Hope That Learns to Wait

Reflection

Over the past four weeks, something has been forming at Jutland Village.

I didn’t arrive with a plan. I visited a friend who lives there, and he showed me around. We walked through the housing block together and ended up in the new community room.

It was alive.

People were playing games. The fridge was in use. There was tea and coffee, a meeting area, conversation, movement. Not an event — just a place being used. A place beginning to hold people.

I thought about how different this felt from a year ago.

Back then, I tried dropping bread here. It didn’t land. A small group of men dominated the space at the time and refused it. I left thinking maybe this wasn’t the right place, or the right moment.

I expected the same resistance now.

Instead, the formation had changed. The group was mixed. More women. More organisation. Clearer leadership. People knew each other’s names. They were already sharing.

I introduced food drop-offs through Hobart Food Outreach — quietly, without emphasis. Not as a takeover. Just as support. I wasn’t sure it would be welcomed.

It was.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve watched people step into roles. One woman I recognised from years ago, when I volunteered at the Salvos. Back then, she was already a steady presence — someone others trusted. That experience shows now. She asked for my number. I gave it to her, and only her. Not to centralise things, but to empower her to coordinate in her own way.

Jo has emerged as a leader. Others are key in quieter ways. I’m meeting them slowly, letting the shape of the group reveal itself rather than naming it too quickly.

I stay in touch with Glen, who sources the food. I tell him what’s happening — not in metrics, but in stories. About how the food is being divided evenly. About door-knocking. About how people are choosing to share rather than compete.

Hope, here, hasn’t been dramatic.

It hasn’t arrived with certainty.

It has required waiting. Watching. Trusting that community forms when it’s ready — not when it’s pushed.

Doubt still sits alongside it.

But now it feels like the kind of doubt that keeps hope careful, rather than fragile.

More reflections about hope and doubt:

• Walking With a Story
• Hope That Learns to Wait
• Borrowing the Street Back
• When Hope Stops Working the Way It Used To
• The Quiet Weight of Words