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July 20, 2008

In the streets of the poorest postal code of Canada, I meet the women who live here on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside every day. As an Outreach Worker at the Women’s Drop-In Centre I have met women who struggle with homelessness, poverty and addiction.  I have seen single women with children living in shelters. I have met educated and gifted women who have ended up living on the streets. I have seen some of them return again and again to the abusive relationships that they think they deserve. I have watched mental illness take over a person’s life. I have watched the fall of some of them either on the sidewalk, or from a 7 story building. I have witnessed their pain and sadness. And I have heard their cries for help, and their tears fall softly.I cried out to God and asked him "Why? Why would you let this happen to these women who are so beautiful in God’s eyes. How could you let children live in shelters, and their mothers work the streets to provide food for them? Why are there women suffering from mental health disorders, deformities, disease. Why are there drugs being produced like a harvest and made available to anyone? Why Lord, why??" I was so angry. I couldn’t understand why he would allow such destruction in the lives of the women that I loved so greatly. My heart was broken.

I prayed for days without an answer, and then God showed me his heart. It was even more broken than mine. And in a moment it made complete sense to me. He was showing me his heart, through the pain and suffering of his children, the people that he loves. And then boldly I asked him what he was going to do about it? And the words of that famous story came to the front of my mind. "I did do something, I made you!"

Please lift us up in your prayers as we serve the Lord and the people he loves here at Union Gospel Mission. The workers are few and needs are many. But God is always at work in this place. And he changes lives right here in this tiny Drop-In Centre.