Gospel Mission > Volunteers

God Rains Shower Project,

at 327 Carrall Street, Vancouver, BC

December 19, 2009

Showers of blessing – the Lord’s Rain
One of the obvious things about people on the Downtown East Side is that they’re generally filthy. Living on the street or in shelters, that’s hard to avoid. But it’s also obvious that they’d rather be clean. We saw people come into Gospel Mission and wash up at the laundry tub at the back, drying their hair with dishtowels, and wanted to do something about it; in late 2007, God provided the motive, opportunity and means.

One of the ground-floor spaces in our building came vacant, and even though we had zero dollars to make it happen, our landlord gave us the opportunity to draw up a plan for a showers facility.

From the beginning, God made it clear that the project was His will. Two days before our deadline, pledges came in totalling $4,000. The Oasis Church in Duncan, which has supported Gospel Mission for many years, put together a work party to build the stalls and sub-floor; a plumber who was “saved off the streets” at Gospel Mission donated his labour (and much of the material); Andrew Sheret, Ltd., donated four shower enclosures and the fittings; financial contributions, large and small, started coming in as others caught the vision. The media played an important role at key times, telling the public what was going on. On one occasion, a door was left unlocked through an oversight and some tools were stolen; when a TV report was aired, an anonymous donor stepped forward with a large cash donation to replace the tools and keep the project on track.

The Lord’s Rain, so dubbed by Judy Babcook, wife of senior pastor Barry Babcook, opened on April 30, 2008. Since then, it has provided more than 700 showers, thousands of cups of coffee and, in a glorious twist on The Law Of Unintended Consequences, a community place where people can escape from the streets, find good conversation, ranging from the Canucks to current events to others on the street to the Bible. We don’t outwardly evangelize, but the people who come in know who we are. That understanding, plus the fact that The Lord’s Rain exists to provide one of the basic needs of human life – cleanliness – brings the Light of Christ to that dark area and puts the Gospel into action. “Jesus with the skin on,” is the way senior pastor Barry Babcook describes it.

Further, the fact that The Lord’s Rain came about not through government programs or a single large corporation but by a group of private individuals and businesses with their unique gifts infuses the place with the intangible sense that people do care.

Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Showers Saga - 31: One Year On ...
I just looked at the calendar and noticed that yesterday -- besides being the first Friday of the week -- marked one year since Barry approached Greg Bromley, the son of Jim Bromley, who's been our landlord for almost 60 years, and told him about the idea to install showers in the vacant ground-floor space at 327 Carrall Street. At that time, we had Zero dollars to put towards it, but we asked for two weeks in which to come up with a plan and the funding for it. Barry and I had agreed that if the money was there, we'd push forward.

Greg told us he had two expressions of interest in the site already, but he was willing to forego those to give us a chance. The first "worldly" sign that this was God's intention.

I say "worldly" sign, because there had been plenty of signs in the Spirit leading up to that, including the fact that Barry and I had had the idea put on our hearts independently of each other, and that there were two prophecies spoken, which related to expansion of the Mission's "footprint" and new ways of reaching people. Greg's willingness to give us a shot was the first confirmation.

And so here we are: it's been six months since we opened, and through the end of October, we had logged 311 showers, I don't know how many cans of coffee (not to mention the sugar: we got a call from some Manitoba farmers recently, saying they were running out of beets!), and many new people who've come in to chat and take a "break" from being "street people"; many of them have started coming to the services upstairs. Truly, the love of Christ in action, and we give God all the glory: it's His will for the area, because it's not His will that any of His little ones perish.

Consider, too, the uphill battle to get people to focus on Jesus when their brains are tuned to focusing on their next hit of drugs: society isn't helping, either, with the constant barrage of propaganda for InSite and its ilk. It's like opposite poles: at the one is the message that society has given up on people who are on drugs, and at the other is the message that God does NOT give up on His people!

