My Experience

My experience... how do I begin? Where do I begin? is a better question. UMD - Urban Mission Dynamics, what fitting name for such a dynamic experience. This weekend I went to Vancouver, I stayed at the Ivanhoe, a backpackers Inn on main street and I spent most of my time 3 blocks down, on East Hastings.

This was my second time doing this "mission trip" and to be honest, I wasnt all that pumped to go. Its not like I didnt want too, I just figured that I'd been there and done that and last time I walked away and nothing changed so why would this be any different? They asked me to be a leader for the weekend though, so I went.

Started on Thursday. I had class for 8 hours straight, I had been up till 2 the night before.  I left class early after 8 hours to go to a meeting, the meeting was almost 3 hours long, then finally at 10:30 at night I made it to the hostel grumpy, tired and not all that willing to serve. I went straight to bed where I did not sleep all night, when my alarm clock rang in the morning I was wide awake. During the night I tossed and turned and finally when I realized sleeping would not happen I prayed. I prayed all through the night, not even about anything in particular. I had to get up early because I was taking half of my group to UGM (Union Gospel Mission). We got there early and we served breakfast. After breakfast they had coffee. This meant that the locals could just hang around in the dinning room and have coffee and snacks. Our job during this time was to just sit and talk with people. I met some cool and interesting people. I met a man who used to own a trucking company. He started doing meth and eventual liquidated it and now lived on the streets of Hastings. We served lunch and left. In the afternoon we listened to a speaker and then after dinner we did an "urban plunge" which meant that in groups of 3 we split up and just wandered Hastings and area. We went to gas town and then walked one street over where we ended up on Hastings. I dont know all, I watched people in Gas town walk with their eyes straight ahead, heals and pearls on, laughing... drunk, just as obscene as any other people out there and I saw just as many hopeless eyes as I did on Hastings. The rich are empty too, they were stuck too. I kept seeing all these stuck people. Then Hastings... I dont how to put it in words. The most beautiful, heartbreaking, indescribable scene and people. We sang you make beautiful things out of the dust this morning at church and all I saw were the faces of these people on Hastings. They are so beautiful guys. God's beautiful children. And my heart broke, because these beautiful children of God were/are hurting. The women... They are on every single street corner. These beautiful women who were just born into a crapy circumstance, who possibly made some bad decisions but now they are stuck. they are so stuck. And to be realistic there is nothing anyone can do to make them unstuck and I dont know how to deal with that. My heart does not know how to cope with that reality. Ive learnt a lot this weekend. God has shown me that sometimes I need to re define what help really means. I talked with a guy named Sean at a place called paper cup, the most amazing ministry I have encountered and he was probably in his late 20's. I got talking with him and he didnt seem like he was drunk or high on anything. He was really chill and he started talking about his addiction . It was to music. He was addicted to music, I mean there were other things but the thing that seemed to have him most stuck was his music, that was what was destroying his life. He told me about how he grew up in Manitoba and had a drum set , he said it was beautiful and worth a lot of money. I believed him, some people on Hastings I had a hard time believing but Sean had honest eyes and he was telling me the truth. Sean said his mom remarried when he was 13 and when he was 17 his step dad told his mom it was either him or the kids. His mom chose the step dad and that left Sean without a home. He told me about selling the drums and moving to Van and now listening to this angry music. About being so filled with hurt and anger. About not wanting to call home because it hurt him. He told me about is grandma who had a stroke but still loves him and sits and waits for his calls and prays for him all the time. Sean had hope in his eyes. I told him that. He wept. He was stuck in all this and he wanted to get out but he couldnt. I prayed with him and he just kept talking. Paper cup was closing and his friends had left and already come back several times to tell him to hurry but Sean just didnt want to leave. He stayed as long as he possibly could.. eventually tho, Sean left. I stood up, walked to the bathroom, and dissolved into tears. I had held it together all weekend, this was the last straw. My breaking point. I was so upset with God "why?! why him , It could be me! If I was born into his situation it would be me" I cried till I was spent then I picked my self up, dried my tears and went out and cleaned tables. It was in that moment that I realized that I wasnt going to fix a thing but by spending a couple hours with someone, sharing my own fears and failures and listening to theirs, that was help enough. Sean didnt walk away without an addiction, he didnt leave unstuck, but I think he left with a little bit of love in his heart.

So, This weekend God helped me redefine what help is. He showed me that sometimes help is just sharing love, not expecting change or reaction. He also changed my theology. Where I used to think that unless your faith and your actions were married, you were not going to heaven, I now think that actions dont always represent the heart? I dont really know how to word it I guess... but I know that these addictions aren't the heart of the people down there. The people have a heart for Jesus and they are stuck. Being stuck doesnt make them hell bound, it makes them real. It makes me exactly the same as them, only I am not stuck in heroin or booz. Im stuck in my pride, rebellion, and blatant ignorance. Jesus showed me I was just as stuck as every single person I had encountered the entire weekend. So my experience , I guess, was that there is no them and me. It isnt their addictions and my help. There is just us, a group of people who all have our messes and addictions and failures... all of us in need of a Saviour, not one who needs it more than another. Thats my experience anyways.