Scripture reference:  1 Corinthians 12: 14 - 26

Soon after I started working with Supportive Care Services, in the early 1980's when it was part of MCC BC, I was inspired by the work of the Woodlands Parents Group. A small, soft-spoken woman with a very clear and single-minded goal, Josephine Dickey, led this group of people. 

Josephine (Jo) fought for many years to close the Woodlands Institution in New Westminster; her son was in this institution and she didn't like what she saw. This was a very large facility in which there were hundreds of people – at one time up to 1600 – with mental handicaps (or as we now call them: people with developmental disabilities); orphaned children, or children who had been abandoned by their parents or caregivers.

The dream of this parent group was to create an alternative to the institution for their children. It was to establish community-based homes with a family environment for their sons and daughters. Jo, as her friends called her, focused her energy, political skills and moral suasion to create a better environment for her son. In so doing she led these parents. Their passion and focus finally convinced the government of this province to be the first in Canada to close all its institutions for people with developmental disabilities.

Several years ago, I was invited to a party in honour of Jo's work. In response to the many tributes that were bestowed on her, this small woman stood up and looking around the large people-filled room, said that one of the greatest gifts her son had given her through his disability was the calling together of so many wonderful friends. She acknowledged that most of the people in the room were people she probably would not have had the privilege of meeting had it not been for her son. They included parents like herself, their sons and daughters, caregivers, professionals, advocates, and just lots of wonderful people who had so enriched her life.

In our own organization, now called Communitas, we can look back to our roots in the Mennonite community, specifically in the Fraser Valley. Several parents, back in the 60's and 70's were also counseled to send their sons and daughters with a disability to the Woodlands institution. Perhaps they did not realize it, but, in their resistance – perhaps in sensing God’s guidance and in listening to their heart, they were at the leading edge of a growing liberation movement for people with disabilities. It was eventually to be called the Community Living Movement.  

Parents' dreams and ideals for their sons and daughters were that they could experience a caring community in a home atmosphere. The environment, they dreamed, was one of loving support by care giving staff, who nurtured the spiritual values that were part of what their sons and daughters had grown up with. With the support of MCC, a program was started in the early 1970’s.

After a very courageous beginning, with house parents coordinating two group homes, Cedars in Rosedale and Twin Firs in Abbotsford, a great deal of experience was gained. For one thing, more staff were needed. The houseparents simply could not keep up with the requirements of 10 to 12 individuals, each with various caregiving needs. However with the experience gained, and with the support of the churches and larger community and a growing reputation with government funders, we were ready when the opportunity came in the 80's.

We could then respond to the government's request to begin to develop community-based homes. It was suddenly becoming increasingly unpopular to continue with institutional care. Using the principles of Normalization, the values of Jean Vanier's L'Arche communities and our own learning from the people we were supporting, we were able to respond to the process of closure of the institutions over the next 15 years. For much of this time we opened up one or two houses every year.

Additionally, we learned that we could apply our growing knowledge of care giving to other areas of needs; we began to support individuals dealing with mental health issues, brain injuries, FASD, as well as in our work with seniors. Our emphasis and our admitted bias is always to try to work in as non-institutional way as possible. For example, while we believe that small four-person group homes are a much better alternative to the large institutions, we have also moved many individuals out of group homes into loving family situations, in a kind of foster care arrangement.

We have also learned that while it is fundamental to provide good care in a safe and loving environment, there is more that is needed. To give full value to people, we learned to respond to their whole person. We learned that for most people it is their heart's desire to make a contribution to their community, to their families, to their environment. Many of us have an opportunity to make a contribution through our places of work.

And so we endeavor to find work and activity that is meaningful, that contributes to society and provides skill development. Instead of thinking of a person as disabled, for example, like a car that doesn't work, we ask, what are the individual's deepest wishes and desires. A bigger picture often emerges and we begin to recognize that this person, created in the image of God has a contribution to make. What is it, we ask? And so we engage in life planning and to dream and to support people in their endeavors. We have learned that all of us, while having unique personalities, giftedness, etc., are very similar in many aspects. We all experience those aspects of relationships such as joy, loneliness, longing, suffering, delight, sexuality, etc. All these things we share and are part of everyone's God-given humanity.

We are also called to listen in ways that go beyond normal chitchat.

Emily, through a rare disease, has lost her capacity to communicate in a normal fashion. She has, however, with some assistance from her father, shared the following in our recent newsletter, The Focus (Spring 2009). She has expressed an idea to write a story using only a few words, showing how to choose and how to use them. She says her first words would probably be, "Be quiet." She says, "It is so difficult for communication to happen if there are more speakers than listeners, and it is hard to listen well if there is too much speaking. Listening is as important as speaking; without listening, you have only speaking, and no communication…in listening I connect to you, the speaker. I open my ears and my heart to you. I am willing to share what I know, what I see, what I think, what I feel and what I believe. You honour me by sharing, and I honour you by respecting and embracing what you share. The giving and receiving of ourselves, I believe, is the most valuable gift there is to give."

Another person, who has some mental health issues, has an unusual capacity to understand and conceptualize. One day, he expressed the following to his support worker, Peter Kent, who wrote up an account of this in our newsletter. This person said, "Peter, I don't believe in the way language portrays people. I don't believe people are nouns, like Man or Woman, Christian or Buddhist, schizophrenic or psychotic. I believe people are verbs: active and changing all the time." His point was that labels reinforce stereotypical views that we have of people.

By focusing on the possibility of change, of new life, of hope, people often prove that they can transcend labels and they reveal how each individual is dynamic and unique, no matter what gender, religion or psychiatric diagnosis they have. Peter goes on to say, "Just think of how much progress and hope could prevail in an environment where people are not viewed as 'nouns' but as 'verbs.' Living as actors, in control of their own destiny and contributing to the community."

