Community And Friendship,10

It began with a dilapidated farmhouse on an overgrown acre of birch trees, cedar and salal, ferns, foxglove and blackberries in Richmond.  The rent was incredibly cheap and I was needing a place of quiet and refuge following two very intense years living downtown.  I applied my very limited carpentry and landscaping skills to make the place habitable and enjoyed several months of solitude and relative quiet...except...

Within weeks of taking occupancy my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and her care and support became a priority...

except...

My work in the Downtown Eastside with poor, vulnerable and very ill, physically and mentally, adults was already taking a huge emotional toll on me...

except...

I was feeling so alienated from the stuffy and unreachable Anglicans at Snooty Church that I became chronically upset and left.

I was soon attending the local Anglican parish, became friends with the rector and soon was acquiring a vision for Christian community growing out of the little house I was living in.  I was also getting lonely, and feeling very burdened about my mother's care and support needs as well as the toll my job was taking on me.

Being still involved in street and bar ministry I met an individual who was seeking Jesus.  He converted very quickly and ended up living with me: a rather odd and in some ways very toxic arrangement with a very troubled and controlling individual.  We became tightly connected to the local Anglican parish as well as returning to Snooty Church where we attracted a lot of attention and some support, especially given our work and caregiving, thanks to my professional experience, of gay men dying from AIDS (this was 1989, before anti-retrovirals.)

Having to leave my home support position in the Downtown Eastside created new issues as my partner in the faith refused to do anything about employment nor any other form of income.  He insisted that God would provide and God did provide in spite of my friend's stubborn resistance against accepting responsibility for his life.  Different individuals in the churches came forward to help, some with incredible generosity, others not so much,  and the rescues were almost all eleventh hour but God, nevertheless, did provide and generally we did not solicit for assistance.  And we weren't exactly lazy loafers.  When we had no money for bus fare we would walk the ten miles downtown to spend time with people suffering from AIDS who had come to love us and welcome our presence (there were others who simply hated us for being Christians, even though we were very careful to respect and to not push our beliefs on others).

Summer arrived and people from the church visited, often with gifts and our door and our table were open and welcoming to all.
In the fall, two women from the church joined us and we became a community.