[Below is a note from Mary Catherine Johnson to Eduard Loring sharing her experience of volunteering at the ODC.]

You write the best love analogies – thank you!

I wish I could wash dishes on Saturday night, and spend time with you at Dayspring. With Marcus’s contact visit on Saturday and a family commitment on Sunday it’s just too much this weekend. But I really do wish I could be there, and will miss all of you.

Thank you for letting me be a part of Wednesday nights – they are very special. I used to cry a lot when I’d drive home after Wednesday house duty, so sad over the pain and suffering I had witnessed. I’m still sad but not so weepy anymore – now I feel more angry, more passionate about helping reduce the distance. What a gift last night to hear Linda read from her diary, to listen to Cordell talk about MLK, to witness Jason preparing the dining room for overnight guests, to send off a weary traveller to South Carolina with food and love, to provide some cold medicine to men and women with stuffy heads and sore throats, to welcome a newly homeless couple who desperately need help, to help a woman get free from her urine-soaked clothes before she slept in Open Door’s warm living room – and so much more that I did not see but God did.

Everything I know
I know only because I love.

-from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Looking forward to our dinner next Tuesday!

Mary Catherine