Challenges “We Can Do It”
Bernie Breen
Bernie has other stories in the book.
I walked into Cana in Albion St at 10am on my very first day and stepped out of my comfort zone, all in one stride, not sure what I was putting myself into. My very first hug on that morning came from (Christine/John). Brian Stoney, came down the stairs, and greeted me. He handed me a frozen leg of something that looked like ham but I wasn’t sure and told me “we have lunch after prayer.”
I thought I had a few hours to prepare lunch – a nice veggie soup with the frozen bone of meat to add flavour will go down well. The house was starting to fill up: Johnno, Owen, Shane, Rhonda, Di – I couldn’t remember all their names. Back to lunch. I looked around to find ingredients for my soup – found nothing. Panic hit.
Brian said half an hour till lunch. “Is he for real”, I thought. I’m standing there in the kitchen looking at this frozen thing on the table. I turned to Johnno and said “what do you think?” We decided to make toasted sandwiches with the ham leg. I went into prayer, Johnno stood guard over the toast. I forgot about lunch for a moment, and marvelled on how everyone hugged and gave thanks in prayer, it was a very touching moment for me.
I smelt burned toast. Thanks to Johnno, Di and many others who came to help the new girl, it was the worst and best toasted sandwiches I’ve ever had. I realised at the end of the day that the ingredients I needed to make lunch, when panic subsided, were in front of me all along.
Brian asked me if I was coming back next week. My head was saying “Don’t do it, girl”. My heart was saying “I have just experienced true unconditional love” and I did come back the following week, and for the next 14 years.
De Porres – Sharing Stuff
Bernie Breen
I looked after De Porres house in Redfern three days a week. I remember lunch times, very busy, many people came to the house to share lunch and stories over a cuppa. David Sheller like many days, came to the house, loved to talk, got into trouble a lot and challenged every one of us. One day, he was asked to leave the house, because he was causing chaos. Big Chris with the bags, Greg and Ray Baker, couldn’t take too much of David. I took him out the back and into the back lane. He didn’t want to leave straight away, so I sat with him on the kerb and we talked, well he did most of the talking which was fine, he started talking about his son whom he hardly ever saw, as he was talking, tears started rolling down his cheeks. This was a different David to what everybody knew of him, being tough, always looking to punch some-one. I guess he wasn’t so tough after all, his shield came down, just for a few moments, and it was very endearing to see David as a dad. He touched my heart. I started to realise what Cana, through Anne and Brian, instilled into this community. After that touching moment, I guess David came back to the now moment, pulled out a container from his bag, inside the container was a needle and some powder, he said, “Do you want some?”