"Please Pray for Me"

Barry Babcook, the senior pastor at Gospel Mission, uses two expressions about The Lord's Rain -- sort of a mission statement (pun not intended -- oh, OK, maybe it was): "soft evangelism" and "Jesus with the skin on". Translation: while it's all-Jesus-all-the-time upstairs in Gospel Mission, we don't push our faith onto the people who come into The Lord's Rain. And yet ...
 

There's a list of "simple rules" posted on the cork board in The Lord's Rain. One of them states, "Prayer given when asked" -- the implication being that if you don't ask, we won't jump all over you; but if you do ask, we're there, with all the faith and fervor we possess. I'm constantly amazed at the way people have absolutely no reservation about asking us to pray over them -- and it doesn't seem to matter what their background happens to be.
 

Jeet, for example, comes from a Sikh family, which has basically disowned him. Drugs, gambling and women have landed him on the Downtown East Side; being over 60 makes it a strong possibility that he will stay there. He's asked me several times about the possibility of getting a job where I work, but as soon as the zero-tolerance policy on drug use comes up, he cools off on the idea. "You can tell 'em I'm OK," he's suggested. "NO," I've replied. "I like the drugs too much," he's said on other occasions.
 

At times, he's asked for prayer -- "A quick one-minuter for all issues" -- until one day, I did what I've never done before: I refused. "Look," I said, "I'm not a sooth-sayer; I'm not a shaman. God needs to hear from you directly, and Jesus Christ came so you could have access through Him to the Father. I can agree with you, I can lift you up, but until you make the move and stick with it, the only one this is benefiting is me."
 

I don't often play the bad cop, but this was a case where I felt it was necessary: a wake-up call of sorts, making the point that he can't talk about turning his life around, continue with his lifestyle and then expect someone else to ask God to heal him. Fortunately, John Sharp, who has exponentially more patience than I do, is very capable as the good cop, and has hung in with Jeet as a friend and a friendly face, putting up with his talk of drugs and horses -- half braggadocio, half pleading for someone to condemn him. It's almost like he's saying, "I make no apologies for my life, but won't someone please kick me in the rear?" So Jeet keeps coming around ... and doggone it if there haven't been changes coming over his life. He's a bit calmer, more sociable with others; and when I pray for him, he responds with a simple prayer of his own -- usually along the lines of "O Lord, bless John and Drew". Perhaps my mild rebuke -- if you can call it that -- had a positive effect.
 

And there are others who ask for prayer: you wonder, too, how much they're willing or able to take their own steps to break out of their situations, but you hear distinctly from the Lord, "that's not your call: just pray with them". Poco is depressed because her friends and family are dying off; Robert is trying to beat his alcohol addiction but a lack of funds is keeping him from getting into the treatment he needs. (Both are part of what John calls the "Listerine Gang", hanging out in Pigeon Park, slugging back Listerine cut with rubbing alcohol -- "the taste people hate twice a day", but the third or fourth time, you barely notice it.)
 

For Poco, the prayer is what I believe is one of the most encouraging things you can say to a person in that area: "God is keeping you around for a reason, so we pray that He will protect her and reveal to her what that reason is". With Robert, we pray healing for the problem -- which is not the lack of funding or even the booze, but the deep-down reason that has led Robert to that point. And we declare that God has broken down the barriers -- real and perceived -- between Robert and recovery. We might not know what the root problem is and we might not know what to do if we did, but God knows, can address it, and will address it when we call Him into the situation.
 

There is an intimacy about one-on-one prayer. The person asking for it has humbled himself (or herself) by admitting that the problems he has are way too big for him to handle, and that they're also out of reach of anything The Man can do: programs, handouts, whatever. Then, he humbles himself even further by admitting that to another person. Consider: isn't it when we are vulnerable that Jesus comes into our lives? When we think we have all our stuff together and we don't need Him, He'll stand back. Of course, that Pride leaves an opening that, as Howie Meeker would say, you could drive a truck through.
 

James -- Jesus' half-brother -- writes that we are to pray for one another, that we may be healed. Praying for Poco and Robert plants seeds of faith and love: the much-needed reminder that God doesn't make junk and that they're worthy of His attention. It's really easy to lose sight of that on the Downtown East Side. How and when that seed will blossom into a physical manifestation remains to be seen, but I'm confident that something will happen; the timing and nature of that "something" are up to God.
 

So a couple of weeks ago, Jeet asks me for a prayer again. We're standing outside The Lord's Rain, and I speak healing over him for his bronchitis and also that God will dig down to the roots of Jeet's difficulties and wash them clean in the Blood of Jesus. Jeet responds with a very touching, fervent prayer of his own, and as we're standing there, a fellow I'd never seen before comes up to us and stands there, expectantly. Jeet finishes his prayer and says, "I think this fellow wants you, too."
 

"I need prayer," the new fellow says. "Anything in particular?" I ask. He shakes his head, "just ... just ... " and his sentence tails off. So I pray over him for healing -- symptoms and cause, whether we know the cause or not -- and for God to reveal Himself to ... to ... "what's your name, brother?"
 

"Mohammed."
 

INNER VOICE: "no kidding ..."
 

And we continue the prayer. He is evidently grateful: he hugs me and we go separate ways. Seeds planted, indeed.

Hair Days (good & bad), quakes and high IQs

Craig walked in the other morning, looking like something one of my cats had left on the doormat (you don’t want to know). “Morning,” he managed to say.

“Nice‘do’, Craig,” I said. “Want some gel to keep it that way?”

“Took me eight hours to get it to go like this,” he replied.

Indeed, Craig was sporting that pulled-through-a-hedge-backwards look that can only be accomplished by a cheap bed or an expensive stylist. Chances are, some latter-day Vidal Sassoon or Paul da Costa in the gentrifying Downtown East Side has already spotted Greg’s hair and thought, “hmm ...”

===

Debbie, on the other hand, is spending extra time on her hair. I think I’ve mentioned her before: bent double from a severe curvature of the spine, once pretty, but now toothless and weaning herself off heroin through methadone, she still has some self-esteem left – as evidenced by the tattoo on one wrist: “FN 99”, which she says means, “Darn Near 100%”. Or something like that.

Anyway, Debbie is one of a growing group of regulars who come in regularly to make full use of this facility. Danilo already knows her routine and sets it up as soon as she walks in: soap, shampoo, two towels, conditioner ... and gel. (That’s how I knew we had gel for Craig if he wanted it.) Then, after the shower, the blow dryer and a brush, both of which live behind our reception counter. (The brushes and combs are kept in a Barbicide jar, which our friends at Hair Mode in North Vancouver donated (they didn’t ask for the plug, by the way, but I thought it was about time we thanked them); between that and the sit-down shower supplied by Andrew Sheret when we built the place, Debbie is able to do the washing-up she needs.)

===

“You got a phone? I need to call my mom to see if she’s OK.”

Almost overshadowed by the unbelievable destruction of Sandy along the Atlantic Coast was the fact that a couple of days before, there had been a major earthquake in Haida Gwaii – formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands – off the north coast of BC. It registered 7.7. The one asking for a phone was Darrell, a native man whose home town and family are in Haida Gwaii, and just a couple of weeks ago, he was telling me that there is never a day when there isn’t an earthquake there. So beyond the media reporting – which may well have been affected by the fact that it happened on a Saturday night, there was no NHL hockey to report on and a tsunami warning was attached – a good measure of the quake, I figured, would be Darrell’s attitude.

We don’t have a public phone, but I handed him my BlackBerry. If it was causing Darrell concern, it had to be serious. As it turned out, his mother was pretty shaken up by the event, and they had just had a major after-shock. That's why the phone call was so important: it’s not as if Darrell could just zip over and see her in person: it’s a 7-hour ferry ride from Prince Rupert to Skidegate – cost $35 if you’re a walk-on passenger – and of course, you have to get to Rupert in the first place– in the neighbourhood of $250 on Greyhound. It’s amazing how you can be so separated and still be in the same province.

