Week 29

I thought I would send an extra update this week to make up for the month I missed. It's rainy and cold outside, and I'm working at the Jubilee until midnight, watching the desk and chatting with tenants as they come in and out.

 Life is pretty sweet these days. I love where I'm at, and where I'm going. Some new details have arisen lately, but I'll get to those on my next update. For now, I would like to tell you about my next door neighbour, Will.

 Will suffers from pretty severe mental illness. I would say he probably has the intelligence level and maturity of around a ten year old, although his actual age is probably close to sixty. Will has never been out of Vancouver, and has never held a job in his life. His teeth are rotted, and he is a heavy drinker. 

 Will moved next door to me from a room down the hall a couple months ago, and I've had some great interactions with him since then. One day, I came into my room after having cooked dinner downstairs. I went to my fridge, and discovered both my milk and my cheese missing, but nothing else had been touched in my room. I had my suspicions. I went next door and knocked, and Will, very drunk, cracked the door open.

"Hi Will, did you take my cheese and my milk?"
"No, Jorran... I wouldn't do that. I didn't take anything, jorran."
"Are you sure Will? I can't find them. Are you sure you didn't take my cheese?"
"Nope, it wasn' me jorran..."
"Ok Will, have a good night..."

An hour later I get a knock at my door. There stands Will and his buddy Murray, who manages the building. Will is holding a plastic bag and a half-empty carton of milk.

"Sorry Jorran... I didn't mean to. I was hungry."
"I know, Will, it's ok. You have a good night, ok?"
"Ok Jorran... I'm sorry... it won' happen again."
"I know, it's ok."

The cheese had been gnawed on, and the milk mostly drunk, but that was OK, because Will is not a predator - he is prey.

On the street, there is predator and prey. Almost everyone who is indigenous to the DTES (meaning that they came there because they had to, due to mental illness or addiction, as compared to those who came there 'artificially', like me) falls into one of these two categories. The strong predators use and abuse the prey. Dealers are usually predators, as are gang members. Prostitutes can sometimes be predators, and sometimes prey - sometimes both at the same time. Some, however, are simply weak, and are always prey. Will is such a person.

One day when I was walking back to my house, Will came out of a corner store carrying a carton of chocolate milk and a pack of cigarettes. Almost immediately someone walked up to him and tried to take his milk. 

"Give me that, Will."

"No, this is mine, I bought it."

"I don't care, give it to me, I'm thirsty."

"No, It's mine!"

At this point the man tries to physically take it from Will. I walk up and seperate them - the other man was older as well, and quite drunk. I slowed the man down enough to give Will a head start, and then I followed him and walked with him the rest of the way to the building. 

"Thanks, Jorran."

"You're welcome, Will."

The street can be a tough place for prey. Will has no natural defences against those who would abuse him and take things from him. This is not his fault. Will also drinks heavily - my guess is in an attempt to quiet the pain in his head and heart caused by the abuse which he has had to put up with for so many years. Even now, his one close friend, Murray, treats him as an errant child, often being very stern and cross with him for his drunkeness and behaviour.

Will is not always an easy person to love, but his smile radiates Jesus. He truly is one of the Least Of These in a very real way.

Week 24

Hello again my friends!

Well, winter is beginning to settle into the Downtown East Side. Last week I had a splendid Thanksgiving dinner with some good friends in Abbotsford, before returning to the city on Sunday to help out with our own thanksgiving dinner here. I have also been investing some more time in the communities I'm connected with here in the DTES. I attend a Bible study with the Salvation Army once a week near where I work, and have made some good friends there. Outside of that, life has been fairly normal. This past week I assisted our construction crew in cutting out and replacing a 100-year-old pipe required for heating my building. I also fixed a wall in our kitchen which was starting to fall apart, and prepped it to be painted by volunteers. Both of these projects were outside of the norm of what I usually do, and it was interesting and fun to interact with some people I don't get the chance to see often. Working in the kitchen of my building on Powell provided me the opportunity to talk to a number of tenants as they went about their daily business.

