"Normal -- except in a bad place"

"Normal"? Well ... 

My friend, Murray Scott, who was one of the builders working on The Lord's Rain, made that observation as he sat in his van, watching the passing scene in and around Pigeon Park. You can hear Murray's observations -- as well as those of Rachel McKinley, Jeff Ridley, John Sharp and Kathy Kinahan -- here. It's been one of the "takeaways" that I have from the project: the fact that, in spite of the obvious differences between the people who live on the Downtown East Side and those who don't, there are a lot of similarities -- perhaps more than one would imagine.

It's that takeaway that's made me less fearful of "gentrification" on the Downtown East Side. It's a wonderful opportunity for integration of what's become Vancouver's version of the "two solitudes". The "good folk" of the city, buying condominia amid the squalor and depression of Hastings Central. If each group could just see and interact with the other, rather than put up barriers of fear and loathing, people might be more inclined to help, encourage and in their way, minister to one another. The "haves" might start to see the "have-nots" as people who do have something to offer them; the "have-nots" might be less inclined to see the "haves" as starlings, waiting for a chance to push them out of their nests.

At least, that's the pipe-dream. The real picture is starting to look more like two solitudes living side by side and barely acknowledging the other -- kind of like the woman who told a Vancouver reporter recently that she went for years without saying more than two words at a time to her neighbors on her floor.

Case in point: ultra-high-end lighting boutique, right across the street from Pigeon Park.

In the background, you can see where some people are camping in one of the openings cut into the hoarding around the old building. (That's the building where two concrete cornices crashed to the ground last fall, leading the city and the owners to say, "Yeah ... I guess it's time to get that fixed!) Somehow, I don't think they'll be buying their lighting from the place across the street.

At the same time, two young men walk a white labradoodle along Carrall Street, but passing by on the other side from Pigeon Park. There's a metaphor for you!

And inside, a young couple finally finds a place to crash after what was apparently a sleepless night.

Even though it's not exactly manifesting right now, I still believe in this "integration" thing. Let patience have her perfect work ... (James 1:4) They're in the same neighborhood, and that's a start.


(Yogi Berra might say, "as long as there's proximity, people will be close.")

Yes, anyway ... how do we get to there from here? This is one case where I will use the word "evolution". The divide is too great to be paved-over by a free barbecue at Oppenheimer Park or a street party in Gastown: you won't get people to mingle at either. A commenter on John Fischer's blog a couple of years ago wrote, "Nothing positive happens until we either allow someone into our sphere or we are invited to enter someone else's. Maybe having one's bubble burst isn't such a bad thing after all." 

The barrier of fear, loathing and suspicion has to come down, and that will only come through time and a conscious effort by both sectors to stop and say "hi". When that happens, each side will recognize that the other is, as Murray put it, "normal" -- and as the contact progresses into better understanding, the "place" will be less "bad".

                                                                                                               

Terry's Tale -- "I'm not a lucky man"

Today is Terry Hill's birthday, so it's fitting that this entry would be his story -- because 5 years ago, there may have been some question as to whether he'd even see this day. 
Terry Hill almost literally stumbled in The Lord's Rain in March of 2010. It turned out to be a pivotal moment in his life, and  ... let's let him tell the story ...

Hello my name is Terry Hill. I am a grateful follower of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I was not always a believer in fact I grew up as an atheist and was raised by atheists. I even married an atheist. Throughout my life I was pursued by God, although I didn’t know it.

           

            At an early age I was molested by one of our neighbors. It was tough because my parents didn't or wouldn't believe me. I ended up growing up on the streets here in Vancouver. I spent my youth running away from anybody and anyplace that I was put. When I was a teen I was locked up in a youth detention Center in Burnaby, BC I was locked up for being a run away. I was told I was unmanageable. While I spent those months locked up I learned how to really survive. I was going to make them pay for locking me up. I would give them a reason to lock me up.

            When I was released from the detention centre I was placed in a foster home. My foster parents were Christian. I thought my foster dad was a freak and kept this doubt that he loved me. He seemed to be too good to be true. His wife also really cared about me. They took me into their home and allowed me to be me they never pressured me into anything. They believed I was a good kid and they trusted that God would show himself to me. I ran from their house many times but they would phone and let the authorities know – not to pick me up, but to watch that I was okay. They knew that I would eventually come home on my own. Just like the prodigal son.  Which I did. But I still didn’t believe in God.