===

“So tell me,” the bus driver said, “what’s the education level like there?” Being one of the front-of-camera spokespeople for the BC Electric Railway Company, which has supported my ministry habit for going on seven years now, front line staff tend to recognize me and strike up conversations. This transit operator (to use the correct industry term) was curious as to why I had been turning up on his #19 bus at 6:20am lately.

“Actually,”I replied, “there are some pretty darn intelligent people there.”

“You know, I’m not surprised,” he said. “You just never know, do you? Something goes wrong ...”

True, that. The email I passed around on Friday, appealing for cold-weather items to be donated to the Vancouver Police horse patrol for the men living in Stanley Park, reminded me of that fact. I’ve known a couple of the guys in the park – 21^st-Century hobos, in fact, living their lives, trying not to have to rely on The Man to get by; if it means kipping in a hollow tree or with a tarp hung between a couple of branches, so be it. We had a fellow who used to come into The Lord’s Rain regularly, bringing his back pack. He might shower-up or just sit and have a coffee and chat, then hike back to Stanley Park and vanish. He was on a “quest” – mainly to find his head again: he never actually told us what had happened. He eventually did, moved back to Winnipeg and when last heard from, he was working with at-risk youth in the Even Windier City.

As the bus driver noted, many of “the guys” are remarkably well-read. A lot of them know their Scripture and some of their questions and insights are amazing. I think I’ve mentioned Guy before: a fellow who came into the old Rainbow Mission and who laid an alternative interpretation of the story of the “Rich Young Ruler” on me that blew my socks off. I was just launching into the standard commentary about choosing the things of the world over eternal life with Jesus, and Guy piped up from the back and said, “what if he was sad because he had so many things he didn’t think he could ever get rid of them all?” I’ve never thought of that passage the same way again.

There’s Ron, who spends his days pushing a cart around the back alleys, gleaning whatever he can and often fixing things up and then selling them to second-hand shops, but is a voracious reader. He invariably has his nose in a book, even during the services at Gospel Mission upstairs. But that doesn’t worry me and I’ve never considered it rude: both Amelia and I can tell that he’s listening to the service and often, he too will come over and share some very poignant observation from Scripture. Mario is another who has often asked questions about Scripture that have sent me scrambling to the prayer closet to ask the Lord about it.

Ron still has all his marbles. Len, on the other hand, drifts in and out of coherence. He is – or was – a Professional Engineer, and still puts “P.Eng.”after his name, and spends a lot of time writing things on 3”x5” slips of paper and occasionally pins them up on the cork board. His sentences are usually well-constructed, except the actual words have absolutely no connection to one another.

Case in point: we had a brief hailstorm a couple of weeks ago, but when I called it “hail”,Len corrected me and said they were “ice pellets”.

“What’s the diff?” I asked.

There was a long pause, while Len tried to concentrate. “I’ll ... I’ll let you know.”

A few minutes later, he handed Danilo a slip of paper to hand to me.

CHANGE IN BAROMETRIC PRESSURE BY ICE PELLETS AFFECTS THE SYR OPS.

“Huh?”I said. At first, I thought it was a conspiracy-theory reference – he’s fond of those.

“You know,” he said, “air pressure changes and the sy rops move differently in the tree.”

“Oh– syrup!” I said. “Got it,” I lied. (I considered saying I felt like a sap but thought better of it.)

And yet it’s not as if Len is totally out of touch. A couple of years ago, a guy we’d never seen before got angry because I wouldn’t give him more than the two pastries we allot to each person. The long and short of it was, he cursed a blue streak; I kept my cool (something I'm not accustomed to doing), looked him square in the eye and calmly told him that if he didn’t like our rules, there was a great big city out there where I was sure he could find another free coffee, he kicked the reception desk, threw his cup of coffee at me (missed) and stormed out. John immediately started praying for him.

The place had gone quiet, as the others watched to see how this would be handled. A few minutes later, Len handed me one of his slips of paper.

“GRACE AND FORGIVENESS – NOW ON DISPLAY AT THE LORD’S RAIN”

===

You've probably noted the common theme this time has been the older guys. They can break my heart -- possibly because I'm a middle-aged guy, myself, and there's a lot of commonality among us. These guys have had jobs, lived a long time, and have made one or two mistakes that were handled ... well ... differently. Sure, it's easy to say, "they brought it on themselves" -- except, well, aren't we all just one slip-up away from being in the same boat? Are the mistakes I've made along the road from there to here any "better" than theirs?

But as the bus driver said, you never know what might cause them to throw a piston and wind up on the DTES. Are they too smart for their own good? Is it like Jackson Browne’s lyric, “Was I unwise to leave [my eyes] open for so long?” The really sad part is when they themselves say, "I brought it on myself," and that's when they need someone to tell them that God has long since forgiven them, even if they haven't, and has provided a Way for them to break away from the shackles of the past. They need to know that trouble is only temporary, so do not adjust your faith. That's particularly important at a time of life when "temporary" can look more and more like "constant".

God has His reasons for things, and we need to keep asking Him what He's up to. I've had "someones" like that in my own life, telling me those things, and I'm sure you have, too.

We have to get on with our job and work while it’s still the daytime: help those as much as we can and underscore it all with Hope. Sometimes, knowing that there is a turnaround available is enough of a turnaround, right there.

Another farewell to a friend ...

He was a frequent sight on the Downtown East Side. Very short grey hair, a pot belly, shambling walk, usually two or three days' stubble; and invariably wearing some article of clothing that proclaimed, "JESUS IS LORD". Usually, the clothing in question was a yellow puffy vest, with a large Cross drawn on the back in felt marker. Sometimes, it would be a sweatshirt or a ball cap, but the message, if you thought long enough about it, was unwavering: "no matter what I look like to you, Jesus is what it's all about". Barry Babcook, our senior pastor, has been at Gospel Mission for 17 years and Clifford "Barry" Smith had been there since long before that.
 

Barry Smith died last Friday. He had a number of health issues, but his heart got to him first: suffered a heart attack a couple of weeks ago and drifted in and out of consciousness at St Paul's Hospital until late Friday night, when God said, "come on home".
 

The fact that he loved the Lord, loved to worship and share his faith was unmistakable. I remember he would often be the only one in the congregation who would stand during Worship time at our Saturday night services, sometimes just raising his arms with his eyes closed; other times mouthing the words.
 

He could be seen around Oppenheimer Park, praying for people specifically or in general, or for the area as a whole. He was one of those guys who could cite book, chapter, and verse of the Bible, which frustrated the heck out of me, since there are times when I think I have to look up Genesis 1:1. He would get into, shall we say, lively discussions of Scripture, either in the weekly Bible studies or sitting around the table in The Lord's Rain, going over some interpretation with Ross or old Joe Trepanier, none of whom was likely to give an inch when it came to their interpretation.
 

He was something of an enigma: cranky at times -- perfectly understandable, given his health issues -- other times, coming out with an out-of-left-field compliment or a bright word and a laugh. He was a loner and had no family that we knew of -- a fact that was driven home when Janet had to put herself on the hospital documents as "next of kin" -- and when you get down to it, the people in the missions on the DTES were his family, fractious and fluid as that might be at times.
 

He'll be missed a lot. He was someone who was just... there. And now he's not. But this I'm sure of: that like the beggar Lazarus, he's now in Abraham's arms; the sickness is gone, the pain and loneliness are over, and he's doing what he's always loved to do: praise the Lord.

 

Unity Happens

Those of you who've been following the saga of The Lord's Rain from its beginnings, almost 5 years ago, may recall that in the earliest days of the project -- when we were armed with a great idea but no money -- we approached a wealthy Christian businessman to see if he would underwrite the whole project. A slam dunk, we figured: I wrote a smasher of a letter and fired it off (snailmail, of course, to show we were serious) and waited for the invitation to lunch, where, probably between the main course and dessert, said wealthy Christian businessman would say, "oh -- before I forget," reach into the inside pocket of his suit coat and discreetly hand over a ridiculously large check.

