Fighting back against evil as one of Canada’s worst criminal trials gets underway.
Today
on Listen Up TV, the trial of missing women that has put Canada’s
justice system into unprecedented challenge on a case which exposes
just how evil humanity can be.
We’ll take you to Vancouver where
the stories of women whose deaths are now the focus of an enormous
trial has launched resolve of “never again.”
Twenty-six murdered
women, all of them desperate, drug addicted prostitutes, whose final
years were spent on the dangerous streets of Vancouver’s Downtown
eastside.
But – there is hope – and today we’ll hear from some
amazing organizations working tirelessly in Vancouver’s Downtown
Eastside bringing value, respect, trust, friendship, and love to those
who so desperately need it.
A Community of Hope!
GREG GARLEY
Listen Up is looking at a five year old mass murder case in Canada that
is still taking the full time work of more than 50 police officers. In
February, the case against accused Robert Pickton finally went to trial
and dozens of family members began adjusting their lives again to the
reality of the crimes. Mona Wilson was 26 when she was reported missing
and is now the subject of the Pickton trial. She’d spent eight
years living with the Garley family as a foster child – her
foster brother talks with Listen Up TV.
GREG JOYCE
Greg Joyce is a reporter with the Canadian Press. He has been covering
this case for four years, and now he’s writing about the trial
for Canada’s newspapers. He calls this “an extraordinary
case.”
A CONVERSATION with JOYCE HERON of JACOB’S WELL
Right in the heart of Vancouver’s
downtown eastside, located in a storefront, is a little bit of
“sacred space.”
It’s called Jacob’s Well, and according to Joyce Heron, the
community that thrives there, is striving to create a different dynamic
in this impoverished neighbourhood.
Lorna: Explain what it is that is so deeply missing in the downtown eastside story.
Joyce:
We’ve perpetuated a “taking” mentality. And I
don’t know exactly how to address that. What we’ve got is
– you can get fed seven times a day, etc. but there’s not a
lot of invitation for people who live in this neighbourhood to give.
And I think that dehumanizes them. So we’ve tried to create a
place of belonging. A sense of family, as a faith community, sharing
lives together in this neighbourhood where it’s both a give and
take. We have very much a “we” mentality, instead of
“us and them”. So it creates a different dynamic.
Lorna: Do you think it’s better here now than it was when the missing women were being ignored? Have you made progress?
Joyce:
I think in some ways – it’s a bit inflammatory to even
mention but the safe injection site – we think has actually
brought help to our neighbourhood… Maybe it’s better to
participate in one thing that’s bad to prevent a worse thing
happening… And I think people dying behind dumpsters because
they don’t believe they’re loved or cared for is not
helpful. It’s harmful. And you can’t love someone
who’s dead. You can’t help them find hope and salvation and
transformation.
Lorna: Your theory for solution is to make this a normal neighbourhood.
Joyce :Yes
and bigger things need to be addressed – things like if all of
the social service provision is here, this is going to stay here. Why
don’t we have people moving in two directions. It’s very
hard for people like me to live here, because there’s no housing
provided that I wouldn’t be taking from the poor. So I
don’t want to rob my friends of housing that they qualify for
that I can get elsewhere but I can’t. But we would like to live
in and among. You’re going to change a socio-structure if you
have people living in and among. If you have diversity, it’s
going to change things, isn’t it?
Lorna: What was the tipping point for you to be involved like this in the neighbourhood here?
Joyce:
I had been teaching about justice issues for about 4 years – I
had been a pastor who began to read the scriptures quite differently
and to see things that I had never seen before. Namely – that God
had a mandate for those who are marginalized whether the widow or the
foreigner or the orphan or the poor – and this is the essence of
what if means to be a faithful follower of Yahweh.
In 2001, Joyce took her new understanding of what it means to serve God
right into the heart of Vancouver’s poorest district, where she
met an elderly woman named Pauline Fell – the founder of
Jacob’s Well. Now 91, Pauline is a follower of Christ, who spent
25 years strolling the eastside—building friendships with those
who reside there.
Joyce: I
met Pauline who was 85 at the time and thought, I should spend some
time with her. She’s full of the Lord and I could learn. And so I
wandered around the streets with her – for some days – she
goes through the allies and the bars most days visiting friends,
praying for them, encouraging them and giving them Scripture, and so
after a few days of that or maybe even a couple of weeks …she
sat me down and said, “I think God sent you here to run this
place.” So I sort of fell into it to be honest,
Lorna. I didn’t plan …
Lorna: And how long ago was that?
