Restoration Abbey Origin Story

In the spring of 2005, I was “enjoying” a Law and Order: Special Victims Unit while my bride to be was celebrating her last few weeks of single life with her friends. While watching episode after episode I was also browsing the Internet for real estate on offer in the US and in Europe. For the first time in my memory of the first 3 seasons of the show, Detectives Stabler and Benson left New York City to hunt down a human trafficking ring selling children to pedophiles near the Czech border to Germany where I grew up. German pedophiles would cross the border to satisfy their urges with underage kids. I was aware of sex tourism from Central European countries to far away places like Thailand but had not known to what extent short distance sex tourism across the open borders in Europe existed.

The episode did a good job discussing the issues of prosecution and helping victims of human trafficking escape their captors and recover from the trauma. My fiancee and I were both attending the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology (then called Mars Hill Graduate School) with a strong focus on the treatment of sexual abuse trauma. My wheels started spinning and right at that time I an unusual real estate offer popped up.

A castle, less than an hour from the border crossing mentioned in the Law & Order episode popped up for a similar price to a house in Seattle’s Greenlake neighborhood. I started thinking about an intentional community with therapists, ministers, artists and software engineers at a European castle with a mission to restore the lives of people traumatized by human trafficking. I later shared the idea with my fiancee and some other friends and while we were not quite ready to move on this, the dream of Restoration Abbey was born.

We visited Germany several times in our first years of marriage and while I was still very excited about buying a castle as a home for this community. On one trip we stayed at a castle for several nights and visited a few more in the surrounding countryside. Eventually, my wife convinced me that steep cliffs, high walls and relative remoteness of many castles maybe did not provide the safest environment for the community, growing families and those we intended to serve.

On the way home, we stopped on a whim at the Abbey of Saint Hildegard . It was nestled in the vineyards near Ruedesheim, Germany and included a shop where art, wine, jams and books created by the inhabitants of the local convent were sold. There were vineyards, fruit orchards and fields that belonged to the abbey and the sisters were very friendly, welcoming and also served the needy in the nearby communities.

Kelli completed her counseling degree, many of our friends worked with survivors of human trafficking, domestic violence and sexual abuse. I joined an incubation non-profit called Seattle against Slavery and switched schools to focus on sustainable business practices and social enterprises. My hope was to develop a business model for an intentional community that can sustain itself financially while providing outlets for everyone’s passions, intimate community and a safe place for people to heal.

We found ways to implement many of the elements of Restoration Abbey even without a single location and have not given up on the dream of living in intentional healing community at some point in our lives.