Instead, I got a phone call from the businessman's personal assistant, who told me with not much room to manoeuvre that the answer was "no".

"Our board gave it prayerful consideration," she said, "but decided this was not something they could support. One of the things that really concerns the board," she went on, "is the lack of unity among ministries on the Downtown East Side. There doesn't seem to be much cohesiveness. It would be great if you and others ministering there could pull together and come up with a coherent game plan to attack the situation there."

I mumbled something that sounded like agreement and thanked her for considering the proposal.

Unity. On the surface, it's a noble sentiment, and when you have so many different groups with different approaches, it's easy to decry a lack of unity and withhold any support until "everyone gets together".

But on the DTES, there are so many issues that need to be addressed, it seems that the best way to achieve unity is to stick to your own knitting and stay out of everybody else's way. Remember the exchange between Peter and Jesus in John 21: "Lord, what about this man (John)?" Jesus said to him, "If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me." -- [John 21:21-22].  You could get so hung up on unity that you lose sight of the real goal.

Now it's worth pointing out that getting turned down by this fellow's company was one of the best things that could have happened and I do believe that the Board had prayed about it and was led by the Holy Spirit in its decision. It reminded us that this was God's project and He -- not we -- would determine how it was going to be built and how it was to be funded, and it certainly was not to be by one person. As things unfolded over the next few months, it became evident that this was God's project and He -- not we -- would determine how it was going to be built and funded. A lot of different people with different gifts stepped up to do their part, contributing towards a common goal.

Unity -- God's version. Truly, His ways are not our ways.

If the construction of The Lord's Rain is Exhibit A of His version of unity, Exhibit B is Kris. Kris comes in very early most mornings -- often before 7 -- to shower and shave (including his head) and get off to his job hawking The Megaphone. The Megaphone is a periodical published by, for and about the people on the DTES. The stories are human-interest and a good way to get a feel for the vibe of the place, although the approach tends to be activist-oriented, which, as I've said before, I personally don't agree with. But it gives the area a voice -- and it gives people like Kris a job and a chance to mingle with the rest of the people of the city.

 

The photo here shows a recent high point for Kris, throwing out the first ball at a Vancouver Canadians baseball game. (My BlackBerry doesn't have a zoom lens, so take my word for it -- that's Kris on the mound at Nat Bailey Stadium.) Kris got this honour by winning a contest among Megaphone sellers, to come up with a slogan for the paper. He won with "Often Imitated, Never Duplicated".

I daresay I was a little disappointed that they didn't announce why Kris got to throw out the first pitch. There were a couple of little boys who also got to throw first pitches - one was celebrating his birthday and I'm not sure why the other was there. I'd have thought maybe a one-liner about, "now throwing out the first pitch - representing 'The Megaphone', the voice of the Downtown East Side ... Kris Cronk!", might have been in order. That's just the PA announcer in me -- I didn't hear Kris complain, so it's all good.

Kris represents a connection with another organization -- an opportunity to get to know and understand what they're doing and through that, achieving a form of unity towards a common goal -- if not a common approach. Someone connected with The Megaphone is now connected with The Lord's Rain.

Exhibit C is Buzzard. He has a real name, but he introduces himself as Buzzard -- or Buzz. Buzz writes the newsletter for Mission: Possible, another Christian ministry on the DTES. I have to confess, I know absolutely nothing about Mission: Possible -- aside from the name and the fact that a lot of people speak highly of it. He's started coming to the Saturday night services at Gospel Mission and now another connection is starting to form. Where it goes from here, only God knows.

The moral of the story: "unity" is not something you can impose on a situation. It happens, given time; and we're gradually seeing it come together on the DTES.

===
People to pray for ... Cheryl is a 40-something woman who's been coming into The Lord's Rain for quite a few years. She's sometimes quite "with it", and sometimes incoherent from the drugs; something of a loner, often with a very blank expression on her face. Last week, Amelia and I spotted her on Robson Street -- a fair distance from the DTES -- and we said hi. She had that blank expression. "I'm going swimming," she said. "In the ocean." Then she became animated and clasped her hands together. "PLEASE pray for me!" And she walked off. That was almost a week ago and we haven't seen her since. (I contacted a couple of friends at the Coroner's Service and Vancouver Police: they haven't pulled any bodies out of the water lately.) In a previous email, I mentioned how hard it is to get information about people on the DTES in a timely fashion, so I have no idea whom to ask. This is one of those cases where one has to call on the Lord to protect someone.

I've mentioned Jamie before -- a man who's had a remarkable turnaround from being homeless, an alcoholic and picking bottles out of dumpsters. Now he has a job, a place in Burnaby -- far away from the DTES -- and a woman he loves; but he's going through one of those "wilderness" periods, when it seems God has taken the training wheels off one's life and things can be a bit wobbly while you find your balance. He's even told me that he wants to go back to the days of being a "binner", with his old drinking buddies. Kind of like the Israelites, wanting to go back to Egypt, rather than wander with Moses towards the Promised Land. ("What? You mean this New Life thing is not all jam and smooth sailing forevermore?") At least he's calling and talking about it. If the phone calls stop coming, then I'll really be worried.

===

The Lord's Rain is approaching another milestone, which I expect we'll hit this month (if not this week). It will be shower #3000, thanks largely to the fact that we're now open 6 mornings a week. That's only been in the past few months, but the number of showers (I think I mentioned, we use the Cro-Magnon Accounting System to keep track) has increased dramatically, not just from being open more often but from more people hearing about it. Thank you, as always, for your support -- in the myriad ways you support this.

And there, friends, is Exhibit D.

Dear Tina, Wish you were here.

A scene like this was often played out over the past few years near Gospel Mission.

I'm on one side of Hastings Street, about to cross. A voice calls from the other side.

"Hiya, handsome!"

I do an exaggerated about-face, looking to see whom she's talking to. We cross the street and give each other a big hug right in the middle of the crosswalk. "You're lookin' great!" she says. "So are you, m'dear!" I reply, and we both go off on our ways.

Her name was Tina. Five-foot-nothing, mid-forties, face puffed out by years of drinking the East Side Martini -- Listerine with rubbing alcohol, either separately or mixed (proportions vary according to availability and whatever-gets-you-through-the-day) -- but usually a big smile and a lightly-teasing greeting. One of those people you were always happy to see.

She hung out in Pigeon Park and often came to The Lord's Rain. She rarely came to the Mission upstairs -- at least, not on my night -- but a couple of weeks ago, she and her "boyfriend", Johnny, did come, and if you listen to Amelia's talk about the visit from the Governor-General's Leadership Tour, you'll hear Tina's voice at one point saying, "the Lord works in mysterious ways".

Tina died on Tuesday.

That was it.

Pfft.

Gone.

I found out about it Wednesday morning from one of the fellows who recently started coming to The Lord's Rain. "I lost another of my friends yesterday," he said. Then he started describing her and the realization set in that this wonderful, vibrant person was gone.

Frank said it was likely kidney failure, brought on by those cocktails. He said Johnny had been getting increasingly angry with Tina about her drinking. Johnny is white, 50-something, and a professing Christian. Like Tina, one is always glad to see him.

So apparently, she was just sitting on one of the benches in Pigeon Park and passed out -- for good.

The locals had set up a memorial to her on that bench. Unlike the impromptu roadside memorials that spring up when someone is killed in a crash, with flowers and a cross and maybe a photo, this one has an interesting array of Things To Remember Her By. Bottles, an Edmonton Oilers beach towel, a cookbook, a sheaf of condoms (I'm not kidding), lit candles; there's also a school exercise book and a pen for people to write remembrances. Someone found a photo of Tina in younger days (top left of the picture) that resembles the Tina I knew not in the least (albeit enough that I could say, "so that's what she looked like 20 years ago"). In one way or another, those items meant something to someone in their own relationship with Tina; just as Tina meant something to each of them in their own way.

