Today (Tuesday July 12) I woke up dark and early at 5:30 AM in order to get ready and head out to LaGrange Georgia to visit Alterna. I arrived here around 5:00 and met with Anton, his wife Charlotte, and a visitor named Eileen who was here to learn about Alterna because she also works with immigration and was a former member of the Dwell program, which is one of the communities I am trying to meet with in Atlanta. I talked a little bit about Bonhoeffer and the Epworth Project and they shared a little about their communities.
After talking a little while, 3 couples who are part of Alterna came over or dinner. One of the couples lives and works with Alterna while the other two couples are a part of the Mission Year project, which I will be learning more about next week as I visit the Atlanta site of Mission Year. We ate dinner and then sang some songs and had a bible study after dinner. They do their bible study from the lectionary and so tonight they were discussing the parable of the weeds. This parable is a rather difficult one to talk about and to decipher but there was some good fruitful discussion that came from it.
After dinner I went with Anton and the guys from Mission Year to play Ultimate Frisbee with one of the children of the couple who came for dinner. We played for a little while and then Anton walked me back to the house and as we walked back we passed the various houses that are connected to Alterna. I look forward to my tour tomorrow with Anton as he shares with me more about the city and about Alterna. The Alterna model of community is different from Bonhoeffer and some others in that each family has their own house but they all live out community together in various ways such as the community prayers, community meals, etc.
I have only spent 5 hours with Alterna so far so I do not have much to share but I’m sure tomorrow will be a long post. Thank you to Adam Muckleroy to posting this for me. Long story and I will explain tomorrow.
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