twenty-three

So, after a week of driving all over the metropolis of Vancouver, crawling through traffic, smelling the city, what do you think might be the best way to wrap up a week on an urban mission trip? How about some Christian Environmentalism? There’s nothing like the smell of fresh wood chips or manure to wake [...]

We spent a lot of time with the Salvation Army last week at their state-of-the-art Belkin House location on Homer St. in downtown Vancouver. On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, a smaller portion of our team showed up at about 7:15 to help serve breakfast to their residents and then help prepare lunch for the [...]

Wednesday morning began bright and early with 6 of us heading of the Salvation Army for their chapel service. As a part of our work with SA this week, we volunteered to lead their weekly service for the residents. Many faith-based shelters offer something like this as a part of their resident agreement or services. [...]

Tuesday morning began with my previous post, sitting alone in one of the nicer Blenz coffee joints in town, contrasting the picture of the Vancouver business world with the very fresh memories of the night before, where we served candy to the women on the streets of East Hastings.
The rest of the day included [...]

Morning #3, Blenz Coffee location #3. These places are everywhere. I thought, since last night we went to Agape Ministries and worked on E. Hastings with prostitutes and girls on the streets, I’d subject myself to a stark contrast and now I’m sitting in by far the swankiest Blenz I’ve been in so far. I’m [...]

Morning #2 at Blenz coffee. Different location though. They have these places all over. Starbucks definitely has a strong Canadian competitor, at least in the center cent(res). As I’m walking around, I see just about an equal amount of each, so that tells me they must be competing; also it tells me I pay too [...]

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 [...]

Tomorrow we finally hit the road for our spring break mission trip to Vancouver, BC! I haven’t had much time over the past couple of weeks to write about this, so I wanted to take a minute to catch everyone up on the upcoming week. My team is really excited and we’ve got a good [...]

I just returned for a brief walk down to my local Starbucks, after participating in this year’s Coffee Break. Starbucks is offering free 12 oz drip coffee to "guests" from 10-12 today, so if you read this in the next few minutes, run…run fast, to your local shop and grab a cup.
I must say, I [...]

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is the story of a child from Sierra Leone who is displaced from his family by war and who finds himself caught up in the fighting as a 15 year old. Ishmael’s memoir focuses on his life of violence and his rehabilitation from the psychological damage and drug [...]