafficking Exhibit

Christ the King Community Church, a non-denominational church located in the  Meridian Neighborhood, is beginning preparations for its hosting of SOLD: The Human Trafficking Experience, a travelling exhibit which will be presented at the church in January. The SOLD exhibit immerses participants into a sensory experience, where they see, hear, and understand the stories of victims of human trafficking from all over the world, said Worship Life Director Randy Bourland. The SOLD exhibit is free and will be open from Jan. 9-13.

“We have a volunteer-led community of people at Christ the King Community Church called ‘Hope4Justsice’, who have organized around a mission to do anything they can to end human trafficking in our world,” Bourland said. “Several of the leaders of this community visited the SOLD exhibit in another city, and were so moved by it that they wanted to bring it to Bellingham.”

As visitors travel through the twelve rooms of the SOLD exhibit, they will learn about the many types of human trafficking by “becoming” a slave in a particular situation, according to a press release issued by Hope4Justice. Visitors are encouraged to utilize social media to document their experience.

While human trafficking affects people everywhere, Bourland said that because of Bellingham’s proximity to the Canadian border and the major international city of Vancouver, the numbers for people sold into human trafficking are significantly higher than one might find in other cities located in the middle of the United States.

According to the SOLD website, one hope for the exhibit is that “attendees will begin to grapple with the deeper issues of God's love and sovereignty and justice, the evil in the world, and their own part in God's plan of bringing justice."

 Bourland said he believes the SOLD exhibit will have wide appeal. He said one of his personal goals for the church as a whole is to be able to gather the community with more outreach efforts, and this SOLD exhibit is an excellent way to gather community members.

“Our church draws from the entire community of Meridian, Whatcom County and Bellingham. We are very diverse,” Bourland said. “I would say we tend to host a lot of middle to low class individuals, as well as transients.”

The Department of Social Health Services (DSHS) is located right next to Christ the King, and Bourland said this is why the church sees so many homeless people.

“There are a lot of homeless people living behind Barnes & Noble, so we try to help them too,” Bourland said.

Hosting a diverse congregation and helping all walks of life is all part of Christ the King’s mission statement: “always a place for you,” said Shawn Walton, administrator at Christ the King. Walton said that since Christ the King is a community church, it is very open to people from various economic and social environments.

“There are a lot of tattoos and piercings, and people don’t typically wear ‘Sunday Dresses’ here,” Walton said. “I grew up in a church where I wore a dress every Sunday. When I came here for the first time, I couldn’t believe everyone was in jeans, including the pastor!”

While one of the church’s main goals is to focus their efforts outwardly, Christ the King offers a lot of classes for community members, as well as a “Spiritual 12 Step” program for church leaders, Walton said. She said the church building is in use about 5.5 days of the week with the various programs and classes, all of which are non-profit.

“We love being here. There are so many opportunities when you are located in a busy neighborhood,” Walton said. “We love the traffic of people.”

Christ the King has a separate location for its young adult ministry, called Ekklesia. Every Friday night, adults ranging 18 to 28 years old flock to the Majestic, a venue hall on North Forest Street, and experience God in an honest environment, said Pastor Garret Shelsta. With the large range of people that attend Ekklesia, a lot of them being college students, there is not a typical lens or something they have to fit into to be a part of the group, Shelsta said.

“Having a diverse set of experiences creates a more honest environment,” Shelsta said. “You always have to be honest in the things you are saying and experiencing, otherwise it gets disingenuous, as if you are trying to be a certain kind of person.”

The Majestic was chosen as a place of worship because of its location between Western Washington University’s campus and downtown Bellingham, Shelsta said.

“You’re going to hear the music; it’s loud. People are going to want to come off the streets and check it out,” Shelsta said.

Western Washington University sophomore Samanatha Hanson, 19, said she first heard about Ekklesia from friends she met in the dorms. Hanson said she knew immediately that Ekklesia was a positive Christian community that would support her in her faith journey.

“I would recommend Ekklesia to anyone, because regardless of your religious beliefs, the community at Ekklesia is incomparable,” Hanson said. “Everyone is so genuine and wants to love you no matter who you are or what you believe.”

