Oh Canada!

So here we are...Vancouver, our final stop on our amazing Soul Touch journey! Neither of us can believe we are at this point already!
We arrived in about a week ago to be met by Laura’s lovely cousin Moira at the airport and brought back to warm comfy beds after about 16 hours travelling from Guatemala. (Stupid less expensive diverted all over the place flights!!) Our main focus during our time in Vancouver is to sit down and process the year and get it all down on paper. Between us we are working on writing up a detailed description of the different organisations we have been blessed to work with this year, with the intention of having this information available to everyone involved in Soul Touch and anyone else interested. Individually we are also working on writing up a personal reflection of the journey. Soul Touch, as incredible as it is, passes insanely fast and can sometimes feel like a whirlwind that you are somehow caught up in. So whilst we are here we have been given the chance to take some time to work out what actually happened in the past year, what we learnt, how we grew (which I hope we did a bit at least!) and where to go from now on. This will hopefully also help us process things and reduce the effects of any reverse culture shock when we finally arrive home in bonny Scotland.
Vancouver is actually the perfect place for us as we are able to stay with Laura’s kind family and their amazing dog Jackson, but also our minister Albert has managed to put us in touch with a Theological Professor friend of his who lives just 10 minutes from us, who has kindly been helping to guide us with all our thoughts and get them onto paper without ending up in confused tears or over excited giggles (although they might come anyway).
Another reason Vancouver is so great for us stems back to a time many months ago when we were in Thailand working with YWAM (Youth With A Mission), and Laura and I stumbled across a friendly Canadian man named Kevin. As I was waiting for Laura to skype her family in the YWAM offices I became involved in a conversation with this man who was also taking advantage of the internet connection. I was shamefully quiet as we introduced ourselves to each other because in all, ugly, honesty I couldn’t really be bothered making conversation after a long day. However when Kevin mentioned he was only passing through Bangkok on his way home to Canada from Cambodia I asked unexpectedly if he had ever heard of a small ministry called “Servants Asia”. This had been my favourite ministry since I had read a book about them called “Urban Halo”, but nobody I had met so far had heard of them despite us being in Asia. So, expecting him to say no, I understandably leaped across the room towards him screaming at the top of my voice when he told me that in fact, he was part of that ministry and he had been in Cambodia finalising the details of his move out there as part of Servant Asia’s Mission. So after a long night of my incessant questioning, Kevin explained to us that he actually lived with the author of “Urban Halo” Craig and his wife Nay in Vancouver where they ran a homeless ministry. He promised to put us in touch as he ensured us volunteers are more than welcome and ... well... 8 months on, here we are!
Craig and Nay were, as Kevin had promised, more than welcoming and invited us to join them for dinner and a justice meeting on Tuesday nights. Servants Asia work on the basis of “incarnational ministry”. This is the idea that Jesus came down from Heaven to meet us where we are and so we must also live amongst the people we hope to help, rather than help them occasionally from our ivory towers. So, in Canada Servants have 2 houses in the rougher downtown area where homelessness is rife and they basically live in community with an open door. At 6pm every night they have dinner and anyone is welcome to join them. If they come on a regular basis they are expected to contribute either food or time, but basically anyone that wants can come and they all share a meal together. This means that the group can either have dinner with their fellow Servant’s missionaries that live in the community and one or two homeless people, or they can cram about 50 people that have shown up, around a table. Food is made for plenty and left overs eaten the following day. Everyone helps and nobody is considered at all “higher” or “lower” than anyone else.
Laura and I have had a brilliant time with Servants on Tuesdays and have popped along other times to just spend time with the great people there. However, worryingly for everyone else when we asked how we could best help we were assigned to the cooking rota a couple of nights a week!! This basically involves us rocking up with the will to make whatever we can think of from the donations they have been given on a mass scale! It’s great fun, and the dinner conversation is always so interesting with so many people from different backgrounds. I have to admit though, it’s much easier now we can fully understand the language people are speaking!
We were excited to hear that Kevin, who we met so many months ago, is actually coming back to Canada for a short time in a few weeks so we will get to see him before we leave. Also, our good friend Matt who we met in New Zealand, at the Scripture Union camp 3 days into the start of Soul Touch, is in Vancouver for a while and is meeting us tomorrow to come with us to this brilliant organisation. It will be great to see them both after so long.
Just a wee depressing (or inspiring depending on how motivational your reaction is) note to leave you on. We were discussing the lost meaning of Christmas at the last justice meeting and we were told that while the States alone spend $450 billion on Christmas each year, it would only take $10 billion for EVERYONE in the world to have access to clean water! So, maybe as we go to buy those extra unnecessary Christmas decorations, or another pile of chocolate, we should try to remember a few coins, thoughts or prayers for all of those still thirsting. Tesco is right, every little really does help.
Jenn xxx