            I ended up being an Alcoholic. I was drinking to kill the emptiness inside me. I met my daughter’s mother at 22 and she and I drank and partied together. She was a prostitute when I had met here. I was fresh out of jail. She quit working the streets when she met me and I was trying to go straight. I wanted to go straight because she became pregnant with my daughter. I went into King Haven treatment centre in Abbottsford not to get sober but to get my back as my drinking caused a lot of problems. It worked for a few months but then I went back to drinking. She left me and took my daughter with her. She always allowed me to see my baby girl and after a while she met another man. I tried everything to get her back.

            When my daughter was about five years old my ex wanted to get out of a bad relationship and move back home to Saskatoon. She couldn’t go unless I allowed it. I guess this was one spot that God had touched my heart because I gave up everything and moved her and my daughter back to Saskatchewan.

While in Saskatchewan, I started working for a roofing company called “Little Rainbow". The motto was “SEALED FROM ABOVE”. Whoa boy my employers were born again Christians!

Rick and Veronica were two of the nicest people I ever met. Rick would always try talking to me about the Gospel and I would joke with him that as long as I didn’t convert I would have job security. I was working there when I met my wife at AA. She was an atheist and we got along. But I was never totally honest with her about my past. When my past caught up with me she left me. And if I hadn't slept with some other woman while we were separated, I might have gotten back with her but that is not what God had planned for me. I ended up running away from that working and drinking I moved away from Saskatchewan and lost track of my daughter.

            By the beginning of 2010, I was highly addicted to crack cocaine. I was no longer working was angry and was at the point in my life where I thought I was better off in jail or dead. I hated me and I hated what I became. On a cold rainy night in March 2010, I was broke, coming down and feeling like crap. I wanted to just rob someone so I could get more drugs. This became one of the greatest nights of my life. I started walking from White Rock towards Surrey looking for someone to rob. I ended up walking all the way to Vancouver that night through surrey New Westminster, Burnaby and Vancouver,

           

            There were numerous opportunities to rob people at the instant tellers along the way, but every time I got a chance a police car would drive by. So I didn’t do it, I wasn’t going to jail without getting high first. So I was sore, wet and angry by the time I got to triage shelter on this cold and rainy Saturday morning in March of 2010. They didn’t have a bed available and I wasn't a really nice guy. They escorted me out to the street. I was defeated – I was going to go to Hastings and Carrall and rip off a dealer I didn't care if I lived or died. I came to Carrall street and this blonde haired man standing in front of a building asked me how I was doing I don’t remember exactly what that conversation was but I remember him smiling and saying, “looks like you’re having a bad day, why don’t you go in and have a coffee?”

He asked me if there was anyone he could call for me but I said I burnt all my bridges there is no one. While sitting there Drew was talking to John at the counter talking about God and Jesus. Well I saw the shelter list and I was going to test their God. I picked up the shelter list and said you can call them and see if they have a bed. I already knew they didn’t.

            “Well,” Drew said to John, “let us pray before we call.”

I remember rolling my eyes into my forehead thinking what have I got myself into. Well, this was the first time I saw prayers answered, and I started to believe there must be a God, because this place had a bed for me.

I spent the next three days there at the shelter and never once wanted to use or drink. On the Monday I started to seriously want to quit drinking and drugging. I ended up going to Union Gospel Mission where I was helped by more Christians. They prayed for me and got me into a shelter out of the downtown core to wait for a bed in their recovery program.

That Wednesday, I came to the Carrall Street Mission and was still in AWE of God’s wonderful power and that evening in front of a small group of people in this room I asked Jesus into my heart as my personal Savior. The power of the Holy Spirit came upon me my knees went weak and I had such a feeling of Love and Joy that I had never felt before, I was given such a high that no drug could get me to.

I remember to this day that feeling and I would like to say that it’s been nothing but good times since then but it hasn’t: I’ve had many days that were horrible and I forgot about the love that Jesus has for me I spent the next few years struggling but I was searching for God’s love mostly in the wrong places I thought I could do things on my own, I have since put my trust in God.

I know now that everything that has happened has happened for the benefit of my good. For He has nothing but good for those that believe.

