The Lord's Rain - signs of hope

We've said before that one of the side-functions of The Lord's Rain has been to provide hope to people and encouragement that, no matter what stage of life they happen to be at, there is a reason to reach out and strive for the change they need.

In the past few weeks, we've seen more and more evidence that that's happening.

EXHIBIT A is a pair of young people I think of as our "glam couple". Charlotte and Brendan started showing up last fall, and to look at them, the first thing you'd think is, "what are they doing here?" I still don't know the full answer to that, but they're a perfect example of the basic truth about the Downtown East Side: you never know who's going to slip, or how or when it can happen. They have lived in shelters for I don't know how long, battling the drugs and the demons in their lives.

If it weren't such a pejorative expression, I'd call Charlotte "high maintenance". Her requirements: two towels, face cloth, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel (yes, we have that), hair dryer (we have two of those), all requested with "please" and "thank you" and "if it's not too much trouble". The thing is, that kind of "maintenance" has kept her sane -- and The Lord's Rain has been there to do that.

There's been more: when she and Brendan broke up just before Christmas, it was here that she came to pour her heart out. When they got back together a week later, it was here that she came to bounce off walls with joy. When Cheryl Weber from "100 Huntley Street" interviewed people for a feature on The Lord's Rain and Gospel Mission, Brendan told a bit of his story -- again, an example of how you can "have it all" and suddenly lose it, thanks to the drugs.

Last week, Brendan and Charlotte came in to announce that they were finally getting a place of their own and checking into a recovery program. Does that mean that this will be the last we see of them? I hope so, although I'll miss them. But that is what this whole exercise is about: to get as many people as possible cleaned up, turned around, and outta there -- if only to make room in the safety net for new people who slip and fall.

EXHIBIT B - is Pete and Jack. My main contact with them is upstairs in Gospel Mission (although Jack paid a surprise visit to TLR last Saturday). Jack is 50-something and Pete is in his 70s, and they sit in the front row like Statler and Waldorf, the two old guys on The Muppet Show who sat in the box seats and made caustic comments about the performances. Each has become an example of the slow but definite, positive changes that we see around there.

Jack, for example, is always eager to testify. When I first met him 2-1/2 years ago, his testimony was invariably about how someone had done him wrong and he needed to forgive. Now, he testifies about telling people about Christ. A couple of weeks ago, he testified about a mission trip he'd gone on to Ucluelet, visiting people in a care home, being touched by their reaction to the group of them singing "Amazing Grace", and the sense that he, too, had something worth sharing with others.

He's made Pete one of his personal "reclamation projects". It would be easy to hang the label "career criminal" on Pete, as he's been in and out of the slammer for most of his life. He once told me -- rather proudly, in fact -- that he busted out of the BC Pen back in 1961 or thereabouts -- shinnying up a chimney (he's short and slightly built) and going over the wall. He was picked up walking along some railway tracks. But there's a "story" behind Pete, too, including (if I gather this correctly) his being raised by a grandmother who he thought was his mother (rather like Bobby Darin, actually). You can imagine the psychological effect that would have on a teenager when the truth was revealed.

When I first came in contact with Pete, he was probably the most miserable old sod you'd ever come across. He grumble and look bored with everything and if any preaching went so much as two minutes past 8pm (which is our unofficial time to stop with the preaching, pray and serve the meal) he'd start to get downright rude.

He hasn't been like that for the past year, at least. He's grown more thoughtful and introspective, opening up little by little. He sits quietly through the sermon, taking it all in, and some of the worship songs seem to have an impact. I get the sense that he's come to realize that here he is, at age 73, wondering what his life has been all about ... and starting to get the idea that there's something to this "Christ thing" that can finally give him some meaning.

(Digression: it may be time to revisit a sermon I gave a couple of years ago, called "Count It All Dung". The "stuff" we leave behind when we come to Christ is best purged from our lives, but dung has its uses, primarily as fertilizer. We take our experience, good and bad, and build our new lives on it. It may be a message that can strike home with Pete as he wrestles with this.)

Anyway, Jack rides Pete mercilessly through the services now. "Hear that, Pete? He's talking about you!" "Whaddya think, Pete? What do you want us to pray for you?" "Come on, Pete, you can pray for that!" It's almost comical, except that for the two of them, it's serious business: and so far, Pete hasn't shown any signs of being turned off by Jack's persistence.

We also had a woman come forward to receive Christ at last Saturday's service. She and her husband have been coming to the services for the past several weeks: he's a Believer, and she had fallen away (she told me later). To see the utter joy on her husband's face was a cause of joy in and of itself.

And recently, a young man has been coming in to shower-up at The Lord's Rain ... and I'm pretty sure he's involved with the drug dealing across the street from us. Nevertheless, TLR may be an entrance point for Jesus to stick His foot in the door, and who knows what long-term impact that will have? As I've said before, there's a reason why Gospel Mission is located right across from one of the worst alleys for drug activity in the city -- and why God arranged things for TLR to be placed at street level. Stay tuned.

Every so often, we have an experience that reminds us of the enormity of the job. A couple of weeks ago, I encountered a young woman who was in dire need of a washroom, so I brought her around to TLR, where she got cleaned up and got a change of clothes. But she also spent about an hour screaming profanities at the world in general -- and occasionally at Bill and me -- as she drifted in and out of reality (I'm pretty sure that her telling something to stop biting her ankles was during an "out of" moment).

As it was, the City of Vancouver's Dig Up Carrall Street To Make The Street People Think They're Going To Be Herded Out Of The Area For The Olympics Project has cut into attendance at TLR, so Bill and I were able to give this girl a lot of attention. But these are the people we need to reach, and many of the ones who've become "family" over the past couple of years started in similar shape.

To think: when I touted the idea to Amelia in the fall of '07, I thought it was "just" about providing showers to people.

(If you're interested in contributing to Gospel Mission -- or to The Lord's Rain in particular, visit www.gospelmission.net).