twenty-three

I’m sitting alone in a Blenz coffee shop (Canadian coffee!!) in the early morning of our first full day in Vancouver, BC. We arrived last night and jumped right into a couple of projects, giving the students an opportunity to get right into the city and experience some of the struggles and hope that people experience here every day. One of part of our group stayed around the church where we are staying and helped serve food in a restaurant-style ministry for young adults from the surrounding streets. Paper Cup, this ministry, is a weekly thing for First Baptist Church, and we had the opportunity to help out this week.

The other portion of the group headed down into the lower East side to Hastings Ave, where we visited a hotel that some people connected with First Baptist and a group called Community Builders have established to offer low income housing in the heart of one of the worst streets in North America. We had the opportunity to hear a benefit concert in their downstairs pub, meet some of the people responsible for helping establish a positive, Christ-centered, ministry that reaches out to the people on the streets in this area and also encourages people to move into the city center and live. There was a pastor who spoke and told his story about retiring from ministry and choosing to move into this area just to become a part of it. He now helps run this hotel and pub and is trying to make a difference in an area that is filled with people being driven out of their homes by rising housing prices and urban expansion.

It is a fascinating world we are in up here. I’m excited for what God is beginning to do already in our team and it was very cool to hear the things students are processing as they encounter this world of poverty. We saw drug deals, prostitution, and many, many people in need yesterday night. I know we will continue to face these issues this week and so we have all been left with these questions: What are we going to do about it? How do we be Christ in the center of all of this, to people who need love?

It’s going to be a fun week. I’ll try to get down to the coffee shop in the mornings and share about it, but I’ll also plan to write a bit once I get back. I’m usually better at writing when it’s fresh in my mind though, so I’ll do my best to keep up to date this week. Please keep us in your prayers this week. Thanks.

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