Today, I am 18 months clean and sober. I attend a Christian recovery group called Celebrate Recovery. I know that Jesus is in these rooms with us healing the broken and the hurt. I thank God for the day that I was so broken that I asked him to deliver me and so far he has been. I pray for all the people stuck in this lost and evil area of addiction and alcoholism that the Lord will bring them into his Grace as well.  I also thank God for my brother Drew and John who God used to soften my heart to actually hear his voice and feel his love. Since coming to Christ, He has brought my daughter back into my life after 16 years and I now have 4 grandsons that I have met and look forward to watching them grow up.

I am not a lucky man but I am truly Blessed by God.

Click here to hear Terry tell this story.

From The Lord's Rain: "Do you want fries with that?"

"What's the difference between the churches?"

Joseph was in a somber mood, which often happens when he's been drinking, which is often. This is one of a number of people named Joseph that I know through The Lord's Rain. There's old Joe Trepanier; Joe, our new volunteer who stepped up after his friend, Ken Franklin, passed away last November; there's Joseph, who declared a couple of years ago that we were surrounded by Higgs Bosons, because the HB is called the "God Particle" and we are all particles of God; and then there's this Joseph, who knows his Bible well and has the call of an Evangelist on his life -- and has absolutely no idea what to do with it. 

Joseph had come up to me in Pigeon Park, with a look of bewilderment on his face. He also had a fat lip, and it was hard to tell if he had been in a fight or had simply run into something.

“I need you to pray for my brothers and sisters,” he said. When he asks for prayer, it's usually for others first. The Apostle Paul tells us we need to pray for all the saints (Eph. 6:18). We did. 

“Look at my hands, Pastor,” he said. “Look how dirty they are.”

“Come on in and wash up,” I said. “You can warm up, too.”

Joseph usually "sleeps rough", and I'm guessing it's because he doesn't feel safe in the shelters. Many of the homeless people have told me that. One night, I asked Joseph where he was sleeping. "Blood Alley," he replied. "I've spilled enough blood there; might as well live there!" He then exploded with a laugh.

He spent about five minutes with his hands under the water, scrubbing. Eventually, they came clean enough for him, so we sat down and that's when he asked his question.

“What’s the difference between the churches?” he asked.

Even with a load on, Joseph can ask some very probing questions.

“Like,” he went on, “say you’re driving down the road and there’s a McDonald’s … and there’s nothing but McDonald’s all along the road. And what if you don’t like McDonald’s?”

I got where he was going. “But instead there’s Burger King and IHOP and DQ.”

“Exactly. So what’s the difference?”

“So long as they’re using the same basic food on the menu,” I said, “what does it matter?”

Joseph paused for a long time. He was either taking that one in or formulating his next sentence.

“I was an altar boy, you know? Way up north. And my mom used to get me to read. They’d ask for someone to read in church, and she’d push me up there: ‘Get up there and read!’ she’d say.”

“Well, something sure stuck with you,” I said.

Another long pause.

“I went into foster care,” he said.

“What was that like?” I asked, expecting to hear some kind of horror story.

“I was a baby,” he said.

“Oh,” I said.

“But I remember it,” he said. That may have said more about his situation than any words.

===

In the last email, I mentioned Jeremy and how we try to care for him. But there is this violent side that I rarely see, but still hear about. Bill Piggott, who's been part of the Mission since long before I got there, showed up for the Sunday service the week before last with a huge shiner over his left eye. It turned out that Bill had spotted Jeremy outside the Mission on the day after Welfare Day, trying to rob an older man. Bill -- who's about six inches taller than Jeremy -- stepped in.

"Come on, Jeremy," he said. "Not in front of the Mission."

(Why shaking down an older guy would be OK, so long as it was away from the Mission, Bill did not explain.)

He took Jeremy by the shoulders and walked him away, at which point another guy appeared on the scene, and hauled off and cold-cocked Bill, glasses and all.

Apparently, Bill did not return evil for evil, but it does remind one about maintaining that delicate balance between trying to see people as God sees them ... and being ready to duck.

===

An old friend, whom we met through The Lord's Rain, has re-surfaced. Terry came to us in 2010 -- totally used-up, depressed, and on the verge of "doing something I shouldn't". He had been out all night, looking for someone to rob to get another hit of crack cocaine, and had been turned down at every shelter he'd looked at -- including Triage, the last-resort/emergency shelter that will generally find you at least a comfy chair, if not a bed.

