Now playing at The Pantages

A friend of mine recently sent me an invite on Facebook to join one of those online "grassroots campaigns". This is the same kind of campaign that demanded 24/7 operation of SkyTrain so that people could party until 4 AM closing time and not miss the last train home (personally, I believe that if you have to keep drinking up till 4 AM, you don't need a SkyTrain - you need a doctor), and picked up its Warholian 15 minutes when a couple of the local fishwraps picked up the fact that several thousand people decided it would be a good thing to support.

This particular Facebook campaign sounds laudable - save the old Pantages Theatre, which began life as a vaudeville house over 100 years ago and saw such greats as Charlie Chaplin, Fred Allen, Stan Laurel (possibly as the Stan Jefferson Trio, before he was teamed with Oliver Hardy), Babe Ruth, and others. It later changed its name to the Avon, where it was the home to the Everyman Players, one of Vancouver's first professional theatre troupes (and where my parents first met). By the 60s, it had morphed into a Chinese movie house, first called the Sun Sing Theatre and then the Shaw, and for many years now, it's been boarded up and perpetually for sale or lease.

A civic minded group has been trying to take it over for quite a few years, trying to raise money and get City support to get it retrofitted and refurbished and restored to something of its former glory -- kind of like the work done on the Orpheum in times past. Now, it's become apparent that the City of Vancouver is not willing to spend money on the project, and the owners are looking to unload it to developers.

This, of course, is regarded as a Travesty Of Vancouver History, and a Great Shame if the theatre isn't preserved.

The problem here is that this piece of Vancouver History is right bang in the middle of Vancouver Present: Hastings Street between Main and Columbia -- surrounded by drug-dealing, open-air drug using, prostitution, and general utter despair.

So this raises an interesting question: in what parallel universe should Saving The Pantages be a civic priority -- or anyone's priority, for that matter?

See, while ministering the Gospel on the Downtown East Side, I've come to realize that the main enemy we are battling -- perhaps even greater than hopelessness -- is the spirit of abandonment. People who wind up there feel they've been abandoned -- by family, friends, the world ... even by God. There's little to dissuade them of that: police are seen as the enemies, allegedly cracking down on them and moving them along; slumlords take advantage of them; welfare workers are woefully overworked and seem (seem) to be not overburdened with heart; methadone clinic workers (and we'll blog about this separately) take government money, kick some of it back to their "clients" and verbally abuse these people; and there's an official line supporting the idea that the best thing for them is to provide a safe place to shoot up, which means that drug addicts are beyond redemption.

In other words ... they've been abandoned.

Now, along comes a group of "well-meaning arts-loving citizens", wanting to attract funding to spruce up this dilapidated pile of bricks into ... what? An art gallery ... theatre ... "performing space" ... ?

I knew a woman once whose natural father stonewalled for years on sending support payments, then one day showed up with a high school grad present: a car. The implication was that this was essentially in lieu of the support payments (although I never got the full story) ... but the story here is relevant, because it analogizes the folly of this whole exercise:

• 50 years after the heyday of the Pantages/Avon, there is doom and despair on the DTES
• a group of people wants to convince others that spending big bucks on this theatre is a priority
• if your life was on the DTES, what would you think?
• that people outside the DTES aren't willing to provide what we need, but are willing to shell out for some old pile of bricks
• translation: more abandonment

It's not even about the money, you realize. It costs nothing to minister hope to people. Keeping the rent paid at Gospel Mission / The Lord's Rain is a pittance, compared to the cost of restoring the Pantages.

Interesting side-note: one of the principals in this movement to restore the Pantages is also involved with the group that took over the lease on the building that housed Rainbow Mission. In 2006, Rainbow Mission, which had served the DTES for almost 60 years, was evicted, to make room for a women's shelter society. Not that there's anything wrong with a women's shelter society, but the Rainbow was ministering to everyone as Jesus did, regardless of race, gender, or religious background. There are a lot of guys who were regulars at the Rainbow, whom I have not seen since we closed the place in January 2007. Rainbow Mission was their hope-line, and I don't know where or if they've found it since. Add to that the notion that they have to be of a certain gender and possibly of a certain ethnicity in order to "qualify" for help, and you can see, again, the sense of abandonment.

