We cannot speak of “call’ without hearing the word “listen’ and feeling a “response” within. “Look, I am standing at the door, knocking. If one of you hears me calling and opens the door…” (Rev.3:20)

When we are sent to a milieu it is because there is a need, a call. This could come through the mail , a Volunteer Centre, the area itself. If we answer the call we are committed for the year with set days and time table from which we cannot escape.

Here we are talking about a responsible volunteer service within the fixed activities such as:

. a travelling canteen,
. mail for the children in primary school,
. lessons to teach knitting, sewing, weaving, decorating.

It is these times of extraordinary encounters that enable us to know these persons and to live in solidarity with the people. We become aware that, together, we serve many people in our area who really need it.

Then there are the little daily calls: those that life presents to us and disrupt our time table:
– The phone calls: to help a woman who cannot get up this morning and who asks us to go to let her companion, a little dog, out to do its business.
– Another who asks for help to get out of the bathtub where she is prisoner because of her physical limitations.
– Another who is confused about her medications.
– Another who needs help to get groceries.
– Another who cannot remake her bed by herself when she changes sheets.

– Another who asks to write a letter for her or to make cheques to pay bills.

And what about all the people who knock at our door at any time:
– For morning coffee … to talk about a situation.
– To help with knitting or craftwork.
– To help with knitting or craftwork.
– To announce one’s departure for a Seniors’ Centre.
– To lessen the weight of a death through sharing.
– To borrow the newspaper.

– Children who go around selling chocolates for school activities.

And there are so many suffering from loneliness! As we give time to render these little services we become aware of the relief these people experience. Little services, source of joy for the beneficiaries and for myself. An insertion with the color of the ‘people’ and with a taste of the ‘gospel’.

To remain attentive throughout the days is a way of carrying together the concern of the call and through this to make life more and more human in our milieu. And, without our knowing it, other people take up the cause!

Sr Michelle Tourigny, Champlain (Vice-province Trois-Rivières, Canada)