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Community

Brenda Sandquist

We are intrinsically designed to be in community, created to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. No one likes to be alone, we all crave love, acceptance, and to be seen and valued.


Recent years emphasized the need for community as the tragic result of the required isolation coupled with fear, caused extreme depression as well as allow opportunities for severe abuse to emerge untamed. Loneliness and a feeling of brokenness is painful especially without a community to surround you. Loneliness gives way to a feeling of hopelessness.


Community is coming together with respect, honesty, integrity, and accountability wrapping each member with love and acceptance in a safe environment to survive. A path with linked arms that commit to having the best intentions for your wellbeing. Community cannot be accomplished in isolation; it thrives on walking together for the good of each other as equal partners on a path for freedom. At any given time in community someone may need your experience to help them grow, your encouragement to see you walk out with integrity and accountability a circumstance that might be difficult but your example of doing the right thing changes the trajectory of a life that needed to see that modeled. Community is family, and when your own family has been painful, we must embrace a new family experience that will need trusting moments and unconditional love. In Psalms 68:6, it says “God places the lonely in families; he set the prisoners free and gives them joy.” What a beautiful description of a healthy community!


Community is our responsibility and one we place as a high priority at Xquisite. We love and accept each “diamond” that trusts us enough to allow us into their story. It is our highest commitment to let them feel a part of family, unconditionally loved while allowing them to navigate the next steps away from isolation and a feeling of intimate terrorism, and experience life with someone who truly cares about their freedom and championing their joy.


Recently, I was honored with an award of “Community” by Pastor Bret Allen, a man who exhibits the utmost honor and respect for his community, a community of champions from the Northern California Nevada District of the Assemblies of God. To be acknowledged for making a difference in my community by these amazing leaders, caused my heart to be even more determined to the cause of community within the “diamonds” we serve and the Northern Nevada communities that need to become very aware of the real atrocities of sexual exploitation, sex trafficking and family violence in their own neighborhoods.


The verse inscribed on this award is from Romans 12:10, which says, “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” This is the heartbeat that I choose to exhibit for the beautiful people I get to do life with.


The heartbeat of community must be inclusive and authentic. There are so many friends who need to no longer feel isolated and alone, broken, and hopeless, and begin to experience the love of family. We need community. We need you to be a part of our

community to love someone, right where they are, in the middle of their circumstance, sitting next to them and say together we will navigate you to family, to hope, to love, and acceptance. The Xquisite community will commit to living authentically while doing our best to honor one another, striving for accountability, integrity, honesty, and respect. The heartbeat of a community that honors another above themselves, will be the catalyst to transform our cities, and our state. Nevada has had a reputation for exploitation, we can turn that reputation to transformation, honor, and hope within an empowering community.

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