In The City & Free Hot Chocolate!

You're the God of this City

You're the King of these people

You're the Lord of this nation

You are

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

Wow, what a city, and what a great start to a Saturday morning taking the SkyTrain up Mount Burnaby to Simon Fraser University where we worked with The Point Church at SFU during their Olymp-Kids event. Victor and Candice Thomas are two people truly blessed and belonged in their university town of Burnaby. What a severe treat to experience their church and the Kingdom work they are employed with. We did a VBS type of morning where there were games, songs, crafts, silliness playing with several children in all ages from many countries ranging from Ecuador to China. I will hold on to their faces. Several leave their parents in their home countries to study here. Others are trying to find their home away from home here. Victor and Candice embrace these families bringing them into the family of God, being a friend, a refuge as well. And while it's a LOT of work for a tiny church, they bathe in the laughter and light from the Father! Just check out those wigs...

Now, I would be terribly remiss not to mention that Burnaby, SFU, was the exact location of the New Battlestar Galactica series filming. I was on Caprica! ^_^ Kara Thrace's apartment, the famous Baltar and Six square, the forest of Cylon engagements, ha ha ha. A sure sci-fi geek fest am glad to say.

Saying so long to Galactica and The Point, we made our way back down to the great city mosaic of Vancouver. Not a melting pot, but a true mosaic of culture where Chinese bank, eat, travel in their neighborhoods all in Mandarin. Or where the Sikh practice their religion, do their business all within their own Punjabi neighborhoods. According to Article I of the "Rehat Maryada" (the Sikh code of conduct and conventions), a Sikh is defined as "any human being who faithfully believes in One Immortal Being; ten Gurus, from Guru Nanak Dev to Sri Guru Gobind Singh; the Sri Guru Granth Sahib; the utterances and teachings of the ten Gurus and the baptism bequeathed by the tenth Guru; and who does not owe allegiance to any other religion".The most common symbol of all Sikhs, because of its simplicity, is uncut hair (including beards for men) and turbans.

The average population that attends church in Vancouver is 2-3% of its 3 million residents; it's a very post-Christian city; one of the (if not the) most unchurched on our continent. Spirtuality is great, but "not necessarily for me".

After de-boarding our favorite SkyTrain, half of our group headed immediately to the downtown Salvation Army Men's Hostel on Robson. There we hiked up six flights of stairs to a kitchen with a lot of history, and learned how to make cambros of hot chocolate. The gallons and gallons of boiling hot chocolate was then poured into backpack canisters, much like Ghostbusters(!), weighing in at 40-lbs of warm goodness. So with cups in mittened hands and canisters strapped to the strongest backs (Randy, Zach, Jonathan, Jerry, Don, etc), from 4pm until midnight, we served up FREE HOT CHOCOLATE to the masses on the street corners.





Millions walking to an fro the stadiums two blocks down. International music blaring. Kids exclaiming. Young men shouting shirtless anthems in pride. Scores of people wearing their flags as superhero capes making them appear and feel heroic of their homelands. And they all loved hot chocolate amazed to find something for free and those willing to serve it. Being in a Red Zone, no evangelism was allowed, but showing service in Christ name will hopefully speak volumes or be those seeds planted in the very process of peoples lives. God does work in mysterious ways is no cliche, His plans are not ours thankfully. And while we firmly believe that our faith saves us, it is truly a huge reminder to stay viligent in our service to His Kingdom.

We boarded our SkyTrain and headed back to Surrey exhausted but smiling!