John Sharp and I had prayed over Terry, and then we called Triage. And they had a bed for him. He went up there and checked in. From there, he was able to get into recovery programs, and he was baptized at Gospel Mission. Since then, we've more or less lost touch over the past couple of years, but from what he told me yesterday, life now is considerably different -- and considerably better.

Terry has often pointed to that Saturday morning in 2010 at The Lord's Rain as his point of "breakthrough", but the rest of his testimony speaks to two vital truths: one is that the actual turnaround in life is a long, often painful, process; the other is that once God gets His hook in you, that hook is barbed, and nearly impossible to get out.

Terry will be sharing his testimony on Sunday at Gospel Mission. We will post that on YouTube next week.

How to turn the Tim's incident into something good

The media in Vancouver has been abuzz lately with news that the manager of a downtown Tim Horton's outlet dumped water all over a man who was sleeping on the sidewalk. The doughnut chain has apologized, the manager will likely be pilloried, and some are calling for a boycott of Tim's.

But maybe there's a way to make a more lasting benefit out of a nasty incident.

To begin with, having spent over 10 years dealing with people who "live rough" on the Downtown East Side, I know they can be pretty difficult at times. Chances are, things escalated to a point where the Tim's manager acted out of frustration. As is so often the case with social media, the climactic incident is all that gets reported: we don't see the build-up. Were the case to go through the "usual legal process", we might get a completely different picture.

Trust me: there have been some instances over the years, where people around the Mission have pushed my buttons.

This isn't to defend the way it was handled. Clearly, this fellow could use more face-to-face time with those who live rough.

So I have a modest proposal.

Rather than fire the manager or send him to sensitivity training (the western-democratic, PC equivalent of "re-education camps"), have him volunteer for one or two mornings a week at The Lord's Rain. That's the showers facility run by Gospel Mission Society (not Union Gospel) next to Pigeon Park. It's open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 6:30 until 9 AM or so. People can come in to have a shower or wash up and shave at the sinks; or just have a coffee and hang out.

It would be the ideal place for this manager to bring his talents -- serving customers -- and learn who these people really are. An old Anglican minister said to me many years ago, "You can never hate a man once you have talked to him." And so it can be here.

After all, what would punishment do, besides make the fellow defensive? He's already been pilloried in the media and his side of the story hasn't come out. And what would a boycott do, except assuage some people's sense of righteous indignation? It would fizzle after a while. And what would a cash donation to a charity do? That would be forgotten soon -- except for the tax receipt at the end of the year.

But think of it: the manager spends a couple of hours with us, then heads to work and has a completely different understanding of the people on the street. He passes that compassion on to the people he knows -- including his own staff -- and they start spreading it around. Maybe some of them start volunteering, themselves.

Talk about a Tim's "double-double"!

(If you want to know more about The Lord's Rain and volunteering, feel free to contact me.)

It's Burgundy! - and a special thanks to the City

"Am I goin' to hell?" Jeremy called to me, more than half joking. He flapped the reddish blanket he had draped over his shoulders. "I'm wearin' the devil's cape!"

I shook my head, "I'd call that a purple robe," I said, trying to give it a more Christ-like interpretation.

Jeremy -- minus the Burgundy/red/purple robe -- photo bombs my
promo for "In His Image, Too ..."

Jeremy looked at the blanket and said, "it's Burgundy," and shambled off towards the others in Pigeon Park.

We were outside The Lord's Rain Saturday morning, and I was talking with Ron and Lance when Jeremy had come along. "Burgundy!" said Lance. "He's right."

Ron shook his head. "There's so many smart people around here," he said. "When I first came down here [over a decade ago], I just assumed everyone down here was stupid -- a bunch of losers. But I'm amazed: there are doctors, professors ... guys who just kinda flipped out."

"Look at Len," I put in, referring to a fellow with a professional engineering designation who now cannot put a coherent sentence together -- not coherent to us, at any rate*.

Lance added, "you're right: there are some really educated people here."

It just reinforces what we've been saying for years: any stereotyped image you might have considered for the "typical" Downtown Eastsider gets blown out of the water by one fairly simple means: talking to one.