I hope in some way she knew how much she'd be missed.

It strikes me that part of the "hope" message we try to instill in people is the knowledge that they would be missed if something should happen to them. I think I know what my theme will be for Saturday night's sermon.

I'm reminded very much of Jesus' parable about Lazarus the beggar, who died and was gathered into the arms of Abraham (Luke 16). To others passing through the DTES en route to someplace else, she would have been just another drunk Injun; but there's no doubt in this mind where Tina is now.

===
That's a concept that's difficult for a lot to understand: the idea that you can be accepted by God and still not be acceptable to man. Some years ago, I wanted to share with a minister from Saskatchewan about Rusty, a brother who came to the Mission faithfully, hauling his bent body up the stairs despite having severe curvature of the spine, and shouting "praise the Lord!" with hardly any provocation. (He is still memorialized in our way of singing an old standard "I Been Redeemed By the Blood o'the Lamb!", finishing it by shouting, "yee-hah!", as Rusty did back in the day.) Rusty was stabbed to death after getting verbally involved in a fight between another guy and a woman. I started to relate this to the minister, but when I described Rusty as someone who loved the Lord -- "usually drunk as a skunk, but he loved the Lord". "Well, he couldn't have loved the Lord if he was constantly drunk," the minister snapped.

All-RIGHTY, then! Let's just move on to another topic, shall we?

===

Next to the memorial, a loud discussion was underway on the next bench. One fellow was trying to get more details about Tina's death and another guy kept repeating "that's all I (DELETED) know! Stop (DELETED) asking me what happened! I (DELETED) told you what happened - she died! Right there! On that bench!"

"So what happened?"

The discussion was still going on as I left, with the one who didn't know anything more taking repeated slugs from a large bottle of Listerine. And on it goes.

===
The sad news about Tina overshadowed Richard Johnson's return. He's the fellow I mentioned previously, who spent several weeks in hospital with a serious infection in his spine. He got the expected one-man standing ovation from John Sharp, who tends to take his role as Good Humor Man to wild extremes, and it was some exceptionally good news on a day when we really needed some.

Another element of serving on the Downtown East Side is the communications system. In this day of texting and tweeting, the primary way of finding out about someone on the DTES is still the tried-and-true moccasin telegraph. That may seem like a term with racial overtones, but it's the best description I've seen. It was given traction -- if not actually coined -- by Paul St Pierre, who wrote wonderful short stories about the people in the Chilcotin region, half of whom (at least, in Paul's stories) are white and the other half Indian (Paul wrote the stories in the 50s and 60s, when "Indian" was still an acceptable term)*. It refers to news passing from person to person, at the speed of whenever someone thinks to pass it on. It's also not limited to a particular ethnic group. On the DTES, there's really no other way of keeping tabs on people: they'll show up ... or not ... and if there's an issue, they might mention it to someone who might tell someone else ... you get the picture.

Not the easiest way to minister to people, I can tell you. This was how, for example, it took a week and a half for me to find out that Richard was in hospital: someone thought to mention it to me. Finding out about Tina was also "moccasin telegraph" stuff. I had said hi to Frank, and we exchanged information about our own personal conditions, and then he dropped the news on me. And he didn't even know I knew her.

Similarly, there's the story Amelia recounted about the woman on the Leadership tour who met someone from her reserve in Saskatchewan and everyone had been "wondering about him". Apparently, God plays a role in the moccasin telegraph, putting the right people in the right place at the right time.

Health care, timing and a room full of Higgs bosons

I'm constantly amazed at the good that one finds on the Downtown East Side.

That shouldn't be a surprise to you, I suppose, since we do talk a lot about the positive things we see in that part of town; but I still marvel.

Case in point: Wednesday morning, a woman came in in very bad shape. She was drunk, she was feeling ill, she wanted someone to call an ambulance to take her to hospital. And she was pregnant. Rhonda is her name. I had been upstairs, making sandwiches, and Danilo pointed her out to me. She was leaning against one of the pillars outside. I went out to talk to her and pray over her until the ambulance arrived. It didn't take long.

The paramedic came out to get her. "I'm the ambulance guy," he said. "Do you need to go to the hospital?" Rhonda nodded. "I'm drunk and I'm pregnant," she said, "and I'm sick." She climbed into the ambulance on her own. "Anything else to add?" the "ambulance guy" asked us. Danilo shook his head. "She says she's missing her son," I added. "You mean she can't find him or she's just lonely?" The assumption was that this was a child who had been taken from her by Social Services. "How old is he?" the ambulance guy asked her. "26." "Oh. Lonely, then."

Lonely, in a city of over 2 million.

As the Psalms say, "selah". (Pause and think about it.)

The ambulance guy talked to Rhonda quietly and with immense kindness. She would likely be taken to St Paul's Hospital, which is the nearest facility to the DTES. Since it's also in the West End, where I live, I've found myself in the emergency ward a few times, too, and have seen their dealings with "street people". They'll treat patients who are drunk or drug-sick, but let them know, in varying degrees of severity, that they can't expect to get treatment when they keep doing it to themselves. Rhonda will likely get a stern rebuke from the nursing staff -- but she'll still get treatment.

I was reminded of Lesley, a woman who was having a "drug episode" just over a year ago and we needed to call an ambulance for her. By the time it arrived, though, she had second thoughts about going and the ambulance guy and I had to convince her to get aboard. I said to the paramedic as he was about to leave, "I'd hate to think what would happen if someone had a heart attack or there was a bad traffic accident or something." "If there was," he said, "another car would handle it. This is what we do."

(Don't misunderstand: I've often seen the tough-guy side of paramedics, like the time they refused to transport a fellow who was smashed and rude and abusive inside one of the local "pharmacies" (basically a methadone dispensary). That would be the incident that gets reported to DTES "activists" as an example of the harsh treatment locals get from The Man. The dozens of times each day they go to help someone, regardless of the cause or circumstance, often go unreported.)

Almost overlooked in this is the fact that The Lord's Rain was one door that was open at a time when she needed it -- and other places might not have been open for business. Again, right place - right time.

===
Richard, one of our favorites, is currently in St Paul's. He had been walking home when he started to feel weak and get a deep pain in his back. So he sat down on a bench until the pain went away and then he got up again. But he felt dizzy and sat down on the sidewalk. A friend from the same SRO (single-room occupancy) came by, saw him and called an ambulance.

Turned out, Richard had some sort of infection that had gotten into his vertebrae. He's been in the hospital for the past three weeks now (I only learned about it two weeks ago -- communication can be one of the hardest things on the Downtown East Side: people can go for weeks without being seen and then turn up as if nothing had happened; sometimes, they like it that way), receiving antibiotics and getting his strength back (he's in his mid-60s). He's also bored out of his tree and spends a lot of time reading sci-fi and westerns.

And Richard is getting good care, which is a real blessing. But it occurred to me, what if he had had to pay for his health care, or if he even balked at going to hospital because he might not be able to afford it? His is certainly not a case where he "brought it on himself". I'm gratified for a health-care system that wouldn't turn people away for lack of funds. (It might be tempting for a Canadian to draw a comparison with the US system, but Reggie Stutzman -- former pastor at the Bowery Mission in New York and now heading-up Real Life Church in the Bronx -- tells me Richard likely wouldn't have been turned away in the States, either.)

