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Pounding the Pavement - With Prayer |
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Nearly 200 members of the Mennonite faith community toured parts of Winnipeg’s North End and downtown in hopes the power of prayer would lead them to a better understanding of the problems faced by people that live in the area.
The day-long March 23 urban adventure, titled Soar Heartland (SH), had people travelling in teams of four and marking their tour by taking photos of where they’ve been and matching graffiti on buildings to a sheet provided to them by SH organizers.
Participants were tasked with “listening to the city” – using all their senses, not just their eyes, to try to come to terms with the issues of poverty, drugs, prostitution and hopelessness many North Enders are confronted with each day.
Dan Williams, a pastor from Niverville, said the day was about switching out what he called his “his pre-conceived lenses” through which he sometimes sees the world.
“I’ve made certain judgements about poverty and addictions, and the way people live,” said Williams before the tour, adding he felt the urban exploration helped him come to grips with his own admittedly non-substance related issues.
“I realize I have some of those same problems,” he said.
The team of Lloyd Letkeman, an organizer of the day’s events, Frieda Leppky and Doreen Braun hit the streets just after 11 a.m.
They began their day by sampling traditional bannock at a Dufferin Avenue bakery, and then walked toward Main Street, where the day’s first demonstration of spontaneous prayer took place.
After passing under the run down underpass near Higgins and Main, an Aboriginal man pushing a bicycle offered to take the group on a real tour of the area to find drugs and hookers.
Letkeman didn’t flinch at the offer, instead he engaged the man in a conversation about his life, who he is, where he lives.
As they spoke, Loeppky and Braun began talking to a woman who had been accompanying the man.
After a few moments, the three women formed a half-huddle, eyes tightly shut as they stood in the middle of the busy sidewalk.
Murmurs of prayer could be heard and Braun’s hand rested firmly on the woman’s shoulder.
Afterwards, the woman, who said her name is Alice Anderson, a North End resident, stood completely still on the sidewalk.
The group moved on toward Higgins, leaving her standing there.
She called out after them, her voice cracking: “Thank you for praying for me.”
Many of the day’s adventurers were young, like 17-year-old Cody Goetz, who lives in East Kildonan.
Goetz, on a team with Mike Froese, 15, Sadie Gamey, 16, and Charleswood’s Nikki Thiessen, 17, just came from a tour of Siloam Mission.
“It looked depressing,” said a sombre Goetz, referring to the people roaming around outside the shelter.
Gamey, a West End resident in her third year of participating in the SH event, said early into the day’s walkabout that she felt better acquainted with Winnipeg.
“Each year, I see something I hadn’t seen before,” she said while trudging through the broken glass and debris behind the Yellow Warehouse at Sutherland and Main.
The group walked on toward Bethlehem Aboriginal Fellowship, where over lunch people gathered and watched a video about child sex-workers in the area.
The discussion began with a prayer by area resident Harvey Rempel.
The child-prostitution problem in the North End is so alarming, it makes him “both so angry and so sad,” he told them.
He said many of the girls come from fractured domestic environments where selling tricks on the street is actually safer than being at home.
“For a lot of us, it’s safer getting into the car of a complete stranger than it is in our own homes,” Rempel said one child prostitute told him recently.
The young faces stared at Rempel intently, soberly – it was a lot to absorb at once.
“I don’t want to downplay that any of this is real,” he tells them.
A few minutes later, the group got up to leave. Their next stop was The Forks, and, before their day on the streets was done, Portage Place mall and later a mass debrief of the day’s events at the Riverwood Church Community in Elmwood.
It was at this gathering where Goetz shared his story about a man he met that day, Tom, which he said proved to him the power of prayer can heal people’s lives.
Tom was an older man working to complete his high school, Goetz said, adding Tom was having to overcome serious obstacles to keep working toward his goal.
They prayed together at the mall, Goetz said, and it helped Tom overcome his feelings of isolation and loneliness, he had told him.
“He really needed someone to talk to,” Goetz said, adding the day’s sights and events were enjoyable to him.
“I totally enjoyed it – once you get through it you see it’s important and worth doing,” he said, showing off the coat from Siloam Mission he traded for one of his own garments.
“It opened up my eyes a bit more to what’s out there.”
Many of the people who participated in the SH urban exploration day spent the following week volunteering at various shelters, hospices and care homes throughout the city.
- Metro - Winnipeg Community Newspaper
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