Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Inner city Winnipeg Urban Plunge


This spring break we once again went up to Winnipeg, snuggled ourselves into a church basement and threw ourselves into learning more about the people of the North End of Winnipeg.
Wow, once again we got a chance to have our eyes and hearts opened to the hurting people on the streets of the inner city. We spent 10 days with over 200 people under 18 years old. It made me realize that the older we get the more sleep we need.



One of the cool things that we all did was an urban plunge in the north end.
We all broke into small teams and walked around learning about who the people are who live and serve there. It started out by everyone going to their first location. Some of the tasks at the different locations were, buying someone a coffee in Portage place mall,giving up a piece of clothing at Siloam Mission,learning about prostitution and the girls who stand on the street corners and also just walking the streets meeting people and talking to them. There were many very cool stories from everyone when at the end of the day everyone was given $2 to buy themselves supper.

We met so many great people during the 10 days. I was blown away at the kids who gave up the usual spring break that most youth get to teach VBS and serve in soup kitchens and work hard.