Another satisfied customer ...

It's more confirmation of God's purpose for the Downtown East Side, as exemplified in The Lord's Rain. Earlier in the week, I told you about Tina, and the breakthroughs she's been experiencing lately. On Saturday, we heard of another.

Rich is probably in his mid-30s, and started coming to The Lord's Rain in the fall. He was newly-arrived from Ontario, and there was definitely "something different" about him. Articulate, unfailingly polite, he refers to taking a shower as "de-grittifying" himself. He has been coming regularly to the Gospel Mission services upstairs. You take a "watch and pray" attitude towards anyone in the DTES, and recognize that anyone has multiple sides to their personality and background.

Rich came in Saturday morning and informed us that he had checked into the Salvation Army's Harbour Light rehab program, to get rid of marijuana and alcohol from his life. "I came to the realization that I was no better than the crack-heads on the steps of the Carnegie," he said. "So what if marijuana was my 'drug of choice'? It's still addiction."

And then he added, "and one of the reasons I came to that realization? Because you guys had an open door here. You've always had a smile and a friendly greeting for me when I walked in, and I gotta thank you." At this point, I could see the rims of his eyes start to redden, and then he regained his composure.

There you go: another indication that God has intended The Lord's Rain for a purpose beyond helping people make it to the next day. His purpose is for us to provide hope to people by reaching out in new ways. Rich didn't find the hope because we hammered him with the Word of God -- although we make no bones about who we are and what we're doing there -- but because people showed him unconditional love and have been there for him to hang with and get off the street.

When people have had The World constantly trying to drag them backwards and away from their salvation -- away from their lives -- it's a major task to give them the hope that Jesus bought for us on the Cross, that they can shed their past and the things that have held them back and get on with their lives.

More than just showers ...

There are days -- all of them, in fact -- when God reminds me why The Lord's Rain is there.

Yesterday (Tuesday), only a handful of people showed up -- which was just as well, because I didn't have any volunteer help -- and no one took a shower. But we still saw the value of the ministry.

There is a woman who's been coming in for the past six months. Let's call her Tina (which is a good idea, because that's her name). When she first came in, she told me that her son "went to the Lord in March". I had one of those embarrassing moments, when I started to rejoice in his salvation, and then realized that by "went to the Lord" she meant "died". He'd died of a heroin overdose, not long after Tina's father had passed away.

In the time since then -- and she comes in pretty much every time I'm there, Tuesday and Saturday mornings -- Tina has constantly declared God has had His hand on her life. She's been gradually coming off crack, cutting back on smoking, and restoring her relationship with her mother. She also works on a street-and-alley cleanup crew, run by the Bottle Depot down the street.

Like most of the women on the Downtown East Side, Tina used to be attractive. The ravages of the drugs and the tough living she's gone through have taken their toll -- not to mention her teeth. But in less than a year, she's gone from living on the streets and suicidal, to having a place of her own and with a joy an optimism in her life that would amaze people.

Yesterday, she was in a particularly good mood, having come into an additional $20 and, while she'd initially planned to buy a rock of crack cocaine with it, she took a deep breath and phoned her mother instead. Mom was a little "down" because, as it turned out, she had no money for cigarettes. So Tina bought cigarettes with the $20, hopped on a bus and went up to see her. On the DTES, that's a major victory!

But then she opened up about a situation she was trying to deal with. She'd learned that she's eligible to receive the WCB benefits her son would have received but didn't collect. (I don't know anything about WCB regulations, so I don't know how "on the level" this is, but since she wasn't trying to use that promise for collateral, let's go with it for now.) In order to do so, though, she'd have to obtain Ryan's death certificate and get her own documentation to prove she's his mother.

"I'm scared to do that," she said. "That will be the final confirmation for me that he's dead. I don't know if I can handle that closure."

At first, I suggested that she might not be supposed to obtain that money, anyway, considering how God tells us He doesn't dump blessings in our laps all at once, but doles it out as we can handle it (Deut. 7:22). She agreed that it might turn into a temptation, rather than a blessing. Then we talked some more, and she declared -- as she has done often in the past -- that she knows God has something better for her. She recalled how, after Ryan had died, she was ready to end it all, herself, and then she had a dream. Her father -- who was in a wheelchair when he died -- was standing, with his arm around Ryan's shoulders. They were smiling and waving at her. She woke from that dream and determined she was not going to commit suicide.

