Randall's Testimony

We encourage people to share their testimonies at Gospel Mission, and Randall Russell, one of the volunteers at the Mission and at The Lord's Rain downstairs, came forward and shared his recently. It's at the same time gut-wrenching and uplifting.

Testimonies are important: one can be skeptical and even cynical about the Bible and talk of miracles and the work of God, but you can't argue with a personal story. What's more, testimonies encourage others that they can have the same experience of salvation and transformation; and those who have already experienced that sometimes need to be reminded, themselves.

Since he gave this testimony, Randall has told me that even in the worst times, church was his refuge -- even for three hours a week -- and now he wants to go into Ministry, himself.

A baby to pray for

Being the father of a teenage girl, I went into "dad" mode the moment I saw Davona -- just over a year ago, now. Blonde and achingly pretty, she was sitting in the doorway of one of our neighbouring buildings, which was under renovation at the time. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I stopped to chat and invited her to come to the Mission service, where I was headed. She thanked me for the invitation, but didn't come up.

A couple of days later, though, she came into The Lord's Rain -- more for the coffee than anything else. It's easy to look at a girl like Davona and assume that she's drugged-out and working the streets; then you want to scream, "GET OUT! OUT WHILE YOU STILL HAVE YOUR BEAUTY! OUT WHILE YOU STILL HAVE YOUR LIFE! OUT WHILE YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TEETH!"

But on closer examination, Davona looks more like 30-ish. The fact that she still seems to have her own teeth is a sign that maybe the drug habit -- if she has one -- isn't so bad. But there was something else about Davona that wasn't right. She would carry on conversations with us -- except her voice would fade to nothing and/or she'd start speaking to the wall or her shoes, leaving you wondering if she was ever talking to you in the first place.

She would also show signs of obsessive-compulsiveness. She would go to a large box of clothes and start pulling them out one by one, examining each piece in detail. I'd find myself on tenterhooks, waiting to admonish her about taking so many pieces of clothing. (The house rule is a two-article maximum. Generally, the people respect that.) But instead of taking the clothing she had pulled out, Davona would carefully and methodically fold each one and put it back in the box. Sometimes, she'd take them out again and repeat the process. Occasionally, she might even keep a garment for herself.

Talking to Davona is like driving on the Interstate and your radio has a wonky tuner: you constantly have to do something to keep it tuned in. She'd carry on these conversations with no one in particular, but all you'd need to do is call her name, and she'd immediately snap back into reality -- or your reality, at any rate, as opposed to the one she had lapsed into. But after maybe 3 minutes, the frequency would start to drift again and you'd either have to call her name to jar the tuning knob back into position or just let her continue and go and do something else.

As often happens with people on the DTES, Davona disappeared for a few months. People do that. Sometimes, they've been arrested. Maybe they get a job and move away. Maybe they lose the job and move back. About two months ago, Davona turned up again. She was a bit more lucid, incessantly fussy in the mirror ... and pregnant.

Danilo tried to press her for information as to how it happened. Well, maybe not the how part, but information about the father. He got nowhere. Another of the women who often come into The Lord's Rain had a baby about a year and a half ago, and that little girl was seized by the Child and Families Ministry shortly after birth. There was an unspoken assumption that the same thing would happen with Davona's baby.

And that was the last we saw of Davona ... until today. I was walking through Waterfront Station, when a very familiar blonde face passed by. I called to her, and yes, it was Davona. And strapped to her front was a Snugli with baby sound asleep inside. "Her name is Shine," she told me, stroking the little head. I was in the middle of some INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT work and had to catch up with some others so aside from a little more sighing over the baby and telling each other it was nice to see the other again, there wasn't much chance to catch up.

In a story that could have so many unhappy elements to it, I'm believing for the happy ones all the way through. That Davona has the support she needs, that she's healthy mentally and physically, that the baby stays healthy and grows ... that everyone involved will see a miracle of God through all of it. A new little life, coming out of (and hopefully, staying out of) the DTES: that amid what often appears to be a land of walking dead, we have a sign that God wants life to keep going -- even there.

Especially there.

In your own way, in your own time, lift up Davona and Shine in prayer.

"That guy positively GLOWED!"

Confess your faults, one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much.

-- James 5:16

In sermons both at Gospel Mission and at Westpointe Christian Centre, where I have fellowship on Sundays, the recurring theme has been evangelism and the necessity to pray for others. The words of Jesus' brother (well, half-brother, anyway) are key: we have to go to one another and humble ourselves to recognize our own faults, speak them out and pray for healing; doing so in agreement because Jesus promises that if two or more are gathered in His Name, He'll be there with us. Calling Jesus into the situation guarantees the healing that we need.

One of the interesting things about The Lord's Rain is that, being a street-level outreach without overt preaching, people come in who wouldn't ordinarily set foot in a church. But since it's impossible to hide the light of Christ under a bushel, many of these people also have a measure of faith in God and Jesus Christ, but for one reason or another, are more comfortable talking about it in the less "formal" setting of The Lord's Rain.