I thought this week I would take the opportunity to point out a few ways that we could use your help here at Community Builders. First off, every Saturday there is a standing invitation to come and do volunteer work in our buildings. The volunteers meet at the Dodson at 25 Hastings St. E at around 9:00, and spend the day cleaning, doing minor repairs, and assisting our Tenant support staff with various other ongoing projects. We would love to see more people coming out for these Saturdays, so if you are interested let me know, and I'll put you in touch with Lisa, our volunteer co-coordinator.

Aside from the general volunteer opportunities, there are a couple specific needs that we need to have met. In the Powell building, where I live, there are currently three bathtubs, but no showers. We would really love to see a shower installed into at least one of the bathtubs before Christmas. This job would not be overly complex, but does require a couple people handy with plumbing in order to make it happen. There is also no budget available for this project, so we would be looking for people willing to donate time, money, or supplies towards this project. It would really go a long ways towards making the building more livable for the tenants. If you are interested in being part of this project, let me know - as I said, I'm trying to get it done before Christmas, but as of yet I don't really have any leads on making it happen.

A second, and slightly bigger project that needs to happen is the replacement of the fuse panels at the Powell. Currently the building is wired on the old fuse-style breakers, rather than on a modern switch-style breaker. Further aggravating the problem is the fact that some rooms share a single breaker with a neighbouring room. This is fine during the summer, but during the winter when people plug space heaters in, it causes a lot of blown fuses. To complete this project we again need people who would be willing to donate their time, money, or materials in order to have the fuse box replaced at least, and possibly to have the electrical system upgraded in the building. If you are an electrician, or know one who might be interested in helping out with this project, please let me know - I would love to have you come look at the building and see what you think.

Week 22

Yes, I know it's been three weeks since my last update, but I'm happy to report that they have been three relatively quiet and relaxing weeks compared to the craziness in early September. In fact, they have been so quiet that my biggest struggle has been with loneliness - as the weather has gotten colder and rainier, I've felt more isolated from friends and family. Even so, I have had the chance to connect with both family and friends during the past three weeks, so I think part of this is just my perception, rather than fact.

Last weekend we saw the first Columbia Bible College Urban Mission Adventure group come to the DownTown East Side. I was given the privilege of speaking to CBC as a whole on that Thursday morning in chapel, and then again along with my co-worker Andrew Stock, and my boss, Gordon, to the smaller UMA group that evening. While the talk to the chapel did not go as smoothly as I had hoped, the evening talk went over very well, and I was glad to be a part of it. UMA was my first exposure to the DTES, and I'm hoping that perhaps one or two out of the group were as profoundly impacted as I was. Over the weekend I was able to spend a little bit of time with the groups as they worked in and wandered through the DTES, and it was great to see them interacting with the community. I realized how 'normal' life has become for me here, and how my own view of the neighbourhood has changed in the past five months.

I want to tell you here about another one of my friends. You'll remember my last update where I mentioned getting a punch from a guy who lives in our building. During that scuffle, Thelma came out of her room and started yelling at mike to back off from being so aggressive. After My co-worker had taken Mike aside and started to calm him down, I went with Thelma and walked her back to her room. On the way, she started crying. To understand why this is important, you have to understand Thelma.

My first memory of meeting Thelma was of this short, overweight, older lady yelling at me to carry her walker down the flight of stairs leading out of the building. She was wearing a helmet over her hat, and wearing at least six shirts, and I think a pillow shoved inside the outer shirt. When she looked at you, it was the definitive crazy-eyes look that you think about when you think of a severely mentally challenged person. The entire presentation was almost comical, except for the fact that she was hurling swear words at me for not moving fast enough.

Over the next couple of months, I carried that walker up and down those stairs many, many times. Every time I did, Thelma's countenance towards me got a little bit softer. Eventually she started stopping at the top of the stairs to chat with me for a few minutes before continuing on to her room. Sometimes she would make perfect sense - other times, it was hard to figure out what she was talking about. Eventually she learned my name.