One intriguing development of late is that The Lord's Rain is about to get an artistic component: some young artists -- one of them from Emily Carr University, and part of the Campus Ministry there -- have stepped up to paint murals on the inside walls. I'll send more details -- and pictures -- later, but this was a connection made by our beloved friend, Kathy Kinahan, through a group she's associated with, "Big Give Vancouver".

Today's opening was busy. We're into monsoon season in Vancouver, so lots of people came in for coffee, a chance to warm up and -- in six cases -- a shower.

Actually, make that five showers. One fellow came in who was so drunk he could hardly stand. He asked for two cups of coffee and had the shakes so badly I had to carry them for him while he went to sit down. Then he decided he wanted a shower, but was unable to get undressed, so I helped him with that and got the shower going and left him sitting on the chair in the stall. But when I checked on him about five minutes later, he was still sitting there in his underwear, complaining of a terrible pain in his stomach. Not being a doctor -- and not wanting to just write it off as "you've just had too much to drink", in case it was something really serious -- I called the ambulance.

They arrived quickly, and at first, he said he wanted to go to detox. The paramedics said they wouldn't take him there, but they'd take him to hospital to have him checked out. Finally, he agreed to that, and they bundled him up on the gurney and took him away.

I have to admit, I don't understand the detox system. I hear of some people waiting several days to get a space there, some who spend a couple of weeks in the place ... and now this paramedic tells me, many will go to detox and spend maybe half an hour in there, waiting until they dry out and can stand again ... and then they walk out. The paramedic said the ambulance won't be used as a taxi to detox; but they'll take someone to hospital. Fair enough.

Once again, The Lord's Rain finds itself in the right place at the right time. I can't count the number of people who've needed medical attention -- in various forms -- at times we've been open, and have come into our place to find the shelter and someone to make the call.

Drew Snider's Blog on the vision God gave him.

THE SHOWER SAGA – 1 Tuesday Dec. 11, 2007
One of your agent's ministry activities involves Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Skid Row. Identified by some expert from the United Nations as the WORST location for poverty in the urbanized world, which is pretty scary, considering the competition: New York, East LA, Kolkata. Maybe it's a bit of hyperbole from someone wanting to contrast the phenomenal wealth which parks its collective bottom just a couple of blocks away in the luxury suites at General Motors Place or is visible from the DTES on the North Shore mountains. Maybe he's trying to wake up the powers that be, as we get ready to preen on the world stage with the 2010 Winter Olympics (am I allowed to use that name without copyright infringement?). Or maybe he's absolutely right.
Whatever, it ain't pretty, and Gospel Mission (not Union Gospel), which is the oldest mission in Canada (since the 20s), is right bang in the worst postal code in the country. The alley next to our building generally reeks of ... well, it reeks ... people smoke up and shoot up outside the Mission, either in a doorway or in Pigeon Park, a longtime gathering place for the poor and destitute.

These people are victims of a lot of things, including theories. A popular theory among civic officials is that if you give drug addicts a safe, healthy environment in which to do their drugs, that will somehow reduce the harm and therefore solve the problem. I'm not a stupid person, but I'm having a hard time getting my head around the theory, especially as I pick my way around the bald, obvious evidence that IT'S NOT WORKING. When the federal government wanted to take a second sober look at the concept before approving any more funding, the screeching from the program's proponents (including those who were being paid to run it) was deafening. "The site is working!" they protested, while not exactly stating how they arrived at that conclusion, leaving me feeling a little like John Cleese, when Michael Palin has just told him his cheese shop is the finest in the district: "Explain the reasoning behind that statement!" The closest I've seen to a benchmark for measuring "success" has been the claim that no one had yet died from an overdose at the safe injection site.
Sorry ... my benchmark for any kind of drug program is the number of people who have kicked the habit, and the number of people who no longer shoot up in back alleys or smoke their crack in open view ... not because they've been given a safe, out-of-sight/out-of-mind place to do it, but because THEY'RE NO LONGER ON DRUGS!

