Jubilee

Wednesday night after finishing up my time at Alterna I headed to Comer GA to visit Jubilee. I arrived around 9:00 that evening and talked with a few of the people there before going to bed to rest up for the next day.


On Thursday morning I woke up early, ate some breakfast and then headed out to pick blueberries!











At Jubilee they grow a lot of fruits and vegetables but blueberries are their main crop and I came at the right time to be able to go out and pick some. They also have cows, chickens, rabbits and a large pond open to the public for fishing. They try to be as sustainable as they can but they still go in to town to buy some things that they do not make or grow themselves. Many of their fruits and vegetables were used for their meals and I have to say it was all quite delicious. It made me really wish that we had more land at Bonhoeffer so that we could have a garden but hopefully we can use one of the community gardens in Dallas.

After picking some blueberries, Carolyn, one of the co-founders of Jubilee, took me on a tour. She told me the history of Jubilee and that is started as a branch off from Koinonia Farm because Koinonia was getting rather large and so some of the partners decided to go searching for another place to expand a similar ministry. They eventually stumbled upon some land that a dairy farmer was selling and thus began Jubilee partners. They started living in tents on the grounds and started building houses. One of the first buildings was the Koinonia house which is where volunteers and visitors stay and where the dining hall is located.

They were unsure of the identity that Jubilee Partners would take on until one day there was an article in the newspaper about refugee camps across the world and that there were various organizations in the US that would take in refugees and help them transition to a new life. They prayed about it and then contacted Atlanta Refugee Services and soon received their first guests (about 40 Cuban refugees). Since the first group of guests, Jubilee has received people from Cuba, Nicaragua, Burundi, Vietnam, Colombia, Burma, and many other countries. They stay for usually about two months to learn English and slowly transition into American lifestyle. As you can imagine, to come from a refugee camp to downtown Atlanta would be a major culture shock, but by living at Jubilee and having farming, animals, and a peaceful surrounding with loving neighbors helps them to transition.

In addition to the refugee guests, Jubilee also has about 12 volunteers at any given time. Some stay for a season while others may stay for a whole year or even longer. The rest of the people at Jubilee are Partners. There are the original founding Partners and then they welcome other partners through a novitiate process in which the person starts as a volunteer for a period of a year and then after that time they become a novice and begin having regular meetings with the partners to see if they feel called to be a partner and if the partners also sense this person would make a good partner. The partners do not have to make any certain commitment like to stay there for life because they acknowledge that things can change and God can call them to something new.

Although I do not see myself living in or starting a community like Jubilee, I admire the community and can take a lot from them like their simplicity and radical hospitality. Yesterday, right before I left, they had a send off for one of the families. The family had been their for two months and they were moving to Atlanta. It was a tearful goodbye for many which reflected the love that they all had for one another. Even though they had only known each other for a short while, they had grown to feel for one another and love one another.

Peace,

Brandon

Hospitality is our Ministry not our Industry

On Wednesday Jonathan and I spoke with Anton from Alterna and they have graciously offered to welcome us on the days that we had planned (July 12 and 13). When we asked to make sure they would be willing to house us without any expected cost or donation (part of our trip is that we want to be entirely dependent on the hospitality of others) he said "hospitality is our ministry not our industry". This is the kind of places we're looking for! We had a wonderful conversation over the phone and were able to share a little about Bonhoeffer, the Epworth Project, and our summer trip with him and he shared a little bit about Alterna with us. From what I learned from that conversation and from reading about the community on their website I can tell that the Spirit is at work in full force there. They have many ministries but they all are working towards the purpose of "Christian missional living, welcoming the stranger and offering hospitality to Jesus who often visits (them) as an unauthorized immigrant from Latin America". I encourage you to check out their website and maybe even see how you might be able to help them and/or visit them.

Anton, his family, and the Alterna community practice radical hospitality and work towards rights for Latin immigrants. They do so through living in relation with immigrants, advocating for them in court cases, visiting those in prison, fighting to get those who are in prison out of prison, work towards changing unjust laws and passing just laws, training and teaching others, and much more but most importantly finding ways to do all of this in Christian Love. In any form of ministry it is important that you look at everyone as a brother and sister in Christ. Immigrants are not merely immigrants but they are humans and they our are brothers and sisters just as here at Bonhoeffer we make sure that "the homeless" are not merely "the homeless" but living breathing humans who are our brothers and sisters and it is out of privilege not obligation that we get to help them and in return they too help us.

Here is a video that shows a little about what they work towards.



We found out that the two days that Jonathan and I will be there are quite possibly the best 2 days that we could visit. It was not intentional but just seemed to work out. On the night we get there they will be having a community meal followed by a bible study and the next morning they will be having community prayer and scripture reading. Anton told us that Tuesday and Wednesday really are the 2 best days to see the community and the Spirit at work.

In addition to learning about their community and sharing about ours, Anton also put us in contact with  a few other places close to Alterna and close to Atlanta. One of the places we already plan on visiting, Mission Year, actually sends their married couples to Alterna as a joint project. Because of this, Anton gave us a few names to contact and now Jonathan and I have another phone conversation with Caz Tod on Tuesday Morning.

This trip is really falling into place and we are grateful for the hospitality each community is offering us. We can't wait to see what God has in store for this experience.

Peace,

Brandon