Plunging into the Urban

From Tuesday night to Friday we stayed at the Vineyard church in Winnipeg. It is located at 782 Main Street. It's the rough part of town.

Wednesday we participated in something called The Amazing Race. It was really well organized and run. We had a little baggy full of clues and a number of different tasks to accomplish. When we started I told my team that I loved winning and well, they didn't disappoint. But that's not the point of that day. We got to talk to some people who have devoted their lives. One guy runs community housing for the scum of the street. These people have to pass a screening but we're talking a step above drug dealers. The part that I found the most amazing is that he has two little kids. He told us one story about how one of the guys came home late, drunk out of his mind and his 5 year old son answered the door. We asked him about it and he said that he just trusts the Lord to keep his kids safe. That struck me pretty hard.

We also heard about this sweet pastor. Basically this guy took his neighbourhood seriously and starting bringing the battle back to the streets. He, with the help of some other guys, ran the drug and sex trade out. Basically they recorded license plates of the Johns and addresses of the drug houses and gave them to the news and posted them online. Before long, the neighbourhood turned around because this one guy brought illumiation to the dark places. I don't know but I imagine that this pastor would be getting death threats at the very least. I loved how much risk this guy was taking but more so, how simple is was to actually do something, without any violence or evil at all.

We also met another pastor who's church is in a high traffic prostitution traffic area. The parts that I remember were these two. The average age to start prostitution is 13 or 14. Most of the girls are safer on the streets being picked up by strangers than they are at home.

My favourite part of the day was when we were walking around and we started to hang out with some native kids. These guys were smoking and drinking beer and I probably would have just walked past them without saying a word but another guy from a different group started talking to them and we all started walking together. Now, there is a long story to go with this and if you want to hear it let me know but the most important part is that I become friends with the head guy. His name was Mike. Now Mike is a reasonable dude but he doesn't like his neighbourhood. He told me that he wanted to get a gun and kill some people. He was serious. He also liked to laugh and have a good time. I think the moment we bonded was when I started to lay down some sick beats for his lyrical rhythm. That's right. The white kid beatboxed while the native told it like it is. That right there, that was very good.

The other two days were spend doing service projects and while they were good, they were nothing compared to the epicness of Wednesday. Other than two amazingly awkward conversations where I got this one guys name wrong like four times, it was good. I seriously think that Wednesday October 8th, 2008 might just be one of the greatest days of my life.