P.A.T.H. Training • Urban Impact Week

It's been quite a week. The "Urban Impact" module of our P.A.T.H. training took us to the streets of Regina. We spent eight days in North Central Regina at the Healing Hearts Ministry. Healing Hearts is, among other things, a church serving a community that struggles with poverty, gangs, prostitution and homelessness. The ministries vary as greatly as the needs.

We had the opportunity this week to see and experience many of the things a person might experience coming to the city for the first time. We had a chance to experience the Love Lives Here ministry, which was a very impactful opportunity for all of us. The bus travels the streets of North Central Regina every Saturday night and offers, food and hot drinks to anyone who wants them. Some come simply for the food, but many come for prayer and encouragement. I had the chance to chat with a guy who was really struggling to get his life sorted out, he wanted very much to complete his GED and move into a career. I had the opportunity to pray with him before he left the bus. There were quite a lot of women that got on the bus and the ladies had opportunity to share with them and just listen to what they wanted to unload.

On Sunday night we had the opportunity to meet a couple of ex-gang members as they shared with us their stories of gang life and the struggle to escape. Throughout the week we were able to visit homeless shelters, assistant agencies, soup kitchens and a hostel. On Wednesday the men were tasked to spend a night "on the street", we had a lot of opportunities to experience some of the challenges of street life and I think I can safely say we all enjoyed the challenge.

The week was quite unique and offered some interesting opportunities for learning. I, of course took along my camera and tried discretely to film some vLog updates. I was wary of being perceived as a "tourist" and so had along a fairly small camera that fit into my pocket... an unfortunate side effect of this is exceptionally poor video quality, but nevertheless there is a video. Such as it is, here is part one!