She also pointed out that her brother, who's been quite well-off and "good with money", has offered to set up a joint bank account where the money can be kept, and which would require both their signatures. He's also talked about socking it away in RRSPs, which would certainly prevent her from spending it on drugs. That puts a different light on things.

So I suggested that -- even leaving out the prospect of obtaining money -- the "closure" represented by obtaining the death certificate would allow her to let go of that part of her past and break through to that "something better". It's a matter of stepping out of the comfort zone -- a vital element in receiving God's promise for us. Tina's comfort zone involved grieving for her son, and the idea of living without that grief is new, different, and a little frightening.

(In the years since my previous marriage broke up, I've been separated from my kids, and that pain has been unbearable. For a long time, I was scared to ask God to take the pain away, because I thought that would mean I'd stopped loving them. It was a major step to spit out the prayer that He would remove it, but you know what? I'm much more confident about the relationship ... and the grief is almost all gone.)

The conversation ended with Tina feeling much better about the idea, and grateful to have had a sounding board. "I don't know anyone else I could tell about this," she said. When I write that ministry on the DTES needs disciples, that's what I'm talking about: sounding boards who can help put problems into perspective -- a smattering of Biblical knowledge helps, so that people realize there's an Absolute Authority, where they can get their guidance.

Once again, The Lord's Rain is in the right place, at the right time -- and it's more than coffee and showers.

Deuteronomy and The Lord's Rain

Deuteronomy is one of my favorite books in the Bible. It should be required reading for anyone who's going through a tough time, wondering how he or she is ever going to pull through; it inspires one to think back over past crises and remember how God has come through in the past, and declare that He's not going to let them down now.

Deuteronomy (the word means "the second telling") is the last of the five "books of Moses", and consists of a recap of the previous 40 years. Moses, standing at the brink of the Promised Land (which he knows he'll only be allowed to see and not set foot in), reviews for the Israelites all the hardships and trials they'd gone through, all the victories God had given them, all the bad choices they'd made, and all the ways God had pulled them through. He also reminds them of the promise -- the land God had sworn He would give to their forefathers. Fired up with that reminder of His faithfulness in the past, the Israelites are prepared to cross the Jordan into that land.

I was prompted to pull out Deuteronomy early one morning recently and start re-read it, and it was even more impressive, as it goes over the battles in which the enemy seriously outnumbered ... or at least seemed more powerful ... than the Israelites; or had cities that had enormous walls that no one thought could be scaled ... and yet with God in command, the Israelites moved forward.

And why would I be "prompted" to get up at 3 am and read Deuteronomy? It had a lot to do with the headline in an issue of 24 Hours, the daily fishwrap handed out free at SkyTrain stations, which itself was arresting: "Gospel Mission in dire straits".

Having recovered from the near whiplash caused by the double-take (my comedy tends to make Kramer look understated), I realized the headline was referring to Union Gospel Mission -- not us. Regardless, the story was about the decline in donations at UGM, and the underlying theme is that donations are down all over. So, indeed, are they with us at Gospel Mission, which is why a sort-of Deuteronomy is in order at this stage, so we can all be fired-up with faith again.

The best records Barry can find show that Gospel Mission was founded "sometime in the 1920s", and I have seen one reference to the founding year as being 1929. Now at that time, the stretch of Hastings between Cambie (Victory Square) and Main was not the Downtown East Side. It was the central business district of Vancouver, with at least two major department stores (Woodward's and Eaton's), theatres, restaurants, night clubs, law offices, and at least one consulate. Why set up a rescue mission in the midst of such apparent prosperity?

Because God knew what was coming: in 1929, we ran smack into the Great Depression, which, coupled with the Dust Bowl days, landed a lot of guys on skid row -- and the Mission was sorely needed. Then came the Second World War, which may have revitalized the economy, but landed a lot more people in the area -- mainly guys who'd lost limbs or been left shell-shocked or otherwise unable to hold down jobs. And Gospel Mission was still there.

God, therefore, has provided for the Mission through the Depression, a World War, and through succeeding decades, including at least three major recessions. The current financial uncertainty is just the latest challenge. The Mission has remained alive and kicking, ministering the Word and preaching Hope -- the wonderful, intangible hope that comes in Christ.