Saturday morning, a man came in whom I hadn't seen before. He needed to talk, and so we did: he'd fallen back into a crack habit after being clean for six years, and was trying to pull out. "I haven't used in six hours now," he said, "but I don't know if I can make it. I'm starting to think thoughts that are not me. I'm thinking of hurting someone ... or robbing a bank ... that's not me, man!"

He had been a Baptist youth pastor in years gone by. He explained that, in his recent fall, he'd burned all his bridges with others in the world -- or so he thought. So we prayed together for healing, for answers, for clear direction. It was obvious that he needed to get into detox and rehab ... and fast.

We called Triage, which is a first-level social service group, and since they usually have no beds (one of the earliest entries after the opening of The Lord's Rain tells you something about their lack of space but abundance of compassion), we prayed over the phone call and asked God for favor. This time, they actually had a bed for Terry, so he hustled off to Triage -- and new hope.

Yesterday (Wednesday), he called me to say he had been accepted for Union Gospel Mission's six-month rehab program, and so we keep praying for God's grace and mercy -- and strength. A true desire to be clean, and knowing where to turn to get that strength (recognizing that we humans are hopelessly feeble creatures without Him), is rewarded -- and so is the perseverance that comes with going into a recovery program knowing it's going to be a long haul, not a quick fix.

Then there was Nelson. Nelson has been in before -- totally wrecked on something (probably heroin) -- and he was in no better shape when he came in on Tuesday morning. He spent much of his time slumped over one of the sinks, washing his hands, his face, his hair, over and over again. A shrink would probably have a field day with that imagery. At one point, he fell into a state of incoherent muttering, and then -- as often happens -- would snap back into reality when one of us spoke to him. As I was preparing to leave to go to the office, Shannon, another street person who's been volunteering with us, asked if I would pray over her, especially in light of some trials she's going through with her son (who's 19 and also drug-addicted). I did, and after that was done, Nelson was standing there, looking at us.

"Would you pray for me, too?" he asked.

I laid hands on him and prayed for him: prayed for healing -- the kind of healing God gives, when He reaches past the outward symptoms -- like drug addiction, poverty and loneliness -- and gets to the very root, yanking it out so we can see it, name it and cover it with the blood of Jesus. We all need the courage to face one of our peers and confess our faults, so they can come out into the open and we can hear ourselves talk about them ... and then pray for that healing, as James writes. The prayer over Nelson was for that courage so he can have the breakthrough God wants for him.

The prayer finished. Nelson looked at me and smiled. "Thank you," he said, and left.

"Did you see that?" Shannon said. "He positively GLOWED when you prayed over him!"

"That's God at work," I told her.

We need people willing simply to pray over others in the Downtown East Side. Prayer doesn't cost money ... and doesn't take a holier-than-thou man (or woman) of God: just a willingness to listen and love and see and build on even the slightest improvement in someone's life. Like Terry, fervently desiring to be clean. Or Nelson, positively glowing.

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).

The Showers Saga - 16: Closer still ... (originally posted Mar. 23/08)

Barry and Brodie have completed installing the cast iron and pressure-testing the plumbing: now it’s up to the folks from Hillcrest Plumbing to do the finishing touches and for the City inspector to come around and give it the final seal of approval. We’re expecting that to happen this week – Hallelujah!

The next big job is the walling-in of the shower units, but before that can happen, we need to clean out the building waste and other accumulated junk (anyone want a kitchen range – many ranges have cooktops, ovens, grill, rotisserie, and are self-cleaning … but do you know any that come complete with baby rats? I think NOT!).

This past Saturday, we were blessed to meet some young people from a Mennonite church in Abbotsford (through all the introductions, I never caught the name of their church). Susan and Shawna (sp?), Jason and Jason (that’s right: “Hi … I’m Larry … this is my brother, Jason, and this is my other brother, Jason”) came to help at Gospel Mission’s Easter Saturday dinner, bringing lots of ham and other good stuff and helping serve. They’ve also expressed interest in helping out with the Lord’s Rain, so you may well meet them on the 29th. This is all in preparation for another work blitz from the Oasis in Duncan, tentatively set for the following Saturday, April 5.

One of the key points about the story of The Lord's Rain is that it’s not really about giving people a chance to clean up. It's turned out to be a vehicle for breakthrough on a number of levels. Many people who have come in to help have been seeing breakthroughs of their own, and have found a new perspective from helping with this. The symbolism of providing a basic human need – like Jesus’ washing the feet of the disciples, or the “cup of cold water”, as one of the Jasons put it yesterday (Matt. 10:42 “And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward”(KJV)) – is a tangible, long-lasting service to others that says “I care” and “you are not forgotten or written-off”. And being involved with the myriad aspects to make this project work helps the helper as much as the helped. Providing funding has been one thing, but people have also stepped forward to offer their gifts – sometimes skills and labor, sometimes ideas, sometimes saying, “I want to be part of this: what can I do?”.