One of the local rent boys, A, we knew in the early nineties had an unusual proclivity for pissing off people who had the power to not only hurt him but greatly shorten his lifespan. I never really got to know this individual. I think he was in his early twenties and from a small town in Ontario or some other province, like so many of the male survival sex workers.
One night, one of my partners in ministry and I felt led by the Holy Spirit to spend time inside Oliver's, that twenty-four hour greasy spoon that used to be on the corner of Granville and Davie. It was quite late, around 11:30. We were usually out very late downtown as we spent time with the local people who usually slept with the sun and rode with the moon.
A approached our table. He told us about some crime bosses for whom he'd been selling cocaine. They wanted their money. He didn't have it. He was sure they were going to kill him that very night. He was frightened, trembling. We told him to sit with us. For some reason, my ministry partner and I knew that God had called us to be there, particularly for this frightened, terrified young man. We said to him that while he was with us, no harm would come near him. We spent over an hour sitting with him, either quietly and discreetly praying or engaging him in conversation.
He began to calm down, he relaxed and even smiled a little. Just when my ministry partner and I became jointly aware that the work had been done and that A would be safe, he told us that he felt better. We reassured him that God would be with him and keep him safe and we let him be.
Days later I saw A on the street. He beamed a huge smile and said "I'm still alive."
I believe that that same night we had had a brief conversation with one of those people who were going to harm him. I frequently saw him around and there was something decidedly scary about this individual. Inside Oliver's, it might have been a bit earlier that night or just after our time spent with A, there he was seated at a table with some of his friends. Before I knew it he was staring at me with a shocked look on his face. He wanted to know how I knew his name. Apparently I had lost consciousness while standing there, but somehow knew his name, and asked him how he was and I think something else. My partner in ministry heard everything and later told me that I'd lost consciousness so that the Holy Spirit could speak for to this person in such a way that he would know that he was being monitored. Whatever. It worked.
Several months later I repeated this exercise with A. By that time we were renting a small apartment in the West End for purposes of hospitality and ministry. We would each take turns staying there a few nights, being based in the small country house in Richmond where our little community lived.
I was in the apartment quietly reading and praying and I was sure that I heard God calling me to go sit in a late night café nearby. When I arrived, there was A, looking very agitated. Again, some people were out to kill him. I sat with him for around a half an hour. He would be okay.
It is often very hard to describe to people who don't believe, even to other Christians, what we were really doing with these people downtown. We weren't doing anything to try to help or reform them and that wasn't really our job. This work started from a vision I had been given years ago about becoming to people who were the most marginalized and the most distant from the church a visible sense of Christ's loving and healing presence. Three others joined me in this work.
We would talk to people, hear their life stories, take them out for coffee, help them access food, and welcome them into our home. We ourselves, flawed, broken and traumatized as we were, had a strong awareness of the presence and love of God in our lives. We were empowered to do this work and people instinctively responded to us.
For the most part, I don't have a clue what happened to those who survived. Many didn't. But even if one individual could experience a presence of hope, love, joy and peace through our gentle intervention, I am assured that none of our time and none of our energy was wasted. This was a very hard and challenging, probably one of the most difficult periods in my life ever. While my own heart was breaking, while our own hearts were breaking as we saw the untimely deaths of many loved ones, we still carried on, loving others through our trauma, knowing that we were like Christ's wounds on his body channelling his healing love and power.
Even now, twenty-five years later, I am still absorbing and still understanding the impact of those very intense thirteen years in my life. I feel like I'm only beginning to come out of the shock of all that happened then.
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