Respecting another faith and giving away a subway token.

Today was a great day in Toronto. The weather was beautiful, my CSM team was amazing yet again, and I got to experience several different aspects of urban ministry that touched my heart.

We first volunteered at St. Felix Centre, which is a house of Catholic nuns operating a food shelter that can serve anywhere from 75 to 175 homeless and hungry people per day. When we first arrived, we thought that we would have the great task of serving food to the people who came to eat. However, we were assigned the daunting and dirty job of reorganizing the pantry. That might sound pretty easy, but until you actually see the St. Felix pantry for yourself, you can never know how much work we did! It took all 5 CSM interns plus our two city directors almost two and a half hours to sort, clean, and reorganize the cans upon cans upon cans of food. The chore seemed almost impossible at first, but we felt a great sense of accomplishment afterwards. Looking back on the experience, I see how powerful a service we performed. It may be a very mundane and boring job that no one really wants to do, but it was a job that was necessary to help the centre function properly and efficiently on a day to day basis. And although we were praised after we finished for doing such a gross job, most likely no one will remember the fact that the seven of us spent a lot of time in a very small, crowded space. But, that’s okay. Because unseen service is never really unseen by God.

We also visited “Somaliland” out in Toronto’s east end near Islington. In this area, there are over 10,000 Somali (East African) refugees living in – what I would call – substandard apartment complexes. For most Somali people who come to Toronto as refugees, English is as foreign to them as astronomical physics. Therefore, our CSM groups (sponsored by the Toronto Baptist Intercultural Service) go into the homes of these people and tutor them in English-as-a-second-language. This may not seem like a very big deal – until you understand the fact that Somali people are Muslim by faith, and inviting Christians into your home can gain you a lot of backlash and scorn from your neighbors. But, these people want to learn and are willing to take that chance. The CSM interns didn’t get a chance to go into any homes, but we did meet with Jeff, who regularly coordinates this English tutoring program. His conversation with us was so inspiring and uplifting. He totally sees this ministry as relational – not evangelical. Our purpose is not to try to convert the Somali people into Christians by tutoring them using the Bible. Our purpose is to help them adjust to their new lives in Canada. Muslims (contrary to the popular stereotypes) are very peaceful, God-loving people who are extremely hospitable and very interested in knowing their neighbors and making friends. Our CSM groups will go into the Somalian homes to make new friends, have new conversations, and develop a new-found respect for people of different faiths. We are a witness to our Christian convictions by our friendship and generosity. Respect and dignity are given on both sides – both by Christians and to Christians. How refreshing.

Towards the end of the night, we experienced what CSM calls L.I.F.E Skils – “Living in Faith Everyday”. This is a program that every group will do at least once while they are in the city serving with us. The basic concept is that we as Christians should live out our faith at all times in very practical ways. Three components of L.I.F.E. Skills are prayer, service, and storytelling. We should be people who dance with God, people who give to others without reason, and people ready and willing to tell our own story when the chance arises. So, our team broke into two groups – Jake and I, and then Jennifer, Jemica, and Jessica. We had two hours to lead ourselves in this exercise. Jake and I went to a park that overlooks the skyline of Toronto and talked about our excitements, fears, concerns, struggles, etc. for the summer and for life in general. We then walked to a bridge that overlooked the Don River and prayed for each other, the rest of our team, the city of Toronto, and other things. We then looked for ways in which we could act out our faith in a gift of service to someone without asking for something in return. I have to admit, I was (and continue to be) a little skeptical of what seemed to be non-random random acts of kindness. It was almost as if CSM makes you be nice to people, but I understand the principle behind the exercise. Keep in mind that most groups that come to work with CSM are junior high/high school age youth groups.

Well, Jake and I couldn’t really find anyone in need of help. So, we decided to talk to a guy who was probably homeless sitting on a bench by himself near St. James Anglican Cathedral on the corner of Church Street and King Street. His name was Fred. Fred was genuinely nice, eager to talk to us, and shared a lot of wisdom about Toronto. We chatted for about 25 minutes and before we left we invited him to Sanctuary (a really cool church/community downtown), and I gave him the only thing I had in my pocket…a token for the subway. Looking in retrospect, Jake and I didn’t really accomplish the mission of the L.I.F.E. Skills challenge. We didn’t actively help someone for no reason, which was supposed to lead to our “storytelling” of why we were helping them in the first place. Instead, we had a conversation with a really cool guy in a churchyard. But, I think we served Fred more than we could have imagined at the time. We assumed he was homeless because he definitely looked the part. There’s no way of knowing, but we could have been the only people to acknowledge him or have an actual conversation with him. I may have been the only person to give him something that day. Or, maybe we were the 50th to talk to him, and maybe he didn’t need my subway token. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we saw Christ sitting on that bench, and we showed him love. We asked his name, we shook his hand, we laughed with him, and we gave him all that we had. Fred may never see us again, and he may never remember us. And that’s okay.