The East Side

There was a particular incident on our Urban Mission Adventure weekend that I will never forget. On one of our Urban Plunges I headed out with two others and we didn’t have to go far before we bumped into Chance, Lena and Mike. They were hanging around outside the front door of a porno theatre. When we walked past them I asked how they were doing and Lena, without hesitating replied, “Pretty shitty.” This caught my attention and I stopped. No one ever says that where I come from. If you asked someone how they are doing in my Christian high school or at Willingdon Church (my home church) or on CBC’s campus, they will say almost without fail and with equally as little hesitation, “Good.” Lena was being honest. She was just about to be called in to ‘perform’ inside the building and she was hungry. “Pretty shitty,” hardly does that justice.
We offered to go and get her some food because she had told us that she couldn’t leave to come with us and while we were at it we extended the same offer to Chance and Mike who were also hungry. Chance walked with us to Subway and then McDonalds regaling us with tales of knife fights and dirty cops but then finally asking us why we were out walking around on the East Side of Vancouver. We told him that we were a group from Columbia Bible College on an Urban Mission Adventure. He thought that was pretty cool.
When we returned we had food for the three of them but now there was a fourth. Her name was Carrie and she was then feeling the effects of Heroin. Despite this we got to know Carrie who had just come out as the performer previous to Lena and we were able to care for a few of her needs. We gave her a sweater to keep her warm and told her that she was beautiful. We brought her to the basement of the Ivanhoe where we got her some food and ate with her for a while before she took off back to the streets. She gave the three of us big hugs and even before she had gone we were crying. We held each other and cried in each other’s arms until, emotionally exhausted, we went to bed.
The honesty and openness of people on the streets about their needs and situation was so refreshing. Lena’s words were a huge challenge to me to never again answer someone’s, “How are you Stewart?” with a quick and misleading, “Good,” just to get them off my back. The reality of their every day life situation was truly sobering. Meeting two beautiful women entrapped in sex trade work gives you an entirely new perspective on the word prostitution. Especially after Julie had come to us and shared the story of the immoral woman and how Jesus had treated her in the presence of the Pharisees. When Carrie left us I could not help thinking that we had not even been able to forgive her sins as Jesus had done and yet we were sending her right back out onto the street with a little more food, one warmer layer, some kind words and hopefully the knowledge that someone loves her. It was a powerful experience because for all that we had done, it felt like we had done nothing.
If I was to have the opportunity to walk through this scenario again I would have talked to Chance and Carrie more about Jesus Christ. I know that our actions spoke deeply of the love of Jesus, but I wish that I had even spoken his name. We let them know we were Christians but we didn’t speak of Christ, instead I think we tried to be Christ to them when in reality they were Christ to us. Maybe we did what was better by living out Christ through our actions, but something inside of me struggles to say that that was good enough. We all agreed to pray for the four people that we were able to interact with, in fact we prayed for them together the next evening. I still pray for them, that the Holy Spirit would begin working in their lives and that our interaction with them would draw them towards Christ and the amazing love that he has for them.
I have also come to value the blessing of the body of Christ. I think that homeless people sometimes give a better representation of what the body of Christ looks like than we do. They take care of each other, watch each other’s backs, fellowship together, generally act pleasantly to one another and know each other and each other’s needs very well. That night it was very good to be with two of my sisters in Christ and know that you could be strengthening one another through prayer if you weren’t directly involved in conversation. It was our uncommon and unusual acting out of faith that assured me of the presence of the Holy Spirit in us and for our protection.
I think that is really important for a church to be in fellowship and communion with one another, sharing each other’s burdens and knowing one another’s needs so that we can better know how we can care for each other and pray for one another. In big churches this is much harder and is generally achieved on a smaller community scale like bible study groups or something. I think, however, that in any body of believers, especially in the city where fast paced life trains us to cover over our hurts and pains and keep going, it is extremely important to support one another in this way. If we are not caring for each other properly or effectively, than what kind of audacity would drive us to think that we can go out and help others first? I had a look at the Hare Krishna idea of community and I believe that they have a few pointers that we could emulate. They have feasts where their whole congregation shows up to party together and have a good time in each other’s presence. Their building is always open for fellowship and worship which encourages people to actually use the place to meet regularly. I think that we need to remember what community looks like and start to function as a body, not merely a few limbs scattered about with no real focus.

SDVR

PS. If interested see article at: http://www.columbiabc.edu/?action=d7_article_display&Join_ID=144890&template=stories_articles.htm7

The Opressive Spirit of Lethargy

I ran a half marathon yesterday. I woke up at 6:00 in the morning and ran 24Km for Outdoor Leadership training. I finished first in my class but I thought I could have gone harder... I hate that feeling. I was so happy to finish it though, it was truly a challenge. You know the next day is going to suck when you are painfully sore before even finishing your run. I woke up this morning feeling like a truck drove over me, stopped and backed over me again. Now I've got to get my but in gear and start doing school again. Papers are coming due, trips need to be planned, tests and exams need to be written and in the midst of it all relationships need to be upheld. In the words of my good friend James: Yorbel!
I performed in the CBC talent show last night. Reminiscient of grade 8 with James, Adam and Luke, myself and three others performed "The Four Yorkshiremen" by Monty Python. It went well and we had the place in stitches with almost every line. There were some classic acts in this show where someone who genuinely believed that they were truly talented (probably because of the lies of their mother) got up the courage to stand in front of a packed out chapel and honestly pour out their talent before us. In such situations what can you do but cheer wildly and further feed their misguided notion that they truly possess a masterful talent? And so as might have been the best or worst thing that could have been done, the worst act won CBC's talent show and were congratulated with Kudos for Life from the Student Council.
Sweet deal.
To share my excitement and for your artificial introduction to my girlfriend here is a random Brittany fact:
She is an incredibly talented, grade 10 (via the Royal Conservatory of Music) cellist (definition: one who plays the cello). She recently agreed to some "free-style" cello with a local christian hip-hop artist during his performances. The astute Stewartologist will draw the completely random connection between this story and a hidden passion for the Chrisitan hip-hop scene.

