breaking bread

One cold windy dark night, two young Oxford students walked down an empty street through an unknown area of town. As they neared the desolate corner, a dark figure stepped out of the shadows and approached them. The shady character introduced himself only as "Wulf", and invited them to get in his car and go to his house for dinner. As soon as they got in the car, it pulled out of town and disappeared into the night, never to be seen again...
[insert scary theme music here]
Sounds creepy, huh?
At our international student orientation the other day, Melody and I stopped by a table where an organization was signing students up to have a meal in the home of a family from a local church. We enthusiastically jumped on board, as I'm sure you can imagine.
So last night we were supposed to meet our hosts in front of Harris Manchester College. The gentleman from the organization was there as well, and introduced us to our host, whose name really was Wulf, and his wife Jane. They took us to their house, which was really cool. They live with nine other people in a community house owned by CMS (something Mission Society) in south Oxford. They are part of an experiment of sorts with the organization to see what it looks like to live in that kind of community. We ate dinner with six of them, including Wulf and Jane, and they were all really normal and kind and fun. They all have different areas of cleaning or household responsibility that they take care of, as well as a cooking rotation, a garden, and a couple chickens. It was really neat, especially because I could see myself wanting to live in some sort of intentional community someday. So yeah, it started off a little surreal, but was not nearly as creepy as it could have been. They gave us their contact information and invited us to come back sometime, so it was a good experience and fun to meet new people in Oxford who aren't students!

"They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts..." Acts 2:46b