I wouldn't call Jeremy "educated", but there's no question that he's a very smart young man. In fact, he's quite well-equipped, physically and intellectually -- except that he has anger issues (others have reported seeing him take out another person with a single punch) and, being Native, has come to the plate with at least one strike against him. He sleeps rough. Take your pick of the reasons: (a) no shelter would want to take him, (b) he's afraid for his own safety in a shelter (from people he's punched-out before), (c) he's on the incredibly long waiting list for a place through BC Housing, or (d) all of the above. But his toughness is a facade, and behind it, I see an incredibly vulnerable and lost young man  It appears he's given up trying to move ahead -- or even trying to stay in the same spot.

Jeremy comes into The Lord's Rain most mornings to have a shower; but a lot of the time, too, he'll just come in and fall asleep on one of our benches. I've also picked him up off the floor when he's collapsed, shivering and near-paralyzed, from fatigue and cold. And I wrote last summer of a time when he picked up a Bible and asked me to read him something. Psalm 91 ("He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty.") came to mind: the message of comfort and protection when we put our trust in the Lord. He seemed to be encouraged by it. It's one of the great hope-filled passages, and hope is probably the commodity most in demand -- and least in supply -- on the Downtown East Side.

===

Ron is an enigma. I have a lot of time for him: ever since I've known him, he's come to our services and spent much of the time reading. At first, I thought he wasn't paying attention, but early on, he would come up to me afterwards with an observation based on what my message had been, which indicated that he was a lot more "into" it than one would think.

Unable to work due to disability, he receives disability "benefits" (don't you love that euphemism?) and a shelter allowance, so he has his own digs, and works the back alleys as a binner for the remainder of his income. How he pushes his wiry, arthritic body through the streets in all weather, shoving a cart ahead of him, is beyond me, but somehow he does; and I've rarely heard him complain about being sick. But sick, he is: I've watched him deteriorate, physically, over the years. A couple of years ago, he nearly lost an arm. He was reaching into a dumpster and cut himself on something. He didn't think much of it and went on about his routine, but the cut was quickly infected (not a difficult thing in those alleys) and before he knew it, he was in hospital with one arm considerably larger than the other. Doctors literally had to open his arm to drain the poison out of it and the scar is very visible when he wears a sleeveless shirt in the summer.

Yet he keeps on, never losing his humor. Any time I start to complain about the sniffles, I give my head a shake.

===

One of the ongoing bêtes noires we've faced over recent years has been the Downtown East Side Street Market. Every Sunday, the 300 block Carrall Street is closed and dozens of people -- mostly binners -- set up shop to sell stuff. It's mostly second- or third-hand goods: not exactly St Lawrence Market in Toronto or The Rocks in Sydney, Australia, but people buy and sell.

The reason it's been problematic for us at Gospel Mission is that the 300 block Carrall Street is right outside our door and the market takes place right when our services are happening. The market has proven to be a deterrent to a lot of people coming to these services, and Barry spent a fair bit of time, trying to keep the pathway clear and pestering City Hall to install portable toilets and get the Market organizers to prevent any selling in front of the Mission.

There's been some success in that, although Anthony, Barry's son, can tell you he's been greeted with verbal -- and sometimes physical -- abuse when he's asked people to respect that "no-sell zone". In the past year or so, though, the Market has put up a fence and posted a security person outside our door. 

A week ago Sunday, though, we were greeted with a handbill, stuck in the door, to wit:

WARNING

SUNDAY January 18th, 2015

We regret to inform you that the City of Vancouver has failed to provide necessary operating funds for the regular Sunday market that has existed at Pigeon Park for almost five years. Starting today, market organizers will be forced to reduce staff to accommodate this new budget reality.  We regret any inconvenience that this may cause. 

If you have any complaints, please call 311 or e-mail dtesstreetmarket@gmail.com to have these complaints forwarded to the City of Vancouver.

There was no logo on the flyer and it wasn't signed, but we noted quickly that the fence was not there and there were only a few security staff, roaming about the market with no one actually posted outside our door.

Someone said to Ian, "You guys will be in trouble, now!"

A fight broke out underneath the office window: one of the sellers apparently believed someone was trying to steal some of his merchandise. No staff stepped in to help out: another seller broke up the fight.

