Meetings were crucial for learning about the Kingdom. It was the only source of information distribution available. Survivors once they started to recover, they needed to be educated in the ways of the kingdom and helped to deal with grief and what Eben called PTTSD. Post Tribulation Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The ‘meetings’ also became a gathering time to eat and talk as well as to learn.
Each day one or more persons from each of the twelve houses that made up Bethleben came to the meetings. There they would listen or participate, passing on information to their homes. Some would have said gossip, but world of mouth was the common way to pass on news so going to the daily meeting was one of the best ways to keep informed.
It became an oral tradition to send from each house the person who not only could remember best what was taught, but also could keep it short. Everyone knew Eben could get long winded when he started talking about Jesus and the Kingdom.
The twelve separate households or "Houses" collectively made up the community of Beth Eben; House of Eben or Bethleben (bethleben). These houses served as homes for the refugees who lived there.
Each house or home, seemed to represent different personalities and affiliations as people initially gathered together with those they were most familiar with.
Cheaper by the Dozen,
quipped Eben Abram.
He was thinking about how he once had lived in a city of millions. Everyone packed in on top of each other. Human sardines compared to life now. Many people in the old world didn’t have homes, so in apartments you literally lived on top of each other.
Having come from America he knew what a rat race was. Or he thought he did till he found out Rats in the kingdom resented having their lifestyle compared to that of Humanity claiming rats were never that disorganized.
At any rate Eben cringed at the memory of no space and no place to call your own. It was so much better now. Everyone had a home. Each home had fruit trees and vines as well as a small garden growing vegetables. Even animals came to calling if you knew enough to wait and watch for them. Eben did. Trees were often planted and like a movie he once saw, Eben would indeed talk to the trees.
The Community was small. Each community was always started with twelve establishing houses. There could be a family or an individual or a group of people per house. It had varied initially on the Survivors condition when found. Sometimes in the beginning it was by groups of people, but by the time sixty-nine years had passed it was by choice.
People once they began to recover, moved into different homes if they wanted to, but at first, no one did. As though God knew just were and how to prepare a place for them to recover in. A place of refuge. A peaceful house they could remain if they chose to.
The original twelve houses per Refuge City had given way to the houses that now made up each refugee city. The Kingdom had designated Refuge Cities for refugees from the World War’s aftermath. Those Refuge Cities each started with only twelve houses that eventually grew.
The twelve houses were expected to grow. It had been planned to. So Bethleben had grown with children being born till everyone felt certain it was getting close to time to move out of the city.
With the children growing up, and with almost no death at all, it wasn’t long till Bethleben had grown a lot larger than the initial twelve houses that had formed the backbone of the Refuge City of refugees.
Since the End of the World as most knew it, the “family” had been obliterated. Loved ones were lost, very few couples survived the Tribulation, and the last thing on anyone’s mind in the beginning was family. This made for challenges in the early days of the Kingdom, though often many were too shocked to care. A lot of houses formed on social, ethnic or religious affiliations as refugees looked for some semblance of familiarity in their lives.
America House was of those early “home houses” that formed. Like home church’s and home schools, it was a halfway house in many ways. Since so much in the New World was foreign to them, they held to many ‘old traditional ways and names.' For lack of any real continuity the occupants wanted to preserve the “Idea” of America.
There was a rumor a few ex-presidents wound up there. The unofficial rumor was it was a "dead presidents” club, but that would have been stretching it.
It was said those in house voted when it had grown. Of course, instead of a presidency now they had residency. As time had progressed it would have taken an act of congress for any of those of the House of America to give up their name. If there was a congress…
Many had seen their spouses or children die in the World Wide Holocaust. It took time to heal. Took time to adapt to life again. It took years to develop relationships as well as time to forge stronger ties. As families began to form, children were born to the households. As the children grew becoming part of the community it was obvious a great hurdle had been achieved.
Without the Refuge Cities there would not have been time or a place for the Survivors to recover. Eben thought often of the Children of Israel in the First Generation after slavery in Egypt as he helped his community to heal, learn and develop. He had no idea what Moses must have felt, but the next time he saw him, when he wasn’t busy, he was going to ask him.
Of course he would have to take a number and get in line.
He knew one day the community would move out of the “Land that was Promised” to the Children of Israel. Move out into the rest of the One Land Mass, out into the world once called terra firma now simply called; Eretz. Land.
In this the “first stage” of adapting to the new surroundings, Eben felt like a Father. Father to those who were learning that the world that existed before was gone. The world as it was now they needed to learn about. They needed to adapt to it, or it was doubtful they would survive.
As they embraced the new life, Eben Abram who had no children, felt as though he birthed many. Like Abraham his namesake as he saw his Community one day being the birthplace of future nations. He being like a Father to them while they were here. He took his charge quite serious, and were he able to die, he would have laid down his life for them. As it was now, he laid down his freedom for them and served as leader of Bethleben.
Preparing them to fulfill their destiny in the New World.
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