So what does this have to do with showers? Surprisingly, a lot. People who come to our "upper room" at 331 Carrall Street have a tendency to be quite dirty. Filthy, in fact. Many try to stay clean by going to our laundry area at the back and washing up at the laundry tub before our services. They live in shelters, long-term, single room hotels or on the streets. Where do they wash up, otherwise?

In late September, I took a trip to New York City. I have a friend there I hadn't seen in almost 30 years, but beyond that reunion, I didn't have much planned. But I had a notion to go and check out the ministries serving the poor and destitute there and see how they did it. That notion got kicked into high gear when I went to a series of meetings at my home church, Westpointe Christian Centre, with Lee Grady, publisher of Charisma magazine.

Lee is a prophet, and invited those in Ministry to come up for a word from the Lord. The word he spoke over me was that God would be sending me on a journey (he had no way of knowing I was about to leave for NYC) and that I would be acquiring a lot of new ideas about ministering to people. He used the image of "axe heads", like the one that Elisha caused to float to the surface in I Kings. Lee prophesied that God would provide me with more and sharper axe heads, which would finally cut through, rather than bounce off.

Among the places I visited in NYC was the Bowery Mission, the second-oldest rescue mission in NYC and third oldest in the US (there's one in Chicago that's in-between the two in NY). Pastor Reggie Stutzmann -- a Pentecostal -- gave me over an hour of his time to show me around the place and share some of the things they do. One of those services is a shower program. Twice a week for men -- and once a week for women -- they open up for people to come in and get a shower and a change of clothes.
Suddenly, I had an "axe head". I brought back others to Vancouver, but this was one worth considering. The problem was, where was the handle?
Gospel Mission occupies the second floor of a two-storey walkup. Its space is very well used, with a commercial kitchen, chapel area, baptismal tank, office, prayer room ... but noplace to put showers. So I let the idea lie fallow for a while, waiting for God to provide the handle.
He did, early in November, when our senior pastor, Barry Babcook, mentioned off-handedly that one of the two ground-floor tenants -- an anti-everything coalition I had dubbed the "rebels without a clue" -- had moved out.
I told Barry about the shower idea, and he told me he'd had the same thing on his heart for years, but it was a matter of space. He called the landlord and the landlord agreed to give us two weeks to come up with a plan -- and money to go with it. I started sending out letters soliciting funds -- which has not been my forte -- and doing a lot of praying.
I've had some good personal success with praying things into existence, and when God has His hand on something, there shouldn't be any doubt that it will happen. Looking at the timing of everything and the landlord's willingness to give us the chance, it was obvious God's hand was on this project, and we just needed to push from our end.
Three days before the self-imposed deadline, Barry called to give some encouragement -- mainly pointing out that when God wants something done, He'll generally wait until the 11th hour, 59th minute.
Two days before the self-imposed deadline, one church -- ironically, one on Vancouver Island where I fellowshipped in the year or so leading up to my going into Ministry -- came through with a large one-time donation and a pledge of monthly contributions, and a gentleman of "some means" who attends my church in Vancouver -- Westpointe Christian Centre -- called to say we could count him in for an even larger up-front donation, with more to come later.
As usual, God pulls off the "grandstand play" with the game on the line!
So as of this writing, we are getting our heads into the fact that this project is a go. More donations are coming in, along with pledges of monthly contributions -- which will be the next big challenge: making sure the operating expenses -- rent, heat, water, etc. -- are covered.
The prophecy Lee Grady spoke isn't the only one involved here, you know: the pastor at that church on Vancouver Island spoke one over Barry a few years back, that Gospel Mission would expand. This shower project gives us a street-level presence that we haven't had since we moved into the Upper Room in the 1940s. There's enough room in that space to do other outreach activities.
For the Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? And His hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? (Isa. 14:27)
I'll keep you updated.
Want to contribute? You can send a one-time donation, or pledge a monthly amount ($50, say), to Gospel Mission, PO Box 57151, Vancouver BC V5K 1Z1 Canada. Write "Showers" in the memo line on the check.

