Newsletter: Making room at the inn...

Dear friends,

This week, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, we begin to read through some of our favourite Christmas stories: Mary & Joseph being visited by angels and then travelling to Bethlehem, shepherds keeping watch over their sheep, magi from the east following the star… I am especially thinking of the story where Mary & Joseph are looking for place to sleep and finding that there is no room for them at the inn. I always tell myself that if I had been an innkeeper in ancient Israel, surely I would have found a place for them to sleep.

Many of you will have read that our parish is offering its building to be used as a Cold Weather Emergency Shelter. The shelter will operate on nights when the temperature is below zero, or when there is some other kind of weather that makes it challenging to sleep outside. It will be open nightly from 7pm until 6:30am. We are partnering with the Lookout Housing and Health Society who are doing all the hard work of operating the shelter, including setting up and cleaning up, feeding people, and helping those who have circumstances or conditions that might require extra assistance. Check out their website by clicking the button below.

For some of us, I know, this feels like a risky or even a dangerous ministry to be a part of and we are certainly taking some extra precautions with locked doors, and lots of supervision and security. However, my experience of working with vulnerable people who don’t have homes is that they are just like any other group of people: some are good, some less so, some are nice, some less so, some are willing to help, some are less willing, some are facing difficult challenges, and some aren’t.

The most important thing I have found when working with vulnerable people is to remember that they are people first and are worthy of being treated as such. Most people I know respond warmly to love and kindness, and the vulnerable people who live on the streets are no exception to this. My suspicion is that if we allow people to be warmly welcomed into our building, they will respond with kindness, care and respect. And I also suspect that with the clean-up happening every morning before 6:30am, the floor in our hall will never be cleaner! (It also won’t hurt to let the City of Langley know that we, like them, are committed to making Langley and safe and healthy community for all its residents!)

Please do be in touch with any questions or concerns about this important ministry.

With love,

Andrew

the Rev Andrew Halladay, Vicar