“The Pantry” is the name of the community food bank operated by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the basement of the old rectory at St. Teresa’s Parish in St. John’s. It is a busy place, where volunteers prepare food hampers through which individuals and families in need our nourished in body, as well as in spirit.

A few years ago, the Adult Faith Formation Team started a “Listening Post” to augment the services offered by the society of St. Vincent de Paul. As they wait for their hamper to be brought to them, people are offered a hot cup of coffee, a snack, and a listening ear. There are many ways to warm a human heart, and “The Listening Post” has become a Redemptorist (RAFFT) outreach where people can come and be heard without judgment, without prejudice and with compassion and patience.

A few years ago, the Adult Faith Formation Team started a “Listening Post” to augment the services offered by the society of St. Vincent de Paul. As they wait for their hamper to be brought to them, people are offered a hot cup of coffee, a snack, and a listening ear. There are many ways to warm a human heart, and “The Listening Post” has become a Redemptorist (RAFFT) outreach where people can come and be heard without judgment, without prejudice and with compassion and patience.

Most often, the stories that we hear at “The Listening Post” revolve around the struggle for human dignity that is the cry of the human heart when faced with poverty. Parents tell us of their struggles to raise children in the face of insufficient resources. Couples talk about the strain that poverty places on relationships. Adult men and women tell us about their struggles in navigating the social safety net. Volunteers who deliver food hampers to the elderly and housebound tell us of senior citizens who struggle to remain in their homes, keeping one room, warm, and finding difficulty accessing sufficient food or support.

The number of new Canadians, who are forced to access food banks and other similar services as they navigate their way into life in a new place, often with a new language and always with new customs, is sobering and often heartbreaking.

A couple of weeks ago, I met this reality head-on. The minute, I opened the door to The Pantry, I could hear the wailing, loud, incessant and piercing. It was immediately obvious that the woman in front of me was not speaking English, and it was difficult to figure out what was going on. The volunteers had already tried to calm her, to no avail. In her hand, she waved a piece of paper, on which was printed the names and addresses of all the food banks in the city of St. John’s. The name of our food bank had been highlighted for her, but it was clear from her identification that she lived outside our service area. She continued to wail, and to strike her face and upper body in desperation. Sometimes, she slumped to the floor, and only arose with difficulty, leaning on a cane.

The volunteers were at a complete loss to know what to do. I tried to figure out where she was from, so that I could at least know what language might speak to her heart. She understood my question, though her grasp of English was not good, and eventually, I understood her response. Her name was Liele. She was from Afghanistan, and had been in Canada since October.

Armed with that information, I sat her down on a chair, dried her tears, offered her a cup of coffee, and phoned the Association for New Canadians. The person who took my call and heard my story spoke Arabic! I was able to put him on speakerphone and he translated for me and for Leile. Slowly, she began to calm down. The crying stopped. Her hitting of herself stopped. And a story began to emerge with the help of an iPhone and a wonderful interpreter named Mustafa.

Leile had been a dance teacher in Afghanistan. With the recent resurgence of the Taliban, she and other women in education and the arts were targeted. The Taliban raided her dance studio, and with a knife, cut the tendons in her ankles so that she could never dance again. Or so they thought. An international aid agency found a way out of the country for Leile and some other women. They were taken to a safe house in Bangladesh, and from there to Canada.

Between myself and the interpreter, we figured out the right food bank for Leile’s area of town, and then the volunteers at The Pantry gave her an emergency hamper, to tide her over the next few days until she could get to the proper place.

And what was Leile’s response? She danced her gratitude. No longer able to stand and move her legs as she once had, she sat on the floor, played some Afghani music on her iPhone, and danced beautifully with her upper body and arms. It was mesmerizing, and a beautiful expression of the resilience of the human spirit.

Constitution 8 of the Redemptorist Constitutions and Statutes reminds us that we proclaim the Good News by the witness of our lives as well as by explicit means. This is exactly what The Listening Post is all about. People who find themselves strangers in a strange place, alone, struggling or questioning, our offered a listening ear and an experience of accompaniment. Leile discovered that day that the world could be a little less cold and a lot more friendly than she had hitherto experienced. In return, she gifted us with her dance, pouring out from a heart undaunted by her previous challenges, literally “bloodied, but unbowed.” What a gift!