LEARNING FROM KIM

I love this story from a La Arche community member:

"I learn a lot from Kim"

I learn a lot from Kim, whom I live with at L'Arche. When Kim was wished a Happy 41st Birthday she responded, nonchalantly, saying, "Thanks. I don’t look it." In that moment she ministered to me, teaching me what it means to be free, to be young in spirit, to tell your own story, to resist society's expectations of what it means to be a certain age or fit in a certain category. I was also touched when Kim announced her first home was here at L'Arche in Richmond Hill, her second home was in Markham (her family home) and, quite proudly, "My third home is in heaven." Although we couldn't help laughing about the mortgage on that third home, I realized a deeper theological truth--that she wasn't seeing past, present and future, but was truly living out God's vision, seeing beyond set time lines and seeing the bigger picture. When Kim was cutting tomatoes for dinner, rolling her eyes she exclaimed, "Ha! And, they thought I was handicapped!" She then went on to say how she's been proving people wrong and learning new things all along. In that moment, I realized that I too had bought into a hierarchy of people, that I had been competing and that I had been buying into "us and them" boundaries--none of which are part of true community.

Janna Payne, L'Arche Daybreak