A Window Into Community Life

Featured at seekingcommunity.ca on Feb. 24, 2012 as Part 2 of a 3-part series on my trip to Jubilee

My time at Jubilee has been incredible so far. The Partners have so generously welcomed us into almost all aspects of their shared lives. In this blog post, I’ll give you a glimpse into life at this long-standing intentional Christian service community.  

An important part of community life is shared meals.  Twice a day, the bell rings and invites everyone in from the fields and forest for delicious lunches and suppers in the Koinonia House.  Before lunch, there is always a time of worship, which includes scripture reading, reflection, prayer, and group singing.  I have been impressed by the way that people of all ages and cultures are involved in these worship services.  On the first day, a 5-year-old led a song in his native Karen, and the community songbook is filled with songs in many languages.  After worship, lunch is served.  The community’s food ethics are evident in the meals.  As much food as possible is grown at Jubilee (the rest is purchased or donated by the food bank), meat is only served on Sundays, and dessert is only offered twice a week.  The meals are all very satisfying and healthy, especially when accompanied by great conversation.  And everyone, no matter their status in the community, shares in meal preparation and clean-up.  Many hands make light work!

This is also true for the chores that fill the working hours of the day.  Everyone, even visitors, take part in the work.  Although the daily schedule is fairly routine, tasks vary from day to day, keeping things relatively interesting.  As university students who rarely get the chance to detach ourselves from computers, we are thankful to take part in outdoor jobs, such as mulching, chopping wood, and harvesting food.  My favourite job so far has been helping out with the ESL classes for refugees.  I took part in the intermediate class on Tuesday and pretended to be a new neighbour to the 5 Karen women in the class, so that they could practice English phrases for inviting people over, giving people directions, and initiating small talk.  The spirit of hospitality was even present in this class, as one of the women actually invited me over to her house afterward, even though I was a complete stranger to her.  In everything we do at Jubilee, relationship-building seems to be just as important as the task at hand, and there is always room for meaningful conversation.  And while everyone shares in the less-glamourous tasks like cleaning, everyone seems to be able to focus their time on jobs that they find meaningful and interesting, like working in the garden, caring for refugees, or doing pastoral work.  Because of this, and because all of the work is clearly essential to the service work and daily functioning of the community, everyone seems to have a strong sense of purpose and motivation.  While work is casual, no one looks over each other’s shoulders, an incredible amount is accomplished and people feel very satisfied at the end of each day.  

My experiences of community life at Jubilee have been very positive so far, and I look forward to writing more about the community’s work and philosophy in a later post.  Needless to say, the trip has been very impactful so far, and is inspiring many thoughts and ideas around communal living.