It's a stunning day in Vancouver. The weather has flipped on summer like we would flip on a light switch. The dying cherry blossoms of past weeks have given way to green leaves that line Oppenheimer Park with freshness and life.
What a busy past few weeks! The team have had the usual ebbs and flows of community dinners, visits and Bible studies, but the busiest part of the last couple of weeks was when we took on two new prehab candidates - a guy and a girl. This is slightly unusual, but we managed to make it work by putting one in each of the two Cordova Street houses. They stayed well, interacting with team rhythms and both successfully entered into rehab programmes at different points last week. Being a woman, I was more able to journey a little with our lady prehab (I'll call her Zoe for privacy reasons). She is a gorgeous and motivated woman who has three kids who have only very recently been taken into care - she loves them very much, not apparent in her words, but in her focus and determination to get clean. The foster care system here is huge - much bigger and even more bureaucratic than what we experience in New Zealand. I watched one Saturday unfold into disaster as Zoe was preparing to go with Ruth from our team to visit her kids in their foster home. She was bright and hopeful, drinking tea with me in the kitchen and animatedly describing the things that she loves about each of her children and how much she was looking forward to seeing them. She called the social worker to confirm the details of the visit, and was consequently informed that the time of the visit had been changed (what I want to know is when they were planning to tell her if she hadn't called?!). She asked to check with 'her program' (us) if that would be ok, and then call them back - the social worker said 'sure thing'. She checked, then rang them back, only to be told that her visit had been cancelled! Whether it was a misunderstanding, lack of trust in Zoe to ring back, malice - I'll never know, but as can be imagined, she was devastated. In a matter of about half an hour, her sunny morning which had started with such anticipation had been completely shattered. I never understood why, or whether that was even legal. Ruth and I raged with Zoe, cried and had a cup of tea with her - trying to pick up the pieces, all the time silently asking ourselves and each 0ther "what the HELL just happened there?!". Thankfully, Zoe managed to keep another visit which was scheduled the next day which Bonnie and I were able to accompany her to. Her children love her to bits - to see her tiny two-year old daughter come flying out to meet us, yelling "Mummy, MUMMY!", who wouldn't be a bit teary? Zoe stayed with us for another few days before landing a place in a rehab centre in another suburb. Happily, in that time she actually made a decision to follow Jesus - what a cause for celebration! If you are of the praying type, she desperately needs people who will come alongside her - a church community, or a neighbourhood group like ours to journey well with her both in rehab and when she comes out in a couple of months and begins the long, difficult quest of both reclaiming her children and re-learning how to parent them. She has a long way to go, but the horizon is clear and she is very motivated. Praise God.
SO - aside from that, I have been learning the rhythmns of the DTES more and more with each day. I have celebrated birthdays, go with neighbours to drop-ins, adult literacy and pottery classes, played hundreds of card games, celebrated new jobs, organised food pickups, watched Bollywood historical epics and reminisced about India, drunk litres of tea and coffee, cooked for an open dinner, joined in ukelele/guitar jams, farewelled a member of the team who is preparing to go to Sierra Leone with Word Made Flesh, been introduced to the new BBC series of Sherlock (brilliant), flown kites with kids, eaten a First Nation feast of moose, courtesy of our friend Jacquie; I have walked and walked the streets praying, spending time with God like I never have before. Yesterday I walked with some with some friends to Granville Island, which is a little peninsula full of wacky markets and shops (my mum would LOVE it). We stopped on the way to get poutine for lunch! That's another thing I can tick off my list! Despite the forty minute walk there and back, it was a STUNNING day and totally worth it. We could see Mount Baker in the distance, which is in Washington. It's my job next week to plan a trip to the still-snowy Mount Seymour, near North Vancouver. I'll keep you all posted!
Chris has just had a week in Mumbai with his Dad, who dropped in to visit him (cute). He has now successfully entered Oman - phew - he will now be travelling over land to get to Jerusalem in order to begin an internship with Christian Peacemaker Teams (
http://cpt.org/work) next week. Scary - but I'm so proud of him for doing it. Pray for his team's safety, but also that he will learn bucketloads about the suffering of the poor in the face of the war machine - something that we both make a lot of noise about back home. This experience will hopefully be a challenging and powerful chapter of Chris' relationship with the nonviolent Christ Jesus, who calls us to be with and for the downtrodden and to bring peace in the midst of violence.
Not long until I come home now eh? I really need a prayerful reentry to my beloved Aotearoa, to my Urban Vision community and my job. Please pray that I'll get enough time to prepare for this - it's just as important as preparing for the beginning of an internship.
My love to you all. I'll talk to you soon!
Me x
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