Life Happens, Coffee Helps

Hi there, Alli here! Happy Wednesday from your favorite Hamilton Crew. At this point in the week, we seem to have been lovingly nicknamed "The Gannon Girls" by our friends in the L'Arche homes.

We spent our day at the L'Arche Hamilton Day Program, just a short walk from our home. The Day Program facility has a craft room, kitchen, and seating area. After getting a tour of the facility, Core Members began to arrive for the day. We were happy to see many new faces, as well as faces of those we've come to know and love. We helped Core Members with various craft activities such as candle making and coloring. Sister Carmen even taught a group how to make knotted rosary bracelets! The staff made a delicious pasta lunch for everyone as part of their Community Lunch that takes place each month. Many of the Core Members were most excited for the Music Therapy session that takes place at the end of each Wednesday. We were lucky to witness some phenomenal singing and performing skills!

After a short break this afternoon, we split off to our respective houses for dinner. This has personally been one of the most life-giving experiences thus far - not only are we welcomed into the separate homes, but the L'Arche Assistants cook beautiful meals to share and invite us into prayer, mealtime, and community with them each night. They answer all of our questions and have helped us learn so much in our short visits. The Core Members have seamlessly integrated us into their evening activities, like watching the Olympics, learning to knit, singing along to Ed Sheeran songs, and birthday celebrations.

Tonight, we were blessed to join the weekly prayer service where many Core Members and Assistants from the various L'Arche Hamilton homes come together in a prayer space to praise God with each other. During the service, Fr. George led a meditation that helped us to all consider how much we are loved by God for the unique and gifted individuals we are. There was an opportunity for us all to share our prayer intentions to be lifted up by the entire group. During this time, we came together to pray as one. What a blessing it was to hear the prayers from the hearts of those we are coming to know this week. I was especially struck by one Core Member when he began using sign language to express his prayers. An Assistant from the house was gracious enough to articulate his prayers aloud for us all to hear. We also were lucky to witness the community blessing upon an Assistant on her last day of work with L'Arche. There was such beauty and love in this room tonight, and I know we will all cherish the memory of being welcomed in this space for years to come. To share a piece of this beauty, I wanted to give you the lyrics to one of the songs we sang together, by Shaina Noll:

How could anyone ever tell you

You were anything less than beautiful? 

How could anyone ever tell you

You were less than whole?

How could anyone fail to notice

That your loving is a miracle?

How deeply you're connected 

To my soul.

Thank you for reading along our Wednesday journey, and be sure to check back with us to hear about our last two days with L'Arche Hamilton! 

- Alli