“John, I’m surprised to see you here tonight. I thought you had said you wouldn’t be able to make it to our Christmas Eve dinner because you would be over at your parent’s place?”

John has been hanging out with the Sanctuary community for a number of years. Living in a geared to income apartment now, he was new to the streets when we first met him. He was pushed out of his family home at a young age as a result of deep conflict between he and his father. Christmas was the one time of year they would get together and attempt to put their differences aside. 

“Don’t you remember last year?” John asked.

…And I do remember chatting with John last year the day after his family Christmas gathering. John told me that he may have eaten, and definitely drank way too much. It was all he could do to cope with the family berating him with questions: His dad, ‘got a job yet?’, Uncle Bill, ‘got a job yet?’, Uncle Fred, ‘got a job yet?’ The last thing John said really stuck out in my mind. “Just once I would like to be able to come and relax and enjoy myself and to have people happy to see me, just for me, and not be reminded of the fact that I am a complete failure in life.”…

“Ya, I remember what happened,” I told him, “But this is the one time in the entire year you get to see them, and you told me on Monday that I wouldn’t see you till after Christmas.”

I know, that was my plan, but I asked my mom if we could change our plans so that I could be here tonight to have Christmas dinner with my real family.

As I was leaving the fireside room during a Sanctuary drop-in, I almost ran head-on into Len. He was waiting for me, excited to show me the new boots he’d gotten that morning. “Check out my new boots, Debra! I’ve never had boots like this before… no holes, warm, leather… just in time for winter too.” His eyes gleamed as he held out one foot, then the other; he was happy to have them, but also happy to have someone to share his experience with. The boots were part of a generous donation of footwear from Talbot Street Church this past November.                                                               

For several years now, Sanctuary London and Talbot Street Church have lived out a partnership: two churches sharing one physical space, and learning how to love the poor and excluded together. While it isn’t always easy to know the best way, we have intentionally sought a direction of being ‘one’ in following Christ and his calling. Last October, Talbot Street Church embraced a sermon series called “Follow Me,” and imagined the reality of walking in Jesus’ footsteps—how to follow him in genuine ways, and go where he goes.

What does it mean to really follow him, especially when God calls two very different communities such as Sanctuary and Talbot, to follow him together? And when we are faced with community callings of mutuality, reciprocity, vulnerability, and togetherness, what better symbol of learning to walk together, than a communion table filled with donated shoes for Sanctuary London? As Pastor Steve shared, Jesus’ invitation to follow him means he believes in us that we can “live like him, love like him, forgive like him, be like him.” But how?

Living, loving, forgiving, and being like him also means stepping out of the boat—not an easy thing. When the rich and poor come together, we often have fears around starting relationships with people who seem so different from us, so ‘other.’ But God still calls us to walk on the water. When ordinary people come together with Christ’s love at the centre, extraordinary things happen.

I have been part of Sanctuary for four years now, but on the morning of the offering of shoes, I was playing piano as part of Talbot Street Worship. On either side of the communion table were two empty tables, covered in simple blue tablecloths and surrounded with a sense of anticipation. We accompanied communion with the song “Oceans.” As Leanna sang, her voice filled the church with beauty and love. And when I looked up momentarily from the piano, I was vaguely aware of the presence of a crowd coming up to the tables…

The lyrics of the song tore through my heart, like wind through leaves: “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me…” I looked up, and suddenly realized that both tables were piled high with shoes and boots, and my heart ached with love. Not only were they being donated to our Sanctuary friends, who had walked hundreds of miles with nowhere to go and nowhere to belong, but the shoes also symbolized our desire to walk with those who are hurting, to love the poor, to trust without borders, to let faith take the lead.

When two communities come together, it means risking to open up a space of love. Sometimes it means saying “I don’t know how, but I want to.” It might mean walking into a Sanctuary meal drop-in and sitting down with someone to hear their story. The shoes our friends wear literally walk them through their darkest days, and what helps them most, is having someone to walk the journey with them and to meet them where they are—to ‘walk in their shoes’ with them.

“Darryl, I need you to come with me….. Like Now!” Today, just as we were cleaning up from drop-in, one of our younger friends crashed into the atrium and begged me to come with him. His eyes were desperate enough that I knew this might just be one of those ‘God-ordained interruptions’, and that I had better drop what I was doing and go. I gave Gil one of those looks as if to say, “You good here if I leave for a bit?”, and he gave one of his, “I got this, you better go” looks in return.

“We just found out that my girlfriend is pregnant a few weeks ago, and now she’s sitting on the toilet bleeding like crazy and I don’t know what to do.” Skippy is relatively new to our community, and honestly I don’t feel like I know him very well (not to mention I hadn’t even met his girlfriend at this point!). It always amazes me when one of our friends is so filled with humility that they have the strength to share their brokenness with us. And so together we walked a few blocks over to the building where he lives.

At the very heart of poverty, at least at the heart of most of North American poverty, is a lack of connection. A lack of relationship with other human beings. This is often the pain that cuts so deep that when things begin to go wrong, there is no one left to call. This is why Gil and I are cycling/running 100 Miles on September 20th. Not only are we trying to raise awareness and funds to allow the work of Sanctuary London to continue, but we also want to experience a day of potentially painful endurance so that we can relate to and stand in solidarity with so many of our friends whose daily lives are battles of endurance.

