And now I am at the Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle, Washington, waiting to board the plane back home. (Well, I was there when I started this letter.)
The trip was great. Vancouver is an incredibly beautiful (and big) city, and has the most amazing high rise housing. It's extremely diverse, mostly Asian, but there are so many other nationalities too. It's fun to listen to people passing by with their different accents.
We got to Vancouver on Thursday, July 7 around six pm, their time. My former youth pastor, Jeff, met us at our hotel and took us to see the Sea Wall which overlooks a huge bay and North Vancouver. (Beautiful!) It also contains the statue that the Olympic Torch was lit on. That night, we ate at one of Jeff’s favorite restaurants, A&W. We also got to meet two people from Jeff’s team, Marshall and Mike. Mike is from Canada and works for an auctioneering company. Marshall is from Brandon, MS and actually went to Mississippi College for a year (where I’m going in the fall.)
Friday, we ate breakfast at Tim Horton’s, which is a 24 hour place that serves the best breakfast sandwiches and bakery items I’ve ever had. Then we went back to Jeff’s to hear about Canada’s culture and history, and we met another team member, Johnny from Scotland. (His accent was so cool!) While we were there, Sara, Jeff’s wife, cooked us lunch, and then we went to see more of the city. Since we were sort of unprepared for the chilly weather there, me and my friend Hannah stopped to buy some jeans at American Eagle, and while we were there, we got to see firsthand some of the things Jeff had mentioned to us about Canadians. Of course the employees there noticed our Southern accents and wanted to know why we were there, so we got to tell them about how we were there to help Jeff with his church planting. One of the girls seemed genuinely interested, while the other was clearly thinking, “Cool, whatever you like.” Jeff had prepared us for the Canadian mindset of accepting whatever people are: example: “You’re Buddhist? Oh, that’s cool. You be you and I’ll be me.” So, to actually try to witness to them would not have been accepted due to the fact that Canadians are a little harder to get past their high personal walls. They are not quick to talk about anything personal; some won’t even talk about their own jobs! After having conversations with both girls, we left the store and went to Blenz Coffee to try a highly recommended Canadian favorite: hot chocolate. It was some of the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted! That night, we visited the Grishams, which is another family that used to go to Trinity, and moved to help Jeff. (Their high rise is AMAZING!) So, they cooked us dinner and we all got to sit around and debrief and talk about their mission in Vancouver.
Saturday, we ate at Tim Horton’s again, and then got to see Johnny’s high rise, which was also beautiful! We met Craig, which is another team member, and we helped Jeff and Sara and another family move stuff from their houses to the school for a community yard sale they were having that day. Then we went to the Downtown East Side of Vancouver, which is the most densely populated homeless area in Canada. It was really sad and sort of scary walking through there. We had to separate into smaller groups so we didn’t stand out so much as tourists or developers (the homeless do not want their area developed because they would have to be moved.) and we were told to watch out for needles and knives. People are so desperate for money that they literally will try to sell anything they own. But to say the least, there are serious drug and prostitution problems there, and the Canadian police don’t do anything about it unless the vendors try to move it outside of the few blocks they are contained in. (The police don’t want the vendors moving anywhere else in Vancouver.) We weren’t allowed to speak to anyone or help in any way. There was a mission team before ours that was passing out hotdogs and water bottles and were told that the Canadian government wants the homeless to use the resources available to them and not wait around for someone to bring things to them. They have a lot more resources to take advantage of than our homeless people in Memphis do. From there, we moved on to Gas Town, which is a historic part of the city, and only a few blocks from the East Side. To give you an idea of how contained the homeless people are, East side is only 2 or three blocks and was dirty and nasty and then literally only a block or two away was Gas Town which was beautiful and had lots of restaurants and souvenir shops. There, we ate at Vera’s Burger Shack and we got to souvenir shop, which is always fun. That night, Sara cooked for us again and we got to meet the rest of Jeff’s team.
Sunday, Sara cooked us breakfast and then we headed to Stanley Park for our alone time with God. Stanley Park is very pretty, by the way. Hannah and I did our quite times by a little beach, surrounded by a playground and a swimming pool. It was a great place for a quiet time because we were surrounded by so much natural beauty that you couldn’t help but think about God. From there, we ate lunch at the Pacific Centre Mall and we walked around to do some conversational surveying, which was just asking people about their religion and what not. Later that afternoon, we went to the downtown library to help set up for The Crossings once a month gathering that they call the All Nations Gathering. This is where Jeff’s church team meets up with their partner Korean church, and they all worship together. It’s really moving to see all God’s people in one room, worshiping the same great God. I got to sit in on the music part of worship, and the rest of the time, my team kept everyone’s kids. That was so much fun! That night, we ate dinner at Red Robin, which believe it or not, was my first time eating there, and I loved it!
Monday, Sara cooked breakfast for us again and then we went to see Shannon Falls, the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen, Whistler Olympic Park, and Whistler Village. All of these places were incredible. At the Olympic Park, we got to see the ski trails and jumps, the biathlon experience, and where they had all the Olympic rings. Whistler Village was where people could go and rent bikes, skis, and snowboards and go on the all the trails and ramps, etc. It was very extreme. It also had a lot of shops and restaurants. (I even got to try gelato, which is sooo much better than ice cream or frozen yogurt.) That night, we ate at Earl’s, which is a really ritzy seeming place. By the way, all the stuff we saw that day paled in comparison to how beautiful all the mountains and bodies of water were that we passed the whole way there. Something I learned is that God’s beauty in creation cannot be captured with a camera!
And on Tuesday, we left our hotel at five am, and got home at six forty five pm. It was a long and exhausting trip back, but the whole experience was so worth it.
I loved every moment I spent in Vancouver. The whole downtown life is so my thing and it was awesome to get to be a part of it, if only for a week. Plus, the scenery was unbelievable. You just don’t see that kind of natural beauty that much in the States. It’s even hard to describe how beautiful it was.
But most importantly, I learned that there is definitely a need for Jesus in that city. People there are so nice, but you can still see that there is a lack of light. There’s sort of a void when they speak to you, like they’re not completely happy with all they have. Also, the homeless were in just as much need of Jesus as the people who seemed to have it all, if that says anything. Jeff and The Crossings team have a lot on their plates, and I was grateful to get to be a part of that. I’m grateful that God allowed me to see the needs there so that I (and my team) can bring them back and help get things done. Some serious prayer is needed.
And I know from the itinerary summary I provided, it doesn’t seem like we did much as a team for them, but what we were told consistently by Jeff and his team was that we provided so much encouragement for them. I think it’s good for them to be around friends again, as well as to be reminded that there are still Christians in the world. They are constantly trying to build relationships enough to where they can witness, and that is such a hard thing to do. Church planting is definitely a lot more complicated and stressful than I initially imagined.
I also want to take time to thank you for the funds you provided me with. And I thank God for giving you the means to do so. It seriously means so much to me; without so much help, I wouldn’t have been able to go on the trip and see the things I saw. It was an incredible experience, and hopefully only the first of many more. Also, thanks for the prayers. God clearly kept us very safe and used us to do what He needed done for the team and in Vancouver. Please keep praying, though, for their team and the city- everyone there needs all the prayers they can get.