Caving: The Baptism of Darkness

New Mexico was fantastic. When we left beautiful Abbotsford B.C. it was snowing. It snowed all the way through Washington where we made the first of two stops at Krispy Kreme and bloated ourselves on the deepfried crown of America causing me to resolve never to eat more than one Krispy Kreme doughnut again. The light was one so we got a free doughnut each and there was a very tall, skinny, professional, middle-aged, doughnut man running the till. He thought that there was no better job in the world than being the manager of a Krispy Kreme. I could tell from his proud stature... but maybe he was just American.
The Next state was Oregon where it snowed and then Idaho where it continued snowing and even escalated through the high mountain passes. We hit northern Utah where it continued to snow until we got to just north of Moab. Finally we drove into clear and sunny New Mexico and we drove all the way to the very south of New Mexico to Carlsbad. Noteable stops included a couple of Super-Walmarts, Moab (sliprock), and Roswell. Arriving in Carlsbad around 11:00 (41 hours after leaving Abbotsford), we rolled out our sleeping bags and mats in Michael Queen's backyard. This guy Mike, is a bonafide bachelor geologist and at 60 some-odd years of age he is still keen to be cave-guiding a bunch of super-fit OL'ers in the high deserts of NM. After a word of warning about the anthill housing ants that bite fiercer than any wasps you've ever experienced, we settled in for a surprisingly cool, desert sleep under a vast sky of starlight.
Awaking for our first day of caving we were greeted by a clear sky, strong wind and blazing sun (wind chill kept it about 15-20 degrees for most of the days of the trip but sometimes it was much cooler). Off we went to McKittrick Hill where we strolled through inhospitable desert terrain peppered with at least 5 varieties of cacti (including the infamous Lechugea) and many types of thorn covered shrubs. After hopping 2 barbed wire fences we were pumped to go underground and see what all the fuss is about. I had the pleasure of caving all week with Andrea, Lori and Elena who were in fact the only women along on the trip. Over the course of our adventuring, they became known as Stewie's Angels... thanks to Jared. We took a sweet picture, Angel's style.
We spent most of our caving time the first day tromping around looking for the opening of Little Sand cave. After not finding it, we endured a half hour geology lesson from Mike before some other group who was occupying Endless Cave left and we were able to get underground for a very disappointing 15 minutes. This day could have been a disaster but for the heroism of Chris Dyck our fearful leader who after hearing of our plight at the end of the day, took us (while the rest of the group waited in the bus) to Endless Cave. While he's undoing the lock on the cave gate, he looks at us who are eagerly waiting and says, "Mike is a geologist, I'm a caver. Lets go caving." And we did. We ran through that cave as delicately as a caver might stoping to admire certain points until we came to a wall in the cave with a pile of rubble at the bottom of it where Chris stopped. He says, "this is where having a guide pays off" and begins to pull away the rubble from the bottom of the wall revealing a passage-way about the size around of the average person's hips. We squeeze through thinking to ourselves how cool this is, even as though we had been plunked into some Hardy Boys adventure or something similar.
That room was called the WarClub room and it was one of the most pristine and beautiful rooms we saw all week. There were ponds in the room you didn't even know existed until you blew on the surface of the water to create ripples, that's how clear they were. Words cannot express the beauty and wonder of an underground stone metropolis. The roof laden with the most delicate stalactites, the floor wet as it grows in flowstone formations. The room was "living", "growing" stone and it was remarkable.
The day had been redeemed. The rest of caving was an equal or greater adventure for which I will share some highlights for lack of time:
-4X4'ing in the Guadaloupe Range sitting in the box of our beautiful rental Dodge 1500, going through the "dragon's teeth" to get to the beginning of our hike to Gunsight and Sentinel Caves. We were aided on this hike by a "steplog" (ie. 235 steps at 70 degrees) from which we navigated across barren but beautiful wilderness ridges, harrassed by hurricane force winds under beautiful sunlight to find our caves.
-Laughing at Lincoln National "Forest" in new Mexico where you really had to be on your toes to see the trees.
-Discovering the bigger half of Hidden Cave and running around in it's enormity, so giddy that I couldn't even focus on one thing long enough to take a picture because there was so much for my eyes to take in.
-Strolling through the "tourist cave" of Carlsbad and dragging my jaw along on the floor in front of me the whole time.
-Posing with Jared in Carlsbad cave... for the caving calendar :)
-Hearing all the dirt on Chris Dyck from his best friend who was on the trip as a guide.
-Eating at In 'n Out Burgers in California on the way home
-Hitting 9 states on our sweet road-trip
-Not dying when a wheel fell off the bus on the way home (thank you God). Getting a 120 MPH car ride with a California Highway Patrol trooper who told us to put on our seatbelts cause he'd been known to speed and then getting to stay in a Motel in California with a pool and palm trees for 24 hours while the bus was fixed.
-Eating 13 Krispy Kreme doughnuts to best Rob Lewis' record from the previous trip... not cool.
-Coming home with a tan after an amazing adventure exploring one of the final frontiers on earth that man has not fully discovered.

pictures will follow... sometime.

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while, you guys deserve better.

love you all.

PS. in case it wasn't made clear in my "Irony" post... her name is Brittany and she rocks.

See "Irony" Below