🇬🇧 Responses from Belgium and Lithuania (update 02)
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The news arrived this week. From Belgium and Lithuania.
L'Arche in Brussels and L'Arche Betzata in Vilnius have agreed that we should stop by. With all the precautions that the Covid will impose of course. But the European Tour of the L'Arche Communities becomes possible.
It becomes possible thanks to many hands, thanks to the leaders of the communities who look beyond the current prohibitions. We can only be very grateful and it is a great joy for us to receive so many "yes". We are also discovering a culture of travel, exchange and encounters between L'Arche communities. A volunteer here has gone as an assistant there. A permanent staff member in France went to visit the communities in her country of origin with her family. Others meet at each "Archi-Fête". If the Covid is a difficult break for many, we want to bet on these encounters.
Concretely, the itinerary is beginning to become clearer: departure mid-July for Belgium, August in Germany, September in Poland, October in Lithuania, November in Ukraine, December in Spain. Counting 3 weeks per country, we can still meet an additional community. And to make these 7000km, we are looking for a 9-seater mini-bus.
Why a minibus rather than train or plane?
Firstly, so as not to weigh on the communities by remaining mobile on our own. Secondly, to take friends on a trip.
Finally, to transport our stuff without taking our head with maximum luggage quotas.
Finally, we can say that this project is way beyond us.
The director of Josephine's secondary school sees it as an opportunity to test his experiment in collaborative classrooms (yes, the pandemic has made it possible to work outside the classroom) and to establish links with the ULIS in his school (a system for the education of students with disabilities in primary and secondary school).
Sister Danuté, who generously translated the presentation of the project into Lithuanian, invites us to visit her in Kretinga on the shores of the Baltic Sea during our visit to her country.
The Permanent Council of the Community of La Ruisselée (www.arche-laruisselee.org) questioned our project on Saturday morning. Their questions were incredible: Why not take my little brother Olivier on this trip? Why not organize a second tour with residents of La Ruisselée? Is this project part of a Faith approach? Christine and I know intimately that this project will succeed if we manage to remain authentic without trying to hide our vulnerabilities. These are the kind of straightforward questions we will have to learn to answer.
As our children say, we have often had lots of moving or travel "projects" that we have never activated. This one has quietly settled into the daily life of the family.
We can say that "that's it!". The project starts here in Le Mans, with an essential first step: getting to know each member of the Community of La Ruisselée before setting out on the road. We plan to publish soon some portraits, some testimonies and a lot of smiles from here.
See you soon