This brings us up to the small scuffle in the hallway outside the office. As I took Thelma away down the hall, she started to cry. She asked 'Why does that guy have to be so mean? I didn't do anything to him.' My heart broke a little for her right there. I got an image in my mind of a little girl, watching her parents fight and wanting to protect her mom, and wondering how her dad could be so cruel. I don't know if that was actually Thelma's experience or not, but I'm sure it's not far from the truth. Underneath an exterior that's as hard as nails, Thelma is a very hurt broken little girl.

She is also an alcoholic, a smoker, and a crack addict. She still threatens to throw people down the stairs if she doesn't like them. I'm pretty sure the list of who's getting into Heaven is VERY short in her mind, but I also know that she believes she's on it. I'm pretty sure I believe that too.

I mopped Thelma's floor a few days ago, or what I could reach of it. Her room is 98 square feet, and out of that 98 square feet, there is perhaps 6 square feet visible. All her walls are piled as high as will be allowed with various nicknacks and clutter. Her fridge is crammed full to the point of bursting with food both good and rotten. How she hasn't gotten food poisoning, I have no idea. One of these days we will have to take her for a little trip while other staff clean out her room. When she comes back, she'll scream and swear at us for about a week, and then start to get used to her new, cleaner living conditions.

I like Thelma. She is a child of God in the most real way - someone who has been profoundly broken, extremely calloused, and yet still has a remarkable air of innocence that pokes through every once in a while. I'm looking forward to seeing her in the future, sitting with Christ, no longer needing her walker or her helmet.

Thelma, to me, typifies the DTES. There is hope here, but it won't always look like you think it should, and sometimes you have to dig for it.

Week 19

These last two weeks have been by far the most eventful out of the entire internship so far. Here is two weeks (abridged) in the life of Jordan:

Two weeks ago on Tuesday night, I was doing my desk shift. It was a pretty quiet night; a few comings and goings, but nothing to write home about. Then, at about 11:30, a fire alarm starts going off. This is a pretty regular occurrence in our buildings: many tenants smoke in their rooms, and sometimes this is enough to set off the alarm. After about 30 seconds of the alarm sounding, however, I go check it out. Banging on the door with no answer, I entered the room, and was greeted with my first honest-to-goodness fire. It wasn't too big yet, but there was fire on his desk, and the central alarm system was now going off. Within a few minutes it would have set off the sprinklers as well, so I grabbed the extinguisher off the wall outside the room and put it out quickly. Thankfully it was still small enough for the extinguisher to do the job, and the fire was out without needing to call 911 or evacuate the building. For the next hour or so I spent the time opening windows and clearing smoke, and figuring out how to turn the alarm off.

I thought that would be enough excitement for one week, but unfortunately I was wrong.

To give fair warning, this next part is not for the squeamish. If medical things or needles cause you to get queasy, you may want to skip this next story. I'll mark the end of it with ***********, so you know when to start reading again.



Two days later, on Tuesday, I was dealing with an overflowing toilet. I hadn't noticed the issue as I was outside at the time it started flooding, so by the time I got to it water was dripping down through two floors, and there was a good two inches of water on the hallway, with more still coming from the overflowing toilet. I got the toilet shut off, and then spent the next 15 minutes mopping.
Once the mess was cleaned up, I turned the toilet back on, and realized it was still not filling the rear (clean) tank properly. I took the back off, reached inside, and felt the last thing that any worker in the DTES wants to feel.

Let me break off the story here for just a couple seconds. There are two blood-born diseases that most people associate with the DTES: HIV, and Hepatitis C. Both are life-altering, but neither the death-sentence they would have been fifteen years ago. Also, with HIV, the virus can only survive outside of the human body for roughly ten seconds. Exposed to water or air, it dies quickly. In fact, there has only ever been one case of HIV transmission to a worker in the DTES, and even in that case there are a lot of complications. Back to the story.