Ekklesia is starting a new service called “music nights”, where the first Friday of the month will be a giant music session, said Pastor Shelsta. This is will be an experimental service, and the leaders will see what kind of attendance these music nights will bring, since people seem to love the musical aspect of Ekklesia, said Shelsta.

Shelsta said he hopes to keep bringing in all types of people from the community as Ekklesia continues to grow, and he is continuing to familiarize himself with the diverse congregation.

“We have people exploring religion and people that are more established; people just being introduced to Jesus and people who have been Christians for a while,” Shelsta said. “We also have people that wouldn’t be at church if they didn’t attend Ekklesia.”

New Neighborhoods May Lead to Increase in Meridian Traffic

A newly developing Bellingham community may worsen the pre-existing bad traffic in the Meridian Neighborhood, according to Steve Mason, Certified Residential Specialist at Windermere Real Estate Whatcom Inc. This new community is called South Springs, and it is a residential area being created in the Reserve in the nearby Cordata Neighborhood. Development of the South Springs community started last year.

South Springs, which is situated north of the Meridian Neighborhood, is continuing to develop more houses over the year, said Mason. He said that this new residential area will definitely move more people into the northern proximity of Bellingham, and most of these people will have to travel south to get to work and school, putting them right into Meridian traffic.

“Any place you build a house, you’ve just added two vehicles to the neighborhood,” said Mason.  “We assume this will add to the traffic that is east of Bellis Fair, which is considered a bad traffic area.”

Another developing neighborhood may add to the traffic congestion in Meridian as well; the development of an urban village within the King Mountain Neighborhood, said Lylene Johnson, Full Service Real Estate Agent at Johnson Team Real Estate. If the urban village is created, Johnson said that may funnel people into the shopping areas of the Meridian Neighborhood. The traffic around Bellis Fair Mall is already scary whether you are in a vehicle or walking around, Johnson said.

            While housing developments around Meridian may increase the traffic flow into the neighborhood, the Meridian Neighborhood itself is not going through any major development changes, said Johnson. The Meridian Neighborhood, composed primarily of commercial zones, is a different kind of neighborhood, said Johnson. She said the commercial development of the neighborhood started with the creation of Bellis Fair Mall.

“This neighborhood shows how commercial, single family and multi-family zones all work together,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that the Meridian Neighborhood is the single neighborhood with the highest number of condominiums in Bellingham, and one reason so many condominiums have developed is due to their proximity to commercial zones.

“There hasn’t been a lot of neighborhood bias against multi-family housing, as you might find in other neighborhoods,” said Johnson. “People that live in single family homes fight to keep their neighborhoods that way.”

Johnson said people that move into single family neighborhoods may watch their neighborhood change into a multi-family neighborhood, and this transformation can change their lifestyle.

“They have a fear of college students moving into the neighborhood, and that is likely to happen in a multi-family neighborhood,” said Johnson. “They don’t fear college kids because they expect a riot, like the one that happened in the Sehome Neighborhood; they just don’t like the traffic that comes with the kids.”

While there is a strong market for condominiums, Johnson said that Meridian is not a good place to sell a house.

            The houses that Windermere Management rents in the Meridian District are older homes, and they are all old farmhouses, said Sandi Jones, the designated broker at Windermere Management. She said this area is very stable and not many homes end up as rentals, and it is the norm for rural areas to be very predominately owner occupied.

            Residential Specialist Steve Mason said people tend to hold onto farmhouse properties in Meridian with the hope that someday, as the city expands, their property value will increase.

“When you drive up Meridian, you don’t see anything that is representative of the residential reality of the neighborhood at all,” said Mason. “You see commercial, you see abandoned homes. This is an isolated part of Meridian; you don’t see anything else like that in the residential areas.

            There could be more people driving through the Meridian Neighborhood if the undeveloped land north of the Guide Meridian is incorporated into the city of Bellingham, said Real Estate Agent Lylene Johnson. This “new arm” would expand city limits and could potentially be a huge housing development project, said Johnson. She said that currently, the city is unwilling to develop that land, and has remained unwilling for years. One of the big topics in the upcoming election in Whatcom County is what kind of development is going to be allowed in Bellingham, and how much the city is going to be allowed to spread, said Johnson.

            “In this race for county and city council, the polls are very polarized and very partisan,” said Johnson. “It is going to be very interesting to see what happens.”