“You are my sunshine…"

Welcome back friends! 

This is Annie.  Our group had an awesome Thursday!  This was our final morning in the programs.  Molly and I were in the Club which functions as a community center for the Daybreak community.  It was such a fun morning making masks, finishing the celebration around Mardi Gras.  We then had lunch with Father George and a woman named Elizabeth.  She now lives as a hermit on the Daybreak community property.  We all had a very emotional morning taking in all the love and care that this community has shown us.  We sat with Elizabeth at lunch listening to the story of her experience, both living in and starting L’Arche communities.  As we sit here now we are all sharing our experiences of this week with various core members.  Sharing the times and moments when we have experienced both joy and heart ache. 

Last night we all separately went on the journey of cooking dinner for each of our homes.  I am happy to inform you that we all did well!  One of the dinner guests at my home was a man who has been in the L’Arche Daybreak community for many years, since almost the very beginning.  He and another woman in the community played music for us.  Her on the piano, and he played the spoons.  I was so moved by this experience.  Sitting there listening to “You are my sunshine” and the rhythm of the spoons I realized how special this experience was, it contained the feelings of both comfort and fun, it felt like home.  Here was one of the many times this week when I have seen the home that L’Arche is.  This feeling of home is something that is so present in all the L’Arche communities.  We have been with the Hamilton and the Richmond Hill communities and will be going to Toronto tonight.  In all of our experiences throughout this week I have recognized this need for home that is in all of us.  As we are getting to the end of this week my hope for myself and all of us is that we take that need for home, recognize it in ourselves, and become people who offer that experience to every person we meet from here on out.