===

So a Higgs boson walks into a Catholic church, and the priest says, "we don't allow your type in here". And the Higgs boson says to the priest, "but without me, you cannot have mass."
-- don't boo me, that wasn't my joke (Milton Berle)

As it has been in scientific circles, pool halls and executive suites at ballparks, I'm sure, the discovery of the Higgs boson -- the so-called "God particle", because it's supposedly the catalyst that creates matter (or something) -- was a topic of hot discussion at The Lord's Rain. The discussion went something like this:

ONE GUY -- Hey: didja see they discovered the God particle?
OTHER GUY -- Yeah! Hey - ya know what? You're a "God particle"!
FIRST GUY -- Yeah! And so are you!
OTHER GUY -- And so's he (me)! And so's she ... and him ...

Within about 3 minutes, it was declared that all of us in The Lord's Rain -- and everyone we'd meet outside -- was a "particle of God".

And we all went about our business.

Bravo for perspective.

It works two ways ...

In a recent post, I mentioned the visit by the Governor-General's Leadership Study Tour to Gospel Mission/The Lord's Rain earlier this month. This past Saturday, Amelia -- who co-chaired the BC portion of the tour -- told the gang at the Mission about something they may not have considered: the impact they had -- and will continue to have -- on the participants.

Jezebel's music

I don't believe in coincidences, so I know God is behind some of the things I've seen even among those I follow on Twitter. The latest is Rick Warren, tweeting Paul's exhortation, "Watch out for anyone who causes trouble and divides the church. Stay away from them!" (Rom. 16:17) Before that, David Pitman re-tweeted this quote: "judgmentalism is 1 of most subtle sins; often practiced under guise of zeal 4 right".

Now, read on.

Jezebel is a very sneaky spirit.

We read about Jezebel throughout 1 & 2 Kings: her murderous manipulation and control and determination to destroy the followers of the God of Israel. She is the only human capable of causing Elijah, the great man of God, to run and hide.

J herself was crushed to a pulp by a chariot and what was left of her was licked up by dogs in the street, but her name lives on in a spirit that is sent to try to destroy the church. Elijah had prophesied that, in fact ... and it came to pass.
Jezebel can be counted on to show up when a church is showing signs of "success", trying to sow seeds of discord. She generally arrives cloaked in a very righteous-appearing person, who then attempts to use the Word of God to undermine the works of the church.

(By "church", I mean any group dedicated to sharing, experiencing and spreading the Gospel -- it doesn't necessarily have to be an institution, but it could be a home group, ministry outreach or prayer circle.)

Let's just say I have some pretty extensive, first-hand experience with Jezebel, going back many years. When she was first exposed in someone I'd regarded as holy and righteous -- and who had spent a great deal of time trying to "put me in my place" or "call me on my s**t" -- it was a very rude and very welcome awakening. The awakening included a loud, clear message from the Holy Spirit: "you are not the Problem!"

Hold that particular theme. Anyway, Jezebel has been showing up at The Lord's Rain lately, in the form of a woman I've known since Rainbow Mission. Immediately, she took issue with the radio we were playing and lately, she has stepped up her "cautions" about allowing "that kind of music" into a house of the Lord. "How can you call it 'The Lord's Rain' if you're playing that music that comes straight from hell?"

Jezebel's definition of "straight from hell": secular.

"We have to separate ourselves from the world," she goes on, "and not scatter the sheep. I can't stand to go in."

"Well," I replied, "as Jesus says, the healthy have no need of a doctor; we're trying to reach out to the sick ones."

Then she went on about purity and holiness.

For the record, the radio we play isn't exactly death metal. It's JACK FM, with Larry and Willy -- a couple of the nicest guys on-air and off you'd ever want to meet. (I worked with Willy's dad, the legendary Don Percy, back in my radio days: he had moved to Vancouver from Edmonton and one day we were chatting in the parking lot and I pointed to the electric plugs sticking out of his car's grille -- connecting to the block heater, which is standard equipment for any car owned east and north of Chilliwack. I said, "you won't need those anymore." He said, "Drew ... you never know." Less than a year later, he had moved back to Winnipeg, his original stomping grounds.) -- or occasionally CHQM-FM with "soft rock favorites". (I like Bro Jake on Classic Rock 101 as a person, but his rather edgy on-air persona is not to my taste.)

The reality, of course, is that The Lord's Rain is what we refer to as "soft evangelism" -- reaching out to people who need to be reached but who still aren't comfortable in a "church environment". As we've seen over the years, many of the people who've come into The Lord's Rain have since started coming to the services upstairs at Gospel Mission; and for others, it's just a matter of time. Allowing a secular radio station to be played -- which we wouldn't do in the Mission -- helps contribute to that comfort level.

But to return to my Jezebel-walking friend, she doesn't know it, of course, but Jezebel's whole tactic here is to keep a church and its people off-balance, questioning their fitness to serve God. In dealing with that spirit, the best tactic is not to try to fight it on a worldly level -- trying to use words to counter -- but to stand on what you know: the fruits, the evidence of God's blessing, the innate knowledge that you are being led by the Spirit of God, regardless of what someone else says.

And walk away. Don't bother quarreling with the Jezebel spirit.

Interestingly, one of the people I follow on Twitter sent this quote today: "Freedom keeps us soaring, but quarreling destroys our ability to fly." (Victor Manuel Rivera). And in one of those coincidences that really isn't, my friend Bruce MacPherson blogged today on the difference between appearances and reality.

Mainly, I count it all joy, as Paul would say. The devil doesn't bother with those who don't threaten him, so a visit from Jezebel should be taken as affirmation. You prepare for it the way Patton prepared for Rommel and get on with the job at hand.

.

Never pass up a chance to testify!

It's a rare blessing to be able to testify about God's provision and blessing on Gospel Mission and The Lord's Rain on a national stage, but we were able to do so this past week.

The Governor-General's Leadership Conference is a cross-country initiative to help develop leaders. They come from all walks of life -- business, labor, the arts, native groups, immigrants, you name it. It's a huge group to begin with, separated into groups that go to different regions, British Columbia being one of them. The group that came to the Mission is also visiting Prince George, Terrace, Vancouver Island and the Fraser Valley (not in that order), studying aboriginal affairs, the Enbridge pipeline, and Vancouver's Downtown East Side.

Their visit to Gospel Mission was actually their first chance to meet the people who live in the area, even though they had gone to InSite the day before -- but there, they were only allowed to speak to the staff and not those who use the "safe injection" location. For us, it was a chance to brag on God a little bit, pointing out the way He has positioned the Mission through history -- keeping it just ahead of the curve of needs in society. (The Mission was founded just before the Great Depression hit; it moved to bigger digs just before the end of World War 2 brought a lot of disabled ex-servicemen into Skid Row; The Lord's Rain was commanded (for want of a better word) just before the Global Economic Crisis caused people to rein in their charitable giving: as I told the group, it's one thing to say, "here's a problem - come up with the solution", but in the case of the Mission, God tends to say, "here's the solution - now, stand by for the problem".)

It was also a chance -- albeit a short one -- for people who come into the Mission to talk to the tour participants. Kim, for example, got to talk to a few of them and share a bit about his own testimony. I think I've mentioned Kim before: a man who used to come into Rainbow Mission half-cut, often arriving just as the sermon was ending and the food was about to be served. Eventually, he came to Christ, beat down his addictions and assorted other demons, and is now a very valued part of our ministry. He's preached at the Mission on occasion and also runs the video camera. When I asked him, a couple of weeks ago, to go downstairs to The Lord's Rain and sit with a disabled woman so she could take part in the service by watching it on TV in The Lord's Rain, he got very philosophical. "What happened," he said, "that the guy who used to wait and slip into Rainbow Mission between the 'amen' and 'pass the food' is now being sent to do 'security' for someone at a Mission?" Of course, we both know the answer.