Someone had removed the back of the tank and dropped a needle in, and then flushed the tank, causing the needle to get caught just under the rubber stopper designed to hold the water in the tank, putting it in the only spot I couldn't see. This is what was causing the toilet to run and overflow.

Thankfully, in times of high stress, I'm not one to panic. I'll panic later, when there's time, but at that moment, I was fine. I went quickly downstairs to the office, and began cleaning my hands with disinfectant alcohol rub, and examined how badly I was hurt. Thankfully, the needle just barely punctured my skin, with no real blood to speak of. Still, the risk is there, and so I immediately went to a nearby clinic, which then sent me on to St. Paul's Hospital downtown. My hospital experience was excellent - friendly staff, and I waited not even an hour to see a doctor.

Normally with a needle poke from the DTES, The doctors will recommend a cocktail of lethal drugs in order to kill any chance of HIV before it has the chance to spread. Unfortunately, this cocktail also makes you sick as a dog. Fortunately for me, however, due to the circumstances of the incident (1. exposure to air AND clean water for at least 45 minutes, the length of time I was sure the needle was there, and 2. the fact that it barely punctured the tip of my finger), the cocktail was deemed unneccesary - the chance of HIV infection is effectively zero, thank God. The only worry now is Hep C, and I'll need to wait a while for those results - but again, the chance of infection is extremely, extremly low - I would have better odds of winning the 6/49 Jackpot.

Enough for one week? I thought so too.

a few days later, my friend Mike came stumbling into the Jubilee, even drunker than he usually is. I made the unfortunate mistake of letting his friend past the front door, and they both became pretty belligerent. Another tenant from across the hall came out and started shouting as well, and soon I was in between them and took the first real punch of my life. Thankfully Mike was VERY drunk, and a punch that (I think) was aimed for my face hit my chest, and it was pretty half-hearted by the time it got there, and didn't even wind me. Still, it's the closest I've been to a fight, and the closest I really want to get.

Talk about enough adrenaline for one lifetime.

Finally, today I was riding my bike down Hastings, and a car parked on the side of the road opened his door right in front of me, causing my bike to stop, and my body to keep moving. Of course I was wearing a helmet, so everything was ok - I'm a little bruised, but not too bad. My bike wheel is bent up pretty good though, so it looks like I'll be replacing that... by the time I'm done with this old bike, it's going to have more new parts than old ones!

Well, I think that is more than enough for one update. Here's some prayer requests (some of them probably pretty obvious):

My health and wellbeing. I've taken a bit of a beating these past couple weeks. While the chance of any sort of infection is extremely low, and not something I am worried about, prayer is always great. Those of you who know me really well (family members especially), please try not to worry - I really am fine. Pray also for my physical safety - I'm a little sore from the bike crash today, and while again there is nothing major (I'm sure thanks at least in part to the amazing people I have praying for me), I do wish to heal quickly.

Pray also for the decisions I have to make in the next few months. I am thinking about going back to school in January, but I also have the option to stay here through until March, and I really don't know what the best option is yet.

Pray that we as staff members are as aware as possible of the needs of our tenants. I helped clean a room last week that was absolutely terrible. We had an ooutside team coming in to clean, and the tenant was either too heavily medicated or not mentally capable of telling us how bad the room was. We were able to get in and help with the situation, but there are always those people that slip through the cracks. Pray our eyes stay open for those.

Week 17

Well, life in the DTES is always fluid, but it seems like every day I'm becoming more a part of the stream and less a rock stuck in the way. My bike is rolling again, I'm working more afternoon shifts, and I'm making some great new friendships, both within the DTES and outside of it.

First, a few more mundane details. One of my co-workers, Daniel, decided to head back to school this year, meaning more paid shifts opened up. This was great news for me, because it added a little more structure to my week, and it now allows me a little more responsibility than I had before. I now work Monday and Tuesday 4-12, although I usually come in closer to 2 and assist my co-worker Galina for a couple hours before I start my own shift. Wednesday and Thursday I spend on volunteer hours, usually from 9-4 or thereabouts. On these days, I will often head for lunch with one of our tenants and with my friend Andrew. Friday and Saturday I take off work, and usually split my time between biking around Vancouver and reading in the library, trying desperately to catch up on the readings I'm supposed to have finished by now (bibliographies are coming eventually Bryan, I promise!). Sunday I work again, working a split shift 12AM-8AM, and then from 8PM-12AM. Sunday afternoon I generally spend sleeping, and Sunday evening I've been attending a small baptist church on Commercial Drive.

