The overland route exposed Glass to different faiths and ultimately led her to the community of L'Arche for which she was recently appointed one of its two international leaders.

She is the first Australian to lead L'Arche, established by Swiss-born Jean Vanier in 1964 when he bought a small house in Trosly-Breuil, France and named it L'Arche, French for Noah's Ark. There he established a community for people with developmental disabilities. Vanier has for the third time been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Glass was elected International Vice-Leader at the L'Arche International General Assembly in Atlanta in June. She will serve with International Leader Patrick Fontaine, of France, for the next five years.

Born in Yackandandah, Victoria, in, as she puts it,the first half of the 20th century, Glass grew up on a dairy farm and rode a horse to a one-teacher school where she completed most of her primary school education. From a strong Catholic family, Glass's high school education was at the Brigidine convent school in Beechworth where she was a weekly boarder.

''When I look back on it, I would rather have not gone to boarding school. On the other hand, I think my parents had an extraordinarily strong commitment to education for their children. We all had the opportunities that especially my father never had because he had to leave school during the depression.''

Being Catholic ''was just part of the fabric. It was just not questioned. I don't think I ever questioned it until I left home.''

Which she did, her ''membership card going on the shelf'' towards the end of university when she started teaching.

With majors in English and history and a diploma of education, her first appointment was to Footscray High School, which had many migrant families. ''I often say I learnt more than I taught at Footscray High School … I learned something about a world very different from the one I had grown up in.

''There was an incredible camaraderie among the staff in that school. I learned a lot about collegiality and how really good teaching can help kids find a way out of an existing reality.''

After about three and a half years teaching she opted to take the overland route to England on the back of a truck in order to see more of the world than the average young Australian then heading overseas. ''That was an extraordinarily formative time in my own education.

''At that time, many young people were flying to London, taking a Contiki tour around Europe, worked in a pub for three months in England, flew home and said I have seen the world.

''I knew there was a lot of the world in between. So I wanted to discover that. So I did the truck trip.''

But the Church was still on the shelf. ''I look at that overland journey as part of a spiritual deepening or discovery. I remember going first to Thailand and discovering a little bit about Buddhism.''

She found people could not live in Thailand and not be Buddhist because it permeated everything. Next she went to India where Hinduism really confronted her. Then to Afghanistan and Turkey where she discovered the hospitality of Islamic people.

''At the end of that trip I actually bought an interpretation of the Koran and I read it cover to cover which I have to confess I have never done with the Bible.''

Also on the truck was a Jewish woman. ''When we got to Germany she asked me to take her to Mass at Cologne Cathedral. There was a sense in which I was exploring a lot of things. But there was a particular point when I realised that if I was going to make sense of the spiritual dimension of my life it had to be in the context that had formed me when I was young and that was Catholicism.''

She says at the heart of any of the great religious traditions there is something very unifying in them all.

''That is something we come to live and to discover in L'Arche.''

She says L'Arche was very important in her process of conversion. Her first experience of L'Arche was of a community which was living the Gospel. ''It wasn't just talking about it.''

She says L'Arche is a community where each person has a place irrespective of their giftedness or limitations. ''Where each one was accorded dignity based on their humanity. Not based on their capacity to produce or their level of intelligence or how much money they had.''

During her epic journey on the truck she met a woman, who remains a close friend, who had read about L'Arche and had been invited by Jean Vanier to visit. ''She really conned me into going to visit her there … I went for two weeks for an initial visit. I ended up staying for six.''

Later, during a visit to the US, she visited L'Arche in Toronto Canada. ''I made the decision after that visit that I would give a year as a volunteer in L'Arche.''

By then she had seen enough of the world to understand what an incredibly privileged life she had lived. ''I had never gone to bed hungry. I have had an education and I have grown up in a culture where as a woman I have been able to choose my life. I thought it wouldn't be a bad thing for me just to give a year alongside people who maybe haven't had the opportunities I have had.''

It was not very long during her stay at L'Arche in Winnipeg that she learned the people there had things to teach her.

''One of the first things they taught me was that it is OK to be weak. It is OK to be vulnerable. I still struggle with that.''

She also learned about compassion and forgiveness.

''There is something about the nature of intellectual disability where people live very much in the present. So grudges don't get held in the same way as they do in the typical population.''

She stayed in Winnipeg for two years before returning to Australia. Invited by Vanier, she arranged some retreats which he attended. Inspired by his message, people in Canberra began working to establish L'Arche.

In 1977, Glass moved to St Joseph's House of Prayer Goulburn which was being established in a former Josephite convent. She lived there for four years while working with the group which was establishing L'Arche in Canberra.

The first L'Arche community in the Canberra area was established in 1978 in a former Josephite convent at Bungendore by Dr Dick Bromhead and his wife Margaret. By then, other groups were being established in Australia.

Glass worked to create a national board and to establish L'Arche as a national organisation.

''It was L'Arche which gave what for me was an authentic way to live the Gospel,'' she says.

In 1981 when the L'Arche community moved from Bungendore to Canberra, Glass moved into that house. She became the community leader in 1983. At that time she was also the coordinator for Australia.

In 1991 she trained as a spiritual director because helping people with practical skills was not enough. After that year she was asked to become the coordinator for L'Arche in Asia and the Pacific. Over the past 10 years she has worked part-time for L'Arche leading retreats.

Shortly before Easter last year she was asked if she was willing for her name to be considered as one of the international leaders. For the next five years will share the task of leading L'Arche with Patrick Fontaine, of France.

L'Arche has about 140 communities in 40 countries. Over the next five years her responsibilities include supervising national leaders of the organisation and developing the next generation of leadership.

Glass says L'Arche is looking to different models of communities. Traditionally, people with disabilities and others shared life together.

''Today in many countries, even in Australia, that is not necessarily the model people are looking for. ''

A community in Melbourne has about 35 people with disability for whom the community is a focus. But it is not their residence.

Though L'Arche is founded in the Gospel with a strong spirituality, it now includes people of other major faiths.

''This is reshaping the federation and how we understand it,'' Glass says.