When you hold a tiny seed in the palm of your hand, it looks plain. Insignificant. Smaller than a grain of rice. But inside that tiny seed lies something uniquely beautiful that God is creating deep in the soil’s darkness. This past May, we planted seeds for Sanctuary’s community garden. After we had carefully pressed the seeds into soil in their small seed containers, there was nothing much to see—we began waiting for what seemed the most remarkable: tiny green sprouts emerging from soil. Except this year, I was aware that the remarkable often happens long before we ever see that first green shoot emerging…

One year ago May, we planted our community garden for the first time. As our garden filled with tomatoes, carrots, beans, peppers, brussel sprouts, and more, I was constantly reminded of how these plants were symbolic of new things God was creating in and around us: moments of his Kingdom in our Sanctuary community—God was growing beautiful seeds in each of us and in our relationships. Many 

of our Sanctuary friends struggle in various ways: mental health issues, poverty, addictions, trauma, unhealthy relationships, homelessness, social disconnection, loneliness, and more. But there is also hope and resilience, healing, wanting better, and seeking joy. As the garden plants sprung up, and I witnessed the abundance of green filling the garden, it was a symbol for me of God’s faithfulness: “Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

I thought I understood what God was showing me: the importance of celebrating and proclaiming these good things that I perceived with my very own eyes—the plants I could see growing in abundance. But then, this past winter, God showed me a deeper meaning of his promise of a new thing—a trust in what we could not see. During a season of darkness both for myself and a few of our Sanctuary friends, God felt far away. And with darkness often comes a time of questioning: where was God during the darkness? Where was he when we had lost hope, wrestled with grief, depression, and illness, and longed for family, belonging, renewed marriage, reconciliation, healing, forgiveness, and recovery?

In the midst of darkness, God showed me that he often does his very best work in a place we cannot yet perceive—under the heavy soil, where that tiny seed is held in the fullest darkness, and where no human eye can see. I began to think more deeply about God’s transformation in our darkness. For a seed to become a plant, it must first crack open and come apart; it must go through germination, deep in the darkness of soil. The seed absorbs water, and its coat swells and softens. The cells of the seed divide and the root grows down into soil, anchoring the plant and letting it absorb nutrients. The curved neck of the seedling emerges from the seed, pushing slowly up through the soil and finally into the light, where the first seed leaves open.

In our own human darkness, what feels like death can actually be life—a transformation of our heart and spirit that causes our own leaves to open fully. Perhaps a call to change, growth, healing, and deeper relationship with God. Or something else uniquely wonderful. But in the place where it feels like no light can reach, God is doing a new thing in us! This year, as we planted seeds, I finally understood that the waiting time—when seeds are below the soil’s surface and all we can see is plain, bare soil—is actually the most beautiful part. He is working in ways we cannot yet imagine or perceive. Without this waiting time, we would never have the chance to behold the new and remarkable things God is doing, to see them transform, take root, grow, and spring up, and to trust and celebrate the harvest that is coming. 

To be seen and known, to matter to someone else—this is one of our deepest universal human desires. The heartbreaking opposite is to be invisible—to have others look right through you as if you are a part of the sidewalk. When others don’t see you, you start to lose yourself; you disappear little by little…

It’s mid-evening, and the Richmond sidewalks are a mess of melting spring-snow; damp air and drizzle sting my face. I notice a man a little ways ahead, in the shadows of a store front; he’s agitated, his posture tense, his voice loud. Soon, I can see his disheveled dark hair and scars on his cheek. It’s Freddy, a man I’ve come to know during many walks downtown, where he sits on the sidewalk day after day, ready to talk with anyone who will listen. 

I’ve never seen Freddy so upset before. When I pause and say hello, he seems surprised and relieved to see me, and before long, the hurts of his day pour out, his words tumbling faster than I can catch them. He tells me how a couple of people walking by that day said unkind things to him and judged him; but worse, he explains, were all the people who pretended they didn’t see him and said nothing at all…

“I’m a nice guy! I’m a nice guy, and I say nice things. Even the police know I’m nice, and they leave me alone, because they know I don’t cause trouble, don’t hurt no one. But the people who walk by me… they judge me! They say mean things, or lift their noses at me. But the worst is when they ignore me. I say hello and they walk right by, like I’m not even here… Why won’t they talk to me? Why am I invisible?”

The truth in his words overwhelms me. He tells me even his family won’t have contact with him. “No one in my family calls me when someone dies. When my aunt died, no one even told me.” To feel invisible is an unbearable loneliness. “Someday I’ll die on the street, and nobody will even know.”

I wish more people knew Freddy. For me, he’s always been welcoming and kind, inviting me into conversation, remembering my name, and making me feel at home. He tells me about his family, his sons, his life regrets and hurts. I’m blessed by his trust and openness. It seems easy now, to stop and talk, but I’m aware there was a time when it wouldn’t have been as easy, when I didn’t yet know the beautiful ways that God would reach me and love me through someone like him.