Now, last time I sent an update I talked a little about my personal philosophy on the DTES. In the future, I will probably return to the theology and psychology required for caring for the addicted, but tonight I would like to focus on a couple of the people I have begun to get to know here, and on a little bit of their stories. I've changed some names, and others I've left the same, depending on the circumstances.


Julie is someone you would call extremely difficult to house. She is in her early 30's, and has First Nations status from a band out east, I believe Cree. She has lived in the DTES for a long time now, and is a drug addict. She also deals with deep bouts of depression, among other mental and physical health concerns. She's not capable of keeping her room clean, and also struggles with incontinence, meaning someone else needs to do her laundry for her almost every day.

I could live her there, just a bundle of problems, and not a human being, but I wouldn't be telling even close to the whole story. Despite all the difficulties that Julie has, and the hard time that she has given the staff here and even myself personally, she is also one of the kindest souls a person could meet. She loves to talk, as most people in the DTES do, and she loves to tell stories of her family and of how much she loves them. She loves to talk about her daughter, who is 13 and she is unable to see. She loves to talk about her cousins, some of whom are also in the DTES. I have, by luck and grace, become a 'little brother' to her as well, and she will often give me a hug and ask me how I'm doing when I come to do my shift at the Jubilee.

I don't know much about Julie's background, but I would bet any amount of money that her childhood was unpleasant, to put it lightly. The abuse rate among the addicted in the DTES is astronomical, and for good reason. It is not just that the drugs help people forget about the pain - that is a gross oversimplification. In reality, a lot of it has to do with brain chemistry, and the way that we have been lovingly wired by our creator to need love.

When we experience love - a hug from a close friend, and baby being held by its mother, a kind word spoken at the right time - a storm of chemical reactions takes place within our brain. Chemicals called opiates and Dopmine are released from cells, and 'grabbed' by receptors designed for that purpose. As the chemicals are grabbed by the receptors, we begin to feel the good effects of what we call love or nurturance. During the developmental years, these receptors are growing at an incredible rate, but their growth is dependent on them being used often. If a young person (say between birth and adolescence) is denied the physical closeness that he or she should have, the receptors that normally develop during that period are impaired.

Drug use simulates the brain's normal behaviour patterns and either causes the brain to overload on dopamine and other chemicals, blocks the receptors, or both. One heroin addict I read about described her first hit as 'a warm hug' - this is literally what is happening in the brain. When the receptors are impaired to begin with, the chances of addiction - artificially inducing the feelings that resemble the natural high of being loved and cared for - skyrocket.

Of course, addiction is much more complicated than that, but this is the core of it, physically, scientifically, emotionally, and spiritually - the addict is looking for exactly the same thing everyone is looking for - the feeling of being loved and accepted. If you are interested in the science of addiction, I'll probably be touching on it more in the future, but I would highly recommend 'In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction' by Dr. Gabor Mate. This book is astounding and continually blows me away with how compassionate and understandable it is. Anyone who has ever struggled with any form of addiction should read this book.

So, what is the answer for my friend Julie? Is it detox and rehab? Maybe one day. for a longtime user, her chances of getting and staying clean are slim, but they are there. But perhaps the first step is being willing to look past her dirty clothes and missing teeth, her often-grumpy exterior and her messy room, and being willing to give her a hug anyway, being willing to change her sheets yet again, being willing to clean her room for the millionth time. Showing love is not pretty, and it often does not seem practical or sometimes even helpful. But when I'm called 'little brother' and someone feels safe enough to let me hold their pet rat, I know that I am on the right path.