The Shower Saga – 2 Sat. Dec, 15

Updating you on the Shower Saga (see below) ... today, I hand over the checks to the landlord. By day's end, we will have possession of the space.
Praise the Lord God who provides -- including providing the monthly operating costs (if you'd like to donate, the information is at the bottom of "The Shower Saga - 1").

The Shower Saga – 3 Sun. Dec. 16
I did indeed pick up the keys to the ground-floor space below Carrall Street Church (331 Carrall St., Vancouver) yesterday (Saturday the 15th). The whole Story So Far is summed up in "The Shower Saga-1", below, but it's amazing to look at how this went from a "neat idea" to its current point. God has definitely been leading the way and propping us up where needed, and this morning, a piece of Scripture leapt out at me. And when it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and by themselves victuals.
But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat.
And they say unti Him, We have here but five loaves and two fishes.
He said, Bring them hither to me.
-- Matt. 14:15-18
When God tells you to do something, He doesn't tell you to afford it. How many times have we heard a directive from God to do something, but we've shelved it because we didn't have the resources? Yet, that passage in Matthew tells us that, when Jesus gives us an assignment, we are to take what we do have and hand it over to Him. After all, what came next? Those five loaves and two fishes were converted into a meal for 5,000 men, plus women and children, with twelve baskets full of leftovers.

In fact, the very next thing that happened was that Jesus "gave thanks", and then started handing out the food.

Thanks for what? Not thanks for feeding everybody, because a specific prayer like that, I believe, ties God's hands to what we think we need; but thanks that God is in control and that, so long as we're obedient and walk in His ways, He will provide all our needs according to His riches in glory. And "thanks" before we see the manifestation, because in God's plan, it's already a done deal: we just have to put it in motivation with our faith.

So that's what we've been doing in getting the shower project off the ground. We took the resources we do have and gave them to Jesus; giving thanks that, if God has put this project on our hearts and given us the assignment to carry it out (Jesus, saying "Give ye them to eat"), then He will provide what we need.

One thing to remember here is that, when we take the resources we have and give them to Jesus, those are only the resources that we know about. Sometimes, we forget that in going to Jesus, we're exercising one of the most valuable resources we have: the Lord Himself.

So this is to encourage you that, when you hear from the Lord, or sense that He's put something on your heart to do, don't just blow it off as a "nice idea, but ...": press closer to Him and hand Him the resources you have ... give thanks ... and get ready to start serving the fish!

The Shower Saga – 4 Fri. Dec. 21

(Funny ... I thought we were up to more than four ...)
ENORMOUS news earlier this week! Andrew Sheret, Ltd., which has been in business, providing bathrooms to British Columbians, since 1892, is donating the showers we need! Barry and I had been discussing our next moves, and the next pressing need is the showers themselves. So the Lord gave me a nudge, and said, "Andrew Sheret".
Of course!
Back in 1992, when I was at CFAX Victoria, I was called on to MC Andrew Sheret's 100th anniversary dinner (http://www.sheret.com). The company struck me as one class act (partly because they paid me for the gig -- something virtually unheard of in Victoria!), and really, you can't stay in business 115 years if you don't have some kind of integrity. I hadn't had any dealings with them since then, but I called their head office in Victoria, wound up talking to the president, Brian Findlay. He remembered me; I emailed him the proposal; he said "yes" without hesitation!
Another brother has stepped up to the plate to provide all the soap and shampoo, and donations of towels are coming in for Kathleen's "Towel Mania" -- she's in charge of organizing that, and she and her son will be pushing that forward, when school goes back in in January.
And we still have to get pledges to cover the operating costs. 30 people pledging $50 a month will do the job, and it's all tax-deductible. They can be sent to Gospel Mission, PO Box 57151, Vancouver, BC V5K 1Z1.

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