The next day, I fired an email off to the Mayor and each individual Council member. Four of them -- Andrea Reimer, Kerry Jang, Tim Stevenson and Raymond Louie -- got back to me within an hour, saying they'd look into it. Ms Reimer said that, rather than a cut in funding, the Market was actually about to get a funding increase and they'd be receiving the cheque that coming Thursday. The source of the information in the flyer was unclear.

Then I heard from the head of Community Services, assuring us that there was no funding cut. She had had several calls since Sunday morning from people complaining that the City wasn't supporting the Market.

This past Sunday (the 25th), a security person was back at the door and the fence was back up.

Was this a clumsy attempt to bully City Hall? Hard to say, and we have no way of knowing what was said to the organizers of the Market on Thursday. But a big thank-you! to those City Councillors for getting on the stick as quickly as they did!

===

A new volunteer has stepped up to become a server rather than a servee. Joe has been coming into The Lord's Rain pretty much since it opened, working on the Bottle Depot's street-and-alley-cleaning crew. He was always very friendly towards me, but for some reason, he and Danilo rubbed each other the wrong way. They nearly came to blows a few times, usually when Danilo would deny him an extra bun. Danilo has been learning about customer service (like, how to tell someone they can't have another bun without implying they're being greedy pigs for wanting one) and has been getting better, mainly under Ken Franklin's tutelage. But Ken is no longer with us. And that brings us to Joe.

I walked into The Lord's Rain on Saturday to find Joe serving coffee, setting up the styrofoam cups on the counter so they would be ready. Danilo was upstairs, preparing the buns. "I need to do this because of Kenny," Joe said. "He was like a father to me [Ken was maybe 10 years older than Joe], so I'm carrying on what he started."

Danilo came downstairs, set the tray of buns on the counter and went behind the desk. That was a scene I never thought I'd see: Danilo and Joe, working side by side. A sense of humility and grace on the two of them. Sometimes, we wonder about legacies, and that would be one of Ken's.

The SeaBus Safety Announcement: a fond farewell

This is one of those “wistful moments”: the Transport Canada safety announcement that I voiced for the MV Burrard Pacific Breeze – the latest of the three SeaBus vessels – is about to be retired, if it hasn’t been already. With the new SeaBus about to be launched, they had to re-do those announcements; and thus ends the last “official” connection I had with TransLink. True, people still come up to me in the street or on buses and talk to me about transit, nearly two years after I was let go, but the voiceover was the official link.

The story behind the recording of the voiceover, though, runs a bit deeper than simply “Drew reads a script”, and it’s another way that TransLink blessed my ministry on the Downtown East Side. I had already been brought into a job that required me to be on-call pretty much all the time. This meant that I was not required to be in the office the customary 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday, so if I was needed for something at Gospel Mission, I could deal with it. Ken Hardie and Erin Dermer both said, “I know you get the job done here: go do what you have to.” 

There were individual displays of support, too, like one planner who got guests at his and his fiancée’s engagement party to bring socks and underwear; an executive who, in lieu of the customary bottles of wine for his staff at Christmas, made donations in their names to the Mission; and the huge response when I sent out a mass email to staff asking for blankets and warm clothing when an unexpected cold snap hit.

The Breeze, which was launched in 2009, was built with significantly different specifications from the first SeaBuses – the Burrard Otter and the Burrard Beaver – and that included the audio/visual system. Coast Mountain Bus Company, which operates SeaBus, realized that the safety announcement would have to be re-recorded in a format compatible with the new system, but for whatever reason, the announcer who did the current announcement was not available and the new version was needed immediately.

I forget how this came to my attention (it may have been a heads-up that there could be a media inquiry about a potential delay), but I stepped up and offered to voice it myself, using my home studio. But there was a slight ethical conundrum. If I charged for my services, there would be a question of conflict of interest and an untendered job. If I didn’t charge, I could be accused of undercutting a fellow voiceover professional. But the job had to be done.

The solution? I would quote them what I would charge for the job: if they were pleased with the product, CMBC would make a donation to Gospel Mission. CMBC agreed, and a few more Mission bills got paid.

God works in amazing ways to make sure His purpose is fulfilled. Time and again, He worked through TransLink to bless the Mission and the people it serves. In fact, when we were building The Lord’s Rain, the media attention we garnered – which helped to raise awareness and funds from the public – was due to the fact that I had made friends among the reporters through our TransLink connection. The SeaBus VO was just one of those ways.

