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The Lord's Rain - God at work on the Downtown East Side

April 30, 2018, marks a fairly important date for ministry on the Downtown East Side: the tenth anniversary of the opening of The Lord’s Rain. The Lord’s Rain provides showers for people in the area, and stands as my “Exhibit A” to show God at Work.
The Lord's Rain - God at work on the Downtown East Side
The Lord's Rain - God at work on the Downtown East Side

April 30, 2018, marks a fairly important date for ministry on the Downtown East Side: the tenth anniversary of the opening of The Lord’s Rain.

The Lord’s Rain provides showers for people in the area, and stands as my “Exhibit A” to show God at Work.

God started that work in fall of 2007 when I went to New York City. No, wait: He started in spring of 2004, when I walked into the old Rainbow Mission and was assailed by the odor of stale urine and BO. No: maybe it was in the 40s, when Gospel (not Union Gospel) Mission moved to a two-story walkup next to Pigeon Park. Or was it in 1929, when the Mission first opened? Or ...

It was that smell that hit me, along with the thought that people were going, day-in-day-out, wrapped in that smell. How could they live like that?

Well, they can’t. When I moved to Gospel Mission, I saw people go straight to the laundry tub at the back of the chapel and wash up, drying their hair with dish towels or paper towels. If there was a place to wash up on the DTES, it evidently wasn’t doing the job.

On the NYC trip, I visited the Bowery Mission, which has served the “forgotten” men (and women) since 1879. The pastor there showed me around: the dorms, the chapel, the food service ... and the showers, open three days a week so people could wash up and get a change of clothes. The thought that that was something needed in Vancouver floated around my head for the rest of the trip, and when I got back to Vancouver, we discovered that one of the ground floor spaces in our building was vacant. It would be perfect for showers.

Senior pastor Barry Babcook asked the landlord if he would give us two weeks to come up with a plan to build and fund the facility. He said “yes”, and the adventure was on. I call it an “adventure”, because we had no money – just a vision of a “nice-to-have”: so this was where God “got busy”. And we got to play a part and see Him in action.

We asked a certain Christian businessman if he would fund the project and were turned down flat (keep that in mind: we’ll come back it it). So I sent emails to others at my home church – Westpointe (now called Compass) – and to the churches in the Apostolic Church of Pentecost, which supports Gospel Mission. I contacted my friends in the media (my “day job” was in media relations at TransLink) to get publicity.

Two days before the deadline, we had – no money.

And then two phone calls came. One was from a church in Duncan, which not only pledged a large cash donation but committed to send a work party to build it. The other was from a fellow at Westpointe, pledging an even larger cash donation “with more to come”. The project was on its way!

As word got around, people came forward, offering money, supplies, and some things that we hadn’t thought of. The project quickly became a study in the right people coming together with the right things at the right time – and you can only attribute that to God, putting the pieces into place to serve His people.

For all the experience among the volunteers, there was absolutely no ego: four experienced builders – one of whom is a building contractor; two run a home renovation business – could have taken the lead, and each did, in turn. But no one tried to overpower the others with their ideas. Plans were sketched out “on the fly”, using carpenter’s pencils on the wall. Barry was an electrician, working towards his Red Seal at the time; the plumbing work was led by a man who had been baptized at Gospel Mission twenty years before and started his own plumbing and heating company. Less experienced volunteers simply brought willing hands. The Apostle Paul’s observation about “many members” making up one body was never more apparent.

When a stupid mistake (mine) led to the theft of some expensive tools from the job site, a TV news story about the project led another businessman to call and donate cash to replace the tools and keep the project on track.

In the Book of Isaiah, it is written, “For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?” (Isa. 14:27 NKJV). In the context of that prophecy, God is talking about punishing His opponents, but it also means that when God decides something, you either get on board or get out of the way – nothing will stop it. Clearly, the showers were meant to be built.

Over the years, The Lord’s Rain (the name came from Barry’s wife, Judy – a play on words that one reporter suggested was a form of baptism), proved to be more than just a place to wash up. It is one of the few places on the DTES open early in the morning. People come in for free coffee and a snack and a place to hang out where they are welcomed and shown love, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Many times, we’ve called 9-1-1 because someone needed help and they knew to come to The Lord’s Rain.

That sort of “soft evangelism” – “Jesus with the skin on,” as Barry, who died unexpectedly in 2014, would put it – has led some people to turn their lives around; others would realize they didn’t have to live the way they were. Many people who wouldn’t ordinarily set foot in a church would ask questions about the Bible; hanging onto the nugget of Truth in God’s Word. The message that “Your Life Matters” is powerful and brings hope, which is the most precious commodity on the DTES.

Of the many lessons learned from bringing The Lord’s Rain to reality three stand out. One, is that God “puts His ducks in a row” long before we even know there’s a pond. Look at my inability to pinpoint the exact “start” of The Lord’s Rain: who knows how long God had been planning this? So many things that helped build The Lord’s Rain had been lined-up years – sometimes decades – before: I had gone to NYC to see a friend I’d met in London thirty years before; the shower enclosures were donated by a company for which I’d done a freelance job, fifteen years earlier.

Here’s a more mundane example. Among the donated clothing, we discovered a set of Stanfield’s one-piece long-johns – wool, complete with the iconic trap-door in the seat. Who would need long-johns in Vancouver, I wondered? The next day, a woman came in, soaked and chilled to the bone. She lay down on a bench, shivering and crying from the cold. I wrapped her up in the Stanfield’s.

As for Lesson Number Two, remember that Christian businessman who turned us down? That was exactly what God intended. We had to turn to a variety of sources – some big, some small. That imbues the place with what I call “collaborative caring”: many people giving what they can in order to meet a need. If that businessman had bankrolled the project, it would have been Just Another Service. Instead, it’s truly a work of Love.

I left Vancouver and Gospel Mission in 2014, and as I write this, there is some uncertainty about the future of The Lord’s Rain and the Mission, itself. The building has recently been sold and the new owner hasn’t said what will happen to the property. The Lord’s Rain itself was closed for several months for renovations and after work by Wesley Chadwick, who came on as pastor/director in 2015, and others, both volunteer and paid, it re-opened in March. Wes has declared that the Mission will continue to serve, wherever that happens to be. I believe that: The Mission and The Lord’s Rain have filled niches in ministry on the Downtown East Side, and it's in God’s hands, how it will continue.

Oh, yes: Lesson Number Three? That if you get an idea for something that helps others – an assignment from God, if you will – God won’t ask if you can afford it. As we experienced with The Lord’s Rain, if you bring willingness and whatever skills and gifts you have, God will multiply that and bring everything else into line – usually in ways you would never believe.

You just have to say, “yes”.For more information and to donate to Gospel Mission, please visit www.gospelmissionsociety.com.

The Lord's Rain - God at work on the Downtown East SideDrew Snider is a writer, pastor and former broadcaster. He spent a decade ministering at Gospel Mission on Vancouver's Downtown East Side and has been a guest preacher at churches including Westshore Alliance in Langford, Westpointe in Vancouver, The Oasis in Duncan and Port McNeill Full Gospel. 

You can read more articles from our interfaith blog, The Spiritual View, HERE.