Those who live with mental illness are given ample media attention, newspapers often tell stories of murder and mayhem. Our goal is to transform attitudes through practice, to strive towards an era where the front page of the newspaper tells stories of mental illness as a path of struggle, hope, success and celebration. If we all take the time to develop personal relationships with those living with a mental illness, we will naturally learn to unlearn the myths so prevalent in our society.

In the creation of community, we are called to partnership. Just as we as individuals are weak and powerless and need other people’s gifts to assist and to enrich our lives, we too as an organization are limited in our capacity to respond. We need the support of many people. We could not do this work without the tremendous support of our government, without contributors such as yourselves, without other organizations, such as medical institutions, universities, service clubs, churches, etc.

For many of the people we support, societal attitudes, not the disability of the person, are the biggest challenge. But I see many things changing. I have been amazed at the interest of young people who are working with us, in making a career, in spending a lifetime in this work. It seems that many of them do not have the same attitudes toward people with disabilities as my generation did. Increasingly we are arranging for student practicums with Trinity Western University, Columbia Bible College and the University of Fraser Valley.

Recently, I have had meetings with UFV, exploring the possibility of the students in their social work department providing more practicum placements in the various programs of Communitas. There is great interest in this from the part of the University as well as from Communitas.

Earlier this month, I spent a week with Otto and Florence Driedger as well as guests from Ukraine representing an organization that we have entered into a partnering relationship, the Florence Centre.

This community development agency was featured at our last year's fundraiser when we were privileged to hear Dr. Lucy Romanenkova share her vision and passion about this exciting work. Lucy is a professor of Social Work at the University of Zaporizhzhye, and is also the director of this organization. She very resourcefully has the students do their social work practicums through the Florence Centre. While the Centre is not known as a "Christian" organization, Lucy's newfound Christian faith provides a solid ideological basis and gives her the strength to address some very difficult situations as she and her students work with families experiencing some extremely complex needs.

Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the fundraising event with Lucy last year. A couple of days before the event, our youngest daughter Becky lost her partner, through his unexpected death of a heart condition. Vange, my wife, was with Becky a couple of weeks ago as May 6th was the anniversary of Shaun's death. Both Becky and Shaun intentionally became involved in one of the poorest communities in Winnipeg, sharing their lives and living amidst both the beauty and poverty of the area. They moved there, Becky insists, not because they had any altruistic ideals; they moved there because they were poor and didn't have many options as to location. But a dream began to emerge as they met the people of the community.

They decided they did not want to change people, but to accept them without judgment; they did not to point to their deficiencies and hopelessness, but to express empathy to them in their crisis and traumas and histories. While Becky continues in her grief, I am convinced that her deep wound, her deep loss, will be the source of healing and wholeness and understanding for those around her.  She will continue her work as a wounded healer. And, in turn, the community as it has been there is the past, will continue to be there for her in the future. And so the dream that so many people share, that of working for peace and the common good of humankind, will continue.

In the book of Isaiah we read of the coming Messiah that "he was despised and rejected…a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Many of the people we work with in Communitas know, by their own personal experience, something of what our Messiah went through. They know the experience of being despised, rejected, of having people hide their faces rather than to look at them with gentle, accepting and non-judgmental eyes.

Jean Vanier, in his book, Becoming Human, asks, "Can we reasonably have a dream, like Martin Luther King, of a world where people, whatever their race, religion, culture, abilities, or disabilities, whatever their education or economic situation, whatever their age or gender, can find a place and reveal their gifts? Can we hope for a society whose metaphor is not a pyramid but a body, and where each of us is a vital part in the harmony and function of the whole?

"I believe we can, because I believe that the aspiration for peace, communion, and universal love is greater and deeper in people than the need to win in the competition of life. But for this aspiration to become a real desire that inspires our activities, in order for it to break through our fears and the need to win, each one of us has to make a leap into trust: trust in the sacredness of every human heart, trust in the beauty of the universe, trust that in working for peace and unity, and in purging our false self, we will find a treasure."

Grace, one of my friends with a mental illness, says that she often goes to church but she doesn't like to stand in the foyer before or after the service. She says she sees and hears people talking with each other, inviting each other over to their house for lunch or to a restaurant but she says, "no one invites me." What is Grace saying to me when she tells me this? One thing, I think is that in her loneliness, she is calling together community. But do we have ears to hear?

This is the lesson that Jo Dickey learned, and that many of us are in the process of learning. It is simply that one of the greatest gifts of people with a disability is that in their weakness, in their disability, in their loneliness they are calling together community. They are calling us together to become a family, to become a body, to engage in relationship.

The apostle Paul, in talking about people with varying abilities, says that the greater honour is to be given to the weaker member. Our culture has a history of giving the greater honour to the stronger member, to the one who accomplishes, who is efficient, who demonstrates skill and intelligence. Where does that leave those who do not have this capacity?

When we changed our name to Communitas, we wanted to find a name that would somehow reflect that and so we did a lot of work, a lot of discerning. We came up with Communitas Supportive Care Society. Communitas is a Latin noun, a word used in anthropology to signify a deep sense of community, experienced by certain groups or tribes. It is a name with deep meaning and we think it will serve us well into the future. To experience communitas is to become aware of an intense community spirit, a spirit of great social equality, solidarity and togetherness. But to get to that point, the point of communitas, we must experience a rite of passage – a conversion, if you will. We must enter through a door of humility, of weakness, of recognition of our own disability. To get to that place of communitas, we are called to recognize our own weakness. We are called to accept as sisters and brothers those whom we serve. For it is in weakness, says the Apostle Paul, that there is strength.

Steve Thiessen, CEO

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