My story in learning about homelessness and poverty goes back a few years. I was new in London and attending Western, when I first began hearing confusing advice from well-meaning people: ‘don’t go downtown. Maybe go as far as Richmond Row, but not all the way to Dundas.’ They advised it wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t like it, the people there were ‘different’… I know they were trying to help. Truth was, some of them didn’t seem to even know why there were telling me—it was a message passed on from person to person. A never-ending cycle of fear perpetuated by lack of understanding.

Thankfully, I ended up exactly where they told me not to go… living out community in the downtown. Thankfully I became involved with Sanctuary London, where I began to meet many people at street-level… some of the most warm-hearted and caring people I’ve ever met. During my walks downtown, I started to chat with Freddy and others in his shoes—I started to really see them in new ways.

Someone who doesn’t know Freddy might have misunderstood his frustration that night as unkind or unsafe, and avoided him. But the very reason for his anger and hurt was that no one knew him—no one cared… the chaos in his heart was born of a deep longing for human connection.

How do we get there, I wonder? How do we stop closing our eyes and pretending the hurt right in front of us doesn’t exist? How do we treat those we meet on the streets like they matter, as God’s sons and daughters, as his beloved? How do we follow God in loving those we are afraid to love? Often it’s through these very friendships that he gives us eyes to see, eyes to behold his glory. And as we see the ‘other’ with love, we also receive the eyes to see ourselves with love, and the deeper knowing that we too are God’s beloved.

“It’s been 20 years since I slept outside in the winter…but when we get temperatures like this, I can still feel that cold. It’s a pain filled cold. Empty… yeah, I still feel that,” Manny shared with us a couple of days ago at one of Sanctuary’s drop-ins.

With the terrible cold snaps we’ve had this winter in London, and temperatures lower than 30 degrees below zero at various times, we have been asked so many times and by so many people, how do your friends survive out there? It’s a great question, and the answer is somewhat complicated.

If you’ve ever been to a Sanctuary drop-in, you will likely know that the majority of our people do not physically sleep outside on the streets every night. The living conditions of our friends vary drastically. Some people attend our drop-in even though they might live in really nice houses. These houses just don’t feel like home. The largest portions of our people live in shelters or government-subsidized housing. Others are couch surfing. These people have a place to sleep at night. On particularly cold days, when there are cold weather alerts, the city will open up ‘warming sites’ at certain community centers, where anyone can go, free of charge to stay warm during daytime hours. This is particularly helpful for people staying at shelters where they are required to be out of their rooms during the daytime.

Still, roughly 5-10% of the people we serve will struggle to survive sleeping outside: under bridges, in abandoned buildings, in phone booths, hidden in storage units, and alleyways. I heard on the radio station one morning in January this year that it was -42 degrees with the wind chill, and they warned that, “Any exposed skin could be severely damaged within 5 minutes”. How do stay alive trying to sleep in conditions like that without the proper equipment? The answer is quite simple. You don’t. You will not wake up when your body is that cold.

So what do our friends do? On nights like this, we have learned that some of our friends will feel like they have no other choice but to sign into a shelter, no matter how scared they are, or how hard they have resisted doing that in the past. But some of our friends have been so abused and hurt in the past that they cannot get themselves to go to a shelter. Often mental health plays a role here as they feel that going to a shelter would be making themselves vulnerable to be hurt again. Some fell like they would rather be dead. Others have been kicked out and banned from the shelters for previous negative interactions.

For these people, the game plan is simple. Keep moving. They will walk the streets all night long, trying to keep their blood flowing. When possible, they will walk from 24-hour coffee shop to 24-hour coffee shop and sit there until they are asked to leave. When morning comes they will hopefully find a community meal somewhere for breakfast and then quickly head over to a warming station, or to a public building such as a library, where they will hopefully find a few hours of rest.

The next and perhaps more important question is this: What can we do to support and care for these people? And, you might have guessed it, the answer to this question is even more complicated than the first. At Sanctuary, we believe there are no ‘quick fix’ solutions. We might begin by speaking to our local politicians. Make sure that they are aware of the pressing need of more housing. The waiting list for government subsidized housing is often over a few years long. We need houses. 

But we need homes even more so. When we begin to look for the root causes of poverty, we find that the problem is often not a lack of money or other resources, but usually a lack of relationships and connection to other people. So what can we do to help? Get to know them! Come on down to a Sanctuary (or any other community) drop-in. Don’t just serve people. Sit down beside them and get to know who they really are… and allow them to get to know you too! Play cards and share a meal together. This is the beginning of connection, and hopefully the beginning of a journey of healing for all of us. 

In the meantime, if you know someone has no place to go, and it might be a particularly cold night, try giving him or her a gift card to Tim Hortons. Just five or ten dollars will be enough so that they can buy a drink to stay warm, and maybe they won’t be asked to leave as quickly as if they came in without making a purchase.

Maybe we can begin to see this homeless problem not as an issue to be solved but instead to see friends, like Manny, that could use a little love. Maybe in the midst of it, you can admit you could use a little love too.