"I Envy You Jo"

Tuesday was a typical night - I drove up to The Mustard Seed in my little red car, said hi to the gang waiting outside for dinner, and started my usual chores:  handing out plates, chatting with the community members, clearing away coffee mugs, and all the while just seeing all the people as just people, no different than I, and I always thought they saw me as an equal as well.

But maybe I was wrong.

I was chatting with one of my homeless buddies as we usually do - about work, the street, his "issues", and then suddenly he spoke frankly:  I envy you Jo.

My first thought was, "Why would he envy me?"  Maybe it should have been an obvious answer, but I've come to know some of these people so well that they are no different to me than our neighbours across the street.  The answer did not immediately come to mind.

And then his reply:  Because you get to drive home in your car, to your house, and to your family.

Oh, how we take our everyday life for granted!  To think that a person would envy me because I live in a house, when I never think twice about it.  And to have a family, when some of these people have such battered family pasts that maybe they lay awake at night thinking about what life may have been like if they had just been born into different circumstances....

As much as I see them as the same, these people are different.  The ebb and flow of their lives has brought them to one of the harshest and violent streets in Edmonton to get a meal and find some conversation.  Some of them are homeless by choice, but I'll bet lots of them dream about the day when they won't have to stand in line for food, won't have to use an outdoor toilet in the middle of the night, and won't have to freeze for most of the day in any given January.

How blessed we are.....I'll never forget that again. 

Strength in Numbers

My running program has become a little intense - this morning I ran 30 minutes, followed by 13 hill intervals, and then another 30 minutes of running.  I've been doing hill intervals for a couple of weeks, and preferred to go with a friend, since you never know what could be going on down in our river valley.  However, my running bud moved back to Scotland, and so I was faced with the prospect of doing hills alone.

However, on Saturday the 11th I plodded over to the hill to find that a guy was doing hill repeats on his bike at the same time.  Yay - I wouldn't have to be alone!  I didn't know who he was, but he was crazy enough (like I) to be up at 630 am on a Saturday to get in a brutal workout.  We passed many times, and he was still there when I left, and it was nice just to have somewhere there and not worry about potential issues popping up from the river valley.

Last Saturday, I reached the hill and found the same little white car at the top of the hill - could the bike guy be back?  Sure enough, he was!  We exchanged a cordial good morning as we passed the first time (he was going up, I was going down), and I ran without worry.  This morning, the little white car was there again.  I thought it was kind of crazy that he was doing hill repeats again after just doing them three days earlier, but then again, I was there too.

I found it interesting how just having one person around, sharing in the pain, seemed to make the work go by more quickly and not seem so difficult. 

I stepped out of my comfort zone last night and went to a movie (gak) with a bunch of ladies (barf) - a "girls night out", no less! (aargh).  Even though I wanted to go home after, I went for coffee after even though I didn't know anyone (kill me now).  However, one of the ladies made a profound comment.  To paraphrase, she said that if we are going to be in Christ, we have to grow, and in order to grow, we need to move out of our comfort zone.  Jesus said, "Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."  It's so easy to stay complacent, stay comfortable, but it's also so hard to find Christ on our own.  A solid group of friends can feed off each other, can make the journey easier, and provide strength for each other.  If I am going to grow in Christ, maybe I need to get out of my comfort zone and actually make an effort to make some lifelong friends.

They will stengthen me, just as the bike guy provided a different kind of strength.  We were designed to work in community, so why don't we all do it more often?  A pondering for another day.....

One Year Ago Today

A year ago right now, I was lying in an operating waiting room, prepped for surgery, and when I awoke, my body was all jumbled up and stapled shut, and I didn't feel well for a long time.

I naively thought I would be running again six weeks postop, and that a little surgery wasn't going to get in the way of my love of the outdoors.  I didn't realize how big of a surgery it was, and six weeks later I could still barely walk around, never mind run!

In the fall I thought I would be ready, but I often felt sick after running, I had vertigo if my heartrate was too high, and I just didn't feel right.  I wondered if I would ever feel normal again.  I felt like a fraud teaching fitness classes when I couldn't even do the exercises myself, but I am so grateful that the owner of the local fitness centre looked past my scars and gave me a chance to teach classes.  She didn't care that I was out of shape, and her confidence in me gave me the confidence to move forward with teaching fitness, when I had been so close to just giving up on the whole thing.

This morning I ran for 50 minutes and it felt great, and I think my body is finally ready to take on some challenges.  If I would have known that it was going to take a year to get back to normal, I never would have believed it.

I can't wait to see what the next year has in store!

I'm Missing My Peeps

It's 7:17 on a Tuesday night, and I would normally be standing at the front door of The Mustard Seed, handing out plates for dinner, and smiling and chatting with the community members.  But I'm in South Dakota instead, in the middle of an awesome family vacation, having visited Mount Rushmore this morning and basking in the glow of Matthew's excitement.

But I find myself thinking of everyone, wondering how they are doing in the heat without air conditioning, without constant access to water, and many of them being shunned in the shopping malls while looking for a cool place to rest.  I have confidence, however, that the staff at the inner city agencies are watching for heatstroke as diligently as they watch for frostbite in the winter, and that the Hope Mission van is constantly circling, looking for signs of distress.

