From Vancouver to Crofton!

This week’s questions are comparing the ministries I worked with on my Vancouver missions trip to the ones I am currently involved with on the island. I am to explain the differences and similarities and how I intend to apply what I learned in Vancouver to my ministry in Crofton.

The biggest difference between the ministries I partnered with in Vancouver – New Beginnings and Potter’s Place to Warmland Centre, was that on Vancouver Island I volunteer in the small community of Crofton in an even smaller community of believers. Not the eight most populated city in Canada. There was a greater difference in comparing Potter’s Place to Warmland Centre, since Potter’s Place ministers primarily to the downtown East Hastings residents – grown men and women enslaved by their addictions to drugs, alcohol and sex, whereas Warmland is known for its high energy and rambunctious youth.

The most obvious similarity between the ministries was New Beginnings compared with Warmland. Both churches are filled with disobedient, broken kids who just need to be loved. The inner-city Vancouver teens were dealing with neglect, abuse, and exposure to substance addictions while Crofton kids deal with boredom, bad peer groups and over exposure to negative media sources. Even though their experiences differ, the attitudes of the teens are the same. I would most certainly say that being at Warmland prepared me for the New Beginnings teens.

 Lastly, I intend to apply what I learned in Vancouver to my ministry in Crofton, by just viewing the teens differently. God taught me while on my mission trip in Vancouver that everyone is His precious sons and daughters. Everyone from the drug lords, the prostitutes and mentally ill to the celebrities, prime ministers, and English royalty with everyone in between – we are all this children. I no longer view the teens I work with as simply misbehaved, rude, or undisciplined, but as a struggling person finding their identity in Christ and trying to understand their purpose in this life – just like me. With this new perceptive, I can truly be there for these teens, in heart, soul and mind, ready to listen and be a older mentor for them, no matter what they are going through.