Vancouver

The entrance to the Buddist Temple gardens - Jasmine, Jackie, Elanor, Cassandra and Joanna.

During our Urban Plunge we had the opportunity to visit a Buddist Temple and a Muslim Mosk. Here is a group of girls demonstrating cultural sensitivity by wearing head coverings - Joanna, Elanor, Jackie, Jasmine, Tracy and Cassandra

Leah

While we were in Vancouver, we had a great opportunity to work with YWAM Missions Adventures to see the beauty of Vancouver. Before the week started I had a lot of hesitation and was very nervous. We started off the week walking around East Hastings area and seeing first hand the community that was established there. The second part of the day we walked around the upper class streets. Two totally different worlds exist just blocks away from each other. It started off that we were more comfortable walking down the upper class streets than on Hastings, but as the week went on our views totally changed. The people we met on Hastings touched our lives and our hearts in ways we never thought possible. Some of the activities we got to do were: a rose prayer walk, street church missions and sharing a lunch with a stranger. The rose prayer walk was extremely challenging for most and it definitely opened our eyes to the sex trade in Vancouver. Street church was an amazing opportunity for us. Our group got to plan a service for a soup kitchen/church. We all had a role to play and it allowed us to see the gifts and abilities we each offer the group. We were able to just sit with people and talk with them over dinner. We got the chance to hear about their lives and stories. It was a cool time just forming friendships and having the chance to understand another lifestyle. The last day was my favourite out of all the activities. We had the day, in small groups, to try and change Vancouver. We could do anything we wanted. My group decided to see how hard it is to get off the streets and to get things like a health card, social insurance, birth certificate, etc. We ended up running into a guy that I had met the night before at street church. Our group spent the day with him and he showed us all the “ins and outs” of the down town. It was a really impacting day because we saw things through new eyes.

It was an amazing week and we are all taking away a lot from the week. We had a lot of cool experiences; we even got to try a lot of different ethnic foods that we wouldn’t normally get the opportunity too. This week taught us a lot about who we are and it brought out different gifts and abilities we never knew we had. After this week I no longer look at Hastings as the poorest postal code in Canada but as somewhere I could call home.

Shawna Leighton