The coffee bar would be steaming hot, and the fans would just be blowing hot air around, and people would be cranky from the heat.  But just as in the dead of winter, just one smile might brighten the day of someone who was grumpy from too much sun.

I read a quote on Twitter that one positive relationship can change the course of a person's life, and I'm determined to be that one positive relationship.

But for now, I'm enjoying the dry heat in the Black Hills, looking forward to a day at the local waterpark tomorrow, and hanging out with my family in our air conditioned hotel room.

I'll be back with my peeps next Tuesday.

Wes

On Sunday morning I woke up and read the online news that a man had been beaten outside of the Boyle McCauley Health Centre.  I'm very familiar with that building; it's right across the street from the Mustard Seed and there are always people hanging around, whether it's open or closed.

I immediately wondered if I knew the man, but the article said that he went by "Ghost", and that didn't ring a bell.  After all, I thought, there are so many who aren't allowed into the Mustard Seed since they drink or use, and surely this guy who was hanging out in the middle of the night wasn't one of ours.

But I was wrong.

When I entered the Mustard Seed on Tuesday night, Maria said, "We need to talk about Wes, he died this morning."  I responded, "Not the guy who was beaten on the weekend", but she nodded her head, and pointed to the picture from EPS.

I didn't know Wes well; he hadn't been in for a while, but I definitely recognized the picture.  He was quiet, never tried to converse, just politely took a plate and marched along.  There were rumours abound from the community members:  He was a pedophile.  He was told not to return to the neighbourhood.  But really, who knows the truth?

The truth is that a man was killed by three others on a street that many wouldn't drive down, much less walk down.  And yet I've walked around that street, I've stood on the street corners talking to people, I've chased people down the street when I thought they were in trouble.  I have never once thought about how dangerous it was, even when a community member told me once, "You shouldn't be walking alone around here."  I've always just seen it as a Street, and seen the people as People, and wondered why anyone would be scared to come down to help out the People on the Street.

I guess I know better now.

Two Years

I was just reading my blog entry on June 15, 2010 - the first day I worked down at the Mustard Seed, and I wrote that I was One Billion Percent Sure that I had finally landed where God had called me - into the inner city, working with people.  Last night marked the two year mark of my Ministry, and while it's been a challenging two years, it has also been two years of spiritual growth and self discovery.

It was a busy night last night, much like the night that I started, but I was able to do a lot of roaming around, a lot of chatting, a lot of helping.  The karaoke was entertaining, as usual, and the coffee flowed freely as people came in out of the rain.  The highlight of the night (for the community) was the snack group who served ice cream and cookies.  I managed to sneak some Cream Soda, my favorite type of pop, and sip it happily behind the coffee bar.  My highlight was when my little buddy Glen gave me a flower to take home - he had picked something out that would be difficult for me to kill - I only have to water it once every two weeks!  Glen has always been friendly inside the Mustard Seed, but I have heard stories about his fights on the outside, including one that got him suspended for a few months.  It reminds me to keep my guard up, which hasn't always been the case.

They warned me before I started not to get too close to people since they may try to take advantage of a friendship....and it happened, but also taught me a good lesson.  I had a favorite, and we became really good friends....and then he asked me for money, and not just a little bit of money.  No one has ever asked me for anything, not even a quarter for the pop machine, because they know we can't give them anything, but the fact that he had the courage to ask me for a significant amount of money meant that I had let my guard down and gotten too close.  It jolted me into reality, I said no (of course - I don't even lend money to family!), and haven't seen him since.  Lesson learned.

It's been a great two years, and I've met some great people.  I just wish more of us who are blessed with time and money would give our time to these people - they are not scary, they are just people who are so grateful for a smile or a helping hand.  God has his protective hand over those of us who are called, and I have never once felt concern about being in the inner city. 

I am looking forward to all that this next year brings....

Does God Speak to Us?

I've been revisting my Chuck Missler Genesis study this month; I love how he breaks our world down into seminars of particle physics and beautiful biological explanations.  Yesterday he spoke of the giraffe and how it is biologically impossible that the giraffe evolved due to its complex structure.  He spoke of mitochodria and their little engines and the code within DNA.  He puts it in such a way that you can't argue with the gloriousness (is that a word?) of Creation.  My logical brain agrees with Chuck Missler, that there is a Creator of our Universe and we are His children, but my selfish heart keeps turning away.

I had a dream last night and I'm positive He was speaking to me, giving me some direction, but it's so easy to rationalize it and turn it into something beneficial for my own gain, not His.  I shouldn't ignore these dreams when I wake up and immediately say, "That was from God", and when I know exactly why He sent the dream to me.  Sometimes dreams are fuzzy and when you wake up you wonder, "What was THAT all about??!!??!!", but then there are dreams that are so clear, and you can say to yourself, "I know exactly what that was all about."

Some people long for God to speak to them in a concrete fashion, and here I am, the God of the Universe speaking to me, and I'm full of yah buts.  Yah but.....I say, No, He responds.   Yah but.....I say.  No, He responds.

This is too hard.  I'm going to listen to another session of Genesis now.