A home that has stood for transformation and healing in the lives of thousands of women is now being sold with the hope someone else will purchase it and continue using it for a similar purpose.
The Victorian-style home in Roberts Creek, Linwood House, has been the site of Linwood House Ministries for the past 17 years. Gwen McVicker was drawn to the home because of the chance it presented to begin the organization to help women.
The ministry is vast but centres around the unique opportunity to bring women from the Downtown Eastside to Linwood House where they enjoy the beauty of the home and the grounds, while taking time to pause and reflect on their lives. Well over 1,000 women have been given the opportunity and many have made positive changes as a result.
“I think my whole life I have been involved in women’s issues. I’ve sort of had a passion, I guess,” McVicker said. “One in four women are exploited or abused in the world. Women are the poorest and least educated and yet they are the very people that I think can change our world as they are empowered and become alive.
“So from a very young age, it was always my desire to empower women to be all they could be, and that took me to all sorts of places.”
The passion and a chance meeting with a realtor on the Coast would lead to McVicker and her husband purchasing Linwood House and crafting a women’s ministry that centred on it.
The idea was simple. Expand the home to create lots of space for visitors, decorate it beautifully, keep the grounds lovely and then invite women from the poorest, roughest parts of Vancouver to experience it. Add some willing ministry workers to help women talk, reflect and renew themselves, and Linwood House Ministries was born.
Over the years Linwood House has been a place of help and hope for thousands of women. The space has also been used for group gatherings and retreats for men and women looking for a “sacred space” to occupy.
Although Linwood House Ministries has been a charitable organization funded for years by donations, the house itself has always been owned by the McVickers and the retired couple can no longer sustain the upkeep, physically or financially, on the $2.49 million home.“For about 10 years now, we have been trying to raise funds to get someone to buy the house so it could be owned by the ministry itself, but we haven’t had any luck,” McVicker said.
“I would feel so sad if this oasis didn’t remain as a sort of public place, because it has been very public and it is just a gorgeous piece of property that feels like it’s meant to be saved for the community. I keep planting it out there, but we personally can’t keep going.”
Linwood House was officially put on the market last week and the McVickers have had some potential buyers come by; however, none of them has expressed a desire to use the home for a similar ministry in the future.
“I do think sometimes things are meant for a season,” McVicker said, noting she would be sad to see the ministry end.
“But I want to stay in the place of gratitude because although we’ve been a small work, I think we’ve had a big effect, and I’m thankful for that.”
Linwood House Ministries plans to continue offering experiences for women at the house until the end of June. McVicker asks that the community continues supporting the ministry until that time.
See more at www.linwoodhouse.ca