We only had half an hour and some of the visitors said they wished it could have been 90 minutes. But the early feedback is very positive:

• a man who, among other things, had worked on the judicial review in Rwanda, spoke with one disabled aboriginal man, finding out about the apartment where he lives, and the fact that he does feel safe and cared-for
• a prison warden from Kingston (medium-security, not the famous maximum-security pen), felt "overwhelmed" at the kindness and welcoming spirit of the people she met at The Lord's Rain
• an aboriginal leader who found someone with a mutual friend back home: she'll be taking back word that this person is alright
• the vice-president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto -- the teachers' union, who is also a Christian and said it was "wonderful" to see faith being acknowledged on this tour. This was the second day of the tour, and she told me there had already been a "lively discussion" about whether "religion [was] the cause of all the ills of the world." She also works with single parents through her church, a large West Indian church in TO.

In general, they came away with a view of the Downtown East Side that's decidedly different from the picture of crushing despair that is usually put forward, a picture that there is still hope and resiliency, regardless of the mistakes one has made and the ways one tries to patch them over. All of it was presented against the backdrop that, when all's said and done, God is present and in charge, blessing all with His indescribable Grace.

Vancouver and the homelessness "reality check"

It's funny, isn't it, what a difference a word makes.

In newscasting, for example, I've been caught out at least once because someone has inadvertently typed "not" instead of "now" -- as in "Police have not arrested a homicidal maniac ..."; there was also a time in the 1970s, when then Tory leader Joe Clark was visiting the Middle East, and in the process of reviewing some troops, stumbled and nearly cut his head on a soldier's bayonet: a wire-service copy writer inserted the word "off" after "cut his head", thereby making the incident seem a lot more serious -- and Clark a lot more clumsy -- than it or he really was.

And then there's the effect of subtly inserting a qualifier into a sentence or expression, thereby changing the whole meaning. This past week, CKWX Radio reported that the number of people living/sleeping on the street -- as opposed to in shelters in the city of Vancouver -- had doubled in the past year. Nevertheless, Mayor Gregor Robertson stated that he remained committed to ending street homelessness by 2015.

But let's rewind to 2008, when the mayor was newly elected. CBC News reported at the time that Robertson's top priority was to end "homelessness" by 2015. Not "street homelessness". And there's a difference. Ending homelessness means people are able to live in a place they can call their own, with a locking door and a lack of bedbugs and cockroaches. Ending street homelessness means people who are too poor to afford that are placed in shelters where they don't clutter up the streets and remind the good folk of the city how neglectful we can be of our fellow man.

Ending homelessness, as a former public health nurse writes in the Nanaimo Daily News, takes thoughtful planning, consultation about the needs of "street people" and finding a real solution to a problem that's a lot deeper than what we see on the surface.

Ending street homelessness is a numbers game that a politician can easily win by making "number of shelter beds" equal to "number of people without shelter beds". That one added word makes the difference between the promise of 2008 and the "commitment" of 2012.

But will that end the problem that leads people to be homeless in the first place? Will it get people off drugs? Will it get them jobs? Training? Treatment for their mental health issues? Deliverance from the demons they battle on an hourly basis? Do we force people into shelters, even though quite a few would rather be on the street?

I remember bristling when I first heard a politician say that people would rather be on the street than in a shelter. I forget who it was, but he was a cabinet minister in the then ruling Social Credit party in BC, and it was easy to write off the remark as a cop-out -- an abrogation of responsibility to the disadvantaged, promoted by an ally of Big Business and the "pick up your shovel" attitude towards welfare. But that was before I actually started hearing from people on the streets in Vancouver, who said they'd rather be outside than in a shelter, where they would be surrounded by people with mental issues and violent tendencies, as likely as not to have their belongings stolen while they slept. Outside, the air is fresh(er) and the street-wise person can find a place that's relatively secure.

Overarching all of this is the reality that we are not supposed to "end homelessness" as a part of society, any more than we can ever "end poverty now" (or at any time). God has given us a responsibility to reach out to troubled people and help them on an individual basis, but as an "institution", for want of a better word, poverty and homelessness are part of God's plan for our world.

So, though, is the desire to make things better for people. On the other hand, the desire to see it as an evil that must be eradicated is part of the enemy's plan to make God's plan look bad (you know: "how can a loving God allow ...?"); the desire to be seen as a "hero" or a "political champion" for making a commitment to eradicate it is a spin-off from the enemy's counter-plan.

This is why the homelessness count is a reality check, although not necessarily about the state of poverty in Vancouver: think of it as a reality check about grandiose political promises, which are later qualified, subtly, when the ongoing situation doesn't quite match the promise.

Freedom's Door, God's will and many boats but one finish line

Going to the International Association of Ministries annual conference in Kelowna gave me the opportunity to cash in a long-standing invitation: to visit Freedom's Door, a Christ-based recovery program in the City of Apples. One of the leaders of the program is Nick Yelland, who came out of prison and into the program several years ago, and realized that's where his ministry lies. He and I first collided at Gospel Mission, in fact. While working on his BA (Theology), he came to the Downtown East Side and did some volunteering with us. From there, we kept in touch, and while in the Kelowna area, I played hooky from the conference paid the program a visit.

While all of the people on the program were in various stages of coming out of substance abuse and crime -- somewhat like The Guys at Gospel Mission -- they seemed a bit younger and more robust, by and large. In fact, they looked like some of the meanest muthas I'd ever not want to meet in a dark alley. Maybe that was because they were getting healthier, because -- unlike Gospel Mission -- they've already made their commitment to a new life, both through Christ and physically.

But I was struck more by a common factor between Freedom's Door and Gospel Mission: an underlying theme that this is an initiative that God is definitely blessing. Like Gospel Mission, Freedom's Door is totally dependent on private contributions -- churches, individuals, foundations. But there's something deeper: the program is set up in a residential neighborhood. My first thought when I arrived was that the other homeowners must have had some choice words about Those Kind Of People coming to live next door.

It turned out that God had had all of that covered. First of all, the duplex that houses the "original" part of the program -- offices, dining area and 10 rooms downstairs -- was initially a women's shelter; so any controversies over zoning, NIMBYism and whatever were already taken care of. Then, a Christian woman who lived next door passed away, and left her house and property to Freedom's Door, so they added House #3 (the duplex was #1 and #2); and finally another house was acquired on the other side of Harvey Street (Highway 97), giving them four houses.

In other words, as with Gospel Mission and The Lord's Rain in particular, it's evident that Freedom's Door was meant to go ahead, whether The World liked it or not. God cleared away the obstacles and provided for the place, so that people with substance abuse issues and a criminal past -- who Nick readily describes as being ones other agencies won't take -- can be healed His way.

***
They had asked me to talk a bit about Gospel Mission and how The Lord's Rain was built, and that brings a fresh voice to the eternal message of Hope in Christ (you can't have too many voices from too many different angles when that message is involved). But in the course of the talk, we touched on one of the key aspects in the spiritual success of The Lord's Rain, which is that it was built by a communal effort and that has infused the place with a spirit of community. That spirit passes on to those it serves.

One of the ways it became a communal effort is that we had approached a wealthy Christian businessman and asked him to underwrite the whole thing (this was 4-1/2 years ago, when the plan was first coming together). He turned us down flat, which left us scratching our heads at the time (although we were also saying, "OK, God, how do You expect us to do this?"). In the conversation I had with the businessman's assistant, she pointed out that something the Board of Directors had been concerned about, which was a lack of unity among the missions and outreaches on the DTES. They felt it would be good to see some kind of common front to deal with the situations in the area.

The trouble with that idea is that, while it may work in The World -- with groups determining goals and reaching consensus decisions on how to achieve them -- you could have a dozen different groups with a dozen different goals and a dozen different approaches; and all of them could legitimately be led by the Holy Spirit. If you're serving God, that leading in the Spirit is the #1 priority. If your leading is forced -- or even expected -- to take a back seat to some concept of "unity", you're not serving God.

"Unity" in serving God, to my mind, involves following the assignment God has given you and staying out of everybody else's way. We need to assume that others, too, are following a leading of the Holy Spirit -- and if they're not, their fruits will show it (Are people being healed? Are people emerging from their despair? Are lives changing?).

