‘It’s not a charity. It’s a brotherhood.’
“I grew up just down the street from the Bangsunds. Matt and I have been friends since birth,” said Jay Dirkse. “We grew up together and we were buddies before we knew we were buddies. We’re just a couple of months apart.”
It’s that lifelong friendship with Matt, one of The Amigos, as well as his parents, John and Kathy Bangsund, that led Jay to join the board of The Dwelling Place.
“It started with just being friends with Matt and growing up with him, having known him forever. John Bangsund was my grade school teacher. Kathy was my kindergarten teacher. John was a football coach, and I played football under him.”
After Jay and Matt graduated high school, Jay went off to college, studied biology, and then returned to Leavenworth. Jay married Anna, whom he met at church. In their newlywed days they lived next door to The Amigos.
Jay and Anna bring their five children to hang out with The Amigos, play card games and attend the Dwelling Place’s famed annual New Year’s Eve party. Occasionally they help out with needed tasks around the property, such as wood splitting or shoveling snow from the sidewalks.
“The more I got involved, the more I saw and interacted with the guys, the more you get infected with the joy of the place,” Jay said. “It’s clearly the kind of place where everybody wants to be here that’s here. The Amigos aren’t just roommates. They’re brothers.”
It’s important to Jay that his own children grow up knowing his lifelong friend Matt, and the other Amigos.
“I really like the times when I get to come up here and be with the guys,” Jay and Anna’s son, Micah, said, when he stopped by one evening to play UNO. “I’ve seen my siblings love to come here—I have four younger siblings. We started getting together for different stuff: An ice cream social; eating sloppy joes and chili; playing UNO. You can’t get away with cheating with some of them. They’re paying attention.”
“Or, maybe they’re better at cheating than you,” Jay teased Micah.
Jay and Micah Dirkse enjoy Lucky Hat UNO nights with The Amigos, and especially the annual New Year’s Eve party.
In 2012, when Kathy invited Jay to join the Dwelling Place’s board of directors, it seemed a natural way to take his family’s friendship with The Amigos to the next level. Jay believes in the force of joy, gratitude and contentment that The Amigos bring to their community.
Jay, who is a biologist, especially values that The Dwelling Place arranges meaningful and productive work for The Amigos.
“We were created to work, and be productive, and have a job to do. That’s a good thing and a healthy thing,” Jay said. “It’s an essential part of human flourishing and thriving. It was a lot of effort on the part of John and Kathy to get them work lined up and keep them going. I think it was crucial in their lives.”
The Board of Directors, along with Kathy Bangsund and the staff, are on a mission to empower The Amigos to live fully into who they were created to be, and to secure their future as they age. That requires ensuring, over the long-term, The Amigos and Leavenworth are there for each other.
“Leavenworth and the world need the Dwelling Place because it’s just a real, clear outworking of how it’s more blessed to give than to receive,” Jay says. “The first initial impression about The Dwelling Place is that it’s a place you serve and donate. But you get back more than you give in just friendship and joy. The Amigos are just magnetic. It’s not a charity. It’s a brotherhood, and you get welcomed into it in a loving, nonjudgmental way. There’s lots of diversity and lots of love.
“Time spent around them is not a service, it’s a joy,” he continued. “This place and these guys give you a breath of fresh air from the stress of life, and an opportunity to remember what’s really important and precious and valuable. Life: It’s friends, it’s joy, it’s hope. Not all the stuff we tend to get stressed about.
“This place is different, in that it’s distinctly Christ-centered. You can just sense their relationship with God. It’s beautiful.”