Kairos House

A number of us from Urban Bridge Church volunteer at an Aids hospice. Our responsibility is pretty straight forward, we cook the Sunday evening meal and we stay to eat with the residents. Though all the residents are suffering from Aids, this disease is just one of the challenges they face. Their lifestyles exposed them to a number of threatening ailments so the treating of Aids is only part of their daily regime and most of the residents have life experiences very dissimilar to ours so creating relationships hasn’t been straight forward.

Stories of Mercy

Here is a thank you from Taanis, a resident of Kairos House for whom the Urban Bridge community purchased a set of new dentures to help restore “her smile”.

Click here to read the thank you letter in PDF format.

Here is a story from Darrell Muth, one of the those who serve at Kairos.

Our Sunday night menu often includes roast beef. One resident in particular didn’t seem to be too impressed with us or our cooking. Our first meal together he sat down looked at the meal, pushed back his chair and walked away. Our next meal together he sat down looked at the meal remarked, “This is crap,” pushed his chair back and walked away. His problem which was shared by many of the others was that he had few teeth remaining so chewing was a challenge. Still, we cooked as directed. Things settled down for a while but one Sunday he lost it; yelling and cursing at us. Later, I was surprised when he asked me if I could take his guitar to be repaired.

When I returned it he thanked me honestly and warmly and promised to play me a song after supper. The meal went well. After we finished eating he sat facing me and like a personal command performance began playing. He sang old hymns in a beautiful, rich, baritone country voice. It was magical, heavenly. He would have played all evening and I could have listened all evening but after just a few songs he was too weak to continue. He offered me his guitar for the week and I would have accepted, except my guitar playing is worse than my cooking.

I never saw him again. He died before I could cook him another roast beef meal.

If you would like to be involved in serving the residents of Kairos House, email Fran Drisner at ddrisner@shaw.ca