Remember what Jesus said when the disciples tried to prevent an outsider from healing people in Jesus` Name: "Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is on our side." (Mark 9:39:40).

In fact, Paul writes, "when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do." (Galatians 2:9-10).

In other words, the approach doesn't matter, so long as the goal is to draw people into a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ -- and we remember to minister to the poor at the same time.

(The "James" mentioned in Paul's epistle is Jesus' half-brother, who wrote an epistle of his own and was the first Bishop of Jerusalem. He wasn't even a believer until after the Resurrection and while Jesus was being persecuted and tried, his ears were probably still stinging from his brother's remark about "who is My mother? and who are My brethren?). Yet I believe that when James spoke, it was Jesus speaking through him: the epistle reads like something Jesus would have written.)

But I digress ... In discussing this with the guys at Freedom's Door, I used the illustration of different people in different boats, all rowing towards the same goal: the boats might be of all shapes and sizes and might take little detours en route, but so long as the goal is that personal relationship mentioned above, we're all on the right path.

***
We need to be clear about that goal, and I have to circle back to Nick to make sure it is. After my chat with the guys, a young man came over and asked to speak with me. He had been trying to come to God on his own terms, having "gotten into some bad stuff" when he was younger -- playing with a ouija board, he figures, opened a gateway for evil spirits to enter. I have a little experience with that, so I know he wasn't blowing smoke. But his attempt to get closer to God involved clearing his mind and "trying to let Mother Nature heal [him]", and that kind of talk is anaethema to my ears.

I also know better than to hammer someone over the head, that they're wrong -- rather, to point them in the right direction.

But he was looking for some kind of validation for his own approach, based on that "different boats" analogy above. It was almost along the lines of "many ways to the top of the mountain" or "one God - many paths" that are the hallmarks of New Age thinking. So I recommended that, as part of his own quest, he do Spirit-replacement therapy, reading the Psalms as his prayers.

No - the different boats represent different approaches to lead people to Christ and through Jesus, to God. One might be a ministry that offers a 12-step recovery program; one might be a healing ministry; another might involve hitting the streets with a box of sandwiches and a pocketful of tracts; but so long as we keep focused on that goal and stay out of one another's way, we will all get there, eventually.

***
As I mentioned, Freedom's Door runs on private donations from individuals, churches and businesses. The success of their program is palpable as soon as you meet the guys. Please visit their website -- www.freedomsdoorkelowna.com -- for information on how you can donate.

An early morning in Samaria

"You can observe a lot, just by watching."
-- attr. to Yogi Berra

Thanks to my having left my set of keys to the Mission at home, I had a unique opportunity I might not have had if I'd just barged in as I'd intended to: a chance to just sit in Pigeon Park and watch the early morning world unfold. The Downtown East Side can be easily compared to Biblical Samaria, and Pigeon Park to Jacob's Well -- a place where, if you sit there long enough, someone is bound to come up and talk to you.

Actually, no one did come and talk to me, but watching people going back and forth and hearing the sing of the trolley wires as the early buses went by reminded one of the job at hand. MLA Jagrup Brar has just completed a one-month trial of living on a welfare income -- $610 -- and the stark reality that came home to him was the fact that the biggest need in the area is housing. I haven't spoken with him -- all that I've learned from his experience has been what the media have reported -- but it strikes me that he has not become an "activist" in the sense of someone who demands that someone else fix things; rather, that he has a better grasp of the problem and a determination to find a solution.

Finding homes for people is only part of the equation, and I must sometimes seem unwilling to admit that it's any part of the equation at all, when I point out that the real problem is hopelessness. But when you see people wandering through Pigeon Park and up and down Hastings Street and realize that they haven't slept, you realize how important it is and can't help wondering why it's become acceptable to so many people in positions to do something about it.

But -- as MLA Brar would be the first to admit, I'm sure -- there are no pat solutions. The solution is not x-number of housing spaces; and Heaven knows the answer is not in barracks-like shelters and cockroach-ridden "hotels". And at what point do hand-ups become hand-outs?

John and Danilo arrived with the keys, and we set about the Saturday morning opening of The Lord's Rain with a somewhat renewed sense of purpose. Our job is to instill hope in people, keep loving them and through that, drawing them closer to a new life. Give enough people hope and encouragement to reach up instead of reach out, and pretty soon, the question of housing on the Downtown East Side becomes moot.

***
Every so often, we get reminded of what we're up against in The World. A bus shelter in downtown Vancouver (I don't know the exact location) has an advert with the simple but arresting statement, "You sniff markers just to feel alive".

Some sophomoronic cave-dwelling marketing major apparently thought that was a "grabber" and that, in a city where so many lives are destroyed by substance abuse, would be an appropriate advertising statement. It's one of those "watch this space and see what comes next"-style ads, so the name of the advertiser is not displayed. It is, in fact, "The Holiday Initiative" on Facebook, and I'd encourage a boycott.

***

I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but our little two-story walkup has received a unique, if somewhat off-beat, honor. It has been included in the list of "125 Places That Matter", compiled by the Vancouver Heritage Foundation. It's a project the VHF started to mark the 125th anniversary of the founding of the City of Vancouver last year, and they announced that the time that they would lean towards buildings that didn't get much notice elsewhere. Certainly, while 331 Carrall Street has a history, you wouldn't find it on a tourism walking map.

At any rate, the VHF and its selection panel -- which includes blogger Rebecca Bollwitt (Miss604) and SFU Urban Studies Prof. Gordon Price -- agreed about the significance of our brick pile, and a plaque will soon adorn the building. Jessica Quan did the research, and you can find it online. Scroll down the list on the left of the other buildings (and you'll find we're in some pretty cool company) to "Gospel Mission/The Louvre Hotel" and click on that link to find Jessica's piece.

There'll be a plaque installed soon; it would be fair to note that the VHF has been offering sponsorships on these plaques, something we weren't able to do; but all the 125 "places" are getting plaques with or without the sponsorship (and we're not the only un-sponsored place). They're a non-profit organization that does some important work, bringing to mind the heritage and history of a city that is still just a toddler by world standards; with so many people moving here from other parts of the world, it's important that they know where the city has come from as they help take it to wherever it's going. If you can manage it, donations to the VHF would be welcome.

I also pray that people who read that will come and look at this historic building for themselves, and in so doing, see how it's still very much alive and lighting up the neighbourhood.

Of course, people in the Downtown East Side have known Gospel Mission as a "place that matters" since the 1940s, and that makes for an interesting back-story. We have outlasted every other tenant in the immediate area, including some that have been boarded up and one where the entire back wall literally collapsed one night (while we were having a prayer meeting, in fact). Truly, God has had His hand on our building, protecting it and providing for it, so His people can be encouraged, given hope, and gradually drawn closer to Him. At the end of the day, that's what Ministry in this area is all about.

You can't make this stuff up ...

From time to time, I've wondered about making a movie or a TV show about the Downtown East Side. (There was a time, earlier in my life -- about 35 years ago -- when I actually harbored thoughts of being an actor and writer: I got enough paying gigs to make me realize the idea was possible ... but not probable.) The show would be called "Rev. Downtown" (my legion of fan would recognize that as the title of this blog) and it would paint a picture of the DTES as I've seen it over the 8 years that I've been there -- gritty and unpredictable but with the undercurrent of Hope that runs through what we do at Gospel Mission and The Lord's Rain. As I've tried to express over the years, it's not all bad news -- not even close -- despite the image projected by activists and the media.


But what would the script look like? And who would play the characters? It would be a tour de force for an ensemble of character actors: improvising their parts without stereotyping or ridiculing anyone. Maybe Sean Penn (if he can take time out from making politically-correct "statement" movies), Matt Damon, Philip Seymour Hoffman and maybe Donald Sutherland and Graham Greene. And if you tried to write a script, a producer would send it back with orders to come up with something "real".

