GATHERING PLACE +

Mercedes participates on the Pastorate Team as a result of wanting to pass on to others what she has experienced in this community. Coming from El Salvador at the young age of thirteen, her family was taken in by the Willowdale Congregation and it became their extended family with grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles and other children. Coming from this type of experience in El Salvador and finding it anew in Canada was both surprising and encouraging. Along with the others in the congregation, their birthdays were celebrated since the community seemed to always be looking for an excuse for another after church pot luck meal. There were camping experiences in the summer that were such a fun way to meet other young people. Sunday school picnics, gatherings in members homes and the list of activities goes on and on. In general, what could have been an isolated immigrant family, perhaps only relating within their own culture in Toronto, were accepted and celebrated within their new home in Canada. Inclusive community was so needed, but so readily achieved that it helped shape her life and the lives of all her family. As a result each one has succeeded in Canada with Mercedes finding a fulfilling administrative career at Sunnybrook Hospital. This may account for the excellent language skills in both Spanish and English that were developed as they grew up in Canada.

The community within Community of Christ gave her a wide friendship circle, something that has never been forgotten or taken for granted. Consequently, Mercedes is always willing to share her personal story of what the church community has meant to her and combine it with the story of Christ’s inclusive love that she has found within the larger Community of Christ story. She has experienced community and she has no challenges in speaking about it either through formal speaking engagements or simply in the various circles of our gatherings. For her, the church is a gathering place. As she so often states; “I want another generation to experience the love and bond of community as I have. This is why I serve.”