How is it possible that we are more than willing to open our home to discarded cats, while hundreds of humans live on the street, women are battered, and children are in fear their own homes?I feel sick that we live comfortable little lives, in our comfortable apartment, and not really willing to *really share* with those who need it. We share, sure, from afar. But we aren't willing to get as 'inconvenienced' with humans as we are with kittens.
Feeling this conviction, Tom and I have looked into refugee and immigration programs that hook up people new to Canada to those that can offer a short-term place to stay. To our amazement, there are no any such programs in Montreal.
We've gone to an information session on foster care (for actual children, not cats) and learned about the process and entailment of being foster parents, but considering we were leaving within 6 months at the time, we were on no real use to them either.
So we've continued taking in cats.
But now I've been reminded that God prepares you for things to come. He lays passions on your heart before you know why.
And sometimes, you don't need to go looking for opportunities... One may just knock on your door.
3 comments:
It's wonderful that you are so open to getting involved with your community. I used to volunteer with a group who would help new refugees and immigrants to winnipeg. Generally they like to get them settled right away into a new home of their own(they had small private apartment that they would rent out for short stay, as opposed to volunteer home stays) and then volunteers would be around to help them shop for gorceries, show them how to use a bank, life skills stuff. http://www.miic.ca/
maybe something like the united way or other volunteer oraganizations would have something similar that you could do even for the next few months. Also, depending how involved your church is with refugees and sponsorship, there is alot of need with sponsoring new families and also getting them settled. Perhaps that's an option.
Thanks for the heads up.
How did you find the volunteer experience to be?
it was pretty good, interesting and even though i went into it trying to be all 'helpful',i came away with a better understanding of the realities of settling into a new country and how frightning that must be to have to relean EVERYTHING...how to shop, read, take a bus etc....it was pretty interesting....while always keeping in mind that this isnt just some 12-4 volunteer experience, but a family's life..and after i would go home they would still be figuring things out...
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