The Long Journey to “Home”

“Consider this your home for the next week,” said Sheilagh McGlynn, PWRDF’s justgeneration.ca (youth) Facilitator this evening to our partners from Tanzania.

Yesterday it took us all day to travel, first by plane from Toronto to Edmonton, then on to Kamloops, and then by road to reach the Sorrento Centre, the Anglican retreat and conference centre on the shores of Shuswap Lake in the central interior of B.C.  And that was after Geoffrey Monjesa and Joyce Mtauka had travelled from Mtwara to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, then on to Amsterdam and finally Toronto; a journey of about 36 hours.  But now, we are home.

Geoffrey, a development officer and Joyce, a farmer from the Anglican Diocese of Masasi in southeastern Tanzania, have come to share their experiences of addressing the food security needs of their communities in dialogue with members of PWRDF’s volunteer networks, interested Anglicans, and food producers from across Canada.  For the second year we will be exploring the interconnections of food in our lives, our communities and the world, and looking at ways we can address the fact that 1 in 9 people in the world go to bed hungry every night.

And we will be doing it all in this place that for Sheilagh and me feels like “home;” a place we have been warmly welcomed back to by staff, colleagues, friends and visitors alike.  The Sorrento Centre describes itself as “a holy place of transformation for learning, healing and belonging.”  The second year of this unique collaboration between PWRDF and the Centre and its farm, promises to offer all of us opportunities for “learning, healing and belonging” as we set out to “share bread” with one another and with the world.