Lessons From My First Year

28 Feb Lessons From My First Year

by Meagan Madsen

“New Hope was like our school. It’s where we learned how to trust again and how to treat people again. Because of this community, we learned how to feel safe again.”

These words and feelings came from one of our resident families during their last few days at New Hope before they transitioned into more permanent housing. As someone who began my time at New Hope as a practicum student, I deeply understood what it meant to learn and grow in this space. Most days I am convinced that during this past year at New Hope, I have been taught and understood more about humanity than my university degree could ever teach me.

I’ve watched the stumbling feet of children learning to walk and have begun to grasp what it means to fall; to grapple with the idea that life is wobbly and uncertain but that we would never learn determination and resiliency without feeling our knees hit the ground.

I’ve seen children turning from fear to freedom as they connect with new friends and learned that those pains of falling are best partnered with hands that come along to help us back up. As much as we need hands that feed the hungry and help the sick, we also need hands that build lego cars to ride on tracks made of empty carpet rolls. We need wooden block towers that stand as tall as the ceiling and blanket forts that double as both a playground and a therapy room where children learn to be children again.

I’ve seen mothers sharing the gift of language and been amazed by the beauty of Spanish women learning Farsi words so that they can welcome the Afghan children home from school. Every week I watch them bonding over the growth of their families as new babies are welcomed in; celebrating being able to properly pronounce every vegetable in the English lesson, and laughing over spilled tea and soggy popcorn. It really doesn’t matter what language they speak or what country they’re from because in the end they are the same; they are mothers providing love and care for their ever growing families while also doing the work of healing themselves.

I’ve watched men who are trained technicians, analysts, and tradesmen, grow in strength and humility as they learn English alongside their 10 year old children by doing homework at the kitchen table. I’ve seen fathers struggle with not being able to work in Canada, despite their abounding skill and potential, provide for their family in new and expansive ways by teaching them by example to be rich in kindness and generous in service.

My time at New Hope has taught me a lot of things. It has taught me to put compassion before judgment, to listen before I speak, and to toss aside the scales of comparison knowing that sacrificing my own comfort will always be worth the risk. Community is nothing without mutuality and at the heart of this place, we grow, and heal, and celebrate together. My life-long hope is that as we make room in our hearts, we also make room in our homes, at our tables, in our classrooms, on our church pews. I want to live a life of perpetual invitation; one that comforts the foreigner as much as the friend and says “you are always welcome here.”