Another one come and gone...

Today I spent in rest...after a weekend of Urban Mission Adventure with my students and fellow leaders. I have to admit that I have a fascination for the city, an admiration and dare I say, a love? Coming from small-town Island life...I had always feared the city...it's fast cars and business suits and panhandlers. I only knew that as part of the city, and not part of my small safe town. And so, these UMAs (as from day 1 almost 8 years ago) have changed my perspective...

This weekend, I was privileged to once again bring a team of 40 students (and leaders!) into Vancouver to learn and listen...and to be changed.
I always marvel when I'm sitting with all these students on Sunday, hearing their stories, and hearing their words change from "those guys, those homeless, prostitutes, drug dealers" to "those people that are really just the same as us", and for some, even words such as "there is no 'them', it is only 'us'". I have to smile...knowing that these are the same words coming from those that dreaded coming on this trip, maybe even tried to convince me that they didn't need to come, or for some reason I should excuse their credit.

Do you know what Sodom's sin was?

Our Sunday School teachings come to mind...and we resoundingly agree: Homosexuality and sexual sin! But are we right?

We are reminded of the story in Genesis, when Abraham apparently barters with God for this city. "Let me find 50 righteous, and save this city!" God agrees. Abraham keeps throwing out numbers, and finally God agrees that if Abraham can find just 10 people in the city that are righteous, God will save it.

God did not save Sodom.

And I think you may agree with me, that growing up, I had always assumed that because the stories in Genesis were about the people and their dysfunctional sexual acts, that that must have been Sodom's sin.

But look at this:

"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." (Ezekiel 16:49-50)

Arrogant.

Overfed.

Did not help the poor and needy.

These were Sodom's sins. For these, God destroyed Sodom. And Abraham could not find 10 righteous people among them. My question now is: would he be able to find 10 among us?

Arrogant. Proud. "I deserve what I have."

Overfed. The unbalance of full cupboards and growling stomachs.

Did not help the poor and needy. The very fact that we have poor and needy tells me that we are not helping them. Or at least, we are not successful in our attempts, and therefore our attempts are not accurate at what the help that they need truly is.

And so, I struggle with this all. I hope you do as well. We need to...we desperately need to.

One of the students this weekend made a great point after listening to a guest speaker talking about the downtown eastside (DTES) of Vancouver and the role of the government. We sat after the speaker left and chatted about what they all had just heard. The leader of their team asked them, "what do you feel after hearing what they had to share?" The response from one: "I hate government." But quickly, another student jumped in and said, "No, I'm not angry with the government. This is not their responsibility. This is our responsibility. If the church was truly taking care of the needs of the people, this area would not exist."

Do you know that there are 30,000 "unadoptable" children in Canada? They have been born into addiction, or they struggle with fetal alcohol, or some other consequential disability. Aaron White from the Salvation Army came and shared with us about this fact. In response to "what can we do about the DTES?", he shared, "adopt and love these 'unadoptable' children". If we as Christians truly believe what we are preaching, we should be the first in there, adopting these children.

Oh there is so much more to say. And I could go on and on...

This is the struggle that goes on in my mind day in and day out. How do we live the gospel? Especially in North America, with mutual funds, big houses, lots of unnecessary food, and of course, new cars. (!!)

I love that my job continues to make me struggle with it. I fear the day that I stop.

Did you know that turtles live in the city?I love Chinatown. I think it is my favourite part of the city. And it reminds me that God has brought the nations to us. China, a closed country to the Gospel, lives amongst us.

Bryan (my boss) told the students as we left on Thursday that they were only allowed to go shopping this weekend, if they found something really cool. On the left here you see dried lizards on a stick. Bryan owns one from a previous UMA trip - he showed it as an example. To the right, you see entire dried snakes. This particular store also had dried starfish on a stick, but the lady stopped me from taking any more photos... The idea is that you plop either of these into boiling water and drink it down...evidently they have great medicinal properties! (I'll leave that up to you to try)

So that is that. For now, I will continue to struggle...and will be bringing another group of 40 into Vancouver again in 4 weeks.