A life-changing experience

A former Scarboro lay missioner looks back on her mission service

By Lorraine Reaume
October 2000

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Bolivia has never left me. It seems the section of my brain devoted to sight has been permanently modified. Here in Canada, I look at a traffic jam on Highway 401 and think, How would this look to Carmen and Max (the couple I lived with in Bolivia)? What would they make of so many people even owning cars? And would they be shocked that many cars have just one person in them?

For Lorraine Reaume, (left), her time spent in Bolivia as a Scarboro lay missioiner proveided her with a vividly different perspective on life.

As I struggle to catch up on a backlog of emails, I imagine Augustina, in her traditional skirt and bowler hat, amused at my fussing. Augustina supported her family by washing clothes. She never felt confident enough to learn to read though I offered to teach her.

When I feel frustrated by playing ‘voice mail tag’ with someone, I suddenly recall that in Bolivia I somehow managed to function and go to meetings and encounter friends when I didn’t even have a phone.

For me, no experience is ever just as it is. There is always another way of viewing it; there is always a radically different way of life with which to compare it. Yes, of course, being back in North America for seven years, I am an eager and anxious user of email and voice mail, and find myself very time conscious. But there is a ‘Bolivia’ side to my personality which laughs at me and knows that this is just one way of creating a world. This is not to say that one world is better. Indeed we can all learn from each other; but it does mean that I always see things from a vividly different perspective which I had the privilege to live out for a time.

People often ask me if I think I will go back overseas someday. Toward the end of my time in Bolivia, I felt strongly called to be back in North America. It seemed that I had had that experience for a reason and the reason is still unfolding.

The decision to go overseas had not been a difficult one. The desire had been in me since I was a child and so it was a way of fulfilling a dream. It was also a way of living out a faith commitment I had come to. I wanted to say “Yes” to God and let go of many securities. When I returned to Canada I was surprised to find that the next call was to serve by helping to prepare and send other lay missionaries. I served in Scarboro’s Lay Mission Office for four years. Though they were not always easy times, I feel a deep joy when I think of some of the wonderful people I have accompanied in their preparation for overseas mission, the gifts they’ve given and the ways in which they have grown.

That initial “Yes” to an inner urging to go overseas led to another “Yes” to take on a role I was not sure I wanted. Still, I trusted in the promptings of the Spirit and the other lay missioners, and, in the end, was glad to have taken the risk. Then another urging started. Really, it was more like a nagging. I knew God was asking something else and I wasn’t hearing it.

While I was still with Scarboro Missions I got a rather loud and clear call that I needed to look at religious life; that’s right, becoming a nun. That was the toughest “Yes” of my life. In some sense I think God has led me to deeper and deeper commitment. I started out excited by the adventure of saying “Yes” to God, but ended up having more asked of me than I thought possible. Yet, as I write this I am ten days away from making my First Profession as an Adrian Dominican Sister. And I am happy.

Over these last three years as I have been training to become a religious, people have commented on my simple lifestyle, on how much I speak of the poor; they notice the different perspective I bring being Canadian and having cross-cultural experience. I am not always aware of these aspects of myself and would not really see my lifestyle as simple. Yet, obviously, I have been permanently changed by my life experiences in ways that do speak to others.

I do not know what path my life would have taken had I not joined Scarboro Missions and served both in Bolivia and Canada. I do know that I have no regrets and am filled with gratitude for the many gifts of my seven years with Scarboro Missions. I have learned to trust our marvelous God who lures us to new life in mysterious ways!

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