Volunteership at Sanctuary

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I spent 2 weeks volunteering at Sanctuary church.

"At Sanctuary, we are becoming a healthy, welcoming community where people who are poor or excluded are particularly valued. This community is an expression of the good news embodied in Jesus Christ"

Sanctuary is NOT a soup kitchen, mission or service provider. It does not seek to evangelize the masses or bribe people with meals and beds to become Chrisitians. It is being the church and including the poor and addicted and excluded and neglected.

Here was the schedule of my involvement for the first week.

Monday - 3pm-5pm & 7pm-9pm outreach - all we do is walk down streets where our friends are squatting or panning, and see how they're doing. to those panning that we don't know, we let them know we'd love to see them around sanctuary. sometimes we bring our friends new socks or granola bars. Most of the time, we just hang-out and tell jokes or a story.

Tuesday - 10am-2pm outreach.

Wednesday - 10:30am-3pm lunch drop-in. Our friends come in for a meal and some games afterward if desired. Some friends come early to make the food, and it works much like a family gathering where we all just help out and visit while eating. This is the funnest part of the week. A celebration, really.

Thursday: 4:30pm-9pm supper drop-in.

Friday - 12:30pm-4pm - Art & Games drop in. There's usually a couple of games going on, as well as a couple tables for art in the drop-in area. The area is lined with art that has been done by the community. I designed a post-card during art drop-in.

Wow, this place feels so healthy. Not safe, but full of love. Not easy, but rewarding. I've made some friends out here, which I can just hang out with in the park, and sit down with on the street. I've also learned to not ask people questions like "so, have you been volunteering here at Sanctuary for a while?," because most often they've never been called a volunteer. They just help. From paid staff, to theology student, to church members to government assisted to homeless; it's all one blurred spectrum of folks trying to walk the journey together.

On Friday evening, I went to a couch-surfers place for the weekend, about 20 minutes away. This week had been the Toronto Couchsurfing Week, filled with daily events and activities. On Friday evening, a few of us went to see a free Goran Bregovic show. Bregovic is a Balkan brass composer and excellent guitarist, who writes both soundtrack tunes as well as ethnic dance-floor delights. I didn't know anybody there, but I found out afterward at the party held in a low-key Ethiopean restaurant, that I had been standing right beside some other couch-surfers. That night, we came home at 3 am and stayed up longer while my host baked 2 cakes.

From noon til 8pm on Saturday, we had a Couchsurfing picnic in High Park. It was a great time visiting, like the party, with both local host and global travelers passing through. A select few of us went to Chinatown for late supper. I ordered a 'Thais Style Pad Thai,' and it was neither of those two things. I can't complain. It was massive, edible, and only $4.50. Hard to beat.

We crashed fairly late again, as another surfer came to stay with my host, and was trying desperately to watch a movie. There was a brunch that another Couchsurfer was planning for the next morning, but due to low funds and severe lack of sleep, I slept until noon on Sunday. I left in early afternoon to go back to Sanctuary, as the Sunday gathering was to be held at 5pm.

We sit in a large semi-circle, with the band behind the audience. The band runs on requests from a fairly large repetoire of songs. In the audience are drunk people, sometimes a dog, many "housed" families, people who've been clean for a few days, etc. Prayers are deeply personal, unprofessional, and raw. We all take the communion, and listen to the pastor open up about his own life and how Jesus has spoken to him through the church community itself. There is no rigid system or power exerted.

I like this place a lot, but I can't decide whether to applaud or petition against that Korean church that rents the sanctuary area above the couches we sleep on in the basement, as they have a half-hour singing & chanting session 7 days a week at 6:30am. I'm glad Jesus is more of a morning person than me, because even his praise instills anger in me at that hour.

The second week was much like the first, though it began to felt more like a home, or place one could get used to. At this point, I could say I had made a few friends that I was really excited to see around these streets, and who I could sit down and talk to. I also continued to talk to the traveler kids for info, and spent some time in particular with a girl who went out of her way to give us a "tour" as well as some well-compiled in-depth guides and atlas.

We took our friend who had hosted us 2 weeks prior out for some Korean (my first time), which was delicious. By the end of our time in Toronto, it had been a good 3 weeks figure out. So we ended up being both saddened to leave our street and non-street friends from Sanctuary, and excited at pushing forth once again.

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