(Interestingly, that's one of the reasons why I believe the Bible is the Word of God and not (as Peter put it) some cunningly-devised fable: what human could devise it? The more I'd read it, the more I'd hear, "you can't make this stuff up". But I digress.)


Take, for example, the conversations I had at The Lord's Rain on Tuesday morning -- two conversations at the same time. I've joked on occasion that you don't have to be ADD to work at The Lord's Rain, but it helps. Often, someone will start talking to you regardless of whether you're already talking to someone else, so you usually have to tune one ear to the new conversation long enough to analyze whether it's something that can be put on hold until you've finished the current conversation or something vitally important that needs to be dealt with right away.


Compounding the situation this past Tuesday was the fact that the quarterly HST rebates were distributed the day before. (For those of you not in Canada, the government sends an amount each quarter to people on low incomes to compensate (at least in part) for their having to pay the Harmonized Sales Tax.) The rebates are a great idea in theory, but on the DTES, it means more money available to spend on drugs, and by gad, that's what they did on Monday. On Tuesday morning, many of the people were showing the effects and I was caught between two conversations with a newcomer named Vance and Dale, a man I've known since my start at Rainbow Mission in 2004.


Vance was notable for his scrupulous good manners, asking politely and thanking us for coffee, a drink of water, a refill ... but he had also been sitting by himself, deep in conversation with an unseen interlocutor, and occasionally gesturing very broadly -- almost violently. Dale had sat down next to him and he and I started talking about prayer. That's where Vance chimed in, excusing himself for stepping into the conversation.



But Vance's conversation was only semi-coherent, bouncing from one thought to the next like a flea on a hotplate. (My late mother, an actor, was once cast to play a pilot who'd suffered a brain injury in a plane crash. The sentences did not connect one word to the next, and for someone who used mnemonics -- mental images -- to memorize her lines, the challenge of learning this script was enormous. She literally had to memorize them word by word.) There was a common thread through his talking, however: demons and evil spirits. He talked about Jesus with bright shafts of light coming from His face, his own Aztec spiritual ancestry, standing toe-to-toe with the demon Pestilence -- and imitating Pestilence with a stance and facial contortions that made me feel like I was looking at Mr. P right there. Vance also talked about Leviathan (another demon), the Holy Spirit, bright lights and colors and a lot of other things I can't remember.


I sat there -- not frightened -- but fascinated. Interestingly, his talk about the spirit world did not go into things like the New World Order or other worldwide conspiracy theories (others talk about those). It was all about demons and spirits. Had he been part of a cult? Does he walk around constantly thinking these things, or do those thoughts come only when he's on drugs? (And I daresay, it's at moments like that, that I'm praying someone is on drugs! I'm only half-joking.)


All through this, Dale was continuing his conversation. Dale's mind was fried long ago by the lethal combination of mental illness and crack cocaine. He primarily follows a single theme: "I'm alright, aren't I?" He talks very loud and sometimes very fast -- the volume and the speed generally depend on whether he's affected by the street drugs or his own "head" medication has taken effect. At Rainbow Mission, he took great joy in wiping down the pews after the service. "Will you anoint my head with oil," he once asked me, "so I can wipe down the pews and not bring any evil to them?"


I thought I saw signs he was actually improving, but after Rainbow closed at the end of 2006, I didn't see much of him and when he did turn up at Gospel Mission he was in worse shape ... and the descent hasn't really let up. "I'm alright, aren't I? I'm gonna be OK, right? They say they're trying to help me but they don't, you know, they don't ..." (I'm not sure who "they" are: social workers, perhaps, or public health nurses? They probably do their best, but with limited resources, they can only do so much. Try telling that to the patients, though.)

"... I pray, you know," he went on, "... I hold my Bible every night ..."


"Do you read it?" I asked. "Just holding it won't do you any good."


"I should read it more, shouldn't I? I read the Psalms. I should read the Bible more, you're right."


"The Psalms are a good start," I replied. "Build on that."


"Yeah, I can build on that. I read the Psalms years ago. I should read it more, shouldn't I?"


Dale desperately needs validation of his life. Even trying to elicit some kind of criticism for not reading his Bible more reminds him that he's still alive and can still draw closer to God. That is, in fact, a common factor among so many of those on the DTES. That's a big reason why they come into The Lord's Rain: it's become a source of Hope -- that intangible reason for carrying on -- that is in such short supply in the area. And you know what? While it's good that we have staff and supporters who approach people with love and openness, the people themselves have made it what it is.


I think it's because of that, that some situations get resolved when they might have turned ugly. A couple of weeks ago, Danilo and one of the 'regulars' (Joe is his name) got into an argument over something to do with the coffee. The argument escalated to a veiled threat to "take it outside". Joe left ... Danilo was upset that he'd nearly lost control ... John was upset that someone gave Danilo "attitude" over the coffee ... A week later, Joe came in and apologized to Danilo. Danilo apologized for his role in it. End of discussion.

Incidents like that are a good indicator of the success of The Lord's Rain: that people are able to make up after a near dust-up. It's encouraging, and you know something? People need validation -- and sometimes, so do we.

Jesus, shelters and the law

There's a reason why there is a Commandment not to take the Lord's Name in vain, and it's less about cursing than it is about trying to take a religious "upper hand" in an argument. If you're going to approach something from the "what would Jesus do?" standpoint, better make sure you have a Scriptural basis for that.

A letter in the Vancouver Courier steps into that rather dangerous ground, in the controversy over the pending closure of the First United Church shelter for the homeless. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the issue to comment on it specifically, but the letter, with its use of pseudo-religious buzz-words like "Pharisee", indicates the dichotomy between what is "good" and what is "Godly".

The letter-writer seems to be of the opinion that, because Jesus calls on us to help the poor, the laws of the land should take a back seat. But that leads to the question, "Would Jesus break the law?"

Answer: no, He wouldn't. And He didn't. Pontius Pilate himself declared, "I find no fault in this man," and the charges for which Jesus was crucified were trumped-up and "confirmed" by false witnesses. Doesn't Jesus tell us to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"? He's not just talking about paying taxes: He's talking about obeying the laws. (When Paul called on us to obey the laws of the land, he was being persecuted by Nero. If he can do it under one of the most brutal, oppressive tyrants ever, we can follow a fire code.)

The fact is, with Jesus on your side, you can help the poor and oppressed and stay within the law. If it requires resources, He will provide them; if it requires an expert on certain issues, like fire regulations or (in the case of Gospel Mission) FoodSafe, that expert will be put in your path.

It's important to remember, too, that -- unlike the charges against Jesus -- fire-code and other regulations are not trumped-up. They're there to protect people -- people in the building itself and those in buildings nearby that might be damaged should a fire break out. Are those people less deserving of the protection of those regulations, simply because a particular building is being used for a "higher calling"? Are the homeless less deserving of fire-code protection, themselves?

And it's worth noting that many of the people living on the Downtown East Side have been devoid of boundaries in their lives, but once boundaries are applied -- even something as seemingly minor as the number of Cobs buns they may have at The Lord's Rain -- they (generally) accept them readily. How would it look if we who try to minister to them try to circumvent the boundaries and (worse) try to rationalize them "in Jesus' Name"?

Many years ago when I was in radio in Victoria, a special-interest group sent out a communique just before Christmas stating that it had poisoned some of the turkeys in a particular grocery chain. The chain immediately pulled all the turkeys off the shelves and offered refunds to anyone who'd already bought a bird. Someone called the station to suggest that, rather than waste all the food, the turkeys should be given to the poor. Well-meaning, perhaps, but a little unclear on the concept: so what's the difference between that argument and the suggestion that one should wink at bylaws and fire codes because of the "higher purpose"?

Now, if one wants to make an argument that homeless shelters should have relaxed standards or be exempt from certain codes, that could be grounds for a valid discussion. But don't try to make it Holy and Godly by adding "in Jesus' Name" to the discussion. That can be dangerous on oh-so-many levels.