Just as in 1929 and at succeeding times, people on the Downtown East Side today have been failed by the world's "systems". Their only source of hope is the knowledge that God is able to do what He's said He will do. Hey: we've not only stayed alive and kicking, but expanded this year, totally under the direction, leading and provision of God. God engineered the whole building of The Lord's Rain, providing the vision, the prophecy, the space and -- most importantly -- the people, doing what they can, as much as they can, to make it happen.

The construction has been nothing short of a miracle, and the expansion -- including the new daytime openings on Mondays and Fridays with our newfound sister Teresa -- has come exactly in His time. The Ministry has developed "by little and little", with God meting out the responsibility -- and the blessing -- as He knows we can handle it (that's also in Deuteronomy -- Ch. 7, v. 22).

If God knew what was coming back in 1929 and positioned His people with Gospel Mission on the brink of the Depression, it appears He sees something else looming, that will make the work of Gospel Mission even more crucial. I believe God wants to step up efforts to turn lives around and get as many of those currently on the DTES moving up and moving on so that the soon-to-be-poor will have someplace to come to have their hope and faith restored -- and so these newcomers will also see the example of others who have recently left the area.

Jesus says "the poor ye shall have always" ... but nowhere does He say they have to be the same poor.

The Showers Saga - 17: BREAKTHROUGH! (orig. posted Apr. 13/08)

We all bring various gifts to the table when it comes to getting this job done -- building the showers facility at Carrall Street Church -- and one of the gifts Barry Babcook, the senior pastor, has is to keep things realistic but positive.

Barry has been dealing with an interesting two-way spiritual stretch over the past month: dealing with the reality, while trying to keep me from getting discouraged. Sometimes, in fact, you hear a preacher say in a sermon, "I'm preachin' myself happy up here!". It's a lot like that, I think. Let me explain.

Near the house where I grew up in West Van, there lived a 30something woman who drove a big black Pontiac Trans-Am. She would drive up to the corner beside our house, which led off Marine Drive onto a steep hill, then punch the accelerator and go screaming up the hill. Lately, it's felt like our project was a but like that Trans-Am, only stuck in deep mud. Standing on the gas pedal only drives the car deeper into the mud and the only way to get out is to just Let It Happen.

It's been those "little" delays that can add up here and there, and it was starting to get frustrating. Barry, who has dealt with building and city permits and tradespeople (and is one, himself), has had to fall back on his aphorism that "God comes through in the 11th hour, 59th minute". It's become our rallying cry. Fact is, God comes through in what we think is the 11th hour, 59th minute: but for Him, it's exactly On Time.

Or, here's a parable Barry used: a construction site can appear to be a hole in the ground for a long time, but during that time, there's ant-hill-like activity putting in the necessary things like electrical, plumbing and gas. Then, once that is finished, you go walking down the street past what you thought was a hole up till yesterday, and there's a 30-unit complex in its place. Remembering that is also encouraging. Well, the "hole" that was 327 Carrall Street is about to be replaced by the complex. The City of Vancouver inspected and passed the plumbing*, and we are now, suddenly, on the home stretch. The final plumbing connections will go in in the coming week, and the work party from The Oasis will be back on Saturday, April 19, for the work blitz to complete the walling-in. Then comes the painting and decorating, and Lord willing, we can turn on the taps and start cleaning up this town!

Of course, I won't say anything about an actual start-up date yet. But it's coming quickly, praise God! Earlier this month, a group of us met to discuss operations matters: what times the project would be open, who would volunteer, how we'd administer the service, and so forth. The Lord's Rain will be open Wednesday mornings, 7-8:30 and Saturday mornings, 7-10 for men and Friday evenings for women. We have a core group of volunteers to oversee the operations, and are now assembling a roster of others ready to commit some time to helping out.

Arlene in New York has become our liaison with Pastor Reggie at the Bowery Mission, and they've already had a good chat about operations there. It seems they employ a combination of easy rules and toughness to make sure things stay orderly, which is the way I like it.

One of the main points of all this has been the way people have come together to make this work. People with different skills and gifts and ideas, coming up with questions and solutions that no one person could have thought of. I keep thinking about the Apostle Paul's comment about "many members ... fitly joined together".

