In May, I had the privilege of going to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with a team of 11 other people from Rockford Master's Commission and Rockford First Assembly. We went to the DTES- downtown Eastside, of Vancouver. This area is the meeting point of some major areas in the city- Gastown, Chinatown, the gay community, and well, I honestly forget the other part. In this area of the city, drugs are legal. Crack and heroin are the most commonly used drugs. There's also a high percentage of homelessness, alcoholism, mental illness, HIV/AIDs and Hepatitis C. All day and night, sirens would blare through the neighborhood we were in. Walking the streets, I saw countless people shooting up, smoking pot, smoking crack, reeking of alcohol. I saw many men hitting the women they were with. People shuffling along, talking to themselves. Drug deals. Women selling themselves.
I felt that was nothing compared to when I walked the intersection of Main St. and Hastings. My heart broke as I walked past countless people selling anything they could, then turning around and buying a hit with whatever money they had just acquired. The sidewalk was lined with people panhandling. There were countless people standing in line with shopping carts filled with bottles and cans. They were waiting outside of the can/bottle exchange, turning in whatever they found on the streets and in the dumpsters, in for mere change.
But the one thing I couldn't help but notice was their sense of community. I felt welcomed into their community at the point when a man noticed my green crazy straw sippy cup I carried everywhere with me when I was void of a proper water bottle. He asked if I used to it make martinis haha. Anyways, that lead to a great conversation. Very interesting, but I loved every minute of it, and I felt like less of an American outsider.
I guess I'm writing all of this to set up the scene. There's no way I could condense all that I got to be involved with, all that I saw and heard, all that I learned while in that area, into one little blog post.
I'm going to focus in on one person. A Vietnamese man named Tony.
I remember meeting Tony on the second day we were in Vancouver. I loved doing tedious things, so I volunteered to help out Jacob's Well, the organization whe help with, and assemble their newsletter. This entailed handstamping the JW logo, putting on a stamp, sorting them into piles noting which envelops were being sent to Canada, US, and then international, and putting on the address labels. While I was doing this, Tony came and offered me some tea. Me, being the tea snob I am, happily accepted his offer. He kept coming back and doing this, at least 7 times refilling my cup of tea. Then Tony sat down and helped me with the newsletter. That day we just made small talk, mostly about hockey. I mean, the Chicago Blackhawks had just beat the Vancouver Canucks in the Stanley Cup playoffs, so we were basically dead men walking when we hit town.
Tony came by everyday we were in Vancouver to hang out, eat, make us tea, and help out.
Tony is probably in his 40s. A few days after getting to know some of us and spending time with us, he opened up about his life. He came over from Vietnam with one of his friends, via a boat. They landed in Ontario, the furthest east province of Canada. He said he came for a better life. He told us some stories about Vietnam and the horrors he saw there and endured.
When he was in Ontario, he met his wife, Emily.
They soon moved to British Columbia, where they lived the "dream" and had 3 beautiful children, ages 10, 8 and 7.
Emily started going out and partying with a friend of hers. She would drink. Then in came the drugs.
Eventually she cheated on Tony. Then she left him. She's now a dancer.
Tony said that his wife doing this made him go "crazy". I still to this day, don't exactly know what he means by this.
But what I do know is that he ended up in a mental institution. He was there for 8 months to begin with. Then the institution decided to keep him for another 6 months to test drugs on him.
By the time he got out, he was on 32 different medications. Tony says he now takes only 5 of these medicines. The rest he puts into a giant jar and throws away. He says he's able to be down to 5 meds because, in his words, "I believe Jesus is healing me."
Dang.
When he was away in the institution, his children were taken away since his wife couldn't take care of them, either.
They're now in foster care. He gets to see them 2 times a week. I was able to see them, and they are 3 of the most beautiful half Vietnamese, half Canadian children I've ever seen. OK- 3 of the most beautiful bi-racial children I've ever seen.