It wasn’t something we noised-about, but I think it’s OK now to mention it. And so, one more time: The SeaBus Safety Announcement. http://youtu.be/ADygjHgR6x4

Thank you, Ken!

There's nothing like a dressing-down from a judge to put your life on-track.

"Mr Franklin, you are not a career bank robber. You are a drug addict."

Ken Franklin was up before the beak for pulling 14 bank jobs in a short period, getting more money to buy more drugs. He had fallen in with the dealers and pimps while in a halfway house (yes, the facility intended to get convicts ready to return to society) and, seeing the "cornflakes boxes full of cash" they would bring in and needing to finance his habit, started his spree. Being of slight stature, he also wanted to show that You Don't Mess Around With Ken.

There was also something about the thrill of the chase that Ken found addictive, but when the law finally caught up with him, the words of Judge Harry Boyle made the reality all too clear. 

​

Ken carried a photocopy of that clipping with him in a shirt pocket everywhere he went.

By the time I got to know Ken, he had cleaned up and was part of the street cleanup team hired by The Bottle Depot to pick up trash around the Downtown East Side and would come into The Lord's Rain on his coffee break. One morning in 2011, I had to announce to the group that we had to limit the number of pastries we handed out to two per person. Believe it or not, I felt like I had to apologize for the new regulation, but Ken spoke up as if he was speaking for everyone and said, "That's OK: we appreciate everything you do."

That wasn't the only gesture of support. When he heard on the radio in 2013, that I had been let go from TransLink, he came into The Lord's Rain and growled, "you deserve better". Hello? Someone in a down-and-out area, telling me that I deserved better? Truly, there was something, well, different about Ken.

Earlier this year, Ken asked if he could volunteer at The Lord's Rain. "I got a lot of time on my hands," he said, "and I'd like to help out." He quickly showed he was a natural leader, taking charge without being pushy and showing by example how to treat "customers". As time went on, he told me how he had been Saved while in prison for the robberies, thanks to the female prison guard he eventually married. They had bought and operated the coffee shop at the 108 Mile Guest Ranch in the Cariboo, and it was there that he developed this knack for dealing with people. It was something Danilo sorely needed, and he was starting to develop it, working with Ken.

​

For Gary, has the responsibility of making sure The Lord's Rain is open at 6:30am, Ken was a welcome addition, a reliable extra pair of eyes to welcome the people. He treated everyone with unfailing respect, and it was never better demonstrated than when a mentally ill man "went off" on him one morning a few weeks ago, standing almost nose-to-nose with Ken and threatening him. Ken stood his ground but did not "return evil for evil". His mates on the cleanup crew started calling him Pastor Ken, but with respect rather than mockery, and there was a distinctly different, more up-beat, vibe around The Lord's Rain when he was serving.

In the past few weeks, though, Ken missed the occasional morning, then would come in and tell us he had been ill and couldn't get out of bed. He started losing weight and had trouble eating. "I'm scared," he confided. "I don't know what's wrong." "Have you seen a doctor?" "Not yet." I don't know if he ever did.

No one on the street-cleaning crew saw him for a week, which was unusual. Finally, this past Friday, someone went through the door at his hotel and found his body. It appears he had been gone for about four days.

Dying alone and unnoticed in a skid row hotel: certainly not an uncommon occurrence on the Downtown East Side, and my first thought was to say to Ken, "you deserve better". But while I miss him terribly, and I know the others do, it's tough to be sad because I have a really good idea where he is now, where there is no pain or sickness and he gets a reward that none of us deserves. As The Newsboys put it in their song, "The day he bought those pine pajamas/His check was good with God"*. 

Ken shared his story for a video project I've been working on, called "In His Image, Too ...", and which is currently airing on LivingStrongTV.com, a Christian internet TV station. You'll find the interview here, and Ken's portion begins around 14:30. Unless this part was edited for time, he says at one point that he would like to help others in some way with his own testimony and hope to inspire them in their lives. Judging by the way some of the guys talked about him on Saturday, as the news spread, I'd say he's done that.

Thank you, Ken!

____

*from "Breakfast", by Steve Taylor and Peter Furler