Joyce: Five years ago.
Lorna: And so you’ve been building this …
Joyce: Right
Lorna: And this is an incarnational project of becoming and living and …
Joyce:
Yeah. It’s trying to build relationship with people in the
neighbourhood and really share life together like a family. So
we’re not an organization in the classic sense –
we’re a community of faith that is sometimes organized.
The kitchen at Jacob’s Well is a cheery place – a place where family and friends gather and share life together.
Joyce: Part
of what we believe is that if we live the normal Christian life, which
has actually become not that normal - people will want to follow Jesus.
So when we go to visit our friends – we always pray together
– we invite them to speak to God – whether they have
surrendered their life to Jesus or not – but then there’s a
process they come to where they discover they are believing now –
or Jesus is answering their prayers ironically sometimes faster than He
answers ours. – so it’s interesting because the ones that
are coming to know Jesus are seeing that he is present for them and
interested in them and not just to fix them or to heal them – but
to use them to minister to us. So it’s been quite powerful in
that. Will they all get free of their mental health struggles or their
addiction cycles? I don’t know, Lorna. But I do know that people
can follow Jesus and have great struggles. And that’s true for me
and you and a lot of people sitting in church. It happens that a lot of
our friends are just a bit more honest about their vulnerabilities.
Joyce:
We’re going to be faithful with what we’re given. What
we’re given might be brief. It might be that we only know someone
for a handful of months …We’re going to practice a real
demonstration of the love of God and a shared life … We think
that the kingdom calls us to that. Jesus was a friend of sinners
… he sat at the table and ate with people that were marginalized
and rejected by the culture. We’re just trying to figure out how
to do that … we’re learning.
Joyce believes there could be a lesson we can all learn from this
tragic tale of Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Maybe the lesson of
the missing women – of this terrible chapter in the story of one
desperate Canadian neighbourhood - is that turning our eyes away from
humanity’s despair is not an option. There is only darkness down
that path. It is, in fact, better to struggle with the struggle.
Joyce: We
should engage in the lament. It will change us and it will transform
others. We need to ask the hard questions and ask people to turn
towards communities of hope. And that’s a very difficult tension
here.
Joyce: There
is a movement happening to really share life. And I think if, God
forbid, something like this was ever to happen again – more
people are known – actually known by name and their presence
would be missed and they would be noted and not just by families who
are further away, but by families who are present here. That’s
our hope: that people’s lives will actually count and we’ll
see them for who they are.
As I listened to regrets that are all over the Missing
Women’s trial, something always surfaced. Relationship. The murder
victims were badly failed by relationships. Most of them in their
earliest of days, others, by their own choice to shut out those who
tried to care. Eventually they became hurt people who hurt
themselves. Isolation became dangerous, and sheer evil attacked the
most vulnerable. One family member called the entire tragedy Satan’s
work. What could God’s work look like? It would be living out the
qualities of God that are all about relationship. It would be
relationships that help us fight sin. Relationship qualities that find
their root in knowing God. We’ve listed on our website some excellent
ministries that are not giving up being in relationship with the
addicted population of Eastside Vancouver. We’ve also listed social
service agencies that will help you foster children who are at risk of
losing healthy relationships. And finally, you’ll also find discussion
links to explore a relationship with God. Check it all out at
listenuptv.com.
ORGANIZATIONS & RESOURCES HELPING in VANCOUVER’S DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE
We’ve
been looking at Vancouver’s trial of Missing Women. The horror being
uncovered at the trial has strengthened resolve that the voices of
those who work with the vulnerable cannot be ignored. We turn our
attention now to the work of over 85 agencies and ministries that try
and bring healing to 16,000 people who live in Vancouver’s Downtown
Eastside – helping the most marginalized – women and children :
Pacific 1:30
am Monday
Mountain 2:30am
Central 3:30am
Eastern 4:30am
National Religious Broadcasters (NRB)
Eastern 8pm Monday
10:30am Wednesday
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Read Lorna's Globe & Mail columns by searching
our archive.
Read 'Media & The Message'. Lorna says if the church wants to impact society, we need to share our stories.
On April 30, 2005 Lorna was privileged to receive an honorary Doctorate of Christian Ministries from Canada's largest Christian university, Trinity Western University. Lorna was recognized for the witness and leadership that Listen Up TV has provided in public messaging: "a leader in the voice of evangelical life in Canada."