Tony says his oldest daughter tells him about what is done to them in foster care. They're abused. The foster care system just keeps them where they are. Tony could get them back, but he needs a steady job and sustainable housing, first. (during this time, Tony was telling 3 of us females about his kids, and was crying so...we all started crying. Waterworks all around). Anyways...
Tony lives in an SRO, directly above the Jacob's Well storefront. An SRO is short for "single room occupancy". It's basically a 10'x10' room that you squeeze all you can into. The rent for an SRO is basically the amount of a single welfare check.
Tony is out every single day, searching for a job. He wants his kids back, desperately. He says that he knows in the Lord's timing, he will get his kids back. He's trusting in the Lord to provide him a job, money, and therefore the ability to regain custody of his children.
Not only this, but everytime there was an opportunity for someone to lead us out in prayer, he went for it. His prayers were simple, but powerful. He always asked God to help us be reminded that all we need is Him, and He will provide the rest.
During worship, he was the only one unashamed to sing at the top of his lungs, not worrying if he was off-key or sounded great. The rest of us sat back, slumped into our chairs, whispering the words.
Tony has been saved for a year and a half. One of his friends, who we eventually had the priviledge of meeting, took Tony to a Salvation Army church service. Tony said he liked it because they gave out free food, so he started going back. Then, then the messages of Jesus hit his heart and he accepted Christ. He says the one thing he wants most in life is tell others about Jesus and for them to experience the freedom he's had since he invited the Lord to come into his life.
Dang!
These things put so much into check for us.
Here's a man, in a seemingly hopeless situation, but he in himself was not without hope.
He trusted the Lord with such big things; we were freaking out because we weren't 100% sure where the next payment for tuition was coming from, not sure what to do next in life or worrying about whether a certain relative could come see us graduate or not.
Here we were, complaining about having to sleep on the carpeted floor of a storefront. We'd soon go back to America to our comfortable lives. He was living in absolute poverty.
Sometimes, I still can't seem to find the words of what this man that society would undenaibly look down upon, taught me in such a simple way, by being simply who he was made to be.
A few months ago, Tony finally got a job like he had been trusting the Lord for.
Trusting God pays off. Even if it's not in our timing.
This makes me think of another wonderful person that a few of us got to meet in Vancouver. One day, Alberto, an awesome guy who works with JW, took me, my friends Krystal, Kevin Klump, and a community member named Harold, to visit a woman named Jenet at her apartment.
Jenet has had pneumonia for 3 years straight. She probably would be better, but she always ends up checking herself out of the hospital. The night before we came to visit, she had been in the hospital, but checked herself out. Since her home nurse didn't know she had checked herself out, Jenet had no way of having food made for her. Jenet is basically bed-ridden due to her illness and lack of mobility.
Jenet's simple request was for us to make her toast. So we did so and made very minimal small talk.
She had checked herself out of the hospital because they had put her in a room at the ICU with a man. To Jenet, that man's presence was more of a threat to her than his illness- which in reality was more harmful to her than his presence. Crazy how those things and life experiences hold people back from receiving help.
Anyways, after some time, we had to get going, so we just gathered together, held hands and Alberto led us in a prayer for Jenet. Jenet then decided she wanted to close out the prayer- instead of praying for herself, she prayed for us, not bringing herself up really any time. She thanked the Lord for bringing her these "4 angels". She thanked him for the freaking potato chips she had before we got there. She thanked God for the toast, which was the best she'd ever had. She prayed for our families. She prayed tremendous amounts of blessing into our lives.
After leaving, Krystal, Kevin and I all decided we needed to have a quiet time, because this woman left us speechless.
She was thankful for such small things we overlook everyday. She was thankful for our presence for 30 minutes of her day.
Anyways...Vancouver was filled with lessons! :)
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| Tony & I. (after I gave him my favourite hat in the world that I kind of miss haha) |
(this blog post was fueled by journal entries, a giant glass of iced tea and the albums Heart Attack Time Machine by Waterdeep and Old Crows/Young Cardinals by alexisonfire.)
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