One more thing: CTV is doing a follow-up story, which will air Sunday, April 13. It's the 50th anniversary of the network, and Peter Grainger -- who did the story that mentioned the theft in February, and which led to a major donation to get things back on track ("The Lord always has a ram in the bush," as Kenny Black put it) -- was asked to do a piece on any news items that have made a difference in the community. He thought of The Lord's Rain and we did an interview. It was a pleasure to be able to point out how the story helped give us a much-needed boost, and led to further confirmation that the Lord has His hand firmly on this project, and when He does that, nothing can get in His way.

******

*This is not to be confused with the notice, purportedly placed in a Hong Kong hotel room, stating "Customers will be assured that all drinking water has been personally passed by Management."

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?”.

The Showers Saga - 15: So close ... (orig. posted Mar. 21/08)

Hard to believe I haven't entered anything here since Feb 29 ... I don't know if we were actually behind schedule -- partly since there really wasn't a schedule to begin with -- but things are on the move again. Brodie and Barry have been installing the cast iron pipes themselves, with Hillcrest Plumbing doing the finishing touches and pressure-testing. Barry has called the City for inspection, so Lord willing, we'll be ready to finish the stalls by the end of the coming week.

That's still a bit iffy, so we've asked The Oasis Church to set April 5 as the date for their next invasion -- pardon me: work blitz. That's where they'll push the showers into place and wall in the area. In the mean time, next Saturday -- March 29 -- will be our cleaning and paint-priming day. After the showers are set in place (Apr. 5), there'll be one more day to finish off the decorating (chairs, tables, coffee station, etc.) and then we should be ready to open -- looks like Opening Day will be April 15: two months later than I thought we'd open when I so gushingly announced the project on Wilf Ray's show back in December, but the key here is, it's been all in God's timing, which is never behind schedule.

I had a chance to make a presentation on the project to the Annual General Meeting of the Gospel Mission Society, which runs Carrall Street Church. Only two of the people at the meeting -- secretary Stan Powers and treasurer Erwin Paetkau -- were not "regulars" at the church to begin with, but it was a good chance to review and celebrate how the project has come to pass. Kind of like Moses, singing his song on the banks of the Red Sea after the Israelites had crossed over from Egypt.

Something Amelia pointed out, though, which I'd neglected to mention, bears repeating here. That this project has long since shown itself to be about more than just building showers for street people. In truth, that's become a sidebar in many ways to the other things this project has meant to various individuals taking part. Without naming names, we've seen:

• a woman, going through a tough time with loneliness and -- with her children grown up -- questioning her "usefulness", plunging into the project in ways she can
• another woman, also going through some tough times, getting connected with others with the project as a sort-of catalyst
• a man finally connecting with a church and finding some meaning
• a young man finding his "place" in a project God handed to him, bringing a positive spirit and can-do attitude right at a time when we really needed it -- even though he turned out not to do what we thought he was supposed to do, he still fulfilled his role in this
  others, too numerous to mention, finding a sense of purpose in this
• at least half a dozen reporters and broadcasters, getting a chance to report on the manifestation of God's glory
• the businessman who stepped forward after the theft, sowing seed into a Ministry at a time when his own business had an unexpected problem (we said at the time, that he could well have told God that the money he handed us would be better spent fixing the problem in his own business -- once again, quoting Leroy Thompson, "if you have a need, sow a seed")
• The Oasis has been looking at a new home for its church: Brandon Wall says the deal started coming through the Monday following their first work party in late January
  and the people who come to Carrall Street Church -- and those out on the streets, who still don't set foot inside any church -- are aware of the project and see that it's a tangible, caring act: seeing the love of Christ at work
• So much more ... so little time, space, or memory ...

When we started fundraising for the project, we contacted one wealthy businessman -- known as a Christian -- for support. We were turned down. Looking back now, that was exactly what God intended -- and I believe that businessman knew it. If he'd underwritten the whole thing, no one else would have had the opportunity to be blessed; if he'd underwritten even part of it, it would have seemed like lukewarm support, and that might have had a negative effect, too.

Truly, if the Lord of hosts hath purposed it, who shall disannul it?